faulknerwn

I don't jump with an AAD for CRW,but it shouldn't be a BSR that you don't. The French CRW team does. I believe the German one does as well. As do the Knights and the Navy demo teams. I don't think its the best idea, and I certainly don't want to, but just like for freefall - it should be an individual choice - no BSRs. After all, if the Cypres fires, most likely it will cause a wrap, but the rest of us can chop. The main person it endangers is the wearer.

I need to get my rigger's ticket. :-) Would save me cash. Yep, keep em in date. Occasionally let one go out during the winter when I'm not jumping as much though. Only the Power Racer is actually a pain to pack - the others my rigger does pretty easily. I've always been a big fan of a comfortable rig - which means not getting the smallest container possible but one slightly larger which packs easily and is nice and soft... W

Only 2? I have 4 rigs with additional parts., Racer-Tempo150-Triathalon 99 Racer-MicroRaven120-Diablo 88 Racer-DashM 109-Cobalt 75 Racer-Tempo 120-Lightning 113 Additional canopies include: PD 150 Prodigy 150 Lightning 113 Shark 150

Conceivable but EXTREMELY unlikely. If you can't move your arms almost certainly you're going to be wrapped all over. WAY more likely is that one of the radios we often use causes an accidental misfire - student radios have - quite possibly ours could too. Cypreses have also misfired for no apparent reason - when people weren't going 78 mph nor were low. That is practically guaranteed to be fatal if you're in a CRW formation. In all honesty, I'm not particularly worried about a Cypres if it never misfired - but a misfire would kill me. CRWdogs don't typically die because we have too little out or we're going freefall speeds. We die because we're crashing in with 5 trashed canopies wrapped around us. A Cypres won't help in that situation. An AAD in CRW has a MUCH greater potential to misfire and cause harm than to ever help. We just don't normally die from having nothing out. We have too much out. I won't do CRW when I'm wearing an active Cypres. It won't hurt me and it could kill me. Its not worth the risk. And I'm not about to ever jump somewhere where they require to place me in greater danger than need be. W

Thing is though - most 2 canopy out situations are from AAD fires. In the case of a Cypres fire, even though I'm experienced at CRW, if the canopies are stable I'll land them like that. Purely because I'm already frigging low, and I'm not about to muck around. If I had more altitude, I would separate them. But not below a grand unless they started misbehaving badly. I pretty much agree with the PD report on the subject.

Its not bad, if it works as long as it doesn't get too squirrely. I usually sit in front varying the amounts of brakes I use to "back up" so to speak to the canopy behind me. I like warping a lot too - it works great. Big key is fly your trim until they're all the way there - don't let go when they're 3 feet out. That's why I practically always catch with my feet. W

If you weigh 175 lounds, I'd aim for the 160. With my Lightning 113 at 1.3, I've flown with many

When I go up with a newbie I always have them dock on me first. I mainly fly in quarter brakes or so, but as they're on rear risers (just a little - too much stalls you out) coming up to me, I'm constantly adjusting my brake levels to not flow and popping them to just kill lift. Basically as they're flying forward at me, I'm looking over my shoulder at them and "backing up" (not literally of course) at them. If that doesn't work, often it helps to fly with one front riser and one toggle. Warping your canopy like that dogs it out pretty well. (this is a LOT of riser and a lot of toggle).

Girl actually. And while there was no video so I don't know her exact body position, she had been doing belly-flying that jump - no head down or anything. W

I'm almost positive you're right. Chris has been the only swooping fatality that I've heard about in Texas this year. W

I'll definitely second the HIGH recommendations for Gary Peek. If you're in his regions, he's one of the best directors out there. I also highly recommend Mike Mullins. He understands what fun jumpers want, and is willing to stand up to the good ol' boys. Winsor Naugler I also highly recommend. Extremely intelligent, very willing to work hard for the fun jumpers in the sport. I also voted for Jan Meyer. She's put a lot of good information out on the web, and seems to have a great desire to educate. Plus her technical knowledge of computers and websites would be an asset to the board.

True enough. I've landed my Cobalt 75 loaded at ~2.1 straight-in without front risers on more than one occasion just fine. W

This is how I do all of my intentional cutaways as well. Two of my Racers are set up for extra d-rings on the front so I can hook another main to it. Have come up with all sorts of fun ideas with this setup.. W

The most interesting one I ever saw was a "heavier" jumper who actually bent the small ring during a hard openings. The opening broke lines as well and there was an uneventful cutaway, but I was amazed at the force it must have taken to bend a ring into an oval shape like that. W

I don't know any particular numbers. Of the mals I've witnessed, I'd guess its 50-50 between packers and the jumper who packed it. Of my 4, 3 were my own pack jobs and one was just another jumper's. The question would then become what percentage of people pack for themselves? I don't know. I'd go out and say that probably 90% of the spinning mals aren't packer error but pilot error in the sky. Especially with everyone going elliptical at such low jump numbers. There's a reason why people with 5000 jumps have a much lower mal rate than those with 300 jumps - and that's irregardless of who packs for them. Another good portion of mals are gear problems - broken lines, brakes unstowing sending you into line twists, pc-in-tows from old pc's - most (not all for sure) of these can be prevented by better gear maintenance and inspection. And that's ultimately the jumper's responsibility even if he does a packer looking out for him. Then there are the actual packing ones - line-overs(most of em anyway), pc-in-tows from closing loops/bridle routing, totals, misrouted puds, unstowed brakes, hard openings caused by packing. These are the only ones I'd actually blame the packers for. The others the packers can't be held responsible for.

