davelepka

He had an exit weight of 360 lbs, this guy would be more than 100lbs more, closer to 140 lbs more. Figure a body weight of 420 lbs, plus a converted tandem rig would probably weigh in around 75lbs, for an exit weight just shy of 500lbs. I know a handful of jumpers with an exit weight of 140lbs, the difference between the two guys. I remember Atsaubrey, and he may go down in history as the top end of how big a jumper could be. Anyone have any stories that can top a 360 lb exit weight? Modern day examples with square canopies?

I've always thought the opposite was true. On a rig larger than your hips/back, the laterals and backpad make a 'corner' and there's nothing touching your body in that corner. The cut in laterals lets the harness stay close to your body, and the rig hang out where it needs to. If your rig is smaller than your hips/back, the laterals have to wrap around your hips to get to the backpad, so there's no 'corner', and no place where the rig or harness is not in contact with your body.

Just for reference, most DZs have aweight restriction of betwwen 220lbs and 240 lbs. There have been several threads along the same lines as this one, but those guys were all generally under 280lbs, typically in the 260 to 275lb range. All of those guys required special gear, and were limited to a handful of DZs that would train them at that weight. You might be fighting an uphill battle. As mentioned earlier, you'll be falling at a tremendous speed, probably in excess of 150 or 160 mph, and that puts you close to the maximum deployment speed for many main and reserver canopies. Even if they don't blow up on opening, there is a good chance that the openings will be very hard, along the lines of injury-causing hard. If you can get this done, get video, and post it on Youtube, because it will be a world record for sure.

An RSL does most of the work of a Skyhook, just a little slower and for a lot less money. Most 'bigger' used rigs will come with an RSL, and if not adding one is fairly inexpensive. If you happen to find a used rig with a Skyhook, or are buynig new, you might as well go for it. If you're shopping for used rigs, however, finding the right combination of harness size, and main/reserve conatiner size can be tough enough. If you limit yourself to just Skyhook equipped rigs, or Vector 3s cheap enough for you to add the $400 for the retrofit, you might be looking for a long time. You might be better off being open to a Skyhook, but not making it a deal breaker. Get your hands on a rig, and use it as often as possible. Be mindful of your experience level, and plan your skydives as such to include appropriate pull and hard deck altitudes. The Skyhook will have your reserve out a couple hundred feet quicker than an RSL, so if you need to cutaway below 300 or 400ft, the Skyhook may make the difference. Anything higher then that, and the RSL will do it's thing and you should have an open canopy before impact. Of course, both are back up devices, so always pull both of your handles, and do it well above 300 or 400 ft, and you should have no problems. As mentioned in another thread, just about any Jav, Infinity, Vector, Wings, Talon, Icon, or Mirage built in the last 10 years will be freefly friendly.

I agree that anywhere in the shoulder area is a bad idea because of risers, 3 rings, RSL, etc. Even on the mudflap seems like a shitty idea anyway because of the angle. What are you trying to film that you can't just put it on your helmet? The helmet is a good spot for a bumch of reasons. It's sort of safe (for the camera) because you'll tend to take pretty good care not hit your head (or camera) on anything. It also helps because it allows you to aim the camera just by looking. The big one, especially in this case, is the opening. Your neck takes up most of the opening shock so your head (and camera) is fairly insulated from any abuse. The harness, on the other hand, takes 100% of the opening shock, which can't be good for the camera, and could only make it more likely to fall off. If you do harness-mount your go-pro, post the footage so we can see what you get.

Come on Mike, tell me how you really feel. Just let it all out, get the poison out of your system.

What does 'complete' mean? On a non-xbraced canopy I use two S folds. The first is folding the slider grommet area up and on top of the warning label (more or less), and the second is folding the top of the coccon up on top of the fist fold. For an X braced canopy, where the coccon is shorter and fatter, I use a single S fold where I fold the top of the coccon up on top of the warning label (pretty much). Just to be clear, each of the S fold described above are actually two folds, like one fold up and one fold back over, resulting in a single S fold. It's tough to descirbe in writing, but I think you know what I mean.

I'm the bad guy for dropping the F bomb, but it's cool for you to try and take advantage of an obvious error from Aerodyne, and then swear off their products in a public forum bacause your bad behavoir wasn't rewarded, right? Pardon my fucking language, but I'll take my cues as to what is, and is not, right from someone with a better track record.

