davelepka

I would vote for jump 26. The reason being that once you have a license, your jumps are no longer planned and focused around you, but focused on the jump. Until that point, every jump is centered around the student, and planned out with them in mind. The dirt dive inclused break off and pull altitudes, and the freefall activites are all designed to end before break off. Beyond jump 25, they are likely to be jumping with others, and things will not be centered around them. The potential to get wrapped up in what they're doing goes way up, and nobody on the jump is there to signal them that it's over. Even on a coach dive, the coach is suppsed to track off at break off, and the student gets the hint. Two newbies jumping together will have no 'signal' of any kind if they get wrapped up in turning points. So an audible helps to provide that signal. Regardless of how the end of the jump is signaled, the jumpers will becoem accustomed to the time frame. In terms of building skills, you should stress that they should see (and read) their altimeter several times during a jump, and during tracking they should take a look at the groudn to train their eyes, but none of that precludes the use of an audible. People say that audibles fail, but so do people. So what you do is arm yourself with as many 'safe guards' as possible, and hope that none of them fail. If the audible fails, there's always the chance the jumper will perform, and maintain altitude awreness and break off at the right time. With no audible, if the jumper fails, there is no back-up, they just end up down and dirty. Will every jumper maintain vigilance with regards to altimeter checks? No. Will every jumper look down at break off to train their eyes on every jump? No. Will every jumper make sure to not become dependant on the audible? No. However, none of that changes the fact that, when used properly, the audible provides another layer of safety and awareness. You cannot let the mis-use of a device by some jumpers dictate the use of that device by all jumpers. Give jumpers the benefit of the doubt, train them in the proper use and assume they'll use it the the right way. What they do after that is their business.

Do you mean coming out of the dive? What are describing doesn't make sense unless the guy was stabbing out of the corner. If you're in a dive, you can stab the toggles and all of the energy goes to arrest the dive. Once you roll level, if you maintain the input, you go back up. If you release the input, you might just be able to put your feet down. If you're already level with enough speed to go another 100 feet, and you stab the toggles, you'll shoot back up in the air. If you watch guys do a zone accuracy stall, you'll notice they pop up before they get the canopy to stall and drop them straight down. What you may have seen was a guy who didn't really have 100 ft to go. He might have been 'out of gas' and hit the bottom of the toggle stroke. At this point, the canopy in a low energy state will not casue a pop up and just drop behind the jumper as it begins to stall. If the jumper allows the stall to continue, it will hit the gournd behind the jumper, and mostly like pull him down backwards in the process. If the jumper throws his hands up, the canopy can return to 'controlled' flight, but it will lack the power to support the weight of the jumper. Provided that the jumper puts his feet down as the canopy coems back over head, he can avoid being pulled over backwards. The concept is that if you have the energy to go another 100 feet, there's no way to stop the canopy with doing something with that energy. If you insist on going in a striaght line, that energy makes the canopy pop up, no way around it. Now if you want to stop right away, say to avoid an obstacle if your swoop is going too long, Brian Germains 'hockey stop' is the way to go. The hockey stop is basically a hard carve to either side where you turn as hard as you can while maintaining level flight. What this does is take all of the energy your canopy has and applies to to making the carve, not going in a striaght line. If you dedicate a huge amount of the energy to the turn, your overall distance travelled forward will be reduced, so the manuver both turns you away from the obstacle and consumes the majority of the energy your canopy has helping you to get stopped quicker. The reason it's called a 'hockey stop' is because just like a sudden stop while on ice skates, you turn your body sideways to the line of travel while performing the manuver. It's really a valuable skill, and one that every swooper should learn once they have a grasp on how to carve. It's just a matter of taking the carve to the highest degree and holding it there until the canopy is 'spent'. It's an absolute 'must have' before attempting to swoop in an unfamiliar area such as an off-landing. If you find yourself down on the deck looking at an obstacle you didn't see from 1000ft, you need a 'tool' to solve that problem, and that's the 'hockey stop'. Until you can perform that one with a good degree of success, off landings should not include a swoop.