That doesn't seem to be the rule though. Lots of big drop zones have packing concessions, where you're usually not sure who's going to be packing for you. Lots of packers - especially at big busy dzs - are doing frigging fast pack jobs and a ton of them. There just isn't time for that. I've seen team packers have to pack 4 rigs in 15 minutes or so - a lot of stuff can get overlooked. That's great that you do all that. I hope that all the people you pack for know how to do it for themselves as well though - I'm amazed at the number of people out there don't. When they go to a big boogie like the WFFC and just give their rig to a packing concession which has 20 or more packers and everything is crazy, they need to know how to check things themselves. Because they can't count on the random person who's packing it to do any of that. I've seen people who've had rigs packed by packers at boogies like that come home with a couple different sized rubber bands and even a tube stow on their rig - all mismatched stuff added by packers. I remember having a packer pack my CRW rig once - he commented on the really loose closing loop which I thought was bizarre because it was normally tight. I found that the pin barely stayed in - turns out he had gotten all of the air out of the canopy and so it was really loose! I've always just packed it up and didn't bother squishing too much and its a very tight loop when I do it. Packing styles can affect things as well. And if you have an "unusual" rig - like a pullout for example - between me and a good friend of mine I've seen rigs handed back by packers (usually at boogies admittedly) 5-6 times where our pullouts were misrouted. I do a very thorough gear check when I get gear from packers. So while there are very conscientous, thorough packers out there like AggieDave, there are also a lot of ones who will pack you a good opening, but not really do much else. People should never rely on their packers to check that their gear is in good shape. If you use packers all the time, you need to make sure you make an effort at least once a weekend to inspect everything. When packers are doing 10-15 rigs an hour, they might miss something.

No kidding! When I started I only earned $800 a month as a grad student, and after rent, and cheese sandwiches to eat, I was still blowing a couple of hundred at least on jumping. But when I tried to sell my blood for jump money I was turned down because I was anemic - I couldn't really afford much meat back then :-)

I've always wondered at all the people who view packing as such a chore. All I can figure is that most of them never learned how to pack themselves well - i.e. they know the basics, but it takes a hundred pack jobs or so before you understand the "tricks" and such to make it easy. I've done 8+ CRW jumps in a day and packed every one of them. Packing is quite easy once you're practiced at it. Of course I got most of my packing learning done on student status. It was not even 10 years ago but I had to pack probably 90% of my student gear. It was expected then. People not packing for themselves I think is one of the biggest reasons we see gear issues. Twisted brake lines can cause off-heading and spinning mals. You can have small holes in your top-skin and never notice. If you don't pack for yourself, how often do you check your links and lines for wear? When you pack for yourself, you do it at least casually on every single pack job. Many packers don't take or have the time. If you don't pack for yourself, will you notice how your closing loop can be really tight or really loose depending on the humidity of the day? Or as your canopy ages a little and packs a bit smaller, does the packer always shorten it? Its the little things that often get overlooked by people who don't pack for themselves. And the little things can often turn into big things really rapidly. I'll use a packer if I'm really busy or its late and I'm tired, but I pack for myself because I check all of those things. And if you use a packer, I'd advise doing thorough checks of your gear on a very regular basis. W W

Unless they're lightly loaded, I'd be surprised if the lower guys need to add much lead. Triathalons are going to be sinkier than the other canopies. If you plane down, make sure you have good cross-connectors. That stack of Triathalons is going to be really heavy. Make sure you have someone strong 2nd and especially 3rd. He's going to be holding a lot of weight. Some of the lower canopies might be better off holding a touch of brakes - but just a touch. W

I'm in Texas. We have lots of folks from Florida and California doing CRW. I do know of a guy up in Baltimore who's a CRWdog, several in NC, and another in Pennsylvania. I run a CRWdog email list that you could ask on if you wanted. Lots of dogs on there. W

Arf arf! But what better reason to owe it? W

Its part of the whole song. We used to sing this at the campfire at my first dz to toast whomever. Here's to him, to him, to him Here's to him, the best of them all He eats it, he beats it, he often mistreats it Here's to him the best of them all. Him, him, f**k him!

You're think of an entanglement not a wrap - that's a different beast. There's a paper on this on my website - good reading for this thread. CRW Paper

Have you tried a half-shell in freefall? I have one I use for CRW (you can hear better than in regular protecs) but when I jump it in freefall, no matter how tight I make my half-shell it always seems very wobbly and I'm always feeling like its about to come off. I'd rather jump a regular Protec for freefall.