davelepka

Just off the top of my head, Ohio DZs Parkman, Canton Air Sports, Aerohio, and Start Skydiving, not one of them are at the original airport where they opened. Didn't Chicagoland move last year or the year before? The St Pats boogie, and how about a little thing called the WFFC? Not where they started off... You're right, shit-can the town and take the DZ elsewhere. The location is only a small part of the equation, if you run a good DZ people will drive to see you.

No, that's what the wave-off is for. Again, if everyone remained focused down and out while tracking, looking for the low man and giving the right of way, the wave-off is enough. If you spend your time doing an extended, quality scan of the area below you, you're going to see anyone who is there. If they wave off, you're going to see that too. You're a pilot, correct? You know the techniques for an effective traffic scan, slice the sky up into sections and scan one section at a time. The reason is that without that methodology, people scan too fast and too much area at once, and tend to miss things. This is the same. You need to spend all of your track scannig the area where you are going if you want it to be effective. We're only talking about 5 or 6 seconds here, so you can see that a quality scan of any area will take the entire time. Trying to split that up between belly, and back tracking, or even looking up and down, will just reduce the effectiveness of the scan.

Good idea, but the main canopy is the last thing you buy. Calculate your exit weight (which is your body weight plus about 25-30lbs) and look for a reserve that you will be loading at 1 to 1 max. If that adds up to, say, 180 and you have a choice between a 170 and a 190 reserve, buy the bigger reserve. You'll never be sorry to have extra square footage on your reserve. Next, look for a container. The harness is a no-brainer, it needs to fit your body. If you see a rig you like, get the serial number from the seller, and email the manufacturer with that number and your measurements, and they'll tell you if it will fit. If it won't, they can also tell you the cost of a harness re-size to make it fit. The other part of the container is the size canopies it will hold. You need one to hold the reserve you choose as per the above instructions, and look for one that will hold a main of the same size. You're not going to be that far off 1 to1 anytime in the near future, so it's a good guess as to what you need (more on why you have to guess in a minute). If you do buy a main at 1 to 1, it will fit. If you end up with a main one size smaller, at a higher WL, it will also fit and be easier to pack. Even if you downsize once more in the future, you should still be able to use the same container, and it will be even easier to pack. Last up is the main, and here's why - most DZs will want you to jump student gear until you have a license. During that time, you'll get to try the different size canopies they have, and you can see what size canopy 'fits' you. Since you don't know what that will be until you get there, it's hard to buy that stuff in advance. Let's say you buy a rig and a 170 main. By the time you're ready to jump it, you're on the DZs student 190 and still have not really 'mastered' it. You will want to jump your own rig, but it's not the right rig for you yet, and the tendency has been for jumpers to push the limits and jump the smaller canopy anyway, somtimes with very poor results. So by all means start collecting your gear. Get a reserve, AAD (if you want) and a container that will fit 'any' canopy you might be ready for at the time you start jumping your own rig. Then, at that time, buy a main.

More powerful than what? Faster than what? Flatter than what? Without knowing your experience and history of canopies you've flown, these aren't comparisons that we can confirm or deny. I will say this, however, there is not a canopy produced today (that I know of) that does not have a flare powerful enough to provide a zero descent rate upon touchdown. If the canopy is properly maintained and properly flown, any modern canopy will have enough flare power to land you softly. With regards to turns, 'faster' is an odd concept. Once you get your WL up a little, 'faster' becomes a non-issue because at some point it turns into 'too fast' and can toss you into line twists. So turn rate is only a concern if you can pull a toggle down to your hip and it's still too slow. In that case, you might want a canopy that can turn fatser, but if you're not pulling to toggle all the way down, just pull it down further and you'll turn faster. Disclaimer - you'd be surprised at how big/slow of a canopy will line twist itself if you give a full deflection toggle turn, be careful. With regards to glide, again, sort of an odd concpet to focus on. Again, you can adjust your glide as you see fit with brake or rear riser input. The trimmed glide of a non-swooping canopy is rarely a concern, and only 'needs' to be used on final approach (not even then sometimes). Otherwise, you can set your glide as you see fit by actaully 'flying' your canopy. Truth be told, a canopy with a steeper glide is more versatile as you can choose full lfight with a steep glide, partial input for a medium glide, and more input for a shallow glide (there's more to it than that, but you get the idea). On a shallow trimmed canopy, you lose the option of a steep glide (yes, you can pull the front risers down, but then the airspeed builds and it's not a 'sustainable' flight mode). No offence, but the things you say don't make sense, and do make you sound like a (in your words) 'kid fresh out of the FJC'. Don't take this the wrong way, but your physics degreee means very little in skydiving, as skydiving goes well beyond the physics of the activity. Experience and human nautre are huge factors, and there's no equation that will account for those. Until you know for sure (through experience, training, and muscle memory) that you can handle a sensitive, twitchy canopy both during the deployment and close to the ground, you simply shouldn't be jumping them. If you claim to teah physics, you must be a smart guy. Don't disprove that by acting like a dumbass, and combing the classifieds looking for canopies that you shouldn't be jumping. Some sellers will do background checks, ya know?

