davelepka

Who's to blame that the jumper in question took actions that multiple people agreed was dumb enough that they wanted to speak up? My fault? Chuck for posting it? How do you draw the line between 'pack mentality' and a simple unanimous feeling about the actions taken and the reposnse that was due? Bullying is one thing, what happens here is another. Bullies take a pro-active approach, and start conflict with those of a lesser stature. The one who started what happened in the other thread was the jumper in question. He knew what he was doing, he defied the wishes of the DZ management who told him to put the Velo away, and proceeded to place himself and others at risk for no other reason than to stroke his own ego. I'll I, or anyone esle, did was comment on what someone else did. Without that jumper taking those actions, his name or activites would have never come up or come into quesiton. This wasn't bullying, it was a newbie screwing the pooch and a bunch of dudes pointing it out. You think I don't take my lumps? Read some of my posts and then read the responses. If I so much as make a poor word choice, or am anything less than crystal clear on exactly what I mean, there are 10 guys out there waiting the wings to point out the error. Ditto on the DZ, the guys are just wainting for me to fuck up so they can lay into me with whatever jabs or insults they can come up with, and when I do make a mistake they'll ride it into the ground for weeks. It's tough out there, and the solution isn't to cry 'bully' and run for the hills, it's to buck up and do better. Make better choices, do a better job and be a better example so when the haters want to hate, all they have to hate is your exceptional performance. I understand that not everyone can be 'exceptional', but in this sport, like it or not, there is a minimum level of performance required or you end up dead, plain and simple. When someone is flirting with dropping below that minimum, it's not the time for being meek or holding back. Speak up, loud and clear, and make sure that person understands that one bad choice on a fun Sat afternoon can have lifelong consequnces, with one of them being that your life isn't going to last very long.

Z-hills is great, and my preferred Fla DZ. However, the guy was looking to jump, scuba and paraglide. Socal has jumping, mountains to paraglide, and I guess scuba. He's also coming from Alaska and heading to central America, so SoCal is literally right on his way. Z-hills is a few thousand miles out of his way.

Most people are not. The majority are either average or below average, with only the upper thrid really being 'heads up'. Knowing that being 'heads up' is not a prerequisite for ridnig in a plane, you can't fault this girl for being who she is and ending up in an unfamiliar environment. Is it common sense not to walk into a prop? Yes. Is it common sense to an 'average' person where that prop is when it's dark and she hasn't been trained how to conduct yourself on the ramp of an airport? Not so much, as this case indicates. Let's face it, 99% of the US has been 'sanitized' for our protection. There are signs, and warnings, markings on curbs, stairs and walkways making sure people don't get hurt. The vast majority of machinery people come into contact with has no external moving parts that present a snag or pinch hazzard, all of those are kept under a protective cover. I work in a machine shop enviroment from time to time, I also work on motorcycles and with power tools almost every day. I understand from these experiences how to conduct myself around machinery with regards to personal safety. The girl who walked into the prop was a model. When do you suspect was the last time she ran a hydraulic press, or turned some stock down on a lathe? The answer is never, and with no experience around machinery, and no training with regards to aircraft, she made a mistake that others (who were trained as such) have made in the past. They get focused on one thing and walk right through the invisible prop arc. Let's face it, you can stand 6 inches from the prop or 6 feet from the prop, and it all feels and sounds about the same. It's not until you make contact does it become apparent that you're too close. The prop wash doesn't feel all that different between climbing out of the cabin, and walking right up to it. She may very well have been dumb, but she was absolutely in a new-to-her, very dangerous envorinment with no training or direct supervision. Even a genuis could have made the same mistake.

Show me the other internet message board where 2 or 3 of it's members will be dead by the end of the year due to the topic of the forum. Then show me where open discussion of how to avoid those fatalities is discouraged. Like it or not, we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. What that means is that we can't seem to get our shit together and come up with any sort of sensible limits and educational requirements for canopy use or selection. The one side of that coin is that anyone is free to jump whatever they can sneak past the DZO/S&TA, and the other side of that coin is that I'm free to call that jumper out for being an asshole for doing that. You take the good, you take the bad, you take them all, and there you have the facts of life.