You want positive? Do something positive. Your feelings don't make things right. No matter how bad you want something to be one way, the truth is the truth. You don't like my post? Good for you, like I said at the end of my post, good luck out there.

There's a gap between the sliding door and the fuselage itself. If you jam a show inbetween the inside bar and the door, it pushes the upper edge of the door againt the fuselage and seals the gap. Keep in mind that the door is far more flexible than the bar, so when you jam a shoe in there that is too bog to fit, the door flexes to make room, and ends up making contact with the airframe.

Don't sweat the gear issues, that's what your instructors are for. If there was truely a problem with a rig, they're the guys who will raise hell about it because they're the guys who have to reach in there and pop the bag out of the container. Shit happens, and there's not much you can do about it. In the world of student rigs and multi-instructor jumps these things happen from time to time. That's what the instructors are there for. It's a double edged sword where they both casue and solve the problem. Jump what the instructors tell you to jump. A smaller canopy in a smaller rig would have the same chances for the same problem, which are pretty slim.

Z-po should make a difference if your F-111 slider is well used. That's one reason you start with a small upsize of the slider, you'll also be switching over to Z-po. Between the size and material, you should see an improvement.

There can be a few reasons for a 'stuck bag', and the majority of them are not going to be a problem for long. Sometimes student rigs are stuffed with too big of a canopy. maybe the rig was built for a 260, but they needed an extra 280 or 290 rig, so they swap the canopies over. Now the bag fits 'snug'. There could have also been a sacked out pilot chute. Again, student gear is generally 'well used', and if a PC has lost some of it's 'life', combined with a big, heavy student canopy can lead to a 'stuck bag'. Finally, the combined burble of you and your instructors can also contibute to a PC not getting as much 'bite' as it normally would. As you can see, losing an instructor (on your next jump or soon) will go a long way toward preventing this in the future. If it happens while you are solo, checking over your shoulder for your canopy can sometimes give the PC a chance to pull a little 'sideways' and pop the bag out. You can also reach back with an elbow and give the side of the main container a quick shot. Keep in mind that while this is going on you're still falling at terminal. Visually checking will only reveal a towed PC. You won't be able to tell if the pin is pulled and the bag is stuck, or if the pin is in place and you have a true PC in tow. Elbowing the container will also take time you may or may not have. Getting into your own rig will help tremendously. Select your container size to easily fit the canopies you intend to jump. Use a PC of the correct size as reccomended by the manufacturer, and make sure the the rig is properly assembled, packed and maintained.

There are some rediculous sizes out there. Try to keep the changes along gthe chord line (front to back) in the beginning. Changes to the span can sometimes open up the nose too much and not result in any improvement. The slider upsize should really be the first step. It's the easiest and requires no sewing. You can try calling PD, Aerodyne, Percision, and any loft you can think of to see if anyone has a used slider in the size you need. It's a cheap way to experiment with a different size, and if it deosn't help you can usually return it after a few jumps. Typically with a new slider if you jump it you own it, good or bad. Edit to add - the canopy manufacturers should all have a good selection of slider sizes they use for R&D. Even if they don't want to sell them, you could ask to borrow one at a time for your own R&D, with the understanding that you'll purchase a new one from them provided you find a size that works for you.

