davelepka

It takes me half that time to bag the canopy and stow my lines with rubberbands. Between all the extra flaps, stifeners and pockets, and those long locking thingys, it looks like twice as many parts as a regular D-bag. Tiwce as many things to break.

Sure looks that way, and it seems they have higher standards to boot.

Less object turbulence. On private airstripse, often times there is a treeline, or buildings within 100 yards of the landing area, causing object turbulence in certain areas of the field. Old military fields like Deland are big enough that you can land well away from any objects if you choose. The catch 22 is that airports like Deland have huge expanses of concrete which would suck to land on, and in the warmer months can create all sorts of thermals and other heat related wierdness.

Does that mean you called, and nobody answered, or they answered and told you they can't help you with the lineset? Check with skyworksrigging.com, they should be able to help. Edit - MEL, in post number 2 is the guy from skyworks rigging. Somehow I managed to miss his post

Look dude, you're barking up the wrong tree. The age or number of jumps on an AIRWORTHY canopy has no bearing on what WL is safe to jump. The safe WL is determined by the skill of the pilot. Period. You want to know the condition of the fabric on a canopy? LOOK AT IT!! Educate yourself, and perform an inspection. Want to know one part of being a skilled pilot? Having an understanding of your craft is key to being a skilled pilot. Put the idea that a newer canopy is safe jump at a higher WL out of your mind. It's wrong, and any assumptions you make, or ideas you base onthat concept will also be wrong. In the case of F-111 fabric, the number of jumps on the canopy plays a huge role in what WL would be safe to jump. Seeing as your example was based on zero-p canopies, this is not a factor here.

This dude tried to peddle the same line of shit over in the swooping forum. The thread was locked in short order. That's a hint to anyone who can lock stuff.....

No, they would have died because the 'instructor' didn't check his gear before he jumped. I guess nobody did that month, but that's not the riggers fault. How stupid do you have to be to leave a temp pin in a closing loop? Exactly as dumb as you have to be jump a rig without checking the pins. Were you on the load? Can you say from firsthand information that the jumper was NOT reminded of the exit procedure before the jump? Do you know for a fact that he did NOT have a near miss the day before, and that he was NOT adivsed at that time of the correct exit procedure? Unless you were on the load, and spent the entire previous day with the jumper, your assertions that the reports are incorrect are just as valid as my assertions that the reports are correct. I was not on the load, nor was I at the DZ on the previous day.

According to the NTSB report, the jumper had a close call the day before doing a hop n pop out of the same plane. It goes on to state that the jumper was informed of the situation after that jump, and that he was reminded of it before exit on the jump in question. This jumper knew what he was doing.

If you want to see a sweet barrel roll, check out the video of Jeb and Luigi from the Today show last week. When Jeb tries to dock, he comes in with a little too much speed, and pushes Luigi a little (and with a 37, any sort of push is a big deal). Luigi takes the energy from the push, and goes with it by rolling the canopy. With Jeb right next to him, the perspective is incredible. It makes me wish I had the balls to open a canopy that small. I know I would never land one, but I'm close to being brave enough to jump one with a cutaway rig. Not all way there, but close.

I would suggest staying with the 190 until you feel good about it. Your description of 'needs work' and 'not the smoothest' need to be cleared up. An idea would be to look for a 190 you can jump in your rig. You may be able to find a local jumper who is trying to sell one, or maybe doesn't jump that often and you can see if you can offer them a few bucks to borrow it for a bit. Just agree on a value before you start jumping it, and be ready to pay if you lose it in a cutaway. It will save you money on renting gear, and get you jumping your own containter sooner. Given that your instructors think you have good canopy control, you may only need another 15 or 20 jumps to be ready (keep in mind that 20 jumps to you is a full 50% of your total experience).

You're right. Parachutes cannot build enough speed to climb through the first half of the loop, and maintain line tension over the top. Paragliders make far more lift than skydiving canopies, and doing acro is what promted then to start flying with round reserves canopies. What you need is a tail (like a glider) or a weight shift (like a hang glider) to perform a loop. This allows you to build the speed by holding the dive longer, and to rotate the aircraft through the loop at the desired rate. You are also right that earlier posts were confusing a roll with a loop. The barrel roll happens along the roll axis, the loop happens along the pitch axis.

I don't know what you're looking for here, but you are wrong. The number of jumps on a canopy does not effect what WL you should be jumpiung at. I have personally put 1000's of jumps on a Stiletto 107, and there is no noticable decline in performance with age. It is possible that the lines were out of trim, or the steering lines were set up incorrectly, and this will result in a loss of performance, but that is a maintanence issue, not related to the age of the fabric. Your skills are what counts when you choose a canoyp and a WL, the age of the canooy has nothing to do with it (provided the canopy is airworthy).

