davelepka

Depends on the price of the rig. Keep in mind that after re-sizing, you will have what is essentially a custom fit harness, and depending on the type of harness it might be an all-new custom fit harness, and you'll never find another used rig with one of those. You might never even find another used rig that even comes close to a the fit of a built-to-you harness. If everything else is perfect, such as the container sizes, canopy sizes and condition of all of the above, then don't write off the idea of paying for the resize. The difference in price may be worth the benefit of the brand-new, factory built and inspected custom fit harness. Look at it this way, if the next rig you find costs $200 more, you just gave up the new custom fit harness for less then $200 difference, and you have to live with whatever you get on that rig. For a guy who's not planning to downsize, and swap this rig for a smaller one in a year or two, it's an even better idea to have to built to your specs.

I don't see where you get that from what I said. It's nto my opinion that a guy with 6500+ jumps, instructional ratings and is now a DZO is not an average jumper. Like it or not, want to admit it or not, you are in the upper percentile of jumper achievement. Maybe you're mistake is that you spend too much time at tandem fatories, where everyone around (who you get to know) has 5, 10, or even 15 thousand jumps, but they are also in the same upper percentile as you in terms of jumper achievement. The simple fact is that what worked for you may not be a good indicator of what would work for a more average jumper, the same type of jumper you need to tailor rules and regualtions to. Sure Norm Kent was jumpuing a belly mounted VHS recorder with something under 50 jumps, but as it turned out, Norm Kent is one of the worlds top camera flyers. Something about him and camera flying go together, and unless you have that something, using him as an example is a bad idea. I'm not trying to appear superior, and in fact all I did was call you superior to the average jumper. I'm also not trying to elevate myself above others, I'm stating a simple fact. One of the biggest problems with regualting progression in skydiving is that you never really know who is ready for what until it's over. Think you're ready to jump a 79 Velo? You might be, and the only real way to find out is to do it. Put 100 jumps on one, and if you survive, it turns out you were ready. If you kill or injure yourself, maybe not. The problem is that the risk of being wrong is often much higher than the rewards of being right. If a jumper does push the envelope, and jumps a 79 early on, success means just that the one single jumper has some thrills on their skydives. It creates no benefit to others on the DZ or otherwsie. If the jumper should be wrong, however, the effects can be widespread and dire. People on the DZ who have to witness and deal with an incident, the bad publicity for the DZ, the jumpers family who have to deal with the loss or caring for a crippled relative for the rest of their lives. Push the limits, and succeed, you make only yourself happy. Push them and fail, you create a negative impact on all the people in your life who care about you. Some simple restraint on your part, some additional experience and training could easily spare your loved ones the heartache. So we're stuck in this position where you don't really know if anyone is ready for everything until it's over. What we do, in that case, is err on the side of caution, and wait until you're chances for success are really good, and then move forward. As this applies to you, or me, or any other long time or high-time jumper is that we have proven ourselves to be ready. As it turned out, we did have the skills, knowledge, and ability to handle the choices we made, and we handled them well enough to continue on in the sport, and advance even further. This is the evidence that you or I have whatever 'it' is that you need to be a skydiver. This isn't insulting to anyone, it's just the way it is. Anyone who would be insulted by that isn't thinking logically and is trying to protect their ego, neither of which is good for skydiving.

Beyond that, you wouldn't be concerned that an operation designed to allow an outside (geographically) entity cut into the limited revenue stream of a specific geographiac region, and siphon the money into their own out-of-town pockets, is now going to be 'behind the curtain' of a popular manifest and DZ operating software suite? How long before they introduce the magic of on-line automatic updates? All they need is a back door to your jumprun program, and they'll take care of everything. Exactly what 'everything' is remains to be seen, but I can't see this as a good thing. They have already taken it upon themselves to 'install' themselves into the marketing program of DZs everywhere, and now they're going to have an inroad to the accounting at the DZs as well. Whatever happened to the idea of Chicago-area DZs making money by selling skydiving services to Chicago area customers, or customers they can convince to travel to Chicago? It's a slippery slope, and this step is in not in the right direction for DZOs across the country.