I agree. That's why I suggested that if he had done the right thing, he should have expected a T-shirt, or something similar. As it sits, we don't know what he's getting, and like I said I hope it's a big glass of 'shut the fuck up'. Let's keep in mind there's a good chance the person who made the mistake was a jumper. Now think about how you would feel if you made a mistake like that at your job. Even if you don't have to hear about from 'upper management', you still blew it in front of your co-workers. Not the makings of a good day at the office. So this guy had a chance to help out a jumper, or at least a company that caters to and employs a good number of jumpers. Instead, he tried to take advantage, made an issue out of it, and then posted it on a public forum. I don't know if the OP is a dick, but that's some dick-like behavior for sure.

There's a chance that you have some contacts at Aerodyne, and can get him the canopy for $1300. It could also be that you have a new or almost new Pilot you can sell the guy for $1300. I'm really hoping that you're going to tell him to grow a pair and shut the fuck up, and you just wanted to do it over a private e-mail. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

How is it ethical for the OP to take advantage of a simple administrative error? Ethical would have been calliing them and saying, "Hey, I just noticed that the web price on the Pilots is only $1300, is that right price, or is that an error?". I don't even know what the regular price of a Pilot is, but I have to imagine that it's at least $1800, and it's unreasonable for the OP to assume the they just knocked $500 of the price of a currently produced, very popular canopy. Trying to take advatage of the error was unethical, and then holding it against Aerodyne in a public forum is just childish. This isn't a giant multi-national corporation like Walmart mis-marking the price of a $10 widget, it's a realtively small business that made an obvious and significant error in posting the price. If he had been a stand-up guy, and reported the error, or at least inquired about the validity of the price, he might be entilted to a T-shirt for being a 'good guy'. For tyring to take advantage of the situation, and then I can only imagine his attitude when he was denied the purchase, I'm not the least bit surprised that he got what he deserved - nothing.

Nice work. I would actually suggest that you do a solo or two now that you can. Take your time, plan out your jump ahead of time to include how you want to exit, any freefall manuvers you want to work on (or just relax and look around), alti checks, pull altitude, and your canopy flight. Then, go out, follow your plan, and enjoy the accomplishment of planning and performing a successful skydive on your own, after all, that what you've been trianing for.

WTF are you talking about? Since when does being tall have nay effect on a rear riser landing? Even when you have the full effect of the C/D lines and steering lines, the control stroke of the rear riser before the stall is less than a foot (which is benig generous). The only jumper I know who lacks the reach to utilize the full control stroke of the rear risers is a guy with one arm. Tall or short, when you disconnect the steering lines you are giving up a significant portion of flight surface in anything but full flight (and even then it's likey just to flutter in the breeze). The result is that you end flying what is essentially a smaller canopy than you started with. To compoind the problem, when you attempt to flare that canopy, you are flaring with an equally smaller portion of the canopy reducing your ability to create lift, or serodynamic drag. You're flying less canopy, with your ability to arrest both the descent rate and forward speed being comprimised. This is why even the BASE guys, with 300 sq ft canopies designed to fly slow and land soft report pounding in after tossing their toggles. How is it you came to be landing a skydiving canopy with no steering lines, what size was it, and how many times did you end up in this situation so as to 'know what you are doing'?

In a thread in the swooping forum (Swoop Gone Wrong - The Aftermath), a jumper from Sweeden posted some info about WL and canopy type regulations in that country, and his exact words are- I sent a PM to get some clarification on a few points, and as it turns out, no jumper is permitted to jump an eliptical canopy with less than 300 jumps. Beyond 300 jumps, you are required to take (and pass) the two canopy control courses mentioned above. Even then, you are still held to the WL limits of the chart with your eliptical until you have reached 500 jumps. Swooping any canopy of any kind requries a min. of 500 jumps, and passing the two aforementioned canopy control courses and a swoop specific canopy control course. In this instance, they have found a way to make the 'test out' option work. Since the 'test out' option in this case is optional itself, it becomes a practical reality. A jumper not wishing to test out, is not required to, and can simply follow the chart until they reach a WL they are happy with or they advance beyond the 500 jumps limit of the chart. The problem with only having a 'test out' option, is that it requires everyone to take a test in order to advance, so you're either stuck with your first canopy for 500 jumps, or you have to take a test. This is why the test would have to be universally accessible to everyone, as-in at evey USPA DZ in the country. An additional problem, is that if the test is not used to advance through a pre-written progression (like a WL chart), you run into the problems where test administrator A feels that Jim Jumper would be fine on 'X' canopy, but test admin. B at another DZ feels that Jim Jumper is not ready for canopy 'X'. So when Jim Jumper shopws up at that DZ, he may have a problem. So first it's the Volvo, and now this, the Sweeds have done it again. Their method seems to solve all of the complaints that each side of this issue has about the other side. The WL BSR crowd gets their WL chart, non-negotiable up to 300 jumps. There is a test-out option for those who want to push harder, but that is not required, and a less aggresive jumper can choose to pass on the test-out option and simply proceed within the confines of the chart. The 'test-out' crowd gets just that, the option for jumpers to move beyond the confines of the chart. Testing out requires continued education, and testing out for swooping requires even further education. Seeing as the 'test out' option is optional, is eliminates the problems of making the test standards universal, and the test itself universally available. Thoughts? Anyone? Bueller?

