davelepka

It's more than reasonable, in fact, it should have been the first question or comment. Throwing down your first 270 on a canopy on size smaller than a canopy you only have 100 jumps on? How this didn't stand out as dumbass move number one, I'll never know....

Did you notice the mint single Otter they used?

I've always been a fan of the concept that if the deployment happens in the proper sequence, that the slider is what will control the spped on the openings, not the PC or stow size or type of bands used. At least thats always been my experience. As far as that goes, doesn't the limitations of the harness or risers concern you? Rouge openings happen to all canopies from time to time. Get one doing 180, and something will break. Harness, riser, femur, spine, whatever, but something will break.

When you rented the rig, if there was no written agreement outlining who was responsible for what, both parties are making some assumptions. The renter is making the assumption that the rig is airworthy, the reserve is in date, the AAD is current and operational. The gear store is making the assuption that the gear will be used within it's design limitations, and will be cared for for by the renter. Main is unpacked when received by new jumper*** If the renter accepts the rig in this condition, they are accepting responsibility for the rig from that point forward. How the main is packed, or who packs it is then the responsibility of the renter. The renter in this case chose to employ a packer. At best, the renter could take issue with the packer, but pakcers for the most part do not take responsibility for mals of any sort. Their employment is based upon timely service and good packing, so they will put effort into doing the job correctly, but they make no guarantees.

It wasn't a joke. The factory reccomends a smaller then standard PC, and being in a slight track to get their canopies to open right. Other companies reccomend falling straight down, and using a PC of a more standard size. Crazy stuff.

How about mixing in a few left-handed reserve handle practice touches with those exits as well? Pulling a ripcord with your left hand is alot different than a BOC or pull out.

I see what you're going after, but I think the reason that the situation exists at all, is the reason that appraoch may not work. The reason that this jumper is jumping the canopy he is, and doing the big turns, is that this is what he sees accomplished swoopers doing, and he wants to be an accomplished swooper. Any way you spin it, he knows where he wants to be, and most likely won't be open to taking steps backwards in his progression. Additionally, canopies are expensive, which further discourages a switch. The first point is more the reason that you need to tell the guy of the impending injury or death he faces, or simply to ban him from every DZ you can, and maybe then he'll see that his choice, while possibly being a detriment to his canopy piloting progression, more importantly is definatley a serious threat to his health and well being.

Seeing as how he won't listen to reason, you should have let him burn holes in his tail to teach him a lesson.

OK, check to see how the slider grommets fit over your stowed toggles and brake line on the ground. Some riser and toggle set-ups are fatter than others, and it makes it tough to get the grommets over them. Once you have a handle on how they fit, and what it takes to get the grommets over your stuff, try it in the sky. Be sure to check for traffic, and then start with the rears, and do them one at a time. Take care not to unstow a toggle or brake line in the process. Also, watch for getting fingers stuck in a toggle or a loop of line as you pull the grommets down. Once the rears are both down, do the fronts, and seat all the grommets down in the vee of the riser. Don't get lost in the job. Watch for traffic, and watch your spot. Don't spend too much time working on this. If it's not going well, abort the mission, and leave the slider up. A word of caution - a toggle coming unstowed halfway through the process, or getting only one grommet over, and not the other will severly complicate matters. It may interfere with your normal usage of toggles. Be careful up there.

This is where you lose your footing. Yeah, maybe a guy could get more of his point across if he was nicer, or used some tact, but the bigger picture is that if a guy is making what you believe to be a mistake, with possible dire results, that you do need to speak up, and let your thoughts be known, regardless if the original poster asked that specific question or not. The simple fact that this guy is asking some simple operational questions about a persuit that is at best ill advised, indicated that he may actaully believe that his course of action is OK. There's always the possibility that when you speak up, and point out the pitfalls of what's going on, the guy may just say, "Holy shit dude, you're right, I never thought of that. I'm going to attach my bag and PC to the top of canopy like a normal person, and start getting my PC out a little sooner". The other side is the implied consent that comes along with offering advice. Other jumpers may read the thread, see the situation presented, and if there are no objections, perhaps even seemingly encouraging advice from other posters, then it seems as if the situation is A-OK, and others may attempt to follow suit. This is why you log on, post your thoughts, and others can make their own choices as to what to read and what to believe.

First off, he said open at 1800. which I take to mean the PC is out somewhat above that. Either way, I don't give a fuck what the BSRs say, thats just too low. The other thing is, he offers 1800ft as his open by altitude, and also offers that his RDS adds '100 ft' to how long his canopy takes to open. These two statements alone show that this guy has the wrong idea. First off, things don't happen that regularly in skydiving, especially when it involves deployment. Second, if he believes either of those numbers to be dependable, and makes any plans around that dependability, he's on the short list for about to be in for a surprise.