You're a terrible example in this case. As previously stated, rules are made for the lowest commen denomenator, and they're made that way for a reason. If you position a rule or regualtion to target the slightly below average jumper, then the rule will be effective for the mojority of the jumpers out there. The only jumpers the rule will 'fail' are those who are well below average, and in the case of camera flying, we would hope that jumpers in that catagory either choose, or are counciled to, not jump a camera at any level. Back to you being a terrible example, you went on to complete 6500+ jump, earn instructional ratings, and open a DZ. Time has proven you to be an above average jumper, and your thought process and physical aptitiude are such that you and skydiving are a good 'fit'. If we had the ability to see years and 1000's of jumps in to eberyones future, we could tailor their progression based the skydiver they are going to be, but of course we cannot, so we have everyone follow a baseline which is tailored to the lowest common denomenator, so the majoroty of jumpers will err on the side of caution and ease in to more complex skydives. It's one of the errors I see frequently with the more 'talented' jumpers at any level. It's clear to everyone (and themsleves) that soemthing about them makes them better at this than other people, yet they continue to use their experienced and progression as an example to others. What you need to do is look to the more average jumpers, and base your ideas of progression on their progress and how they perform as they move along and develop as a skydiver.

Here's why this is hard to believe - for starters, TK doesn't own Skydive City outright. He has partners he has to deal with, so for him to switch aircraft providers, a majority of those partners have to agree. From what I understand, a majority of those partners were present at the time the verbal agreements were made, so the switch in providers was made with all knowledge of all previous agreements. On that subject, the term of a verbal agreement is often unspecified, and any business person who enters into such an agreement does so at the risk of the term ending at any point. This goes for both sides, as Skydive City could have found itself without an aircraft provider at the drop of a hat if Billy felt he had a better option for his planes. Back to the story, with regards to the fuel farm, the hanger, and the 'theft' of $27,000 worth of fuel. Again, as mentioned above, Skydive City is a partnership, and if the plan upon droping FFE as a provider involved breaking and entering, and grand larceny, I have trouble believing that they would have went forward with that plan. If FFE truely owned the fuel farm and hanger, it would have been an issue that would have needed to be resolved before dumping FFE as a provider. Let's face it, the fuel farm and hanger are simply real estate, so somebody hold either legal title or a current lease from the title holder. If FFE holds either, all they need to do is step forward, and have trespassers arrested. Seeing as how they haven't done so, I find it hard to believe that they truely own either. While a verbal agreement might exist between a business and a service provider, I can't see an airport leasing any part of itself to anyone on a verbal basis, or the owner of an adjecent plot of land doing the same. Legally it belongs to someone, and that person gets to call the shots as to who is permitted there, and what they do. In terms of the 'theft' of fuel, stealing $27,000 worth of fuel would be a felony. All of the partners would have had to agree to a felonious course of action if we're to buy the story being told here. Beyond that, the legal owner of the land and fuel would have to let that theft slide without the immediate involvment of law enforcement. When was the last time you heard of anyone knowingly allowing someone (especially someone they don't like) to tresspass on their land and steal $27,000 worth of property without taking action. What would make a lot more sense is that FFE played it loose and easy with the paperwork for years, and now it's biting them in the ass. No contracts, no leases, nothing to back up their claims, leaving the court to sift through some 20 years of 'verbal' dealings with several different partners and managers, and sort out who is entitled to what.

There's no way to fully replicate an exit 100% without actaully exiting, so we look for the best possible replacement. In this case, you want the student to go from a seated position to an arched position, so the best we can do to replicate that is to sit them somewhere, and then transition to an arch along with the exit count. A picnic table allows their legs to hang free, like the plane, and you can rock back and forth and give the count, and on 'GO', they rock forward and into an arch. Yes, because it's only practice, they have to stand up when they roll off the table, but what you can get them to do is push their hips forward. Get the whole sequence in their minds, the count, the rock, and the arch. It's the best you can do without actually leaving a plane.

Then don't take her to the DZ.

As previously stated, angle yourself toward the relative wind as you sit in the door. Think about sitting only on your left butt cheek, with righty hanging off the edge. Also, on a seated exit, you can practice that on the ground using a picnic table. Have the passenger sit on the edge of the table like it was the door, and practice standing up into an arch. They have to bring their hips forward to stand up from a sitting position anyway, so get them used to continuing the hips forward motion and taking it all the way into an arch. Don't hesitate to shout at the student on the hill either. They can hear you in the sub terminal air even if your head isn't tucked right next to theirs. Fly your body, arch hard, and yell at the student, what could possibly go wrong?

A contributing factor could be the DZOs recent alleged rigging error that contributed to a students death, the subsequent closing/sale of his DZ, and the impending lawsuit he's facing. I'm not suggesting that his actions were justified, just that when you consider his state of mind, it's easier to understand how something like this could happen. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and I'm sure that the gun-toting DZO considers these to be desperate times. Again, it doesn't make it right, just easier to understand.

