davelepka

As per another thread, he has placed cheap jumps as the deciding factor, and therefore is going to limit himself to Lodi.

Negative ghostrider. WDIs were of use in the days of round canopies when drift could mean the difference between landing on the DZ or not. With a very narrow window of manuverablity, a round canopy needs to be spotted accurately to get the students home. Squares, on the other hand, can get home from a wide swath of sky, and if you can drop the jumpers anywhere in that area, they can make it back to the DZ. The precision you can gain with a WDI is far more than is needed for modern, steerable canopies. Consider than an average Otter load might cover a mile or more between the first and last exits, and it's rare for anyone to land off these days. If you want to jump a round, pull out a WDI and give it a shot. Otherwise, when jumping a square, simply look at the wind speed and direction, make your best guess, and then pilot yourself back to the DZ.

The spirit of skydiving? What does that have to do with the reality of being professional, organized, consistant, and safe? Jack shit, that's what. The simple fact is that if you want complete, correct and consistant training in anything, it takes time, effort and organization, and all of those end up costing someone money. If you're worried about the fact that a frist-flight course would have a cost associated with it, you're way off track. If a jumper is going to gripe about a one-time cost of $50 or $75 to get a trained professional to spend the better part of a day both training and then jumping with them, then that jumper is in the wrong sport. Ever heard the saying, 'Anything worth doing is worht doing right'? In this case, the right way to start wingsuiting to take part in an organized and sanctioned firtst flight course. A tremendous amount of knowledge has been gained over the past 10 years in the area of wingsuiting, and to risk missing out on part (or all) of that over a couple bucks is absurd. Having been an recent outside observer to a first flight course conducted by a manufacturer rated instructor, I can tell you that it was well run and took some jumpers I would have never pictured in a wingsuit, and had them all completing a safe and enjoyable first flight by the end of the day. They recieved first-rate, professional instruction, and they paid a fair price for that. If I want my car fixed, my hair cut, or my taxes done, I look for a qualifeid professional who will do a first rate job, and for that I gladly pay them a fair price for their service, why should this be any different (with the obvious exception that your life is on the line if you don a wingsuit without proper training)?

Bump it back to Aug. http://www.skydivelostprairie.com/JUMPMEET-2011.html

There is no hard and fast formula for coming up with the spot. Look at the winds on a given day. Figure out all the places you could open at your pull altitude, and still make it back to the DZ. If there are no winds at all, the area will be a perfect circle around the DZ, let's say 1.5 miles in diameter. If you open up anywhere in that circle, you can make it back to the DZ, so the 'spot' for you is anywhere in that circle. Now say there are 10mph winds blowing out of the north. If you were south of the DZ, those winds would stop you from gliding very far, so you won't want to open up very far south of the DZ, let's say less than 1/4 mile. On that same day, you could get out much further upwind (north) of the DZ, and have the winds puch you back to the DZ, let's say you could be 2 miles upwind. So now if you use the point 1/4 south and 2 miles north as the tips of an ovel shaped area around the DZ, if you open anywhere in that oval, you can make it back to the DZ, so anywhere in there is your 'spot'. What you do now is just start paying attention to all of these factors on your jumps. Take advatnage of the more experienced people helping you out, and then remember the wind speed and direction, and where the spot was for that day. Consider your canopy flight, and how it went, and if you could have been closer or further away. Store all of this info in your memory banks and use to figure out future spots. On thing you can do is sit down and figure out what you think it should be on a given day, and then compare that to what the 'experts' are saying for that day. In the end, it's a bunch of educated guesswork. It's not uncommon for there to be an informal morning 'meeting' between the pilot and a senior jumper/staff memeber where they guess at the spot. It also not uncommon for there to be a follow-up meeting after the first load to make 'adjustments'.

Just a quick note, I was the one who posted the link to the Prince 'Best Guitar Solo of All Time' video, but I wasn't the one who posted it on Youtube, or named it as such. It might be Prince's best work, but not the best of all time. That said, it is good stuff, and Prince is highly underrated as a guitar player. I don't think anyone can say what the 'best of all time' is, but I recently stumbled onto this one from Stevie Ray, and it's got to be in the running for sure. Fast, slow, quiet, loud and everything inbetween. It's not even a solo, it's a whole song, but the whole thing is pretty much a solo. Oh yeah, don't click the link unless you have 9 minutes to kill http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWLw7nozO_U

What if you took the short brake lines and attach them to a smaller Katana, like an 89? They would probably be the right length, problem solved!