Really? You wouldn't even try the simple, bolt-on solution of a slider with an extra inch or two on the chord? It would take ten minutes to install, and ten minutes to un-install if it's not the trick. Comapred to sewing on the canopy which could either go very well or very bad, depending on who's running the sewing machine. The slider dimensions he listed don't seem all that huge for a 370sq ft canopy. Keeping in mind that the canopy was designed when a long snivel was not the SOP, and was most likely not intended to be used by a guy named 'Anvil'. That said, I think a nod toward the 'new style', and an oversized slider would be the easy first step, followed maybe by a pocket/dome, and finally actual canopy mods.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you and your buddies are all out of your minds, and headed for trouble. It looked to me like nobody on that dive was very high-time, and all three of you had very little in the way of a 'plan'. There was no eye contact between the jumpers, no clear indication of who was the base, no appafrent break-off plan, no track by anyone on the jump, and the one guy dumped with you above him. You should be embarassed to have that video on the web. It's nothing personal, and not that you guys are bad people, but that is a prime example of how not to do a three way skydive. The number of areas where you all left yourselves open to error is huge, and sooner or later one of those errors will manifest itself in an incident. Take this a wake up call that you need far more organization and planning with regards to who you jump with and what you do on those jumps. As far as your skills are concerned, you seem to have a fundamental lack of udneratsnding on the basics of RW. Any sort of dive or delta manuver is only for a long dive down to base that exits long before you on a jump. Closing the gap between you and a guy just below you with either manuver is asking for the type of high speed freefall collision that will make both parties a big fan of AADs. The amount of speed you build-up, and then have to bleed off at just the right time, is significant and as such you cannot use those manuvers in close quarters. Additionally, you should never attempt to employ any skill you have not demonsrated a modicum of control over in a solo jump on jump with others. You should be able to demonstrate a clean transition to the delta, hold it with good control of heading and attitude, and return to belly-to-earth in full control, all on a solo skydive before even thinking about using it on a group jump. Sit flying has no place in RW, and that's why you've never heard anyone referencing that tactic for closing a gap, or seen it on video. It's a horribly bad idea, for many of the same reasons you should not attempt a delta manuver in close quarters. The closing speeds will be significant, the higher the closing speeds, the higher your level of control needs to be. At higher speeds, every little mistake you make will be amplified, along with the force of impact when a collision occurs. My adivce, in no specific order - 1. Plan your skydives to include eye contact beteen the jumpers, a clear-cut break off alititude at which EVERYONE will track in their own direction, and pull in their own airspace. 2. Reduce the number of jumpers to a two-way until such time that you can demonstrate a level of skill and control that will allow you to participate in the skydive, and be where you are supposed to be at all times. 3. Stop tyring to make shit up on your own. 'Guessing' how to do a delta at a time when it is not called for, and thinking that sitflying has any place in an RW jump would be good examples. Stick to the basics, and don't do anything you haven't been adivsed to by an instructor or jumper with 1000+ jumps. If you are in doubt about how to proceed in any circumstance, just ask. Making shit up will get you killed. Ask the questions, use the answers to plan your jumps, stick to the plan. 4. In terms of your flying, have you thought about arching? You would have made quick and steady progress down to the base with a good arch. Your trouble in reaching them was all related to your attempt at a delta. The attempt failed, and left you sliding around the sky de-arched and out of control. Consider locating a tight-fitting, nylon front jumpsuit, and possibly a weight vest/belt. Jump the suit every time you do RW so you get used to it and how it flies. Once you are comfortable with that, add weoght if you are still having fall rate issues. At 135lbs., you will most likely need weight - this is not a crutch, or cheating, just a physical reality. It will make your RW easier and more enjoyable. This post may seem harsh, but that skydive was a cluster-fuck. As the jump progressed, my 'spider sense' was off the charts, and I wouldn't have seen the least bit surprised if that jump ended with an incident of some sort. Think for a moment about your AFF or coach jumps, did any of them remotely resemble that? Or were they comprised of a controlled exit, a solid freefall dive plan, and a clear-cut break off with pre-determined pull altitude? I'm guessing the latter, and also guessing that those jumps exhibited a much higher level of control than the one on Youtube. You goal in the future should be that all of your jumps have a similar level of planning, control, and execution of the plan as your AFF and coach jumps. Good luck out there.

You realize that there's no way to win this, right? For starters, on the one hand you bash the USPA and it policies, and then in the quote above, you fall back on the authority of the USPA in terms of vetting the jumper as being 'able to think on his own'. Which one is it? Does the USPA suck balls, or it is qualified to certify jumpers as being competent? In another case of you not being able to win, neither answer makes your point. Even if you want to fall back on the guys USPA license as proof he can 'think and skydive', his license only qualifies him as being able to engage in a certain level of 'thinking and skydiving'. The USPA doesn't beleive (given that this is an A license jumper) that this individual is capable of making a night jump, a camera jump, or (you guessed it) a wingsuit jump. He 'may' be able to handle those things, but he also may the poster child for the 'should have quit skydiving after one jump' crowd. Add to that a supposedly 'experienced' jumper is spoon feeding his pretty bad advice with no real basis for giving that advice, and you have the start of a potentially bad situation.

