davelepka

Get your USPA A license first and foremost. It's widely accepted in most of the world, and once you have it, it's yours for life. Don't get 'most' or 'some' of the way there, do the full 25 jumps, complete the proficiency card, and get it done. You won't regret it. If you're able, buy gear here too. If you're looking for used gear to start with (you should), the US will have the best selection, and you don't have to worry about taxes, shipping, import duties, or whatever else they have going on over there. When you're talking about $1000's of dollars worth of gear, those extra costs can add up fast. Cheap shipping shipping with zero taxes or fees makes the US the place to shop for gear.

There's a thread about the recent fatality in New Mexico where a jumper with 600 jumps made a low turn on a highly loaded x-braced canopy. Of course the jumpers experience was called into question, as it was low considering the size, WL and elevation of the LZ. This, of course again, prompted a friend of the jumper to comment as to how heartless skydivers could be, to point out these errors post-mortem and further hurt his friends and family, to which another jumper replied - I'll skip over the correct assertion that the incidents forum is there to discuss incidents, to include the errors made. Back to the reply, it is partially correct. The jumpers friends do hold some responsibility as the poster suggested, as his friends would probably be jumpers, and would be aware of the nature of his equipment choice. I'm not saying that the jumper would have listened to their concerns if they voiced them, but they would have the knowledge and opportunity to voice them. Where the reply is incorrect is where he involves the jumpers family. In the vast majority of cases, the jumpers family does not have the detailed knowledge of skydiving in order to comment as to the safety (or lack thereof) of the decisions that jumpers make. For example, my mom doesn't know the first thing about canopies, and if I told her I planned to jump a Comp Velo 71 into a tight demo, she would smile and say, 'That's nice dear....'. Where am I going with this? The exchange in the thread reminded me of a piece I read in the current issue of Flying magazine (May 2013, p26) regarding risk taking and how to train pilots about the consequences. The gist of it is that they see the same general type of accidents over and over again in general aviation. Most of the time, accidents fall into one of a handful of basic catagories, and it's rare to see one that it truely unique, which is not unlike skydiving. As an example, take the double fatality in Z-Hills, where a student and instructor both hit the ground with nothing out (or inflated). See how the thread on that incident is far longer than any other thread in the forum, and that's because it's such a rare event. It's not the 'ususal' fatality, and so it's 'of interest'. Anyway, back to the article, he goes on to say that complacency plays a big role in the repeating of these same incidents, and that he had a chance to attend a safety training course at a major airline where they took an interesting route towards preventing these accidents. What they did was a role-playing exercise, where two pilots sat side-by-side facing the class, and they represented a pilot and co-piot who had been killed in an accident caused by pilot error. Other members of the class were then assigned to play the family members of those pilots, and more or less askked them to defend the actions that lead to their death. "Dad, we miss you! Why did you continue the approach when there was heavy rain and wind shear? Why not wait for the storm to pass or divert to an alternate airpport?" "Honey, it's hard to go on without you! Why didn't you turn around when you saw that squall line up ahead?" The end result of the exercise was that there wasn't a dry eye in the room. The author said he remembers the day quite clearly, despite it being 20-some years ago. Back to skydiving, I've made similar references to jumpers who were making bad choices. I've asked, "How would your mother feel if it was explained to her the chances you were taking with your life, and the good advice that you disregarded?" "How do you think she would feel it all came to light after there was an incident that took your life?" An accident is one thing, a jumper who is in way over their head who is invovled in an incident isn't as much of an accident. Like the reply quoted above says, 'It's less a question of 'if', and more of a question of 'when'. The point to this whole thing is that you need to look past yourself, and your own interests (such as progressing in skydiving, or looking cool on the DZ) and think about the extent that your choices could impact the people in your life that you care about. I know that jumping out of planes is taking a risk, and I say what I say with the idea that jumping in itself is a given. That's a risk we all take, but when you take risks that the other risk-takers around you seem to think are 'too much', that should really make you think. So take a minute, and think about the choices you make. Think about how your friends, faimily, children, etc would feel if those choices took your life. Would it be the result of a freak accident that nobody could predict, or would the truth be revealed that you were being reckless and acting without thinking about anyone but yourself? Your loved ones are already living without you, should it be with the added burden that they are doing so due to your own selfish motivations?