In this case, the discussion is about taking evasive action in the event of a possible collision on opening. Even my Velo at 2.0 does not provide the same 'instant' turn you can get from rears or toggles. Anyone with less canopy or at a lower WL will have even less response, and I think it's a mistake to put a harness turn forward as a tool for collision avoidance. Case in point, I would split hairs down to the differences between the time it takes to grip and release a toggle vs, the time it takes to grip and pull a rear riser, and call the rear riser the clear choice in a collision. I would further split hairs calling the time it takes to make a full toggle stroke vs the time it takes to make a full rear riser input, and call the rear riser again the superior choice. Time is of the essence in these situations, and given the amount of 'suck' that comes with a wrap, I would say that the 1 or 1.5 seconds of time you save using the rears vs the toggles makes the rears the outstanding winning choice. Compare that to the turn rate/responsiveness of the harness turn, and you can see how I would not even mention that option in this circumstance.

No. Popping the toggles requires the jumper to get a grip on both toggles (and despite your BASE jumping desires, most skydivers do not use big grab toggles), and then it requires both brakes to release cleanly or you have just made two problems out of one. You started off with an imminent canopy collision, and have now added a canopy with a comprimised control system. The rear riser turn can be accomplished with a grip anywhere on the rear riser, and will result in a more effective amount of response vs. the amount of input required. Pulling a toggle only effects the tail of the canopy, while pulling a rear riser will effect the entire back half of the canopy. Another advantage is being able to grab the rears while keeping your eyes on the traffic hazzard. If you have to look up to grab your toggles, you're not watching the guy you're in a rush to avoid. It's much easier to grab the rears sight unseen, while continuing to watch the other guy. Back to your BASE intentions, check with your mentors, and they'll tell you that rear risers can be used to turn, brake turn, stall turn, or back up your canopy if you open facing an object. Again, quicker and more reliable than going for toggles.

Your focusing on the giver, and not the reciever. In this case, the reciever is a guy who posted that he thought the concept of 'experience' was developed for the sole purpose of keeping the newbies down. Do you really think any approach from a 'giver' is going to get through to a guy with that mentality? There are two sides to every coin, and they each stand an equal chance of being wrong in any situation. In this case, I'm pretty sure I know which side of the coin gets my vote for being the 'problem'.

Sure, that's it. Everyone is trying to keep you down so you don't get as good as them. Can you imagine the effect it would have on my life if a jumper on another continent was to become as good at swooping as I am? Or even better? I would have to change my name, leave my family, and assume a new identity if that happened. Even then, I'm pretty sure that the shame would dirve me to drink and eventually pull a Hemingway one night in a drunken stupor. Get over yourself Nancy. Nobody is worried about your success in any way. I don't care if you become the greatest swooper of all time, it's not going to change my life one ounce. The concern is here is about your possible failure, and what that entails. Even then, that wouldn't effect my life either, but I would hate to see it happen to ANOTHER young jumper who it seems just couldn't keep a handle want they think they want.

That's true, but you typically don't get to fly the same set-up and approach as you would with a swoop performed out of an airplane. Dedicated GL canopies are also not trimmed as steep as swooping canopies, so that would be another difference. That said, if you had a launch point where you could launch a skydiving canopy, and then fly it to 800/1000ft over the LZ for a swoop, that would be effective swoop practice without a skydive. Even then, it's not a 'cheat' like windtunnel where you can get much more practice per session than you can per jump, even with a GL swoop, it's still only one landing at a time.

Ok, so think back to the first time you drove a car, how did that go? We're you able to keep it between the lines, play with the radio and talk on the phone at the same time? I know I couldn't when I was 16, but I can't count the number of times I did just that yesterday without incident. Think 20 years of dirving experience has anything to do with that? How about the first time you fucked a chick, how was that? I'll admit that my fist time was pretty pathetic, and am I'm not sure either one of us really had a great time. Again, more recently I can report different results, with the young lady having several good times followed by myself doing the same. Wonder what changed between then and now? Truth be told, this last post of yours just made you sound like a douche, and probably lost any ounce of good will you had with anyone here. How arrogant of you to make such a judgement about jump experience when you have no idea what it's like to have said experience. How can you claim to know the importance (or lack thereof) of experience when you yourself have none? That's like claiming that choclate ice cream is better than vanilla ice cream when you have only tried chocolate. However, in this case, the risk is not a mouthful of ice cream you might not like, it's the possible loss of your independent mobility or your life. So you don't need experience, and I guess you also don't need the advice of experienced people. Have at it sport, and keep the GoPro rolling so we can all see how awesome you are (or whatever the reality of the case may be).

