davelepka

How about this - ever eat a bird? Look at the size of a chicken breast as compared to the size of the thigh. Big difference, and chickens don't even fly anymore. Now look at non-bird (aka a human). Compare the size of the breast muscle to the size of the thigh muscle. Big difference. Man was built to motivate himself with his legs, not arms. No amount of technology is going to change that. As many have mentioned, the limiting factor here is the strength of the pilot and their ability to support the wings attached to their suit. Also as mentioned before, without wingsuit experiecne you might not know that after 2 or 4 mintues of flight in a current style wingsuit, the best word to descirbe it would be exhaustion. More experienced pilots build up their strength so they can fly stronger for more of the flight, but I would imagine that if you took a 'stronger' pilot and gave them a 5 or 6 mintue flight, they too would be winded and worn out. Man can physically adapt to their situation, but it's a slow process and limited in it's scope. You're assertion that much larger suit could 'easliy' be flown for a much longer amount of time is just plain wrong. If it became essential to survivial, maybe in a few hundred years of natural selection humans might be better able to handle those stresses, but that's a long ways off. Two other points - keep in mind that as passionate as you think you are about this, the guys responding to you are ten times as passionate. If anyone wants to 'go back up' or be able to land a wingsuit it's everyone in this forum. If they're telling you it's not possible, it's not because they're just nay-sayers, it's because they've put more of their time, thought and life into wingsuit flight than you, and have recognized the limitations. The other is that you keep referencing the nay-sayers of early flight, and how they were all wrong, but that was with their limited scope of aeronautical knowledge. We do no suffer from such a limitation as man has achieved flight and wingsuit flight, and we have seen the truth of what is, and is not, possible.

Actual cost - priceless. Not really, but close. Maybe it's just the the time I started jumping, but the idea of an AAD that doesn't need to be checked out scares me. On any given skydive I spend most of my time in a position where a misfire could make some real problems for me. Hanging out on a camera step, in freefall not belly to earth or exceeding the placarded deployment speed of my reserve, or diving hard at the ground in a swoop (who remembers Adrian Nichols). I want that shit checked out on a regualr basis, and I don't mind paying for it. In truth, I don't even mind the 12 year life limit. I bought a Cypres 1 new about 14 years ago, and was initially pissed that after I bought it they told me it would eventually become a doorstop. In looking back at it, the unit served me well for 1000's fo jumps (I guess it was working, all I know for sure is that it never mis-fired), so I have to trust that Aritec made the right call in terms of MX, battery life, and overall unit life. They had to know that competitors would come along, and that the MX and lifespan would be marketing targets for the start-ups for sure, but they stuck to their guns and stood by their protocols. You mean to tell me that my reserve needs to be inspected every 6 months, but you have an AAD that NEVER needs to be looked at? Fabirc and strings vs. printed circuit boards, pressure sensors, switches and wires? You tell me what's going to fail first.

Just to be clear, these websties and the skyride scam are both intended for 'first timer' tandems only. Skyride has no interest in experienced jumpers. The 'watch out' part of 'Watch out Skydiving Community' isn't intended as a warning to experienced jumpers against using these websites, it's intended as a heads-up that the skyride bunch are back at it, stealing photos and content, misleading customers, and giving skydiving in general a bad name.

If you're not trying to get the slider behind your head for performance reasons, then you should just get a set of the Slink bumpers from PD and leave the slider up above your risers. It's easier, faster, and safer then stowing it below your toggles. Have a rigger look at the drawstrings and channels on your slider to see if they can get it to stay collapsed. Sometimes you can sew the mouth of the channel so it is narrower, and the drawstring can't easily slip back in on it's own. It's literally a five minute job, and usually does the trick.