He is right. The protection of a modern helmet is a combination of the shell and EPS (expanded poly styrene) foam liner absorbing the impact. If either one is comprimised, so is the ultimate performance of the helmet. The 'common knowledge' is that a helmet involved in a crash, where both systems are used, is now junk and should be retired. To that end, any helmet that sustains damage that cracks the shell, or compacts the foam liner, should also be retired. If a 4 foot drop is enough to fracture the shell is another story. Of course, you're dealing with a RUB who was probably looking for an excuse to buy a new lid to match his new jacket. That other jacket was so 'last season' and it needed to be replaced. Now he'll have a helmet to match, and all he needs is a repaint on the bike to complete the look.

They can't see the skulls through the scanner. What they can see is the reserve ripcord and handle, all the cable housings and reserve PC spring and possible AAD on a sport rig, and that's a lot of 'stuff'. A BASE rig, without all that 'stuff' must be below suspicion.

Yes, but your logic is flawed. The correct course of action is to use the right AAD for the jump you are going to do. If you plan to do a student jump, to include a student sized canopy, a student pull altitude and hard deck, and fly your canopy like a student, then by all means use a student AAD. If any part of your jump will stray from what a student would be instructed to do, don't use a student AAD. Student ADDs exist because the actions of students and experienced jumpers present different needs for an AAD, different enough that Airtec took the time to develop an entirely seperate program for the student models (and a different colored on/off switch). To expect that an experienced jumper, who's actions (and the actions of those they're jumping with) will differ from the actions of a student, to limit their actions to those of a student every time, on every jump, in every way, or risk an accidental firing of the AAD is not logical in the least. The conclusions you come to are flawed because you're not fully informed about the subject you're commenting on. The conclusions may be logical to you, but your opinion is of little value in this case. In this way you are similar to P. Jones, and if you continue to insist that you are correct when others suggest otherwise, you will have another similarity to P.Jones. The line between the two of you continues to blur...

Nice rail slide, but that guy was deep in the brakes to be there, and looked like he didn't have any recovery if he lost lift. Either way, still cool as shit.

I jump a Flitesuit, and have been for years. I've bought four of them, and have worn them for 90% of my jump. They last forever, and the company has always been great to deal with. Two other options, are Bevsuits and Tonysuits. Both will build a great, long lasting suit, and are solid companies to deal with. The jumpsuit market has always been full of 'start ups' who think that it's easy to build a good suit, or run a good company, and they often fall short in both areas. Flitesuit, Bev and Tony have all been building jumpsuits for at least 15 or 20 years each, and that says something. Another thing to keep in mind when asking about jumpsuits is that between the myriad of options in fabric, cut, fit, and the number of measurements needed, there are 100 ways for the customer to fuck up a jumpsuit order. The factory will correctly build to the order, but the customer may not be happy because of their own errors. Of course, they may not realize this, or may not admit it, so you get a negative review of a certain company or suit even though it was all the fault of the customer. Stick to more experienced jumpers, who have been through a few suits when looking for opinions on suits or manufacturers.

You have correctly described the psycho pack. It's the same as the pro pack until you lay it down on the ground 'upside down'. At that point, he clears the bridle, and then folds the ears of the triangle in just for the sake of making the canopy the same width as the bag. The roll manuver is really the heart of the psycho pack, which was developed for the sole purpose of making it easier to get the canopy into the bag. Once the canopy is bagged, the whole mess is flipped back over to remove the 1/2 line twist. At this point, the pack job returns to the same procedures used in a pro pack in terms of stowing the lines and closing the container. It's really just a 'trick' for bagging the canopy. Some people like it, some people dislike it. If you have an inordinate amount of trouble bagging the canopy right side up, maybe the psycho pack is a good option. If you can simply learn to pack right side up, it's probably better if you avoid inducing a line twist anywhere in the pack job. Proper selection of canopy and container will go a long way toward making packing easier. Get a container that is generously sized for your canopy, and getting it in the bag becomes a non-issue (remember that the bag is sized for the container, so up-sizing the bag alone is not an option). Also, starting off with a used canopy will help. It is literally 10x easier to pack a canopy with 500 or 600 jumps than a new one (or even one with less than 100 or 150 jumps). Once you have a chance to practice and refine your technique on an easy set-up, you'll be better preparred to pack a more challenging set-up.

