faulknerwn

I did about a year ago! Decided one boring Sunday afternoon to hook up a 375 sq ft canopy on my intentional cutaway rig. Went out with a sandwich, a couple of drinks, and a radio in a waist pouch. Deployed that main and oops! It was hooked on backwards.. I thought about it for a bit then decided that I'd just have lunch first and then try to figure out what to do about it... I didn't make the airport but decided to land it because it was going so darned slow (I think my wingloading was somthing like ..4 !) Stood up the landing piece of cake going backwards, though it was weird to be doing s-turns for landing by pulling a toggle to my waist! W

Most modern rigs can be made in a CRW fashion - I've seen well-done Talons, Racers, Javelins, Mirages, and Infinities among others.. Things you definitely want: Big padded leg-straps - you are going to be in the saddle for a while, you want to be comfortable. Large riser covers - its impossible to get all the stuff we put on CRW risers into conventional covers... I noticed the US Team Javelins don't even have the riser cover going over the shoulder - it probably wouldn't close anyway so what's the point? W

You'll love it. I had a great time last fall. From the US it was easiest to fly into Barcelona. I had one of the Brits pick me up so I didn't have to try and figure out trains. Europeans were mostly flying RyanAir into a smaller local airport. Cheryl did a lot more touring than idea, but I remember she liked the Dali museum. I loved Barcelona and had a great time there... W

I dunno - my company seems to have a party at least once a week :-) Yesterday was ice cream for secretary's day, today I was at a party where there was beer, wine chips, veggies, and desserts... last time we had to work really late, I drank the beer in our fridge while my co-worker called up several of the directors to bum some of the alcohol they keep in their cubes :-) (And the directors are cool with that ;-) W

If its got the old-style fabric the Triathalon's are great! I like both canopies - they're slightly different but both fly well. The Triathalon is easier to pack at least with the old-style fabric. Try them both and see which you prefer. That's the best way. W

Yep. Please use the Classifieds. W

23 at the time!!! Could still pass for 12! W

I had around 50 jumps when these were taken... Wen

Absolutely! In the CRW world we call this end-cell suck... You're coming up beautifully for your end-cell dock, and suddenly you're just sucked into the formation! We avoid this by staying slightly farther ouside... It has something to do with the vortices coming off of the wingtip of the canopy... W

Remember though - how much you pull on your front risers is important. If you pull just a tiny bit, you increase your drive but only sink a tiny bit faster. If you pull a lot, then you sink like a rock and don't gain much drive.. W

Yeah - I think I'd like the outdoor sorts of rides - this one was just very weird - extremely jerky getting thrown up and down - I just wanted it to be over because half the time you were just dangling there... The outdoor version sounds MUCH better.. This amusement area had cool stuff too - an indoor roller coaster, snowboarding where you strap in to like a giant swing with a snowboard on your feet - ya go really high and can turn around and do stuff. They had a bobsled game as well among other stuff. But the skydiving one was just bizarre. Definitely the worst ride that I did in the place. Just very "jerky" - not particularly fun.

I actually rode this ride in February. It was actually incredibly lame and I'm completely befuddled how anyone could fall out! Basically you sit in a seat and strap in you securely like you would be on a roller coaster. The whole arcade is virtual reality - there's this screen you're looking at during the ride and there is noise and wind and stuff.... But basically it just tows you up a ways and if I remember correctly you're facing down, and it drops you and raises you a bunch of time while they show airplanes flying by (lots of near misses) and blow wind in your face and you basically just go up and down a lot. It was quite goofy (one of the most boring rides in the place - the snowboarding one was WAY cooler). All I can figure is this guy was trying to escape the harness cuz you're strapped in like on a roller coaster.. Either that or it wasn't latched to begin with and the operator didn't notice. This facility is completely indoors FYI - in a shopping mall. W

Definitely removable shoes. I've saved several cutaways via removable shoes, and I've seen a bunch of cases where it can save ankles because its a lot easier to kick stuff off of a smooth foot than a shoe... Only 2 weeks ago a friend kicked off his shoe to get a tangled canopy off of his foot. If he couldn't have gotten his shoes off he probably couldn't have gotten it off his ankle. W

I think the majority of CRW rigs have them these days. I haven't heard of any issues. W

Yep. 2-way will definitely be an event at Nationals this year. I haven't seen the official rules anywhere yet however. I heard that there would be a video pool for the 2-way event as well. W

Actually I MUCH prefer a belt for both CRW and freefall. Its so much more comfortable sitting on my hips - its hard to notice its even there. I wore a vest a few months ago and realized I'd forgotten how uncomfortable they are! W

Nice blowup of the downplane - makes us look really low! Cool shots.. I need to arrange to do the 2-person, 3-canopy jumps again and get pics of that as well. That was a hoot! W