The rule of thumb with 4-way video is if you have to ask if you're steep enough, you're not. The 'ideal' place will have you just outside the burble, and if you never feel the burble, again, you're probably not close enough. This is one reason why new teams are tougher. They tend to slide around the sky more than the better teams, so staying 'just outside' the burble becomes tougher because the burble is always moving. Forget all that, and let's say you intend to fly a couple feet from the burble at all times. You're still not safe from prematute deployments. The team will be upwind of you in the door, possibly on exit depending on your timing, and one of them could track under you at break off (if you pull out of the center). When you factor in funnels, rebuilding after funnels, and the aforementioned sliding around the sky, you can see several reasons why you need to be aware of the condition and use of the gear being jumped. Here's a hint - since most 'team guys' get all serious about training, creeping, and dirt diving, they all tend to go the route of using packers. Hang out in the packing room and watch the guys on your team pick up their rigs. If any of them grab it off the pile, and don't check the pins and PC, think about jumping with another team.

How is that what you take away from what's been posted????? Show up, go to manifest with your USPA card/license/repack card etc, and ask to waiver in. When your business with manifest is complete, ask for a DZ briefing if they haven't already called someone over to handle it. What are you sitting around for? Get in there, get your buisness done, and get to jumping.

Just ask when you sign your waiver for a DZ tour/intro from a local jumper/staff member. This will typically include the low points, like where the bathroom as and where you can pack, but it will also include the high points, things like the landing areas, the layout of the LZ, a look at an overhead pic, landing patterns, places you're not supposed to land/walk/fly, manifest procedures, aircraft loading location and procedures, and exit orders/procedures. I would be weary of any DZ that would not provide the above service to a low time jumper new to the DZ.

The Sorcerer wasn't TSO'd, and the Sorcerer had a pull-out style reserve PC mounted in a pouch on the outside of the reserve container, with a pud mounted on your shoulder. Those would be the two biggest differences.

Give them a call this week, and just confirm your reservation and make sure you mention where you bought the jump. Just work it into the conversation like, 'Hi, I bought a coupon from XX and am scheduled to jump Sat at 10am, and I just wanted to confirm the reservation'. See what they say. I'll tell you this much - every DZ I've ever been to is first come, first served. If you show up there at 8am, you'll get put in the line up to jump ASAP, they're not going to look at you for 2 hours until 10am, and then get you ready to go. If you bought some sort of bottom dollar discount jump (which I have to question the wisdom of, but whatever) there's a good chance there are a couple hundred other people who did the same and are also going to want to jump. Having a long wait could be a real concern, so seeing as you're scheduled for 10am, just show up at 8 or 8:30, and tell them you thought the drive would take longer or whatever. Most DZs don't schedule much before 8am, so if you show up around then, you'll be in the first 'wave' of tandems, and stand a good chance of actuallly jumping around 10am.

It was Ohio. The DZ was the old Parkman DZ owned by the Gates family. I'm guessing it was the same guy because how many deaf Amish guys could there be hanging out at DZs? I wonder how many deaf Amish guys there are all together? Can't be that many.

You might be overthinking it a touch. Either way, the sensitivity of the harness goes up with wing loading, so if you're jumping a student canopy with a low wing loading, don't expect much 'action' out of a harness turn. You can either just lean to one side, or some people prefer to lift the opposite side, but the end result is one hip-junction is higher than the other. On a canopy with a lower WL, like anything under 1.3 or 1.4, just go ahead and lean into it will all of your might. It's not going to turn very fast, and I don't think it's possible to induce line twists with a harness turn on any canopy, so you should be 'safe' to really go for it.

I can't say there are any safety issues unique to beginner teams, but the only one I could think of would be at break off. If you take the center (meaning you just pull at break off, everyone esle tracks, you stay put and dump) you run the risk of people taking short tracks and dumping close to you. One way to avouid this is to track off at break off, and pull on level (but far away) from the rest of the team. Whatever the plan, just make sure you set it up ahead of time, and then every member of the team knows and understands their place at break-off. It doesn't hurt to mention the plan just before boarding on every jump. Otherwise, depending on how 'new' the jumpers are, just remember that you're going to be above them for most of the jump, so gear maintenance and proper packing becomes a concern of yours. Sloppy packing, loose closing loops or BOC pouches, etc, can all add up to a PC or canopy in the face for the camera guy, so keep an eye out for that as well.

If where you want to go has anything to do with a wingsuit, then you do need the jumps. Not much you can do in the tunnel will translate to wingsuit flying, as the tunnel is all 'straight-down', and wingsuiting is anything but. Tracking dives might be in order if wingsuiting is where you're heading. If it has anything to do with wingsuit BASE, you need the jumps even more. Any type of BASE jump will require excellent canopy control and accuracy, and those are things that you can only get through making actual jumps. Tunnels are fun, and a valuable training tool for freefall skills, but they are of limited use with realtion to exits, tracking/wingsuits, and anything to do with canopies.