Z-hills has trailers you can rent for a pretty reasonable price. Camping is fun for a couple days, but having electricity with a fridge and a coffee pot can really make a difference. I'm pretty sure you could get a deal if you were staying to two months. They also have a nice shoer house with plenty of hot water.

I'd be interested to hear his thoughts, now that he has jumped a wingsuit, about having to wait until 200 jumps to do so. Having been the sport for such a short time, he should have a good recollection of his thoughts, feelings, and abilities along the way. In retrospect, is he glad he waited until 200 jumps, or does he look back now confident that he could have done just as well with 100 jumps? Just wondering how the BSR looks from the other side.

That is 100% correct. Everyone makes mistakes, and in that case it was pilot error, and a simple mistake at that. However, the line before the one you quoted read - - due to the fact that I would give an accomplished military aviator the benefit of the doubt based on his merits, of course until an investigation reveals otherwise. It's those last few words that really make the difference. If this were a low time private pilot involved in contunued VFR flight in to IFR conditions who spun a 172 into the ground, I would be more willing to jump to the conclusion of pilot error. Being an accomplished military aviator, flying a sophisticated twin-engine fighter through an airshow routine, I think it's reasonable to hold back any knee-jerk reaction to place cause and blame so quickly. Maybe that's just me?

I address it several times in the thread. The only incidents we have hard facts on are fatal incidents. If the majority of those are jumpers with more than 600 or 700 jumps, then so be it. Non-fatal incidents are another story. There is no record of the hard facts of these incidents, and in some cases there is no record at all. I can think of a handful of broken ankles, tib/fibs, and femurs that were never reported to anyone (some before DZ.com, and some since). If you look at the non-fatal incidents on DZ.com, you'll find they out number the fatal incidents, and then when you figure in all of the non-fatal incidents that are never recorded, it's clear that the non-fatal incidents out number the fatal incidents handily. The argument then becomes that the non-fatal incidents may themselves also be mostly made up of high time jumpers. I cannot dis-prove this anymore then the nay-sayers can prove it. This is generally where I look to the countries already with a WL and canopy type regulation in place. They may indeed have statistics available to indicate the success of the program, but I don't have, nor am I really interesting in getting them. I look at the fact that the programs remains in place after several years as an indicator that the regulatory bodies in those countries are happy with the results. Be it an outright success, or simply that it has done no harm thus far, they keep the program in place, and that says something to me. You're comparing two different things. If you were to use a test-out standard in determining canopy progression, each tester would have different opinions of a jumpers performance and readiness for this canopy or that. A jumper can be cleared by a more liberal test administrator, who may feel that the jumper just barely 'squeaked by', but passed none the less. That same jumper would have a problem if they showed up at a DZ where the test administrator was more conservative. Maybe that test admin. would have wanted to see a 'stellar' performance on the test for the jumper in question to be jumping the same canopy the other guy passed them on. With a WL BSR, the desicions would be made in advance by one person, or a group or persons, as to what is acceptable for given number of jumps. The standard would apply equally to every jumper at every DZ. Jumpers could expect that the DZO at one DZ will be referencing the same chart that the S&TA will be referencing at another. As is the situation now, either of those two will retain the right to deny anyone to jump at any time for any reason, but a jumper can expect that it will not be due to their canopy choice, a canopy they are permitted to jump elsewhere. Smart people with an interest in this working would ultimately make the call as to what the chart would allow. Expect the chart to reflect WL and canopy types that will be somewhat below the ability of the best and brightest, and some what challenging for the less talented. Such is the definition or 'average' or 'reasonable', they would be good choices for the majority of jumpers as determined by people with the experience and qualifications to make such a judgement.