The Cypres, with it's 12 year life limit, is the only one you can count on the residual value. Ever since SSK posted the 'used Cypres value calculator', the prices in the used market are fairly fixed. Other brands who lack the long-term market presence, and life limitation, leave the residual value 'up in the air' (no pun intended). It's not hard to for a product to get a bad name in this sport in the wake of an incident(s), even if they prove not to be directly related to the product itself. Above all, with the exception of the Cypres, don't ever buy any skydiving related equipment with any expectations of ever getting any money back out of it. The market for used gear is very fickle, and as stated above, an incident or even just a newer, better product hitting the market can put the value of your gear in the shitter. This doesn't mean that it's garbage, it should still work just as well as when you bought it, just that nobody else wants what you have. Either plan to jump stuff until it's useful life is up, or be ready to take a big hit on resale. You may get lucky and still have a 'hot' product when you want to sell, but maybe not. Again, the Cypres is the exception.

A big student canopy is flown by a big student, possibly on their first jump. A small tandem canopy is flown by a TI, hpoefully not on their first tandem. Canopy size as related to safety all comes down to the pilot. Being realistic about their abilities and the conditions they're jumping in are the two key features that promote safe use of small canopies. If you can account for those, small canopies can be safely jumped.

Anyone think the hardware on his bag looks like the harness ring of a 3-ring system?

Simple answer - the DZO, or his appointed officer, will use their experience and superior knowledge of skydiving to determine what will, or will not, occur at their DZ. If you don't like it, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

No. A student Cypres is for a student, jumping a student rig, and pulling at student altitudes. Smart DZOs do not use a student Cypres in their student or rental rigs with canopies much smaller than a 220/230. ADDs firing when they are not supposed to are a huge safety risk, and was the reason that AADs were 'persona non grata' until the Cypres hit the market, and proved that it could 'contain itself' when it needed to. Skydiving is not an area where gear choices or configurations should be based on 'you should be ok', gear should be selected for it's intended purpose as stated by the manufacturer. Often times people disregard this with respect to the main canopy, and 'get away' with it, with the main reason being that the reserve and reserve system (as overseen by a rigger) are left intact and 'as designed'. To suggest that any part of the reserve system be mis-appropriated is dangerous and irresponsible.

Deep pockets, yeah, but part of that is owning the airplanes. It's without a doubt the single biggest cost in skydiving, and if you own your own aircraft, you have a lot more flexibility in how you run the show. If you own a fleet of them, and handle your own maintenence and have a warehouse full of spares already 'in the bank', you have even that much more freedom. As far as who would go jump there for 1/2 price, I don't know. Maybe some visiting jumpers, but I can't imagine any of the locals or teams would break ranks go across the field. Deland has been very good to a large number of jumpers, and I'd imagine that would build some loyalty. Add to that the fact that Billy would clearly just be trying f-over Deland, I can't see too many jumpers taking the bait. Even those that did, one slip on the part of the mangement would probably have them back over at Bob's in short order. There's a fair chance that Billy's commitment to customer service would be on par with their jump prices, about half of what you would expect elsewhere. He would have to do jumps for half price, while treating eveyone like a valued customer, and that's tough to do. When someone is putting money in your pockets (like at a regualr price DZ) it's easy to be nice and treat them with respect. When someone is costing you money (or even just breaking even), week after week, it get's tough to keep that smile on your face when a customer mentions the toilets are backed up again. I know it's wishful thinking, but I would love to see all jumpers stand their ground, and not go for this mafia-style bullshit, and have the 'new' DZ be a ghost town. Of course, the Skyride saga has shown that there will always be jumpers willing to play ball, and instructors willing to take anything they can get.

I would check 1996, you can probably do it there.

Maybe, and maybe not. Like I said, if they did the work needed to make this 'safe', it would have been on video, and it would have been sick, which means it would have been posted somewhere. For example, once the tandem side-spin became a 'thing' that was happening, Bill Morrissey went up with another TI and figured out how side spins happen and how to get out of them. All of the jumps were filmed, and when they had it all figured out, he turned it into an 'instructional' video for teaching TIs about sidespins. This was in the days of VHS. So without a list of Youtube videos showing all the work they did to test the 'what ifs' by actually doing it with experienced jumpers, I'm going to assume it wasn't done. If anything, it would be interesting to see two experienced wingsuit flyers doing tandems together, and what is or is not possible. You don't think that would have been internet worthy in itself? If you don't hear about the test jumps, and the prep work leading up to something like this, it's probably because there wasn't any. All it would do is serve to validate the accomplishment even further, that someone put that much time and effort into doing it 'right', but as we can see here (or not see) there's nothing but a 'look at me' pic to show for it. Beyond all of that, if you have ever done a tandem or flown a wingsuit, just think for a minute if you really see those two things going together. If you've never jumped a wingsuit, put one on and see how it feels. Put on a tandem rig and start feeling around. Hook up a friend in a tandem harness, and see if that makes the wingsuit feel like a better idea or worse.