I'd definitely agree with the others that your container is most likely to large. I jump 18" risers on all of my Racers, and normally can reach _above_ the slider and grab lines if I wish... I'm only 5'1... I definitely love short risers tho. W

Admittedly I've done a lot of CRW, but on freefall or CRW or whatever I'll fly around wthout toggles a lot. You have harness shift, you have rear risers... Its never been an issue. On my freefall rigs I lay them back up where they were for opening and they stay close enough to there... As long as you're not in heavy traffic low, its a non-event in my opinion. It is funny tho - when I teach newbies CRW - its hard to convince people its ok to let go of their toggles to catch!!! W

We do this a lot on the Lightnings, but I've seen some weird effects when done on 9-cells. It definitely can affect the stability of the canopy. W

Those sound like the old Nasir toggles that were used for years in CRW. These days CRWdogs find 2-1 assist toggles more popular. They're basically just a pully system on the front riser which can halve the front riser pressure. W

I can't speak for reserve containers, but unbagged mains (I'm thinking CRW here) are extraordinarily reliable. All the things that can go wrong with bags - baglocks, spinning as it comes off your back ... that doesn't exist on tailpocketed canopies.. I suspect that the freebag system is more reliable if you have to deploy a reserve when you already have something out (pc, horseshoe, drogue). It would allow you to get the reserve into cleaner air than if it was freepacked. W

I normally carry a cell phone in the US :-) I've landed off at people's barbecues, been picked up by a father and his son (different jumps) at the same day. Been given lunch, free beer, landed at a rodeo. Been as far as 18 miles off the airport on more than one occasion :-) But my all time favorite was on the beach at Empuriabrava on my birthday. I spend a week and a half in October at a CRW boogie in Empuriabrava Spain. I'd already had a wrap and a cutaway earlier in the day - my birthday (my Lightning is still in the Spanish jungle) but I got lent a rig so that I could make the sunset jump. In Empuriabrava, we were exiting over the sea and flying back towards town.here is nowhere to land in town so if you don't make the airport you land on the beach. Well the girl exiting after me had a pilot-chute-in-tow and chopped and pulled her reserve at 12k. Her main came out after her reserve so its floating around. Most people continue with the skydive not realizing, but Chris and I start chasing gear. The rig is a teardrop and those pilot chutes fall like bricks and I lost sight of it and couldn't catch it. Chris has better vision than me and watched it all the way down. We both tried to stay with the main but it was floating above us. So we have nowhere else to go so we both land on the beach. Right after Chris lands, he spots the main floating out in the water. And Chris is one of those hard-core athletic types, so he immediately strips down to his underwear and instructs me to watch the gear and he's going to go get it. Staying with the gear sounds a lot better to me than swimming out in the cold Mediterranean so I agree to this plan... I watch Chris go running down the beach 4 trashcan distances (they were lined up on the beach) and dive into the sea. This is right at sunset so I quickly lose sight of him. I daisy chain up the lines and gather up the gear and wait for someone from the dz to show up. No one does.. I look for Chris. No sign of him. About 45 minutes later when it was completely dark, I start trying to use my poor Spanish to try and get someone to call the dz. (Turns out they were closed so that wouldn't have helped anyway.) And let me tell you - trying to explain in a foreign language about lost canopies, and friends swimming out to sea (to have drowned for all I knew - I was definitely worried about Chris by this point) and having them call a centro de paracadismo to which I didn't know the number was challenging! Eventually I found someone who said they would go back and have their hotel call.. Its very interesting being stuck on a beach in a foreign country with no money and no phone and 2 full sets of gear while your buddy is lost at sea! It was really ridiculously funny.. About this time Chris arrives back - VERY happy to see me.. In the meantime, what had happened to him was when he swam out, he couldn't see the canopy cuz of the waves. So he swam back to shore. He then saw a boat, so he tried to swim out to the boat but they didn't see him. So he swam back to shore, then saw a jet ski a bit down the beach. He ran down there, but it was broken. Then he saw a boat rental place down the beach, and ran there. But it was closed... So at this point he starts walking back. At this point he can't remember exactly where he left me, but I'm a lot farther away than he thought. So he's thinking he's stranded on a beach in a foreign country, with no money, no phone but he's in his underwear! He's worried that the dz already picked me up and that he'll never get anyone to talk to him dressed like he is! So needless to say, he was VERY happy to see me... The story goes on but we eventually get picked up and it was a hilarious evening. Definitely my favorite off-landing! W

CRW is way more fun than freefall :-) After all, you can always freefall after your CRW jump is over :-) W

I'm not sure how close it is to Geneva, but I loved the dz in Locarno - its just a short ways north of Milan. They speak German/French/italian and English there so you could figure something out! W