It's still dumb as shit. Even in the event of a low-speed get-off, the rig is likey to suffer severe abbrasion damage from hitting the road. You and your bike might be fine, and able to get up and ride home, but the rig isn't going skydiving without expensive repairs. If you insist on wearing it like a backpack, find a backpack or gear bag with shoulder straps, and carry it that way. It leaves room for a jumpsuit or two, and a helmet tucked into the corner. The rig will be safe, and proteced, and if the shit should hit the fan out on the road, you don't have to add a fucked up rig to your list of troubles.

Fast forward to about 3:30 in this clip, and see what he can really do- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifp_SVrlurY

I know this was covered before, but I just want to make sure you understand the point. When you leave the plane, if there are other jumpers or groups leaving the plane seperate from you, you have chosen your column of sky, and you need to stay in it. Proper group seperation will allow you some leeway to track away from others in your group, but certainly not enough to track any significant distance. If you track a significant distance, you run the risk of flying into the airspace of the group or jumper that exited before or after you. Another idea some have had is to pull higher. In the case of being downwind of the DZ on a windy day, this is not going to help as pulling higher will increase the time your canopy is exposed to those winds. If you are upwind of the DZ, pulling high can make a difference, as you'll cover far more ground under canopy than in a track. HOWEVER, in any case, when you leave the plane with other jumpers, or solo with an assigned pull altitude, it's up to you to stick to that plan for the sake of the other jumpers in the air with you. Just like you can't track too far up or down the jumprun, you also can't change your pull altitude mid-stream. Others in your group, or on the plane, have an expectation of what you are going to do and have made their own plans accordingly. Now if you are in a group, and want to break off 500 or 1000 higher, and you can see that the others get the idea and also break off, you might be able to pull slightly higher, but you simply cannot just whip your PC any time you feel like it because you think you're too far from the DZ. The correct solution is to maintain awareness of the wind conditions throughout the day, and check the spot before you exit. The exception to the 'don't pull high rule' is in the case of an equipment malfunciton or other emergency where you need to stop the freefall. In that case, track clear from others in your group, give a good wave off (if able) and do what you need to do. Keep in mind that a bad spot, or having to land off, does NOT qualify as an emergency in these terms.

So you overflew the DZ, were you facing into the wind? If you exited a proper distance upwind, and then faced into the wind and were pushed all the way back to, and past the DZ, then you were jumping in winds much too high for you, or the equipment you were on. If you exited a proper distance, and then flew with the wind to the DZ, and didn't get turned around until you were past the DZ, then you need to pay closer attention to your position, and still might have been jumping in winds much too high for you or the equipment you were on. Yes, anytime you are facing into the wind, a quick 180 will have upwind of a huge number of possibilites. With the wind now at your back, can you cover a lot more ground, and reach more options then before. Also, your 210 will be better in this situation than the 260. The 260 has a lower airspeed than the 210, so it takes less wind to stop (or back up) the 260. The 210 will fly at a faster forward speed, and be able to penetrate higher winds, so you'll be able to get forward drive in higher wind conditions.

OK, you seem to have a misunderstanding. Generally, most of a load will be exiting upwind from the airport, so the winds will blow the jumpers back toward the DZ, and if they kick up, they will just blow you back quicker. Now on a calm day, the first group or two may exit downwind of the DZ. The reason is that with light winds, if the first group is over or upwind of the DZ, the last group will be way upwind, perhaps too upwind to make it back. So what they do is let the first group out just downwind of the DZ, to help keep the end of the jumprun closer to the DZ. The trick is that it's typically only the first group, with the second group being right overhead, and the rest of the groups exiting upwind. With only one group downwind, they're not that far downwind, and generally don't have trouble making it back. So when you report that the winds picked up, and pushed you back from the DZ, it sounds like you were downwind on exit, and too far at that, because an increase in winds pushed you off the DZ. You also say you pulled at 5k, and generally if you pull high like that, you'll be later in the exit order, not earlier, and would be expected to be upwind from the DZ, where stronger winds would help you. Maybe the winds shifted while the load was up, and the jumprun should have been going the other way, but in the end, if you got you out and then increased winds could keep you from the DZ, it wasn't a 'good' spot. It might have been where they said they would let you out, but it wasn't 'good'. As far as what to do, 'trying anything' isn't the way to go, because half of 'anything' is wrong, and you didn't help yourself by guessing. Get with a coach and review the techniques for covering the most ground with your canopy, flying both with the wind, and into the wind. Also, if you got backed up for three miles, and then had to park it in a field with cows, you made another mistake. The error was backing up for all that time, and then taking an off landing in a field with hazzards (cows are a hazzard and personal property, it's best to avoid both). Think about this, the whole time you were backing up, you could have turned the canopy around and been upwind of a large peice of the planet. Winds that strong could have blown you another mile or two away from the DZ, but this would have given you that many more options for where to land. You could have chosen the best option, and then flown a standard landing pattern approaching the field from upwind, like you planned at the DZ. If you face into the wind the whole time, you cover very little ground, and leave yourself very few options.