As mentioned, that depends on your point of view. From under 200, it seems like a mountain. From anything north of 1000, it's a blip on the radar. That might be true, but how do you know who is/is not ready under 200 jumps before you send them up with a camera? Let's say you're wrong, you find out because there is an incident and now it's too late. How many times have there been an incident where people who knew the jumper involved said things like 'I never expected that to happen to Mike, he was a heads up and experienced guy'? You never know how anyone is going to react to a given situation until it's over.

You're not 'working' the radio. You have nothing to do with the radio at any point during the jump. You may hear it under canopy, you may not. The size/shape/snag-hazzard of the camera is only one small part of the problem. The other part is the attention that it commands in the plane, in freefall, and under canopy. When your concern in the plane shifts towards working your camera (or sorting out a camera problem) it is not on gear checks (both yours and others) and general awareness. When you realize that where you look will influence the what the video records, your attention in freefall will shift from other jumpers, altitude and general awareness to 'getting the shot'. Ditto for under canopy. These are not 'maybe' situations, these are things that have happened over and over to the point that it became an issue enough for the USPA to take action, whcih is tough to do. The solution is simple - make the jumps and get to 200. If you're dedicated, it will go quick and you'll be jumping a camera in no time. If you're not dedicated, consider that your experience and currency might not lend itself to camera jumping anyway, and just pay attention to making safe jumps.

Here's the problem with spending $7000 on a new rig. If it's your first rig, unless you are comitted to jumping a main/reserve at a 1.0 to 1.2 WL, this rig will not last you very long. You will not be able to 'overcome' the depreciation, and will lose quite a bit of money when you go to downsize. Of course, if you're planning to buy a small container and stuff it to the gills with a large canopy, that does take care of that, but in itself that's a bad idea. You could also push the WL on your canopy choices (again, I notice you omitted the sizes of the S2 and PDR) to eliminate the size issue, but that's an even worse idea. It's neat how a guy who has to ask how to buy a rig seems to think he knows it all about 'what' to buy.

Tipping is optional, but less seen in AFF as compared to tandem. There's a good chance you'll be working with your AFF instructors over the course of many jumps while you work toward your license. The relationship is ongoing, more like a doctor or landscaper, where tipping isn't the norm, as compared to a one-time relationship, like a waiter or valet, where tipping is the norm. One thought is to wait until you graduate, and see if you end up working with one or two instructors more than others, and tip them for the entire process. If you find that you worked with the entire staff during the process, maybe order some pizzas for the whole staff around dinner time on a busy Sat or Sun.

If you're planning to order a new container, you'll have between 2 and 10 months to find a canopy, depending on what container you order. I think you'll find something.

Buy your main canopies used. New ones are a bitch to pack, and from the sounds of it your first set-up with the 150 is going to be a tighter fit.

Your question makes no sense. You're being coy about buying new or used, but in the end you don't always have the option to buy a complete rig if you're going used. You stand a better chance of finding the main, reserve, and container you want/need if you buy them seperately. If you're buying new, some of the gear stores will offer a package deal where you save some money by buying a complete rig.

Unless it fires when it's not needed, and traps the loop to be released 'later' at some random time. Like when the jumper is in the door of the plane, or has another jumper up above them in freefall. An AAD has to first 'do no harm', and second be of service when needed. The failure to 'do no harm' is what doomed the early AADs to be commercial failures because nobody trusted them and wanted them in their rigs (or even in another rig in the plane/sky with them).

