TerminatorSRT4

well lately I've been flying nothing but student 230s that are square (I believe they're all Mantas, not totally sure though) and I'm fairly comfortable on those and want to progress only when I feel I've "mastered" a particular canopy size, so I figured getting a 210 semi-elliptical would be a good starting point I'm also a fairly conservative person and don't plan on swooping anytime soon, so downsizing quickly isn't much of a priority to me oh and to answer your question, yes an instructor recommended I start off on a 210

no no, on a 210 I would be .88 with gear on I weigh about 185

How many jumps you can make from 2-3K? about 120

oh wow...I just realized I made a stupid mistake, I corrected the above wingloading I listed as 1.13, it's actually 0.88...I had just woken up when I put that not that that has any effect on my original topic/question, but I still wanted to correct myself *kicking myself in the head*

hmmm, that's a good idea too I can only image what 2-3K worth of beer would do

Why does it matter to you if a novice buys new or used? It's not like his decision is going to impact your safety. It's his money, not yours. Sure. We all are happy for them. well I'm glad you're happy for me ...

If I do buy new I definitely plan on getting my rigger to inspect everything and also obviously assemble everything

so basically nobody should buy new gear ever? we should all buy used?

Oh, I see, thanks for the info that's good to know I won't have a hard time selling a 210 when the time comes

makes sense, thanks for the reply also, didn't know that about crossbraced, guess I want be on one of those for awhile

honestly I didn't know that you couldn't jump a crossbraced in the same type of container made for 7/9 cells, but that's good to know though

that's what I was figuring too, even if I do lose a bigger amount of money when selling, I'm just adding some more used gear to the big mixing pool of used gear

So I am planning on buying my own rig now and am wanting some opinions. I'm not really looking for advice as to what container, canopy, etc as there are countless threads about that already. But I'm trying to understand why nearly everyone I've talked to thinks it is an absolutely downright terrible thing to buy new gear. Funny enough, nearly all of these people are fairly new jumpers with used gear The way I've been my whole life is that if I'm going to spend my money on something expensive (car, computer, etc) I like to buy new. You never really know what you're getting with used stuff, even if the person seems to be honest, I don't trust many people. Especially with skydiving rig. I realize I can have it mailed to me and have my local rigger check it out. But still, it doesn't seem worth it to me financially. To get a decent full rig I'd probably be spending around 3K give or take some. On a new rig I'd be spending about 5K roughly. If I have the money, is it really THAT bad of a thing to get new gear? Most of the arguments are "you're going to downsize and regret buying a new canopy." First off, I don't plan on downsizing anytime soon. I plan on getting a 210 square/semi-elliptical canopy and my wingloading would be about 0.88. I know you can generally downsize on a container one time, so I can go down to a 190, and after that I can go to elliptical, and then after that go to crossbraced...so I plan on keeping the same container for awhile as well. So I'm just wondering if it is really such a bad thing to spend my hard earned money on something new, get it custom fitted to me, with whatever colors I choose instead of a piece of used gear? Ok, done talking....

THAT is the sleakest looking color combo I have seen, oh my gosh.. agreed, that looks VERY badass/professional

I was in the Marines and the drill instructors are assholes, but it was to be expected when you went in, if they were all nice then we wouldn't end up being Marines by the end of boot camp, we'd be soldiers for all the Army guys, I'm just kidding

http://www.callralph.hatley.com/ his email is on the contacts page

^^^ that's good stuff, will definitely pay a little more attention appreciate all the responses everyone, keep em coming

well as a new jumper I had never heard of this guy until I saw this thread, so I decided to send him an email asking him about prices for canopies and he got back to me within 2 hours with pretty low prices, that says something about him I guess

I bought a Mamba halfway through AFF and have used it for about 15 jumps, I know it's not many but so far I haven't had any problems with it, it also has a chin strap and a visor that locks in place, after being under canopy it's nice to be able to flip it up and it isn't in your field of view so you can clear your nose or whatever, I just close it before I land but so far it hasn't fogged up

no apologies necessary! you need to have thick skin to be on any forum, good point on the above comment, didn't think about that, haha

if you were referring to me saying I was naive, I wasn't saying in 200 jumps you will have encountered every possible situation, I was saying that you would probably be proficient with the canopy you are jumping on after 200 jumps, I'm sure there's people out there with 5,000 jumps who encounter new situations on a frequent basis, I was just giving a fellow newbie advice as I've read a lot of stories on here of people downsizing too quickly and injuring themselves

well as you can see by my jump number I'm nowhere near experienced...but I don't understand why everyone around the same number of jumps as me is wanting so desperately to get as small a canopy as possible. I'm imagining it'll take me a minimum of 100 jumps just to be comfortable on a canopy and another 100 or more to get proficient. I weigh 185ish out the door and have been jumping a Manta 220 and I'm going to buy a Silhouette 210 for my first canopy, there's no reason to rush to something smaller until you've experienced just about every possible situation to be thrown your way, just my 2 cents though...

I second the Viso, like it a lot, couldn't stand the mechanical alti's

hmmm... thanks for all the replies everyone, this is good stuff