I know airdiver mentioned one amish guy that used to like to go for rides in the Beech. I don't know if it's the same guy (I don't think it is) but there was a deaf amish guy who used to hang around the DZ, and I think he even helped out keeping the place clean. I know he used to like to go up for observer rides, but it would have been in the Twin Bo, which came after the Beech. It would have been after I left the DZ and started jumping somewhere else, but I am 99% sure that guy ended up making a jump, and I think it was even multiple jumps. I seem to recall that it was static-line, but again this is all after my time there, and just from memories of stories I heard second-hand.

What's interesting is that they're both expert level canopies, but the fact that a jumper would lump them together as close competitors show a decidedly non-expert level of understanding about canopies. It makes me wonder what else he doesn't know, and if he's going to find that stuff out the hard way.

Well, I hate to ask, but did they bust the time limit? Did they sign the agreement and then not stick to it? If that's the case, I think the title of the thread should be reversed to read that the city is the one having a problem with the DZ, that being that they violated their contract. That said, I don't agree with that type of clause in the contract, I think it puts and undue limitation on the business, but if the DZO signed, then he signed. Does anyone know the nature of the violation? Was it loads taking off within 30 min of sunset, or was it jumpers/aircraft landing 28 min before sunset, and the airport is just out to get them? Furthermore, does anyone know the motivation for that clause? Is it a safety thing? Surely they don't ban all aviation activites during those times, so they can't call it a noise abatement issue, so all I can guess is that they don't want canopies in the air near dark, no?

The DZ where I started was in Amish country, and they used to bring the horse and buggies out to the DZ and sit there watching the jumpers all day. Amish kids don't have to 'commit' to being Amish until they're 18, so the Amish teens would show up with a horse and buggy, but they would have a 12v car battery in the back powering a car radio and a subwoofer, and they would be blasting AC/DC. The funny part was that when kids do that in a car, you hear them down the block, then they drive by, and the sounds fades as they get further down the street. With the Amish, the horse and buggy is so slow, that the sound builds gradually, and you get to hear a whole song or two before they're out of earshot. Anyway, the DZO and his brother both grew up on the DZ (their dad opening the place in the early 60's), and they had some stories from the 70's about teenage Amish girls, and while I doubt they look like the one in the video, those were some pretty crazy stories. The Amish - who knew?

Try to ignore the smart-ass remarks. There's a well known problem with tandem harnesses that under canopy the leg strap can dig into your femoral artery, and cause the exact symptoms you described. The reason is that a normal skydiving harness is designed for the jumper to sit directly 'on top' of the legsrtap, with the jumpers body being vertical, and the lagstrap sitting right in their crotch. On a tandem, the passenger hangs in the forward leaning postion, putting your weight more forward on the legstrap, right on top of your femoral artery. One solution some TIs use under canopy is to have the jumper lift their knee, and scoot the legstrap forward a few inches down the leg. If you do this on both sides, you end up 'sitting' in the harness as opposed to hanging in it. Mention the problem to your TI before you next jump, and maybe they can help you out. Single jumper harneeses are much better in that respect than tandem harnesses. One reason the TI might not have picked up on this is that it's hard to tell the difference between a passenger who's just plain airsick, and one who is having a problem with the legstrap on their artery.

The Racer is an 'unconventional' design. The reserve PC is outside of the container, and it takes two pins to hold is shut (and those pins are on the backpad, not the outside of the container). Newer Racers are better (much better) than older Racers. Anthing more than 5 or 6 years old is getting old for a Racer. Not that they don't last a long time, just that they got some revisions around then that are 'good to have'. The RSL is a trouble spot. The double-sided RSL is a bad idea, and bad enough that you can get a single-sided RSL fitted if you want. Overall, it might be easier to buy a different rig. If you had a rigger who was helping you with buying a Racer, and knew what to look for and how to make sure you got a 'good' one that will fit your needs, and would be there to help you take care of it, that would be one thing. Without a rigger on your side, and with your limited personal knowledge, maybe steer clear. 'Mainstream' rigs like Vectors, Javelins, Infinity, Wings, Mirage (and to a lesser extent, Talon, Dolphin, Quasar) would be better choices. You have a better chance of finding a rigger to pack them if you cutaway while on vacation, a better chance of that rigger having handles or freebags in stock for said rig, and a better chance of selling it when you're done. That said, I put a couple thousand jumps on Racers, and had no complaints the entire time. Of course, I came from a 'Racer DZ' where they knew about Racers (and used them for students and tandems) and the one I primarily jumped wasn't exactly 'stock'. Good product, solidly built, but there are just better options these days.