Indeed. However, the OP is in an unusual circumstance, where his personal rig will be of no use to just about anyone else, which is another way of saying that his chances for a 'fair market' value resale are between slim and none. Let's say he does buy a new container, and for one reason or another needs to sell it. Of course we know the value will depreciate the minute he takes it out of the box, but having a harness built for a guy 6' 8" means that any prespective buyer will be looking at a harness resize to make it fit them. So the price of the rig would have to relfect 'fair market' value, minus the cost of the resize in order to make it appealing to any buyers. If he buys used, and invests in a new harness, he will be adding value to the rig for his personal use, while maintaining a lower initial investment. He will still have to deal with the cost of a harness resize if he needs to sell it, but he won't have to add that loss to the loss from the depreciation of a brand new rig. The fact is that his harness sizing requirements are going to cost him more than the average sized jumper when buying gear. It just seems to me that spending less up front, and losing less on the back end is a good choice for a new jumper who may, or may not, stay with the sport. If he does stay with the sport and eventually invest a brand new rig, the new harness on the old container will extend it's useful life, and make it a great back-up rig, as he'll never be able to borrow anything to make a back-to-back load.

Don't confuse a custom harness with a custom harness/container. You can purchase a used harness/container and have the harness re-sized or replaced as needed. It would be possible to save between $500 and $1000 on the final price of a harness/container buying used and getting the harness adjusted for you. The fit of the final product would be the same as if you purchased an all new harness/container. What you need to do is shop around for a used harness/container, and when you find one that fits the canopies you need, get the serial number. Contact the manufacturer with that number and your measurements to get an estimate for the costs of the harness work. The price can vary from $150 to $500 depending on the type of harness, and amount of adjustment needed. Provided that the estimate combined with the cost of the used harness/container is reasonable, arrange to have a rigger inspect the harness/container before you purchase it. This will ensure that it airworthy, and you won't be 'surprised' with extra repair costs when you send it to the factory for the harness work.

My question would be why not? It only takes ten seconds to turn it off, and ten to turn back on again when you get to the ground. What's the downside? In reality, if you ride the plane down due to weather your jumping day might be over anyway, so you can disregard the ten seconds it takes to turn it back on. I would rather take the time to turn off any AAD then risk an unwanted firing in the plane. That would take alot longer than ten seconds to correct.

I just heard on the morning news that channel 5 is going to re-broadcast it on Saturday to make up for the trouble. I'm not sure if this was a national problem or limited to our area. Of course, I did not actually see the problems because I was at the DZ like a real skydiver. Freeflying with Pat and Joe, and wrapping it all up with a sunset tracking dive chasing a wingsuit rodeo as the base, but I'm sure you had a nice time watching Lost.

Those same guys, around that same time also thought that cigarettes and bacon were good for you. The whole point of Yeager's flight was to learn about the sound barrier. Now we know, and have reason to believe that an unpowered craft might not be able to punch through that sucker. This actually brings up a good point about the jump, does anyone know what sort of data logging they're going to be doing, and what they're using for that?

I would guess drag. It increases significantly as you approach the speed of sound and this would 'encourage' you to hit terminal velocity sooner, as terminal is simply when drag equals the force of gravity. Even if the thin air allows gravity to have it's way with you, the increased drag would smack gravity back into line as you get close to the sound barrier. Keep in mind that the sound barrier is not just another notch on an airspeed indicator, it's when you literally begin to go faster than the sound waves around you. These waves build up into a pressure 'wall' that you have to surpass in order to continue accelerating. I have no idea if this will play a factor here, but I would assume that's what the OP was thinking.

You can make $90 a jump, provided that you do every step of the process. Train, gear up, jump, shoot the video (with your expensive camera you paid for), pack the tandem and edit the video. All in you're looking at between 60 and 90 minutes of work if you handle the whole show. For $35 a jump, you typically meet your trained, dressed tandem somewhere near the plane, make the jump, and drop the rig in the packing room. Anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes in total. No expensive camera required. Every tandem will be somewhere in between those two extremes, and pay will vary depending on how much or how little the TI wants to do. The one exception, and this is rare, is if the TI owns the tandem rig themselves. Some DZs don't have their own tandem rigs, or they don't have enough, so they farm the work out to TIs who own their own rigs. They get paid significantly more because the DZ is essentailly 'renting' the rig from them. They could take home $100+ for a tandem jump, but a portion of that goes to rig upkeep. Certain parts on a tamdem rig wear out quickly, and are not cheap to replace. On the other hand, if it's raining the TI gets $0. If the wind is too strong, the TI gets $0. If there are no tandems scheduled on a certain day, the TI gets $0. If the TI gets injured, even a sprained wrist or ankle, the TI gets $0.