Neither. Spend the money for an escrow service, like Chutingstar.com. They'll handle the deal for the cost of them doing an inspection on the gear, so you'll pay for that and additional shipping to get it to them in the first place. Let's say it adds $100 to the deal to use Chutingstar and insure all shipments, that's cheap insurance considering the host of things that could go wrong otherwise. The seller could be straight scamming you and ship nothing, the shipment could get legitimately lost or damaged in transit, or the kicker, the seller ships on time and the shipper does their job 100%, and the item shows up and it turns out that you and the seller disagree on the condition of the item. The first place I jumped had a sign over manifest that said 'We have no insurance, you pay your money and take your chances'. Buying used gear is a little different, in this case it's actaully, 'You pay your money OR you take your chances'.

What sort of mount would you use? Hand or wrist? What if the DZ instructors are used to using the other on their students. The DZ will provide you with all the gear you need to jump. Take advantage of it, and get to 'test' out the gear they use. Maybe you find their choices work well for you, or maybe you find that you might prefer a different sytle of one thing or the other. Then, when you go to purchase that item for yourself, you have a much better idea of what will work the best for you. At this point, you're literally just guessing what you think you're going to like. You're going to pay for gear rental, it's included in the price of all your student jumps, get your money's worth out of it, use there stuff, and then go from there. You're going to learn a TON about skydiving, gear, and yourself over the course of the first 20 jumps, revisit the issue then, and see what you come up with at that time.

It's done that way at several DZs that I know of, and probably many more. It can be tough to find a public airport that will have you and has enough open space for an LZ, and likewise it can be tough to find a private airstrip with enough space to have an LZ. If you shuttle to a nearby airport, all you need is a big open field for an LZ, and you're all set. I jump at a DZ on private land where we have a grass strip and an LZ in the same place, but early in the spring when the runway is still soft from the spring thaw, we shuttle over to a public airport with a paved runway that's about 10 min away.

Here's the info you didn't get - all of the chest strap stories, and the one about the girl tearing her awm open involved the jumper attempting to hang from the skid. In trying to lower themselves down, they ended up laying on their chest or wrapping an arm around the skid, and then got hung up on a bolt, or hook, or weld, or whatever. You can solve all of those 'problems' by standing on the skid and just jumping off it. Of course, make sure you're briefed on where to stand, what to hold on to, and don't jump 'up' for obvious reasons. The other valid point was about leaving at the same time as other jumpers, the still air you're exiting into will limit the amount of control you have for the first 10 seconds. If your exit altitude was low enough that you would need to start tracking sooner than 10 seconds, just ask to do a solo. As mentioned the helo will have some forward speed on 'jump run' and while it's not a ton, it will build in some seperation if jumpers leave some time between exits.

First off, remember that it takes 10 seconds to drop through the first 1000ft, so there's no rush. If you leave at 5k, you have 10 seconds to get stable and pull by 4k. Also, remember that the longer you fall, the easier it will be to get stable. You'll be building airspeed the whole time, and your arch will be more effective the closer you get to terminal velocity. With the above in mind, start doing some hop n pops this weekend, and arrange for one of the jumpers on the load to film your exit. They can film it from the door and still continue on to do their own jump, so that's free video. Once on the ground, get a copy of the video and pin down one of the staff members to review it with you. It won't take more than 2 min or so, and that's free coaching. Be sure to look at things like where you're looking, the alaignment of your shoulders and hips with the relative wind, and your overall body position (are you even arching? are you holding the arch, or breaking it when you go a little off kilter?). You should be able to locate the source of your problem, and then have some things to focus on for your next jump. So free video, free coaching, and nothing to focus on but the exit as there's no freefall to follow. You'll get more jumps in, and be able to work on canopy control with no traffic as well. You might be intimidated by exits and hop n pops, but this is how you can turn that around and make those your strong point.

