davelepka

Are the Eclipse leg straps two-layer? It looks like the Jav leg straps are, and if one layer shrinks or stretches differently than the other, the leg strap won't be straight anymore. Just another guess.

Maybe spending 16 years looped in a circle, with some of that time under load, still looped in a circle. Just a guess.

What's your fucking point? Do you have a point, or are you just trying to shit on anything you can find?

Both the Velo and Xaos were designed around swooping. Everything else they do is just a by-product of being able to fall out of the sky and build up speed. Try jumping the Sabre2 or the Pilot. Both will be a significant improvement over the Sabre in all areas, and cost about $500 less. Size wise, the 150 range is a good place to start. The reason it doesn't feel that much different than your 170 is that it's not. But here's the kicker, you're not that much different than when you started jumping the 170. I'm not sure why you think that making huge changes in canopy size and type is a good idea, but it's not.

You realize that a high speed malfunction in that scenario would have left you with 5 to 7 seconds to react properly beofre you were too low to get a canopy out and inflated. Even if you did react properly, what if you had line twists on your reserve? It's more common than you might think. Cutting away your main in this instance was the last step in a line of very poor choices. Rethink your priorities when it comes to jumping, and start putting safety first on all skydives. Things go from 'great fun' to 'pointing the ambulance in the direction of the dead guy' in a matter of seconds. It's a fine line, and you should do your best to stay far away form that line.

I don't think that would be prudent. If, as you say, 100 jumps 'typically' isn't enough, than the prudent thing to do is just not to put anyone with 100 jumps under such canopies. Even an expert can be wrong. If the expert gives a newbie the go-ahead to jump a Stiletto, and it turns out to be a mistake, the result is severe injury or death. If the expert were to err in the other way and restrict a jumper from jumping such a canopy, and in truth this jumper could have handled it with 100 jumps, the result of this mistake is simply a gifted jumper ended up putting 200 jumps on a more conservative canopy. So if you guess wrong in one direction - severe injury or death. Guess wrong the other way - 200 jumps on a conservative canopy. I'm not sure how you define 'prudent', but where I come from the latter choice fits the bill.

I'm not sure if Mojave to Palm Springs qualifies as cross country. It looks like it's only about 100 miles. You could fire up a big, complex AC, and by the time you get it up to speed and alititude, you have to bring it back down for the approach. I would take a 150 on a 100 mile trip anyday. If I had to pick a plane to land on a dirt road, again, the 150 would be a good way to go.

So what your telling us is that there are guys with 1000's of jumps who can't figure out how to land a canopy. With this in mind, you can't see how it might be prudent to keep a guy with 100 jumps on a conservative wing?

In that case, the answer is simple, don't jump an elliptical canopy. There are other good choices available. Once you can say, with a level of informed confidence, that you can handle an elliptical canopy, THEN jump one and find out if you're right.

Soft or hard handles, you should NEVER have another jumper anywhere near your handles. Jumpsuits have grippers for a reason, and anyone who tells you they need to take a harness grip on you is an idiot. There is always a way to avoid taking a grip on a harness, and any situation where a gripper is not good enough is a situation you don't need to be in. It may seem like crazy fun at first, but gear problems created in freefall are not fun. Ever do any rigging or assemble a rig? Now try it with the rig on, in freefall, with the clock ticking. Protect your rig at all times as if your life depends on it.

Do you want one every month? It seems like a pointless waste of time/paper/energy. Look it up online. I know you have internet access.

It's due to the size of a detailed bill. Printing and mailing all those pages costs more. I have a plan that more than covers the calls I make, so my bill is always the base cost for the plan. I don't need or want a detailed bill. In truth, I wish they would stop mailing me a bill all together. I pay online, so the billis a waste of paper, and makes more garbage for me to take out. You should be able to check the details of your bill online for free. I would also guess that if your mom's two bills were way outside her normal usage, she could contest them, and recieve detailed bills for those months at no charge. If she wants the detailed bill every month, they she has to pay.

Joe Jennings made a 'pole cam' a few years ago. It was a belly mounted camera, but it was at the end of a four or five foot pole, looking back at him. Maybe it's on 'Good Stuff', or somebody else knows where to find it.

Try calling me back cockfag, you might get the attention you crave.

This is an easy business plan - Plan on spending $5000 on a rig and $5000 on jumps before ever jumping a camera. Figure another $5000 on cameras and a helmet, plus $2000 on jumps to learn how to use it. Add in another $5000 for a back-up rig, and you'll be all set to shoot tandem/studetn vidoes, or lock onto a video slot on a four way team. If all goes well, plan on making $10,000 a year. Keep it up for ten years, and then hit the big time shooting commercials and movies. I don't know how well that pays, but since there are only four or five guys with that job, it should be easy to track down an answer. I don't want to discourage you, but this isn't really a 'business plan' sort of thing. The vast majority of working skydivers have a 'day job' for a reason. If you can get your buddy to bankroll your venture, more power to you. The reality os though, you'll be lucky if you can make enough to feed yourself, let alone make a life for yourself and get a return for your investor. That said, it will be a good time. I've been shooting video for ten years. The first five was full time, the last five was weekends only during the Ohio jumping season. I can't see myself stopping anytime soon.

I feel your pain, but I'm not the guy. I was resonding to the OP, who I think is the one you're trying to reach.

I clicked on the link to have a look at it, and in the explanation of the features, one of them (the DIGIC or whatever) shows a skydiving pic as an example. Not saying it good for skydiving, just thought the irony was funny.