A story - a guy did this once out of the back of a Casa. Rolled right out the back. Broke one or both ankles on landing. It can be done, but only if you're very good at whatever you're trying to do before you try it with rollerblades. Already a pro level swooper? By all means try a downwinder with wheels. Think wheels will replace the skill you need to do a downwinder? Think again.

That seems like a lot of suits to me. If you want to talk about a tiny market, reduce the wingsuit market down to the wingsuit BASE market. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last guy I remember getting a BASE number was about 3 years back, and I think his number was 1200-something, does that sound right? If it is, that means that there are under 2000 guys with BASE numbers out there. To figure that multiple 100's of them all bought wingsuits last year seems like a very 'optimistic' number. To look at it another way, 500 suits in a year would be delivering about 10 per week. Does anyone have an idea of how many hours go into building a wingsuit? I don't mean at home, I mean in a factory with patterns and an established construction process. Between all the cutting, the various colors, the different materials, thread changes, and inspections, it could be 40 hours worth of work all in to get one out the door. So in order to build ten suits per week would take ten full time employees building suits. Does anyone know how many employees he has? If he only has two or three people sewing for him, then I don't even think ten suits per week is a possibility, but if he's got a bigger workforce, he might be able to produce 500/year. Either way, I maintain that 500 is a high number for one company, and that the BASE market isn't driving the numbers up into that range. The other thing to keep in mind is that out of the already small pool of possible wingsuit BASE customers, a good portion of them live nowhere near anything they could wingsuit BASE off of.

That seems like a high percentage. If you figure there are 30,000-something members in the USPA, and only 20,000 of them are currently jumping, 1/3 would be close to 7000, and that's just in the US. I don't think there are 7000 potential wingsuit customers in the entire world. Does anyone have an idea of how many suits the manufacturers can ship in a week? I know the backlog is months-long, but how many orders are completed in a week? Three? Four? More? Less? I would be surprised if any of them are selling more than 100 or 200 suits per year. Overall it has to be less than 1000 all together worldwide. I'm just guessing here, anyone have some insider info? Outsider info?

Based on your responses to the questions about gear, I would suggest it's a very bad idea. You seem to lack some basic understanding of the gear and possible gear issues, so you have to wonder if you are missing any other 'basic' information. There is a lot to learn from instructors without having to actually jump with them. I would be very surprised if your AFF instructors were not willing to help with some basic skills pointers and planning a solo skydive, free of charge. You'll make the jump on your own, but the idea and the planning can be handled with the assistance of an instructor. In addition to helping to ensure your safety, you'll also learn more about proper planning and gear selection for your future jumps.

I don't think that statement is accurate. What you seem to be saying is that the wingsuit industry with regards to it's consumer base is about the same size as the canopy industry is with regards to it's consumer base. The 'market' of either one would be the available consumers for a product or service. Given that, the wingsuit market is much smaller than the canopy market. Every jumper needs two canopies, and fewer than 1/3 (a guess) of all jumpers owns a wingsuit.

You're not that smart, are you? Not for jumping a 'wingsuit' in 1965 with no instruction, but for not seeing the bigger picture. What was the statistic for the early wingsuit jumpers? 90-something percent of them ended up dead, so wingsuits fell out of favor (or might have even been banned to some degree). Of course, you were not one of the unlucky majority. You went on to jump without a rig on, and countless other adventures back in the 'bad old days' of questionable gear and safety practices. Despite all this, here you remain, alive and well a lifetime later. What's the conclusion? You are not the average bear. Most of the people who did what you did, or even came close ended up dead, but somehow you managed to pull it off, along with all of your other hijinks. Not being the average bear means that the vast majority of people should NOT follow in your footsteps, and you should certainly not be advising young jumpers to do so. If you are going to make a reccomendation to a person you know nothing of aside from an internet post, assume that person is a slow-witted klutz, and err on the side of caution. To suggest your path is the way for others to follow is ignorant and irresponsible at best.