Kinda, sorta yeah. The majority of 18 to 24 year old jumpers are newer jumpers, and those are the ones I vote we ban from flying at higher WLs. You have to admit that you attribute alot to the 'young male' theory. My guess is that you started jumping as a not-so-young male, and had no problems with your choices (which some might consider a little aggresive). I do agree that there are mature people out there, who are capable of making good choices, but in the world of new skydivers, they are a rare breed. So yeah, the WL BSR is based on jump numbers, and lower jump numbers and younger jumpers go hand in hand. The young males may have a problem with it, but they are the ones who will benefit the most. Older jumpers and the ladies are rarely the ones pushing the limits early on, so they wouldn't mind the BSR, and may not even be effected by it.

It reminds her of her dad?

You would need to have information on all jumps being made, the experince of the jumper, and the type and WL of the canopy used. Knowing the experince, canopy and WL of jumpers who were injured or killed would not be enough. You also need to know what percentage of overall jumpers that group represents, and what percentage their jumps make up of the overall jumps made. Only with both sets of data (jumps related to incidents and overall jumps) can you conclude if newer jumpers make up a proportionate or disproportionate number of those incidents. I don't think it's even possible to gather that data. Given that the data is not available, I ask again, what is the possible harm to introducing a WL BSR? The very concept of the WL BSR is to err on the side of caution. As previously stated, this type of restriction has been in place for many years in other countries, and while (again) we don't have the data to prove any positive effects, I cannot see any negative effects it may have had. Is the concept that newer jumpers should be jumping conservative canopies at conservative WLs, with changes comensurate with jump numbers really that outlandish that you don't think it's worth a shot? With no real negatives connected with giving it a shot? The data needed to draw a scientific conclusion will never exist. There's no funding for such a study, and you'll never find anyone willing to do the job for free. Let's get past the data issue, and use the judgement and expereince we do have to make a conclusion.

This may be true, however non-fatal incidents are not always reported, and for many years there was not even a system in place to make such a report. Severe, life changing injuries may occur, but we will never know how often, and to whom they happen. Even injuries less severe could cause a person to quit skydiving all together. Why not give the WL proposal a chance? Institute it for five years, and see what things look like then? What would the harm be in that? It's not as if this is some radical proposal we're talking about. It's a concept that's easy to accept as plausable, and one that's been in place in other countries for many years. If anything, we can be assured there is very little to lose in persuing this.

Get video

Go do solos on your own jumprun, and you can do things on your own terms. In another thread, about the guy who was paralyzed in a frefall collision and filmed his limp body being saved by his Cypres, you freely admit that you were just involved in a similar collision, but you were lucky to escape the same fate. You're not alone up there. You may have been lucky this time, but what about the other half of your collision? It does take two to collide. Hopefully he's OK too, but can you see how your action could put a guy in a wheelchair? Did you ask the other guy if he jumped a Cypres? If he wasn't paralyzed, maybe he just gets knocked out. Either way, no Cypres means he's going in clean. Game over.

This thread is fucked already, and FULL of bad advice. There is a technique to diving to a formation, and it's not something that can be taught on the internet. You do not want to do any sort of freeflying to try ot get to a formation. You need to stay in control, and keep the formation in sight at all times. You will learn to close the gap SLOWLY at first, and as you become more comfortable with diving, you can ramp up the speed. During any dive, aim off to the side of the person/formation you are diving too so if you over do it, you don't hit anyone, you just fly past them. There is only one way to learn to dive to formations. Do a two way with a coach, or moderately experienced jumper. Have them exit first, and give them a few seconds (3 or 4) before you exit. Dive down to them, and as soon as you get there, have them drop down and back by 50 or 100 feet, and you get another chance to dive down and close the gap. Repeat as needed. Diving is a skill, and requires training and practice. Many jumpers have been badly hurt by divers who carried too much speed, and crashed into the formation. It's not hard to build up a speed differential of 20 or 30 mph, and if you hit a formation while going 30 mph faster than they are, I'm sure you could imagine it would not be good.

Thanks for sharing.

Those are the people who need restrictions. It shouldn't be hard to single them out, they're ones who don't have alot of jumps. Just check the logbook, or what license they have, and you've got a good idea who you're dealing with. Sure, occasionally 'gods gift to skydiving' shows up, and he probably doesn't need any restrictions. Too bad, restrict him anyway. He's 'gods gift to skydiving', and he'll get over it.

Why? Those people wouldn't be restricted.

Not if you do it at my DZ. Instructors, packers, and the DZO are there trying to make living. If you fuvk up, and bring the ambulance, the FAA, or the laywers to the DZ, you're risking the welfare of the DZ itself, and the employment of said workers. Let's say the damage from your incident is limited to the day of the incident, your actions stand to shut down the DZ until the helicopter has left the field, and how many tandems are going to want to jump after seeing an 'expereinced' jumper crater in? What about that lost imcome? Who is going to compensate the staff for that? Every hour of sunlight on a day with good weather is where those jumpers make their money, and when you soak that time up being carefully peeled off the ground, it hurts more people than you think. You want to act like a dickhead, do it with your own plane, at your own DZ. Otherwise, realize that jumping at a DZ is not a god given right, and have some respect for your fellow jumpers.

I'd concur.

No, a drunk is argumentative because they are impaired, and in turn cannot make good choices. A jumper at the DZ who intentionally does the opposite of what others suggest is not impaired, they're just dickhead. There's a big difference.