I vote for neither, and here's why - The Fury is going to be F-111, and you don't want that. Some people will tell you it's fine, but there are much better options out there. The Skymaster is probably too big for you in the long run. Here's the catch, if you're jumping a rental rig with a 290 in it now, you still need to step your way down through some smaller sizes until you're ready for anything close to a 220, so you have time to shop around. If the container fits you, the 210 reserve should be a good size (once you've stepped down from the 290), so buy that and go from there. Keep your eyes open for anything in the 210, 220, or 230 range. Once you're ready, you could even use your own rig/resereve to test jump it (provided the owner will allow it). In the meantime, get on the phone to every DZ you can think of (check the listings here) and ask who has a used main canopy in your size for sale. Send a PM to 'likestojump' and see if he has anything for you, or if he can give your heads up when something good comes along. Keep jumping the student gear and work your way down in size as your abilites permit. If you buy the container and resevre, you might even look for a demo canopy in the 220 range (provided you're ready for that) and jump your own gear for a few weeks. Buying the first rig is a process, and an annoying one when you don't have anything to jump. It sounds like you have a good start on a rig, and time to shop around for the main while you downsize.

To be fair, AFF and the A licesne program were shorter and easier in 1997. There are more jumps required, more supervised jumps, and more non-jumping activites involved, and a week is an ambitious time frame to fit it all in.

In all fairness to Skyventure, isn't Orlando the oldest tunnel they have? I think it was the first and has been in business for a very long time. Has it all been without incident? According the attempted cover-up, who knows, but considering the failure of the cover-up, I'm guessing this is the first time anything like this has happened. Anytime there is a 'new' technology, there will be a learning curve with regards to maintenance schedules and preventative maintenance programs. Hopefully, this incident will spark the implementation of PM programs at all the tunnels to prevent a repeat incident. Beyond that, I can't believe that the fans/motors don't have some sort of tether to anchor them to the walls up where the mount. Given their high rotaional speed, and the fact that they're perched right above where people stand, it seems like a no-brainer. If you mount the tethers above the fans, they won't distrub the airflow or risk being cut by the fan if it should come loose. Just a thought.

Good point. Solution - don't screw up. Think about your actions ahead of time, and make sound, prudent decisions. Don't be stupid and you won't have a problem. For the record, the guy in this thread didn't make a mistake, he made a deliberate decision he knew was going against conventional wisdom. Big difference between that and making a mistake.

Interesting to note that he is also left handed, and also playing a right handed guitar strung upside down, both like Hendrix. Also, in case anyone isn't aware, that thing bridging the sound hole is a pick-up, so he's not really playing the acoustic guitar 'acoustic'. It would be way harder to play that style on an acoustic guitar without amplification, you just wouldn't be able to get enough sound out of it with the tapping. This guy is good too - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki3CLHJrPSc

Once again, let's preface what I said with the idea that this jumper put himself out there as being capable of jumping a Velo loaded at 2.0. I made my comments with that in mind. As an examlple, have a look at 3:20 in this video, you'll see the guy jumping a 69sq ft canopy loaded at 2.9 gets line twists right out of the door. Note the speed of the horizon spinning behind his canopy despite the fact that he's already getting himself of out them before the slider even has a chance to come all the way down. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_oMXHn427w&feature=g-vrec&context=G234b22bRVAAAAAAAABA That's the point, that's the level of awareness you need to be jumping these type of canopies. You can't just sit there and let 'whatever' happen you, you have to be in control and 'make' things happen for you. The jumper in question in the this thread did not exhibit that trait, and I pointed it out. If at 300 jumps you're jumping a canopy you cannot recover from a brake fire, you're jumping the wrong canopy. A brake fire is a shitty reason to have to chop and use your last parachute. Jump a bigger canopy, or pull higher.

Just head to So Cal. There are three great DZs, all within an hour of each other, Perris, Elsinore, and Skydive San Diego. I'm not sure what the Scuba is like, but there are mountains and paragliding around. You could get your A at Perris with Jim Wallace and the tunnel on-site if you need it. Once licensed, you could hop over the hill to Elisonre, or drive down to San Diego, and get the chance to jump at some other DZs without killing off a day for travel. Traveling to others DZs and jumping somewhere besides the place you learn is a big step for new jumpers, and being able to do this right after getting your license will only improve your learning experience.

Isn't that going to be noisy? Are you planning to shut down the AC at night? See if any of the local jumpers are electritians and can help you upgrade the service and the cables. If not, see if any of them know an electritian who might be interested in a trading the work for a tandem? It would be a cheap way for the DZO to get the service upgraded, and then he could even charge you two another $10/month for the hook-up to offest the rest of the cost.

Do you download your info or back it up in some other way? I don't log anything, but I do have a Protrack. I've owned the Protrack for over a decade with no problems. In that time, I've gone through a dozen cell phones and half a dozen PCs, and didn't always get all my info off the old machines before getting the new ones. The difference is the Protrack is used onyl for jumping and stays with my jumping stuff. The cell and PC get used everyday for a ton of different things, and are more likely to be lost or broken. I guess I'm just suggesting that if you value your logbook info, be sure to back it up in some way.