Man, thats fucking dumb. I'm not even sure if I'm talking about jumping an RDS and not swooping, or just getting open at 1800 ft, or combining the two. Anyway you want to cut it, just dumb. First off, pull higher. At least 500 ft, maybe more. Tell all of your buddies too. Even if you're doing RW, move the break off up, and your pull altitudes as well. One day the extra feet may save your ass. Really. Second, either ditch the RDS idea all together, or man up, and repack your shit if you're not planning on removing it. Keeping things as simple as possible the way to go. Having an RDS if you're not swooping is dumb, and then to not even remove it on a jump is really making things far more complicatied for absolutley no reason. I vote you ditch the RDS until you're an awesome swooper, and it's the only way you'll go any faster or any further. Dude, above all, take a deep breath, and think about what you're doing. You're skydiving. Jumping out of a plane. Thats exciting enough for now. Don't try to reinvent the wheel, or make things harder then they need to be just to do it. Thats how you get yourself or someone else fucked up. Just the fact that you would use a centered single-piont attachment for your RDS shows a lack of understanding as to whats going on.

Not really. A hang glider pilot hnags under the wing, much like a skydiver, but the reason their weight shift works is the bar they push/pull on to hold their weight forward or back. without this leverage point, their leaning forward and back would be as useless as a skydiver leaning forward or back. The jumper hangs from a single point, the big ring on the harness. Lean any way you want (fore or aft), you weight is still hanging off the bottom of the ring. Positioning in the harness is useful for obtaining leverage for harness turns, or other inputs, as well as setting yourself up to take your wieght on landing. As far as altering the picth of the wing, not so much.

Fuck that guy. Invite him to hang out for beers, and have someone Tonya Harding his legs in the parking lot after dark. They'll be broken soon enough anyway, so lets just get it over with, and keep the parachutes out if it.

OK, then try this - double stow all of your line stow bands, then with a friend holding your rig on the floor, pull the bridle, and slide the bag along the floor and watch as the lines unstow. See how it wobbles from side to side? See how a hang-up from a stow could throw the bag into a spin? Now do the same with a freebag, BASE or CRW canopy with a tail pocket, or a main d-bag with a line stow pounch. As you pull it back to line strech, you'll notice that the lines play out of the pocket without creating any movement of the bag (or canopy).

Situations like a guy using a stroboframe (or two) when he doesn't need to remove cameras, or maybe isn't even a working camera flyer who's just making fun jumps. The strobo's add weight, and their added height moves the cameras further from your skull. How about the guys with one small PC cam on an FTP. They buy the FTP just because it the top of the line, regardless of what their application really requires. In the early days of the PC cams, I knew a few guys who bucked up and were jumping VX1000s for the three chip quality, when they were just fun jumping. Even worse was the guys who bought the VX700 (single-chip) becasue they couldn't afford the 1000, but wanted to look like 'one of the guys'. It's the same theory as every 500 jump wonder who thinks he needs a Velo or a VX to be a big shot on the DZ. Put your ego aside, and realize that real results will come from making smart equipment choices, and that in the end, real respect comes from what you do with your equipment, not what equipment you have.

I've been behind this concept for a long time. Keep the weight as low as possible, keep the weight as close in to your head as possible, and keep your head square on your shoulders on opening (meaning don't look at your canopy). This also ties into the 'keeping it simple' principle. The fewer parts and components on your helemt, the fewer parts there are to break or mal. The bonus is that fewer parts usually leads to a lighter helmet. Newer camera flyers need to embrace this stuff and realize that a camera helmet is 100% function. Too many of them go for fashion, or the latest gizmo, and most of it is crap, and is just going to work against them in the long run.

The primary reason for a wave off is to let any jumpers you may not have seen above you know that your PC is on the way out. It becomes more important as the size of your group increases. The videographer is the only other jumper with the tandem, and if the TI can see him, and is happy with where they are, a wave off is not needed. Also, if you have a good TI and a skilled videographer who have a lot of jumps working together, they will be communicating with each other through their actions as opposed to hand signals, shouting or text-messaging. It's possible that the videographer was in his standard deployment time position, and just by going there, let the TI know that he's ready for the pull whenever the TI is. After all that, just make it a point to seek out the TI and videographer jumping with your next loved one, and let them know that you're excited for your friend, but also concerned for their safety, and maybe they could take extra special care of them.

I've jumped both canopies as well, and I too give the nod to the Katana as being a higher performace canopy then the x-fire. The x-fire is good, the Katana is better (if you want to go fast).

Has anyone else noticed that often times when a lower time jumper is pushing the limits of WL or planform, and they openly share that info, that they're from Europe? More often eastern europe? I don't know if it's just that those guys are more willing to admit it, maybe they don't know the backlash it will create, or if it's just more accepted in those countries. If it's the latter, it's surprising because some of the EU countries are the ones where thay have a WL chart in place, and all the jumpers are required to abide by it's limitations. It would seem weird that it's so conservative in one country, and then in a nearby country (lets face it, all european countries are nearby each other) it's pretty much open season. No offence meant to any europeans, of course.