Yeah, I did. That's where I got the impression that you felt like you knew it all already, and we're only interested in one piece of information. You wanted to hear what you wanted to hear, and everything else was just 'wrong'. It's a bad attitude, and not one that's going to serve you well as a long-time dormant jumper looking to make a casual return the sport.

Any of the rigs you listed is a good choice, provided you use the appropriate canopies. The first thing you do is figure out what size main/reserve are going to be a 'safe' choice for you. Next, pick a container and then choose the size that provides a 'loose' fit for those canopies. Does that mean you might have to go one or two sizes up on the container from the smallest the website says? Yes, it does, but that's the way you make the container work. They all pass the TSO testing (including the reserve PC) but I'm fairly certain that nobody was picking a brick-hard combination of the container and canopy sizes for the testing. It involves repeated drop testing, and I can't seem anyone wanting to pack a bitch of a reserve pack job every time. When you combine all the flaps/tabs that make a rig freefly friendly, and then jam it full of the tighest main/reserve canopies you can get in there, you create a problem where the rig tends to keep itself shut, more than just the riser covers and pin flaps. The rig ends up being so 'built-up' around the reserve container, that it holds the freebag in place. So if you're more conservative in your container sizing (meaning bigger), it ends up being a softer overall rig, and makes it easier to get the freebag out. Put three shirts in a pillowcase, and try to pull one out. Now put 30 shirts in a pillowcase and try the same. If you're really comitted to the idea, buy a Racer. They are good rigs, just different. You may have trouble finding a rigger, and most people won't 'get it', but it's the real solution. All the other rigs, when unpacked, look like a cardboard box in that the sidewalls of the container sit upright and create a 'box', with the flaps looking just like the flaps on a box. This what I mean by the container is 'built-up' it has some structure to it. A Racer does not have this. the flaps and sidewalls are the same thing on a Racer, and when they're unpacked (main and reserve) they just lay flat, there's no structure to them. The advanatge is that when the pin(s) are pulled, the continer more or less disappears and there's nothing holding the bag/freebag in place. Picture a hard shell suitcase, and that would all the other rigs. If you stuff it full of clothes, it could be tough to get the first few items out. The Racer is like a duffel bag if it had a zipper that went all the way down the sides of the bag to the bottom. Once you undo the zipper, you no longer have a bag of clothes, you have a pile of loose clothes with what used to be a bag laying under it.

Look at your first reply to my post. See where you used all caps for the phrase 'more conservative' over and over. Now look at your other thread, where you explain that you used to jump a Viper 105, and now you're looking at something in the 120-135 range, and thinking Stiletto or X-fire2. I'LL USE ALL CAPS BECAUSE MAYBE YOU'LL UNDERSTAND THAT BETTER, A STILETTO 120 WHEN FLOWN WITH YOUR 10 ADDITIONAL LBS OF BODYWEIGHT YOU'VE GAINED IS ABOUT THE EXACT SAME THING AS YOUR VIPER 105. A X-FIRE2 119 AT YOUR CURRENT WEIGHT, OR EVEN A 129, IS WAY MORE CANOPY THAN A VIPER 105. BESIDES THOSE CONCRETE REASONS THAT YOU SEEM LIKE YOU'RE FULL OF SHIT, YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARDS ANYONE WHO SAYS THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE IS ALSO PROBLEMATIC. YOUR EXPERIENCE FROM 11 YEARS AGO IS GREAT, BUT IT'S FROM 11 YEARS AGO. ACCORDING TO YOUR PROFILE, YOU'VE BEEN IN THE SPORT FOR 19 YEARS, WHICH GIVES YOU 8 YEARS OF JUMPING AND 11 YEARS ON THE GROUND. FIGURE THAT AT LEAST 3 OF THOSE 8 YEARS WERE SPENT AT A STUDENT AND NEWBIE JUMPER, YOU HAVE ALL OF 5 YEARS EXPERIENCE WITH ANYTHING CLOSE TO SMALL OR HP CANOPY, AT THAT WAS 11 YEARS AND 10LBS AGO. (OOPS, DID I SLIP BACK INTO CONCRETE EVIDENCE?). Serisouly, dial it back a notch. You used to be rated, current, and from the sounds of it, jumping hard every week. Now you're older, fatter, and slower (not by much, but those are factors) and you even admit that your jumping pace wil be 'relaxed' at best. It's going to take more than one upsize (or two) for the new you to really be making a 'conservative' choice. I'll repeat a story from last summer when another jumper came back from a layoff. This guy was also an AFF/TI and a gold medal winning 4-way competitor. He had been out of the sport for about 5 or 6 years. In any case, he hit the DZ and said, 'What do I need to do here? Should I sit in on the classroom portion of the FJC? Do you want to me to take the FJC test? The hanging harness? You guys tell me, you're the experts now, I haven't been here in years'. Despite being a rated, experienced, and highly skilled jumper, 5 or 6 years was enough for him to know that there was no harm in 'easing' his way back into things. As it was, we did a 3-way RW jump for his recurrency dive, turned 2 points on the hill and another 12 or 14 before break off. The point of the story is his attitude. You can't go wrong dialing it back, and you can go very wrong pushing too hard right out of the blocks.