There is no such thing as a 'new' smell to a rig. It smells like nylon unless you get it dirty or otherwise contaminated, and then it smells like whatever got it dirty. If you never get it dirty, it will always smell like nylon. The concept of a 'new' smell comes from cars, where the manufacturer treats the interior with a scent to cover up the odors being released by the different types of plastic and coatings used in the interior. This smell will eventually wear off, but by that time the interior components are done emitting odors, and the car smells like whatever you put in it.

Generally, all a logo is good for is beefing up the pack volume, not something you're going to love pakcing on a hot summer day. As mentioned, a canopy with higher jump numbers may need a lineset, but a canopy with beat lines will generally be very cheap. Maybe not $300 less then one with a serviceable line set, but at least $200 or $250 less. Once you get the new lines installed, the value of the canopy shoots right back up. If you only put 200 jumps on the canopy, and can document the date of the reline, and the number of jumps since, you'll get a good portion of the cost of the lines back in resale. The other bonus to the reline is that PD will also inspect, and repair anything they find wrong with the canopy (you'll be consulted if there is an additional cost, but many small items are repaired at no charge). Once the canopy leaves the factory, it will have brand new lines and be PD approved as 100% ready to go. It takes some of the risk out of buying a used canopy, so getting a reline can be looked as a good thing.

For starters, you're not backsliding as fast as a track. It's awfully hard to do, and your openings, and stability at pull time, would be all over the place. You may indeed have a tendency to backslide, but it's not that bad, and can be fixed. Hire yourself an AFF I and a camera guy for a jump or two, and get some outside video of you and the AFF I flying together. Don't use a 'coach' or your jump buddy, get an experiecned AFF I. These guys are trained to fly no contact with 'less than ideal' jumpers, and can also evaluate and offer hand signals regarding your body position in real time. Get a good camera flyer, and explain the purpose of the jump. Make sure they shoot from angles that will allow you to see your body from the side, and the pitch angle your flying at. If they can also catch the hand signals as well, that will really help during the debrief. Have the AFF I pick the camera flyer because they'll know who can shoot a dedicated training video, and who just gets the 'face shot' and not much else (you don't need your face in this video). The in-air training may help, but the outside video and post-jump debrief is what you really need. Often times there's a difference between what you think you're doing, and what is really going on, and seeing yourself on video is the key. Don't worry too much about your jumpsuit just yet. Even jumpers with limited flexibility can find a way to fall straight down, and you should figure this out first, and then tweak your jumpsuit selection once you've got the basics covered.

The used container is the more difficult component to find. The harness needs to fit you, and the container needs to fit the correct size canopies, so there are a few variables involved in locating one. If you have found one that fits the bill, buy it now and worry about the rest later. Once you have a container and reserve packed and assembled, finding a main to jump can be done. As mentioned, you can demo canopies for a small fee for a couple weeks, but you can also ask around the DZ and someone might have a 150 or similar that you can borrow. This way you can get your new rig up in the air ASAP. If all you have is a main, your chances of finding an assembled and packed container/reserve that fits you and your canopies, that you can borrow, is almost zero. Also, you might be able to hunt down a better deal on a main canopy in the time it takes you to get the cash together. A canopy will lose very little performance between 500 and 1000 jumps, but it will cost less if it's closer to 1000 jumps. As a bonus, the canopy will be easier to pack the more jumps it has which is always a plus. Chances are you're not going to put 1000 jumps on the canopy yourself, so there's no need for you to look for a very 'new' one. Buy a well used cheapo, jump it for a couple hundred jumps, and then look for a smaller one.

I know your post was in jest, but that guy jumped with the Knights out of their private Otter. Hardly a 'unknown' level of quality in any sense. Hell, the middle aged woman I filmed this weekend was a shade braver. She jumped out of a converted cargo Caravan with a guy who could have never been in the military, me on video, and no matching jumpsuits anywhere. Now that's manly.