It's already happened, we came up with 200 jumps, did you miss the memo? Are you suggesting that a jumper might be ready to wingsuit with 20 jumps? 50 jumps? You have a huge sitck up your ass with regards to the 200 jump number that has been established, but you seem to lack an idea for an alternate suggestion. Any number you could pick as the min jump number for a wingsuit would be waaaay too high for some other jackass who thinks they know it all. Keep in mind that having 200 jumps doesn't mean your free wingsuit shows up in the mail along with your invitation to the wingsuit worls record attempt. Reaching the 200 jump limit means that you are now ready to be evaluated for yoru skills and being learning how to wingsuit. Sure thing, but the more distrations you have, the more likely it is that one of them will triumph over your vigilance and fuck you right up the ass. You already know what goes in to making a basic solo skydive. All of the factors, the gear, the environment, the weather, etc. Now add to that a dozen or more items to your gear check, the need for a freefall flight plan, the fact that you're about to jump out of a plane in essentailly a straight-jacket, the upcoming deployment while waering a straight-jacket, and the major distraction of being of the verge of flying a suit around the sky at 100+mph. Can you see how as the factors stack up, so do the odds against you? Your point of view is understandable given your time in the sport. The journey seems short to those with limited view. In time your horizons will open up, and you'll begin to see the true scope of what's ahead of you. The best analogy I can think of that applies to most jumpers is that of driving a car. most of us have been driving for at least a few years, and probably have a good grasp of that task. Now think back to your first year behind the wheel. Not the first month or two when you were still scared shitless, like when you were a student, but after you became comfortable behind the wheel. You had the windows down, the stero up, and life was good. Now think back to all the times you went to adjust the radio, and drifted out of your lane. It happened to all of us. Now think about when you adjusted your radio on the way home last night. You managed to work the buttons and stay in your lane at the same time, no problem. Your ability to control the car, and time your radio work allowed you to stay in your lane. You can take this concept, and look at all facets of your driving ability, and see how much better you are than you were after six months on the road. There's almost no comparison. The key now is to remember how good you thought you were at 16.5 years old. Back than you were sure that there was no reason you shouldn't be driving a Ferrari with a hooker in the passenger seat. Older folks may have suggested that it wouldn't be a good idea, but to you, with your frame of reference thought it would have been perfectly fine. Do you see? Now you realize how bad you were at driving, and how the best bet was for you to pay attention to the basic skills, and leave the fancy stuff for the more experienced drivers. Now you can see the level of proficiency you have reached behind the wheel, and everything from your car control to your general awareness of your situation is elevated well beyond what the younger you could have imangined. The problem with skydiving is that you never know what's going to work until it's over. Can I jump in these winds? Maybe, you never know until you get in the plane and jump. If you land without injury, the answer is yes. Can I jump this canopy? Maybe, again, exit the plane and see if you go home or to the hospital later that day. Nobody can answer any of those questions with any degree of certaincy beforehand. Nobody. Can I handle the workload of a wingsuit, and still be able to make good decisions and a safe skydive? Maybe, but nobody wants to find out the hard way that you can't. So we put a limitation in place that represents a conservative starting point where the majoroty of interested jumpers should be able to handle a wingsuit. Some jumpers will be ready before 200 jumps, and some jumpers will never be ready, and there's no easy way to account for those people. It was left up to the masses to police themselves, and then a kid forgot to put on his legstraps. Before that there were dozens of flat spins, low pulls, close calls, and general mayhem, but the tipping point was the kid with no legstraps. The wild west had run it's course, and proven that it was not the way to go. Let me save you some trouble right now, if you have a problem with the concpet of jump numbers being used as the metric for your advancement into expert level skydiving, quit jumping now. Everything fun you are going to want to do is going to be governed by your jump numbers. What you don;t understand now is that it's really the best, universal method for regualting the sport. There's no opinion or judgement involved, 200 jumps is 200 jumps. If you can't deal with that, save yourself the heartache and get out now. If you can man up and deal with the reality of it, push through and toe the line for a few hundred more jumps, and as you apporach the other side of the coin, and shift from newbie to intermediate, you'll look back at the newbies and your time as a newbie, and the fog will begin to lift. A few hundred more jumps as you go from interdemtiate to expert, it will be that much more clear.