I read your thread in the gear and rigging forum, and based on your replies, the one thing you didn't learn is what it takes to be an 'expert' skydiver. There's no way that you're good enough to shit all over the advice you were given based on 1300 jumps you made over a decade ago. If you had a lick of sense, you would realize that you've been out of jumping longer that you were in jumping, and that you might want to dial back your attitude a notch. Based on that, I'm not going to even attempt to advise you about canopy selection, because I'm sure you already 'know' whatever it is that I would have to share. I'll tell you this - one thing that hasn't changed is that open canopy incidents are still maiming/killing jumpers faster than any other area of skydiving. Something that has changed - you. You're older, slower, waay out of currency, and it seems a father to 2 kids. Stuff to think about.

Ballpark numbers - $2000 to $2500 to get an A license. After that jumps are about $25/each. Gear rental is anywhere from $25 for the whole day to $25 per jump, it varies from place to place. Used gear will run you $2500 to $3000 on the low end for everything you need, and it will all fit in a duffel bag. If you own a rig, factor in about $200/year in maintenance and reserve repacks.

You pick your wing with this in mind. Whatever you can safely fly in the above conditions is a 'good' choice for any jumper. The other aspect is having the judgement to pass on jumps when the conditions aren't right. If it's you, the weather, or something else, there comes a time when the risk is not worth the $30 or $40 you stand to make.

That's the real answer. If there was any real movement of the tunnel, you wouldn't be able to fly in it very well, unless you were damn good at side-sliding, and could time it with the movements of the ship. Let's remember that the airstream is pushing you up against the force of gravity. It's direction of force needs to be exactly 180 that of gravity for you to be able to fly 'stable'. If you tip the tunnel to one side, you could sideslide along the airstream, provided there's enough velocity to hold your weight when leaned way over. If it was on a ship that was rolling and pitching, you would need to counter those moves exactly, or gravity would pull you off the side of the airstream (or into the wall of an enclosed tunnel). It's a neat idea, but gravity and the airstream need to remain opposites for you to 'fly', and when the ship (and tunnel) move, gravity remains constant.

I did say that I don't know him personally, and in that regard have nothing against him. However, he went out of his was to post obnoxious and contrary remarks to my posts when I was tyring to give sound, safe advice to other jumpers. In that regard, I cannot deny (nor ignore) that his choices have put him into a bad spot. Additionally, to be clear, the bad choices are not those regarding jumping without insurance, they are his equipment choices and the way he chose to use that equipment. There is a lesson to be learned here, and I'm not going to let it pass without pointing that out. That said, I'll gladly make a donation via the paypal account. I have nothing against the guy personally, and we do have some friends in common, but this is where he gets to stand behind what he said and his attitude about safety and making conservative choices. Unfortunately for him, he came up on the wrong side of that issue.