In this case, I think it's exactly what it appears to be. A DZ having a boogie over Labor Day weekend and another DZ having a boogie over Labor Day weekend. I don't think there's anything going on beside DZs trying to have fun over a long holiday weekend. Even if they were 1 mile away from each other, both DZs have staff and dedicated fun jumpers who all want to have fun at their own DZ over a long weekend.

No, be afraid of your thought process, it's leading you down several dangerous paths.

You are correct about Vmc, and that flying below that at low altitudes is not a good idea. However, in this case, everyone has made the assumption that this is an engine-out scenario, when it could have been any one of literally 100's of components malfunctioning leading to the crash. Even if you were above Vmc, any number of control system malfunctions could casue an unrecoverable condition at low altitude. This is the risk of the arishow performance, and this is why low altitude aerobatics or demonstrations are not flown by just any pilot. Given the level of performance required to fly an F-18 in normal operations, and the fact that those pilots would then be further distilled down to those capable of flynig the F-18 in airshows, I would assume the pilot was acting correctly, within the regs for the aircraft and the airshow until an investigation reveals otherwise. You're right about Vmc, but wrong to think that an airshow qualified F-18 pilot made such a basic blunder as dropping below Vmc on a high alpha pass.

Of course he is. For the purpose of this discussion, and speaking to people who I know are skydivers but might not be BASE jumpers, the in/out of the guidering description is the quickest/easiest to explain. Now if the OP was really talking about routing the steering lines outside of the guidering I would have busted him on the fact that once he unstowed his brakes he woud not be able to let go of the toggles without losing them. Of course, he's not talking about that, and I didn't mention the other thing.

That's jacked up. Your instructor is informative because it's his job, and he would be just as informative if you were actually jumping. Not to pile on, but in my opinion, you're getting hosed two ways. First off, if you made an appointment to be at the DZ at a certain to make your student jumps, you should take your place in the line-up when you arrive, and jump when it's your turn. People arriving after you should not be jumping before you, and the DZ should not be scheduling too many people at one time. Second, if you paid for the entire course up front, they should make it a priority to get you up in the air. You did your part in full, pay the bill, up front and now that they are holding your cash, they should be doing their best to get you up. Tandems do make money for the DZ, but so do students. Students who pay for all the jumps up front make the most money for the DZ. I'm guessing you paid close to 10x the price of a tandem for your package, and they should treat you as such. The bad news for you is that it won't get any better once you have your license, except for the fact that you can take it and jump somewhere else. Fun jumpers make very little money for the DZ, and generally are the first on the chopping block when the tandems/students start to get backed up.

You're misunderstanding what he was saying. He's not talking about a standard rear riser landing, he's talking about a rear riser landing when there is no load on the tail from the steering lines, as if you cut them to clear a line over. He mentions canopies between 240 and 303sq ft, so my guess is he's talking about BASE canopies, where you can throw the toggles in the event of a line over (the steering lines are not routed through the guide ring). This is the configuration the OP wants to use on his skydivign canopy so he can clear a line over without cutting away or using a hook knife. The difference is that when you use your rears on an otherwise intact canopy, the steering line still hold the tail in place, and since the toggle is againt the guide ring, and the guide ring is attached to the riser, pulling down the riser also pulls down the toggle an equal amount, maintaining pressure on the tail, and keeping it in place. When you throw the toggles, and the steering lines are not through the guide ring, there is nothing holding the tail in place. In level flight it may just casue a flutter, but when you pull the rears, you're only pulling the portion of the canopy from mid-chord to the D line attachmnet points. Everything aft of the D lines, like the tail, isn't supporting any weight or creating any lift nor aerodynamic braking, like when you flare with toggles or rears with attached steering lines. Canopies properly configured for skydiving can be easily flared with the rear risers, provided the jumper practices up high, and becomes familair with the rear riser stall-point (it can be touchy). As for the OP, he's seems hell-bent on using throw-over toggles on his skydiving main canopy, despite advice to the contrary from both riggers and BASE jumpers. Not surprisingly, this jumper also claims the in the event of a line over when jumping with conventional toggles, his EP is to extract his hook knife and simply cut the offending line, so I suppose the situation with the BASE toggle set-up isn't all that surprising.

Just to clarify, I'm not making this shit up, the italics in the following quote are your italics of my post, and the reposne is your reposnse to my quote You did agree to it while responding to previous post. Below is the question I posed, and underneath is your repsone, both cut and pasted from one of your above posts.