davelepka

There's a difference between a newbie, and a guy with 300 jumps who thinks himself to be experienced enough to jumjp a Velo. If the guy wants to put himself out there as an 'expert', he should perform like one or expect to have it pointed out. The other thing to keep in mind is that the jump in question is a hop n pop. Not much of an internal clock needed there, just count to 10 or do one back loop or fron loop and dump. The point is not that he checks his alititude, there's niothing wrong with that, it's when he checks it that illustrates the lack of thought he's put into his jump. Right of out of the door? What's the point in checking it there? It's not going to be much different than it was 2 seconds prior. Ditto on the bottom end, it just doesn't make sense the way he looks, turns it away, looks again, turn it away, etc. What are the chances there is any meanignful change between those glances? Putting on your seatbelt is a good idea. Putting it on when you go out to your car to grab something from the glove box it stupid. Putting it on, taking it off, and putting it back on again several times before putting the car in gear is also stupid. The seatbelt is a tool, use it for it's intended purpose.

Thanks for posting that link, it's a fun video. I always get a kick out of newbies who jump out of the plane and then check their altimeter 2 seconds out of the door. News flash pal, you're 100 ft lower than when you jumped 2 seconds ago. It's also fun to watch the rapid-fire alti checks right down to pull altitude. I guess if you can't figure out that you have a few sconds and then pull, you could just 'lock on' to the thing and wait for your pull altitude to come up, but I'll never understand the need to look, turn it away, look again, turn it away, look again, turn it away, and then pull. Beyond that, if a simple brake fire is going to force the guy to chop and dump his reserve on his back, he has no business jumping a Velo. Of course, having 300 jumps, and lying to the DZO is aslo a good sign he might be in over his head.

When Katanas first came out, I borrowed a 107 from a buddy just to see what they were all about. He jokingly told me to be careful because his girlfriend, who was learning to pack, was the last one to pack it. Sure enough, it popped me, and then went into a pretty good spin (not a brake fire). The first thing I noticed during the spin was that one of my feet was colder than the other one, and once I got the canopy under control, I looked down and sure I enough I was missing a shoe. Vans, size 11, black, if anyone finds one in the trailer park down the road from the DZ.

Listen shithead, if this is the way you want to proceed, I'm all for it. In addition skydiving experience, I have also been a 16 year old kid, and I remember what I thought I knew and when I compare it to what I actually know now, I can see that I was a bit shortsighted. So your dad says no. I say no. Everyone esle here says no, but we all must be wrong. Just your attitude about this should be an indicator, try to imagine if you were an outsider looking at this issue, where a guy asks a question and then argues with everyone when he doesn't like the answers he gets. Would you say that's the reaction of a mature person looking for information, or a stupid kid who just wants his way? Maybe I made some assuptions, and maybe you have made the 75 most educational jumps of all time and I was wrong about you. The penalty for that is nil. If you're wrong, and you make the wrong choice, the penalty for that is more severe.

Funny conincidence, after posting in this thread where I comment on your approach to canopy flight, and everything you 'think' you know, I saw an interesting quote in another thread of yours. While looking for info on an Atair sport canopy, which is tough to come by as Atair USA has been out of the sport market for years, you followed all the leads you got and came up with nothing. No info, no support, not even a user review of the canopy you're considering, and despite all that, you're going through with the purchase and said this about the situation - This is coming from a guy with not a lot of jumps or experience on different canopies who has recently been told (by several people) that he's on the wrong track with his 'thinking' about canopies and really needs some one-on-one coaching. This same guy is now buying a 'mystery' canopy and plans to figure it all out 'on his own'. Dare I ask the square footage of this mystery canopy?

I gave you my insight, it's in the first post I made in this thread. I don't know where you get 'animosity' from. You might be confuising 'animosity' with 'honesty'. I didn't start this thread, I just responded to what you wrote with what I thought to be the best advice. Beyond the first post, my subsequent replies are less for your benefit, and more the benefot of others reading the thread. If you insist on repeating (and defending) your mistakes, I see value in pointing that out to the reader so they can see the error of your ways, and possibly recognize if they themselves are exhibiting the same behavior. Emphasis added for clarity, but do you think anyone who has gone in thought they were going to and proceeded with their actions anyway? For you? It appears not. For others? Let's hope so.