Why can't you seem to understand that pulling the DZs membership was a result of the actions of the DZ owners, plain and simple. It was not a personal attack on the staff or jumpers at the DZs. What Skyride is doing is not good for skydiving. It's not good in the respect that a DZO can no longer count on pulling from their local population for business without those customers being sniped by Skyride, at which point the DZO is forced to cut Skyride into the deal. It's also not good in the respect that Skyride does not maintain very high standards for customer service. Over charging, bogus extra fees, and lying about the proximity of participating DZ to get a credit card number are not ways to get and retain new skydivers. Sure, most tandems are one-time jumpers, but the few who would continue on to make additional jumps should have a good first jump experience to facilitate ongoing training. I'm sure that being a web designer, you can easily see how their practice of stealing content to produce fake DZ websites is a bad thing. Seeing as the content all originated from other skydivers, you can see how that situation is not good for skydiving. With all this in mind, you still cannot see why the USPA would not want any connection or association with these people? Don't look at the end result of the lawsuit as any sort of indication that what they are doing is right. We all know that lawyers have a way making bad things OK. All it takes is one procedural mistake on the part of a lay-person (such as a USPA BOD memeber) to give the lawyers a foothold. Think about cops and the miranda rights. If they forget to read you your rights, you're off the hook for whatever they arrested you for in the first place. You may have indeed comitted a crime, but the procedure wasn't followed, so you get away with it. Does the name OJ ring a bell?

I only met the guy a twice, but I thought his name was Mike, but there's no way he was 34 like the Mike that was reported on board. If anything he was closer to 58, like the other guy reported on board. I don't think it's him, but am not 100% sure.

Did you offer them $20 a year? $25? There's a big difference between $300k and $600k or $750k. At this point anything less than $35 or $40 and you could count me in. Does anyone know what company underwrites the policy? They're obviously comfortable with the risk, and might be willing to write though another agent if the money was right. Does anyone know the dollar amounts for paying the claims over a year? Is there a limit per occurance? Can we self insure with an escrow account and a couple of administrators? I'd feel comfortable with couple of insurance agents and a couple of lawyers (all skydivers) watching over the fund.

That's a shitty thing to say. The internet is a growing, changing, and emerging market. I guess the DZOs should spend less time packing tandem/student reserves, or maintaining the aircraft, and more time online, right? It's just like e-bay. it started off as a good idea, but it's value has diminished as a result of the scams, and sniping. So you're suggesting that the only customers we should want are the ones who are web savvy? Besides, Skyride is a con. In a well run con, the victim either never finds out about the con, or finds out after it's too late to do anything about it. Obviously Skyride is running a good con, or we wouldn't be so concerned with it. You seem to want to put the blame on the DZOs and the customers for all of this. What about the crooks running Skyride? What should they be held accountable for?

How would you feel if you opened the phone book as discoverd ads for five or six DZs in the area, only to later find that those DZs don't actually exist? Would that be the 'best' ad? How about you call those 'DZs', and they continue to represent themselves as actual entities? What if you found out they don't even operate one actual DZ in the area, and are just a booking service who are going to charge you more than you would pay be just dealing directly with an actual DZ? Do you really think this sounds like a good business idea? You would have done this if you thought of it first? You think this is helping the sport grow?

I wonder what portion of the membership dues goes toward the insurance policy? What if it's 50%? All we would need is for half of the membership to drop the USPA, and join into a group insurance policy. If we could get more than half, the yearly cost would be reduced per memeber. If we had more control over the policy, members could choose a deductible in order to lower their premiums. I'd take the risk of a $1000 deductible if it would lower my premiums. If you think about it, the insurance is the real reason that DZs require membership. I think that DZs would allow you to jump without a membership provided you had adequate coverage in place. There appears to be a business opportunity for an insurance agent here. If coverage could be made available outside the USPA, I wonder how many people would take a pass on that crappy magazine, and just get the insurance? If the agent really wanted to seal the deal, all they have to do is cut a deal with Skydiving magazine to offer 50% a susciption to everyone who buys a policy. Done deal.

As pointed out before, they do not advertise, they simply snipe web-based customers, who are already looking for a DZ website. I just want to add that there is indeed a cost. In addition to their bogus 'extras' that they charge customers for, Skyride pays the DZ less than the market price for the tandems they sell. I'm not sure of the actual figures, but I've heard it's anywhere from $25 to $40 per.

That's fucked up. I can see settling a lawsuit, and paying your way out of a trial. Sometimes it's not an issue of who's right or wrong, but if the lawyers can drag it out long enough that the legal bills will outweigh the cost of a settlement. But allowing them back into the USPA crazy. The whole basis of the lawsuit was that the USPA outsted the Skyride gang based on their business practices. The USPA is not known for frequently relinquishing membership or DZ group membership, so when they actually do relinquish a membership, you know that some thought and process went into it, and it represents the feelings of a majority of the BOD. If they are being truthful when they claim to believe in their position, and that settling was purely a financial decision, this means that they allowed the Skyride group back into the USPA fully believing them to be unethical and not worthy of the standards of membership. I could see if the settlement was the result of Skyride's lawyers presenting evidence that Skyride is not unethical, and that the relinquishing of their membership was a mistake. In this case, allowing them to return as memebers would be correct. But knowing they are crooks, and permitting them back into the USPA? Thanks for pissing in the drinking water USPA.