That makes me consider the amount of time and money the auto companies have invested in airbags and airbag systems. Literally tens of millions of dollars or more. It makes me go on to think of the number of airbags that have been on the road, and the track record they have of 'doing no harm' without any sort of periodic checks. Then I move that thinking over the AADs and skydiving, and I realize that far less time and money went into developing any AAD. Even if it was considerable when compared to my checkbook, the combined airbag R&D money at Honda, Toyota, GM, BMW, ect, dwarfs any budget Airtec ever had. Then I go on to think of the number of AADs out there in succesful operation for more then 4 years without any checks, and I compare that to the number of ADDs out there that have been checked on a 4-year cycle. I end up thinking that having your AAD inspected on a regular basis is a good idea.

What to wear in freefall is not as simple as some seem to think. Of course when jumping with others, depending on the type of jump and the type of people, can make all the difference in the world. At this early stage, however, you should be more worried about the safety aspect of wearing clothing not meant for freefall in freefall. As others have mentioned, a loose shirt can blow up and cover your handles, both the cutaway/reserve in front, or the hackey in the back. Depending on what type of pants/shorts you have, a pocket can turn itself inside out, or if there are any pull strings/draw strings that can get loose, they can wrap around various rig parts. Keep in mind that any sort of tucking or securing you do must be able to stand up to someone grabbing the loose fabric and vigorously shaking it back and forth for a full minute. If anything comes undone then, it won't stay put in freefall. Even that is a shitty test, and anything that isn't 'bulletproof' on the ground, most likey will not make it from exit to opening. Of course comfort and safety are also considerations. Tight pants, for the guys, not so good. Shorts and a T-shirt, not going to help you if you land off or have a hard landing. Rocks or gravel under you when you pound in leave a bruise when the impact is through a jumpsuit, and do not bruise when it's your bare leg hitting them. The blood that would cause a bruise flows freely onto your sock through the hole in your skin. I have yet to see the shcool who denies grads the use of a jumpsuit until that can wrangle their own. If you're unusually big or small, they might need the big boy suit or the mighty tighty for student for a jump, but an average sized guy can count on a student suit being available. Wear a suit to minimize distractions for the time being. No need to add checking your clothing for proper freefall configuration to your gear check at this early date. Get comfortable jumping without coaches or instructors for now, and ease your way into skydiving in things that were never made for skydiving later.

Since I'm the stepping off point for this line of discussion, let's be clear that I did not say I found it hard to believe that a device could be made to work for long periods of time without regular maintenence. What I found hard to believe was that a jumper would be happy to jump a device featuring a cutter around their reserve closing loop, and a computer calling the shots, without regular maintenence. The truth is that the ideal situation is both. You build the device to the best of your abilities AND you bring it in for regular check-ups to be sure everything is how you intended it to be in the first place. This seems a far more prudent SOP than, 'Here you go, I'm sure this thing will be fine for 20 years, have a nice life'. Considering the current 'standard' for reglar AAD check-ups is every four years, and as previously mentioned, rigs need to be opened every six months anyway, submitting to such a schedule is not much of an imposition. It just seems to me that to be resistant to such an idea is nothing more than a case of severe denial. To wrap that thing around your reserve closing loop and just, 'hope for the best', for an, 'undetermined length of time', hardly seems like an intelligent approach to skydiving, or skydiving equipment maintenence.

It's not the suits, it's the need for the suits. Experienced jumpers will have their own jumpsuits, and that's what they would want to wear in the tunnel. If you look at the guys in the video on the website, you can see that they are average sized guys, but all of them are wearing very baggy suits that you would only see on a much fatter jumper if this was on a DZ, not in a tunnel. I'm not sure that tunnel can get enough speed to support your average jumper in their own suit. That's why experienced jumpers tend to shy away from that type of open tunnel and more toward the higher-powered, enclosed, Skyventure-type tunnel. Having more power, the Skyventure tunnels allow jumpers to use their own skydiving jumpsuit, and even get into freeflying as well. Additionally, the enclsoed tunnel allow the jumper to make a 'mistake' and not fall out of the airstream. If a certain manuver slides them into the wall, they can use the wall to arrest the slide, and continue flying. In an open tunnel, that type of situation would have the jumper out of the air stream and on the mat every time. The open style tunnels are more suited to tourists and non-jumpers. Being next to Niagra Falls, you should have no shortage of those folks. How about a honeymoon special for the newlyweds?