All of this transition talk is good, but first you need to learn to back track before you can expect to transition to it from a belly track. You have to be careful with your heading and length of time you spend back trakcing while learning. It's not hard to track yourself up or down the jumprun into the group before or after you. One trick is to use the sun as a heading reference. If you know that going across the jumprun puts the sun on your left for a certain jump, then make sure the sun is on your left. If the sun ends up somewhere besides you left, you need to stop tracking, and re-set your heading. Consult with a local instructor before doing this, and review the DZ procedure for exit order, and the jumprun, spot, and dive plan for the load you will be on. By the time you have a solid, stable back track figured out, the transition will be a snap. You're just flopping from one comfortable position to another comfortable position. You just roll over, no big deal. The best advice so far was 'popping' up just before the transition. The roll will cause you to lose some lift as you present less surface area to the wind on your side than on your belly or back. So if you slow down vertically a touch, then roll over, you'll fall right back to the same level you started at.

Here's a good rule of thumb for gear selection that applies to any jumper at any skill level - Buy equipment that you can fit into and safely fly today. When and if your skills improve or your weight changes, switch your equipment to suit at that time. Many weight loss goals and skill level expectations are either never reached, or are reached, but at a much later date than expected. If your equipment is suited to the 'future' you, then you're stuck jumping the wrong gear until that guy arrives.

Which makes perfect sense for a few reasons. The first is that full flight trims are not chosen with L/D in mind, they're selected based on the speed of full flight and how that translates into the flare on a stright-in approach. Another consideration is the turn recovery and ability to hold a dive as steeper trims generally do this better than flatter trims. Another reason is that if you make full flight 'best glide' the only way to fly faster is with front risers which is not a sustainable input in that as airpseed increases, so does the force required to maintain the riser input. By making 'best glide' slower than full flight, the pilot can achieve, and maintain that glide with application of toggles or rear risers, neither of which suffer from increasing control forces. If the pilot wants to go faster than 'best glide' they can let the canopy fly in full flight, which of course is sustainable. If they want to go slower, just apply more toggles or rear risers than best glide and hold it. It's similar to flying in 1/4 brakes in turbulence. One of the advantages is that the pilot has quick and easy access to either more or less airspeed depending on what the situation calls for. If you fly at full flight through the bumps, you have no way to easily increase the speed of your canopy. By using a mid-range point as your starting point, you can adjust in either direction with equal ease.

I think what's happening is that people are so ingrained with the idea, that 'your canopy always flies the same' that they're forgetting that it only applies to in-air references, and when you introduce a ground reference, it's another story. Fly your canopy due west in no wind. The relative wind is coming from the east, and the canopy track due west. Now do the same with a north wind. The relative wind still comes from the east, but the canopy tracks to the south west due to the effect of the north wind. Yes? Why then, wouldn't the same apply to flying directly into that wind? With respect to your ground track, the canopy will certainly be effected by adding a headwind, and this applies to all flight configurations. It is a seperate wind component that needs to be considered. So here you are flying into a horizontal head wind. What is limiting your airspeed is drag, and what is limiting your ground speed is the wind. Picture yoru canopy in profile, and is relation to the head wind. Add front riser input, and tell me what it does to the profile of your canopy in relation to the head wind? Your tail stays in one place, and nose gets lower. Does this increase or decrease the profile of your canopy with respect to the head wind? You have to let go of the 'the canopy always flies the same' concept here because with realtion to the ground, it does not. In terms of swooping downwind, or into the wind, your canopy will produce the same dive in either direction, but the realtion of your turn initiation to the gates will be very, very different. Why? Becuase of the effect of the wind on your ground track. Parachutes are unpowered craft, and as such, every input will have a trade-off in tersm of performance. You cannot go further and go faster without adding thrust, it just doesn't work that way. There is no free lunch. If you honk down on both front risers, you're going to increase drag. Without the presence of any wind, the increase is minimal because you're also increasing thrust by letting gravity have a little more pull on you. You're sacrificing the glide and reducing your ground track as a trade off. When you introduce an additional wind component, the same wind that let's you crab sideways, or really burn a good downwinder, the story changes. Just the liek the wind effects you in crosswind and downwind approaches, it also effects you when flying into the wind. It limits your ground speed based on your airspeed, which is drag limited. If you increase that drag, you will reduce your ground speed. If you increase the drag and increase your airpseed, you get nothing. Just like you canopy experiences the relative wind, and a cross or down wind component at the same time, it also experiences a head wind component, with relation to the ground track, as well. If you've ever tried to land an airplane in a crosswind, you'll understand what I'm talking about. You need to keep your airspeed up, and maintain airflow over the wings, but you also have to correct for the cross wind component. It's two seperate things that need to be dealt with, and why corsswind landings are tricky to learn (in airplanes).