Bingo. A 'private' message that is private in order to protect the information given, or the person the information is about is one thing. If someone chooses to share some information about someone or something but does not want to go on the public record, and chooses to chare it via a PM, it would be in very bad form to share that info as well as the person who provided it. However, when someone uses a PM to personally attack you with no other substance what-so-ever, they can hardly assume that it would be kept private, or that the person being attacked would repsect any wishes the attacker had to remain private. Any discretion expected with regards to a PM is essentailly a contract between the two people involved. The sender trusts that the reciever will respect the 'private' nature, or whatever terms the sender lays out within the message, but when the message is abusive and attacking the reciever, I'm not sure the sender can reasonably expect the reciever to honor that 'contract'.

One thing to consider is the size of the canopy and not just the WL. The smaller a canopy gets, the more sensitive it will be to inputs at a given WL. The USPA considers any canopy 150 or smaller to be 'high performance', and if you combine that with your 1.25 WL, you might be getting in too deep. What are you freefall interests? RW? Being a lighweight, you might end up wearing lead, and just a few pounds of lead will round you right up to 1.3 or more, and on a 'high performance' canopy. The difference in pack volume between a 150 and a 170 is not that great. If you're looking to buy a rig that will hold a 150 and not hold a 170, then you're setting yourself up for 100's of jumps packing a tight rig. The better idea is to find a rig that can take a 170, and put a 170 in it for 100 jumps or so. Then move down to a 150 and enjoy the easy packing. Cost-wise, you can buy and sell used canopies all day long with very little (or no) money out of pocket. If you get lucky, you could even make a few bucks selling a 170 and buying a 150.

It's a good thought, but no. Line twists are one problem, and hard openings would be the other. Even on a staic line jump, you're still doing 70+mph at the time of opening, and without a slider it would be a sudden and painful stop. Consider that BASE jumpers do jump without a slider somtimes, but that's limited to very short delays or static line BASE jumps. Anything with more than a 1 or 2 second delay calls for a slider so the opening isn't so hard, and this in BASE where they want a quick opening. Line twists are another problem, and they tend to occur because you're falling one direction and the plane is flying (and pulling the d-bag) in another. By the time you climbout to the step, you're already 4 or 5 feet off to the side of the attachment point, and then who knows what happens afte that, but it's ususally line twists. One additional problem is that you need an SL JM in the plane to do SL jumps. You could do ti with an unrated jumper, but it still requires another slot in the plane and a jumper skilled enough to oversee the static line ops and not kill anyone or bring the plane down.

It's no secret that the learning curve of almost any activity are steepest in the early stages. It's not hard to imagine that a jumper might outgrow their first wing faster than subsequent wings if they start off with a low WL. In any case, I never suggested anything in the way of rapid downsizing, I simply stated a fact. You say you put 400 jumps on your first canopy, and I don't think I'm out of line saying that your experience is pretty far off the norm. Even then, 400 jumps is not enough to wear out a canopy. Even if you buy a used canopy with 800 jumps on it, 400 more will not wear it out. With that in mind, I stand by what I said, the guy doesn't need to worry about longevity when buying his first canopy.

Without doing any electrical mathmatics, it might be easier to try unplugging everything else from the line (including the other trailer) and running only the AC unit to see if it works. If you are just overloading the circuit, see if the guy in the other trailer is up for splitting the cost of another circuit, and some better cords.

You need to arch. Both exits show you bent forward at the waist, and this is backwards. You need to trust the arch and push your hips foward. A good tip is to think about tightening up your butt muscles like you're trying to hold back a dump. Stand up right now, and tighten your butt muscles and then try to bend forward at the waist. You can't do it because your body doesn't work that way, so if you squeeze your butt musceles together, there's no way you'll be bent forward at the waist. Beyond that, your arm and leg positions can be 'tuned up' as your jumps go on, but you have to have that basic arch down before they're going to let you advance (for good reason). If you do anything, think about that one manuver, tightening your butt muscles, once you leave the plane and just do that. Truth is, you're facing the right way and not rolling fore or aft, or off to one side, so clear up the arch thing you should be ready to move on.

First and foremost, you're not going to jump your first canopy long enough to worry about longevity. Beyond that, keep in mind that Navigator student canopies are built with Hybrid construction, and those canopies are jumped regularly for years on end with little problems. Also, consider that canopies used to be built entirely from F-111, and there was never a problem with canopies not holding together because of it. True, they would lose performance based on the porosity going up, but a hybrid canopy takes care of that with the Z-po components that maintain the performance. Anyone who tells you hybrid construction has 'longevity' issues is full of shit. Nobody has more experience with high use canopies than DZOs, and they wouldn't buy 1000's of Navigators if they didn't stand up to the test of time.