Probably not. Not in this case where operator error is causing the problem, and follwing some simple rules can eliminate the problem all together. Moving the tail up is not an easy process. It would require recertification in the new position, and they're not selling enough of these to jumpers to cover that cost. They're not even selling enough to certify a plane in the first place, which is why they use the Cresco airframe as the starting point, it's already certified. Think of the tail (elevator and rudder) as being attached to a lever arm (the fuselage) in order to move the wing into different attitudes. Any time you alter the size or position of the rudder, elevator, or fuselage, you change the mechanics of that lever arm. Let's say you raise the elevator, and now it's in a differeent airstream than before. If it get's more airflow, then it would need a reduction in surface area to apply the same force to the airframe, or vice versa if it gets less airflow. What effect will the higher elevator have on the rudder? Will it add or reduce airflow to the ridder? Would the rudder need an adjustment in size as well? How about the airframe? Moving the elevator further up the vertical tail will require the tail to be reinforced. With the elevator routing it's forde down through the vertical tail, and down into the fuselage, it will need to be beefed up. How will the extra weight effect the useful load, or weight and balance calculations? What about the elevator/elevator trim control cables? There's no longer a straight shot back to the elevator, so now all cables need to make a 90 degree turn to go up the tail, and another 90 to meet the new elevator. How do you design that system? What weight penalty will that bring on? It's a real pain in the ass, and not something I can see as happeneding in response to the fact that jumpers can't communicate with a pilot, divers can't just wait forward of the door for their group to exit, and pilots can't keep the airspeed up on jumprun. Fixing those are easy. Moving the tail so everyone else can continue to act like a bonehead, not so easy.

All white makes it look like a reserve. Or all yellow. Or orange. All white also turns into all brown sooner or later. Skydiving is not a 'clean' sport. In the end, I think it boils down to choice. When you order new gear, you have a shitload of them, and most people can come up with more than one that they like. That said, my container two containers ago was all royal blue. Everything. On the order form where there were 30 boxes to fill in the colors, I just wrote royal bule in big letters across them all. It looked good, but at the same time my canopies were all multi colored ( I bought them used). Lose the emotional attachment to skydiving gear, it's a dead end street. Especially for a rig you don't own. Based on your other threads, I reccomend a moderately drunk female in her mid-20s. That should get your 'emotional energy' refocused in short order.

Being a 'student' rig, could be better defined as a rig configured for student use. They're not fundamentally different that sport rigs, aside from some options that make them better suited to student use, many of which you would not even realize are there. Adjustable harnesses, reserve side BOC PC extraction, and a student AAD are the main features you will find on a student rig, but not on a sport rig. None of these are features that you as a jumper will have to worry about, so the transition to sport gear should be seamless. The biggest difference will be in the canopy, and that depends on the model and size. Ideally, you'll transition down to a smaller canopy using the student rigs, so when you go to jump a sport rig, the canopy is either the same size as the last canopy you jumped, or only one size smaller. In the case of moving down one size, you'll want to make sure that you had a number of jumps on the one size up canopy, and that you were confident and comfortable before downsizing. In terms of how the canopy will handle, it depends, again, on the model and size. Don't expect a huge difference if you are not changing sizes, or only moving down one size. In either case, anytime you are jumping a new-to-you canopy, just ask around the DZ to see if anyone with expereince on that canopy can give you some insight. About freeflying in student rigs, it varies from rig to rig. Typically, student rigs are older, more 'well used' rigs. Some of them were not freefly friendly when they were brand new, and some of them were but have fallen into disrepair since brand new (not dangerous for student work, but not top shape for 170mph freeflying either). Different combinations of canopy sizes, and wearing on tuck tabs and velcro will contribute to making a rig less freefly friendly, and that describes a good portion of the student gear out there.