Thanks for sharing, but the 3rd and 4th pics you attached are not what you should be doing, or encouraging others to do. A rigging error or equipment failure at that time would be a real problem for all three of you. You well within the 'cone of danger' getting those shots (even more so if you're shooting a 15mm lens), and there's no excuse for intentionally going there on a regular basis. It's simple concept, the further up you go from the tandem pair, the further back you need to be. The ratio should be close to 1 to 1, in that if you go up 10ft, you should also back up 10 ft.

There you have it. You took a newbie jumper asking about tracking away from other skydivers on a skydive, and you gave him advice based on what you were told about BASE jumping. Sounds like a good fit. As others have mentioned, BASE is a different animal, where you're starting with 0 airspeed, and have no hope of going anywhere until you build some airpseed. The sooner you can do that, the sooner you can begin to fly away from the object. On a skydive, you're already starting with a full head of steam, so diving to gain even more airspeed is simply giving away altitude and putting yourself in the least advantageous for deployment, that being vertically lower than the other on your jump. Truth be told, the flatter track is the harder skill to refine, so that's what you should be working on. Even on a BASE jump, once you get up to speed, you're going to want to flatten out and scoot. As previously mentioned, the flat track will have the slowest speed vertically, so you'll be able to reach your 'tracking speed' faster once you leave the object. Beyond that, you can do solos or just get on tracking dives which are intentionally steeper than a flat track if that's what you want to practice. Just like there are times to give (or not give) certain adivce, there are also times to practice (or not practice) certain skills, and group jumps where you're tracking for utility is not the place to practice your steep tracks.

The simple answer is a flat turn. The more complex answer is that this shouldn't even be a question for someone who is already swooping. Swooping should be at the end of the progression learning to fly your canopy. The last thing you should be doing is trying to dive your canopy hard close to the ground. If you really think about it, when you swoop you're looking for the maximum dive (altitude loss) from your turn. With that in mind, you could do any other turn you could think of (up to the same degree of your planned turn) and use up less altitude than you originally planned. While looking at the 'simple answer', the flat turn, keep in mind that if your plan goes from a long, diving, turn for a swoop to a flat turn, you have made a HUGE error in your set up.

I'm not advocating for that at all, I was saying that shooting the drouge, as the up-close focal point of any shot is not in the interest of the student, even if you ignore the obvious safety issue. I move around quite a bit looking for different shots, and looking to present different points of view to the student. Some of it is based on the background, and some of it is based on the performance of the student. Be it low angle lighting, insteresting clouds on one side or the other, or a giant booger floating out of the students nose, there are a variety of reasons to keep moving, and look for the 'best opportunity'. Whatever that may be, the tandem pair should always be in the center of the frame, with the exception of opening shots, when you can bump them down a notch to get the canopy in the shot as well. That's a great shot, and one that I really like to include when I can. The problem with that shot is that you can't have it, and the plane flying away in the background of the exit shots, without taking the time to back up and float up to get that angle dropping in from above. If you leave before the tandem, and stay low to keep the plane in the shot as they slide down the hill, you're in the exact opposite slot that the other shot requires. If I stick the exit, and am down there on that line that keeps the plane in the shot, I'll float up to the pair after the drouge is out and do some close-up stuff. Later in the jump, I'll go for an orbit where I pop up to about where a 4-way camera guy would be (not quite as steep), and take a lap around the tandem. It gives some of that perspective. If I'm late on the exit, and not down in the slot to get the plane, I'll pop up on the hill and let them fall away from me so I can drop in on them once the drouge is set. Norman is right, it really does put the whole thing in perspective, and when you can get it with some backlighting from a low sun (or sunset) it's all that much sweeter.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong (and I might be because I'm just going off memory here) but the DZO was also the rigger, and the only one who worked on any of the student rigs. If that was the case, he would already have personal, first-hand knowledge of the status of every rig and every repack card in the student fleet. For example, there is only one rigger who works on any of the student or tandem gear where I jump. He does things by the book, everytime when it comes to record keeping. In the event of an incident, he does not need to grab for the repack card to see what it says, or make sure that everything is in order. I understand that people make mistakes, but you don't find that out until after the fact. If the authorities had removed the repack card and found a discrepency, that might be a mistake which the rigger had no knowledge of. When the rigger makes grab for the repack card out the rig of a dead student, that points directly to the rigger having some knowledge of a potential problem, and that points directly to the rigger putting the rig (or another, or several others) into service with incomplete paperwork, or incomplete rigging work, or both. Think of the multitude of things a rigger might look at in that scenario. A student has just gone in, and what I would be looking at is the functuionality of the rig. The handles, pins, cutaway and reserve cables, toggles (if applicable) etc. The one thing I know for sure is that the reserve data card had nothing to do with the fatality, and in the face of a dead student, I can't imagine any reason to go looking for it unless you had previous knowledge of a problem or discrepency, and wanted to get to it before someone else did.