That's right, and the testing that was done was established by the best, most experienced jumpers around as well as the designer of the rig. Between them, they came up with a set of perameters that could allow a non-jumper to experience freefall with a very low level of training, and a very high level of safety. What sort of testing, and who exactly administered the testing that proved that this TI could safely conduct a tandem wingsuit jump with a non-skydiver passenger? The answer is nobody, because this cannot be done safely, plain and simple. There are MAJOR areas where safety is comprimised, and while it may have gone well for one or two, or even ten jumps, it will not last. The TI, in donning a wingsuit, has severly limtied his ability to manage the skydive by reducing his mobility. How well can he deal with a drouge that does not want to come out of the pouch while his arm is restriced by the suit? How does he manage the students legs without being able to wrap his legs around theirs? How does the instructor fly their body at all with the students wingsuit blanketing the airflow to theirs? What is the recovery if the pair should enter a flat spin, the same type of spin that has trapped even highly experienced solo wingsuit pilots? What type of control authority does the wingsuit give to the student? What happens to the pair if the student assumes a less-than-optimal body position? With the exception of the flat spin, the scenarios listed above are very real, and likely to happen at least once to a TI over the course of a weekend. A hard(er) or funky drouge pull, needing to wrap a students legs, needing to fly your body to coutner what the student is doing, etc are all common occurences in doing tandems with the general public, and look like they could create a serious issue if they occured on a wingsuit tandem. This is nothing more than a stunt. There's no way that any real planning, testing, or investigation went into this. If it did, I want to see the video of two TI/wingsuit pilots doing an intentional flat spin, and then proving the tandem recovery method. If that happened, you can bet your ass somebody got it on video (probably two or three people) and I want to see it. If there's no video, then it didn't happen. If it didn't happen, this jump was just a stunt where the TI stuck his dick waaay out there, and was lucky it didn't get chopped off.

That's a great supporting argument FOR the Mirage ads. Let's face it, a rig is a big purchase. Even for a guy with all the money in the world, it's a purchase made to persue something you are excited about, and it's also a personal choice as you will 'wear' this around all your cool skydiving friends. As such, this is not a purchase that anyone will take lightly. Everyone buying a rig will research the different options, talk to friends and other jumpers, and do quite a bit more than look at an ad. If you want a cheeseburger or a soda, an ad can literally change you from a 'shopper' to a 'buyer' with just one viewing. If they show you the right picture of a cheeseburger, you get hungry and buy one. Those ads can be directly effective in selling the product. A rig ad, even if it was informative and full of colorful pics, is not going to sell a rig in this day and age. So you're left with the ads promoting the company, but even then, it's not very effective. Who doesn't know that Mirage, UPT, and Sunpath builds rigs? There are only a handful of companies building rigs for sale in this country, and they are all pretty well known in the market. Above all in terms of marketing, we have the internet. This is where rigs are 'sold'. If you're website can illustrate the unique design and features of your rig, show the various teams you sponsor and the rigs in action, and make it easy for the consumer to understand the options, then you'll sell rigs. So what's the point of ads in general? Not much really, but I think the biggie is that they make the magaizine possible. With the demise of Skydiving Mag, Blueskies is the last hope we have for an unbiased, print magazine, and I think the big manufacturers see the benefit of that, and essentially 'chip in' to keep the thing in print. It's like when the biggest business in town sponsors the 4th of July parade. Everyone knows about the business already, it's the biggest one in town, but they do it anyway as part of their 'duty' to the community in which they do business. So you have these manufactures with this ad space to fill, space they realize has lost much of it's usefulness due to the internet, so Mirage deciedes to have a little fun. Let's face the facts, skydiving is packed full of men, the sort of men who are prone to immature behavior, dirty jokes and language, and all manner of general debauchery. Yes, there are good christan men and women jumpers who never make the first few loads on Sunday becasue they are in church, but they are in the minority. Most sunday morning loads are missed by hung-over males, who may or may not be having trouble finding their pants. It's just the way it is.