Yes, your flight through the air will be the same, however, in the presence of wind from different directions, your flight across the ground will not be the same. The whole point of this thread is your flight across the ground, so we have to consider the winds effect on yoru canopy's progress across the ground. Take a zero wind day, and do a double fronts approach to the south, and then do one to the north. Same exact reaction from the canopy, and track across the ground. Now add a 20 mph wind out of the north. Start with your double fronts approach to the south, has anything changed from your no wind landing in the same direction? Indeed, your ground speed is now somewhere up over 50 mph. Big difference. Why is it that you don't believe that making it a 20mph headwind will have an effect on your canopy's track across the ground? Just like adding a big tailwind made a difference, so does adding a big headwind. The results of a double front appraoch in no winds, and in a 20 mph wind are going to be two very different things.

That's a negative ghostrisder, they don't give two shits until after something goes wrong. Looked like the guy got a good reserve out at a reasonable altitude, so no FAA. Now if something had gone wrong, that's another story. How much of this 'plan' was shared with the DZO and pilot would also play a factor. If he acted independently, and his reserve was in date and the harness had a TSO, there's not much the FAA could really do. Of course if this was 'public' knowledge at the DZ, and like many jumpers they filmed the pack job and gear up with all sorts of sarcastic remarks, and the pilot or DZO was present in that video, that's another barrel of monkeys. Monkeys wearing FAA credentials and crawling all over the DZ..

The kevlar only goes so far up the riser, and it's mostly down in the ring area. Even if it didn't want to cut down there, you could scoot up to where it's just riser. You may have to make two passes if you don't hook both front and rear at the same time. The other factor would be the cable housing used to protect the cutaway cables in the riser. No hook knife will cut through those, and denpending on the length of the risers, there might not be too much room between the top of those housings and the bottom of the toggles. The distance fom the top of the riser to the toggle is a constant on all risers, the length of the riser is determined between the steering line guide ring and the three ring. Short risers have very little room beteen the two and the toggle takes up the bulk of it.

Instead you increase the cool factor (and decrease the cooling factor) by mounting a carb and big aircleaner upwind of the cylinder on one side, and a coil upwind on the other, and forward controls to make sure your legs block any additional wind that might have made it to the cylinder. Thank god for the wide open spaces and high speed open roads of the USA. The relatively low power out per cubic inch doesn't hurt either.

This is a tricky one. On the one hand, the guy is wearing two cameras, and at break off, some of the other guys are hanging out to film his deployment, like they know it's something to film. Also, one of the other guys appears to have pulled before, or at the same time, as the jumper with the mal, in order to be open on level with him, again in an attampt to film the mal. It does appear that the right three ring is pinned with a long cable to prevent it from releasing. I'm not sure if it can be released independetnly or not, but it appears rigged to not release with the cutaway handle. It also appears that the purpose of the jump was to see if it was possible to cut through a riser with a hook knife in the event of a hang up. If you look at the time line of the events, and the altitude at which everything happens, this was not a normal jump. All of those factors point toward an intentional mal and a hook knife test. The big factor that would point away from that is that it's stupid to do with out a third canopy. This jumper essentailly left the AC with one (presumably) good canopy as the main was packed with a mal and hooked up to an in-op (possibly) three ring. This jump would have been a great place to use a second harness with a direct-bag deployed main along with a standard, properly rigged skydiving rig.