Exactly, and the point of flat tracking is to reduce the vertical speed to allow for a longer duration of track. One of the points you will reach faster with a diving mauver is the vertical point (altitude) where you intend to pull, thus reducing the amount of time you have to track. You might be able to dive down and scoot over to the horizontal point 'x' in the sky faster than a flat tracker, but you'll reach the vertical point 'y' (pull altitude) quicker as well. The flat tracker, on the other hand, may take longer to get to point 'x', but when they do wil still be above point 'y', and thus be able to continue tracking past point 'x', reaching point 'y' at the further out point 'z'. Let's say it's a wash, and you more or less get the same result. The deciding factor now is if you would rather dive down below the others in your group and pull sooner, or float above them and pull later. Based on the idea that I don't want someone crashing through my canopy, I vote for floating above and pulling later.

Here's what you need to know, you want to go up relative to others, not down. The slower your vertical speed, the better chance that nobody will be above you when you deploy, and the more time you will have to fly away from the group before opening. Altitude is like money, don't give it away for no reason. The less you can use in a given manuver, the better off you're going to be after the fact. You may feel like you're doing better with a dive and then a track, but it's an illusion. You feel the resistance of peeling out of the dive, and are mistaking that for lift, but it's not. If you feel like going right to a flat track is 'mushy' it might be beause you're doing it right, and slowing your vertical speed with a good, de-arched body position. It should be slower, and you should feel less reistance on your front side because of the slower speed. None of that is related to your forward speed, that comes from having your legs out and a slightly head low attitude, and you'll only feel that on the top of your head (which means not much). Sitck your legs out and lean into the track. De arch to fall slow, and take advantage of the increased freefall time to track for a longer duration. In the end, this might all be academic, because if you're tracking up or down the flight line into the airspace of another group, maximum distance from your group is not the goal. In those cases, the goal is just enough seperation from your group that you have time to turn away from another canopy is a collision is immenent. Tracking any further than that (in those cases) puts you needlessly close to the group before or after you, and risks a freefall to canopy collision as opposed to the canopy to canopy collision you're tyring to avoid with your track. A woman was killed in Aus or N. Zeland within the last year or so when there was a canopy to freefall collision between jumpers from two different groups. It's real, it can happen, and something you need to be aware of.

And you want to take up skydiving? That aside, please double check with the DZ that you need to provide your own helmet and googles. This is not the 'norm' in the indistry, most of the time the DZ will provide you with everything you need - rig, jumpsuit, helmet, goggles, and altimeter. One reason is that the majority of first time jumpers don't want to invest heavily in gear they won't need if they never jump again, and another reason is that it allows the DZ to control the gear used by the students. If the rule was you had to bring your own helmet and googles, how would you know if you were bringing skydive appropriate gear or not? What's to stop someone from showing up with ski goggles and a bicycle helemt? Those are two things non-jumpers might have, and if that's what they brought they would be out of luck as neither of those is good for jumping. In terms of a full face helmet, the prices start in the low $200 range for a skydiving full face and go up from there. That aside, they limit the communication with your instructors, and that's not good for a student. If you're not a fan of the wind, this is not the sport for you.