Here's a few more thoughts - - If the canopy is slippery, and tough to get in the bag, the slider gromments may be working their way off the stops while you are bagging the canopy. Check them once the canopy is in the bag, and re-seat them if needed. - PD has two sizes of slider for the Velo. Measure yours, and call PD to see if it's the big one. If it's not, get the big one.

Every canopy will return to it's 'full flight' sooner or later. Some of the higher performance models will do it at such a gradual rate that you will loose most of your extra speed waiting for it to happen. As a note to everyone about this thread: This seems to be another one of those threads that has reduced itself to examining the mintue details of a swoop, 99% of which are irrelevant to 99% of the jumpers on earth. While it may be fun (for some) to hash out these details on the web, in real life we need to put most of these concepts out of our minds, and focus on the basics - traffic management, set-up altititude, and avoiding obsatcles. All of your BS about the fine poitns of this arc or that will mean very little if you wrap with someone half-way through your turn. As far as a learning progression goes, slow and steady is the way. Be smart and methodical. Double fronts until it's second nature, and your accuarcy is as good as a straigh in. Ditto for 45's, and ditto for 90's. Beyond that, get some help, and be careful.

OK, if you have to choose between a broken back or a broken leg, yeah, go with the broken leg. How about option 'C', no breaking anything? Your orientation to the wind only controls your horizontal speed component. Into the wind will give a lower horizontal speed, and with the wind will give a higher horizontal speed. Your vertical speed (aka, the speed at which you hit the ground) is controlled by flaring the canopy. You can be landing downwind, in a 20 mph donwwind, and if you flare properly, your vertical speed upon touchdown will be the same as if you were landing into the wind. Any resultant injuries would be from your considerable forward speed, and how you handled it. Your number one job when landing your canopy is to have your wing level. Your number two job os to flare the canopy. Everything else is optional. If you're downwind, with a level wing a good flare, you will have little to no problems. If you hit a tree, house, or cow, and your wing is level and you have a good flare, you stand a good chance of walking away. If you are in the center of the flattest field you can find, and landing into a steady 8kt wind, and you are in a turn when you hit, or you fail to flare your canopy, you're gonna get messed up. See? Wing level + good flare = good chance for a safe landing, even if you screw up everything else. Wing not level and/or no flare = expect to bleed.

Here's a thought as to why this issue might be retarded (for the most part). Building speed is the goal here, and the only thing harder than building speed is maintaining it. The idea then, is to hit your high speed as close to the gates as possible (or even past them). This makes the last part of the turn the more important part of the turn. If you were to build alot of speed early in the turn, you leave yourself open to loosing that speed during the remainder of the dive. The idea is more to use the first part of the turn to steadily build speed right up to the area of the gates, hopefully ending up at or near the highest speed your canopy can attain. You'll do this by spending the entire turn out from under your wing, with the degree of 'outness' steadily increasing throughout the turn up to maximum 'outness' as you roll onto your final heading. My point here is that for your speed as you start the turn to have an effect on how fast you're going at the end of the turn, you would have to scribe the perfect arc around your canopy, with the perfect rate of increasing speed in order to have any momentum from the start of the turn make it down to the bottom of the turn, and have any appreciable effect on your speed. Any sort of correction, either speeding up or slowing down of your turn during your turn will cancel out any advatage a braked approach or a full flight approach will offer. There are, of course, some jumpers who may be able to throw the perfect turn, and have whatever advatage is available make it all the way down to the gates, but like I said, anything short of a perfect turn will cancel that right out. For the sake of discussion, this topic might have some merit, but like alot of things on DZ.com, the finite details at the far end of the spectrum seem to take center stage, when the majority of jumpers need to be focused on the basics.

Who the fuck told you that? I can't imagine that anyone qualified to give advice would say that. The level of stupidity involved in coming up with that line of thinking is hard to believe. That fact that you never thought of arching harder, or strapping on a weight belt is hard to believe. Ever hear of freeflying? A faster suit? Just letting a better or heavier camera flyer handle the big boys? Take a minute and think about what I just wrote. All or most of these things would immediately occur to a guy who had his shit together, and deserved to be shooting his mouth off about his skills the way you were. Look bro, there's no crime in being young, or inexperienced. EVERYONE was there at one time, no exceptions. Take a few hints from the guys who made it past there, and can look back and remember those times, and compare them to where they are now. They've got all kinds of perspective that you can't even fathom. Open your eyes and ears, and by all means, when shooting any video involving anyone without a skydiving license, keep your hands to yourself.