You doing that does not give me the giggles, that's an expected behavior for a new jumper, and not one I have a problem with. What you're doing now will build your internal clock so as time goes on you'll be in tune with the progress of the jump without having to look as often. The jumper in question here claims to have 300 jumps and feels as if he is qualifed to jump the same canopy I do, and at the same WL. I can tell you from the last 1000 jumps I put on this canopy, there's nothing beginner or intermediate about it, and it's not even a great choice for some experts. For reference, I had 4000 jumps, with 3000 of them on a eliptical canopy loaded at 1.9 before I started jumping a Velo, and I found it to be considerably higher performance than what I was used to jumping. It's an impressive wing, and not one to be taken lightly. When a jumper with that level of experience and (flase) sense of confidence exhibits behaviors similar to yours, that makes me giggle.

That's where you come up short. In the case of a safety issue, it's everyone's job to speak up as you can't expect a DZO or S&TA to be everywhere and see everything. There are very few issues that only endanger the jumper in question. Most of the time when the jumper loses control of the situation, it ends up presenting a danger to anyone nearby. Let's face it, on an Otter load, there are 20+ jumpers sharing a failry small chunk of sky and an even smaller landing area. If any one of them is unable to control themselves or their situation, it's not hard to see how that might effect others. Even if the guy manages to pound in all by himself without taking anyone with him, what about the jumpers and spectators that have to witness that, is that going to be good for business at the DZ? Ditto for the reporters and cops that will show up along with the ambulance, show me the DZO that looks forward to dealing with them in the aftermath. Of coruse, the halting of jump operations while they tend to the injured also sucks, but that's probably not a big deal in comparison.

Just get whatever you want, it doesn't make that big of a difference. How confused to you get when you look at the digital clock in your car and then later read the analog watch on your wrist? As far as the batteries go, all of the modern digital altimeters will give you a low-batt warning. Just keep an extra set of whatever type of batteries you need (and the tiny screwdirver to change them) in your gear bag and you'll be fine.

Based on the language barrier, I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about, but I think I get the gist. I would suggest you take a trip somewhere and take a canopy control course. I'm not sure where to go in Europe, but that big DZ in Spain (Emp-something or other) seems like a good place to start, or I would have to think the DZ in Dubai would have people who can help you. The problem you have is that it sounds like you have nobody to look to at your home DZ for coaching or even just to try watching and learning. I would suggest that it's VERY dangerous to proceed forward with high performance canopy flight without formal training, or even a jumper to use as an example. A canopy control course will teach you a world of good info and give you goals and skills to work on that should last you for at least 100 or 200 jumps, and then you can return for a more advanced course. I also think that if you do travel somewhere to take a formal course, that will help you along with the local DZO. The 'rule' is there to protect you, but if you do the work and have the training, they might be willing to give some slack and let you work on your skills.

Maybe, or maybe the mentality of wearing a camera on a solo hop n pop is indicitive of his 'look at me' attitude. I know that without the camera we wouldn't have had the lovely reference point it provides, but I can hardly think of less pointless thing than filming a solo hop n pop. Another point regrading what the video reveals, the delay and frequent altimeter checks lead me to believe he was taking as low as he thought he could get away with. Is there anything wrong with that in itself? Maybe not, if you're within the limits of the BSRs, then I guess it 'legit', however, a jumper who claims to have the experience and judgement to jump a highly loaded Velo would realize that there's no benefit to humming it all the way down, and the video proves it. You can't count on things to go your way, the mal in the video proves it, and if there had been any complications with the EPs, extra altitude would have been a great asset, but this guy traded it for solo freefall time, falling stable with no manuvers. Of course, the other issue when you bring a Velo into the mix is the Velo. Capable of eating more altitude in a malfunciton scenario, very ground hungry when then open right, and needing more space to land safely than other canopies. What that adds up to is altitude being even more a factor. Not making it back to the DZ, or not being able to set up properly for a landing become a bigger deal than on more mild canopies, and you need to have the right attitude about this, and opening altitudes, and planning ahead to be able to jump one safely. I just don't see that from this video. To be fair to the jumper in question, the reason I read into the video what I do is because I remember being there myself. Humming it down for no reason, and feeling like I was bulletproof. The difference was, I wasn't also jumping a Velo at 2.0, I was jumping a Sabre 135 at more like 1.3. Big difference between those wings.