With 700 jumps total, and jumping a 170, how many jumps do you think it would take to get down below 100 sq ft safely? Let's also keep in mind that they don't make anything but HP canopies below 100 sq ft, so it's not like he was a big-boy on with a higher WL on a Spectre or somthing of that sort. With only 18 months to make the transition from a 170 to a sub-100 HP canopy, I'm not sure there is a 'safe' way to do that. You're either skipping sizes, or shorting yourself on time on each size. Either case is not the preferred method. That said, just to be clear, I don't have any ill-will towards to guy. I don't even know him personally. I do feel badly to hear that anyone is injured in anyway while jumping. The reason I'm posting the things I am is to illustrate that there are consequnces to the choices you make as a jumper. Those consequnces become very real very quickly, and sometimes they stay 'real' for a very long time. He's not the first 'big shot' we've had here was 'too cool for school', and he probably won't be the last. At least one of them I can remember is dead, and another is in a wheelchair for the rest of his life (Sangi, who had the balls to come back and tell his tale). Now we have another one who's fate is still to be determined. The point is that everyone else can see where it get's you, and maybe the guy in the '400 jumps on a Velo' thread will take notice, or maybe not. Hopefully the next guy in line will wise up and end the cycle before it comes around again and takes out another 'big shot' jumper.

Of course. One point that people seem to be missing is that it's rare that the winds will change to such a significant degree between take-off and landing. The plan you make while boarding should be able to stand the test of time, when that time it all of 20 minutes. Can winds shift in 20 min? Sure, but the chances are that the winds are lighter, as in light and variable, and if you end up taking a crosswind or downwind landing in that case, so be it. The winds are light, it shouldn't be a problem. If the atmospheric conditions are unstable to the point that the winds are high enough and can shift enough that it makes a downwinder a genuine 'danger', that's something you as a jumper should be aware of before loading the plane. Those conditions don't just come out of nowhere. The statistical facts are that canopy collisions cause far more deaths/injuries than cross or downwind landings. Traffic control, that being having a plan in place that all jumpers follow is far more important than landing straight into the wind.

Wanna bet it's something much smaller than a 170?

I assume this is the same Andy Copeland who used to post here all the time, shitting all over anyone who made any comments regarding safety or making conservative choices when it comes to things like canopy selection and BASE jumping, right? So he ends up having two canopy collapses, severe enough to land him in the hospital in the course of one month? Go figure.....

Along the same lines, most don't have a full restaurant/bar inbetween manifest and the hanger. Or a fleet of turbine aircraft. Or a paved runway. Or a helicopter training school on the same airport (but that's probably a good thing).

Just for reference, most DZs do not have an on-site gear store. You happen to be at one of the larger, year round DZs that also happens to be in the same town as several major manufacturers, so you do have a very nice gear store. More common is the DZ has some 'stuff' for sale, like goggles, altimeters, audibles, etc, and can order anything else you need. They might also help you find or sell a rig, but in terms of a 'store', not so much.

I couldn't agree more. You need to advertise such that it effectiely coutners that of your competition if you expect to succeed. Between local DZs, this is fair game. However, it turns into dirty pool when an operator of a larger DZ the draws from a population of millions uses his financial position to interject himself into the battle in markets where he provides no services. Let's consider this - how would you feel if Pizza Hut started a program where they intercepted web orders for Jimmy's Smithtown Pizza, even though they had no stores in Smithtown? How about if they then contracted Jimmy to fill those orders after pocketing 20% of the take? This is the same scenario. Without providing any actual skydiving services, Proskydiving is taking advantage of the national reach of the internet, and using it to reach right into the pockets of other DZOs in markets far from their home base in Chicago.