Do you even read what you write before you post it? So you have 75 total jumps, and all of them are on the Tri 160? You made your first and all student jumps on that canopy? Even if you did, the first dozen or so don't really count as anything that went right was luck, not skill. Once you have 15 or 20 jumps, you start to develop skill to the point that you can repeat your performance, or certain parts of it, and only then do you really start to 'learn' a canopy in a real way. Let's face it, if you took a student with 10 jumps total, and they claimed to 'know' how to fly a canopy, what would you say? Anyway. with that in mind, you have about 60 'meaningful' jumps on a canopy, and 75 jumps total. Do you really think that makes you ready to downsize? Also, standing up a landing is only one small part of knowing how to fly a canopy. Another poster made some remarks and it sounds as if he knows you and your skills personally. If you cannot fly a clean pattern and land on target with a high degree of accuracy, you're not ready to downsize. Standing up just means you have your flare timing worked out, but if you think about it, that's the least important part of canopy flight. If your flare timing isn't perfect, you have a resolution, the PLF. What do you do when your accuracy isn't that great, and you have to land off in a tight spot? You end up hitting a tree, house, fence, or whatever is srrounding the spot you wanted to land on. How about your pattern work? Of that's no good, how can you expect to fly in traffic and not be a hazzard to yourself and others? Do you really think that going faster is going to help? All I know about you is that you have 75 jumps, are under the age of 18, and your dad is a jumper (and I'm guessing a DZO or high time jumper, thus explaining your ability to jump underage). The sum of all that is your inexperienced in both life and skydiving, do something people wouldn't expect from and make the mature decision to repect your father's experience in life and skydiving, and listen to what he says.

I need to pick up a couple of iPhones, one for me and one for my son (13). Any thoughts on the different models available? How much better is the 4 over the 3, and what the deal with the different versions of the 4? Last question, what's the hot ticket for a case or protection of some sort for the one going to my kid? It seems like there are 1000's of cases out there, what's going to protect the phone without being bulky and still look 'cool'. Thanks in advance for any help. I could do some research online, but aside from the above questions, I don't give two shits about iPhones.

I guess I read the OP differently. While I did see a question in there, I also saw a description of a flawed learning progression, and several statements where the jumper proclaims what he 'thinks' is happening and then uses those thoughts to back up his flawed progression. There's a difference between a guys asking a question, and a guy laying out everything he 'knows', and how he's already putting that into practice, and then asking a question about that. Here's an example - what if I told you the brakes on my car were squeaking, and I was either going to remove both brake pads or just the squeaky one to solve the problem, and then I asked a mechanic his opinion on removing one or both. Can the mechanic give me any other answer than, 'Neither, they're both wrong, go find a professional mechanic to take care of your brakes'. Both of my conclusions are wrong, and judging by my conclusions, it's clear that I should not be working on my brakes. The correct answer is to find a professional mechanic. This is the same thing. Maybe it's my experience talking, maybe it's because I've heard these things before, but what I see when I read the OP is a guy who 'thinks' he has certain things figured out, and is acting upon those thoughts on his own. It's not a good situation, and not one that's going to be helped by trying to give him advice over the internet. He's getting into a very risky area, that being experimenting with swooping at lower jump numbers. Even with professional coaching, it's a crap shoot as your total time under canopy is low (in the case of the OP, it's also been split up with a long layoff), but doing it on your own is even worse. Add in some flawed thinking, and already acting on those thoughts, and you can see why he get's the reposnses that he does.

There are great DZs near LA, like Perris (with on-site tunnel), Elisnore, and Skydive San Diego. Any one of them can get you can A licesne, but the amount of time it will take isn't really up to anyone. Even if you want to do it in a week, things like weather and your own limitations can extend the time line. However, if you have a week before and after Burning Man, a good idea would be plan to spend both of them at the DZ. Weather is easy to understand, if it shuts down the DZ you're not jumping, but nobody knows what you're capable of. Some students are OK with making 3, 4, or 5 jumps a day, while others need some down time inbetween and can only manage 2 or maybe 3 per day. You also don't know if you'll get 'stuck' on any levels, and having to repeat a level once or twice will extend your training time, and probably shoot down some of your confidence and momentum. I'm always critical of people who plan to travel and get their A licesne in a week because the tight time frame puts added stress on the process, and can push people to rush into things when they're not ready. If you're training at your home DZ, and you don't feel 'great' after a jump, crack open a beer and call it a day. If you're away from home and have a clock ticking toward your return trip, now you have pressure to jump when maybe you don't feel 'great'. However, if you can spend both weeks (before and after) at the DZ, I think you have a great chance of getting it all done and without some of the pitfalls of the one-week plan. As far as the cost goes, call the DZs and see who has a package deal, and go from there. Whatever they tell you, budget another $500 because it will end up being more then they say. Even if you sail through and get your A right on time and budget, now you have an A licesne and are at a great DZ, so you'll blow through the extra $500 on fun jumps in no time.

Let's keep in mind that the majority of tandem malfunctions are very docile, low-speed mals like tension knots or stuck brakes. Even a line-over on a lightly loaded tandem is not a high-speed affair, and unless the TI is a total jackass, they all happen at 4500ft+, so time is also not a big factor. The end result is a mal that you have time to cutaway from in a calm and controlled fashion, very similar to cutting away from a good canopy on an intentional cutaway rig. A sport jumper, on the other hand, is probably looking at a much different scenario when it comes to malfunction with their higher WL, and lower pull altitudes, so the intentional cutaway rig is not as realistic. Beyond that, the big reason it's not realistic is that it's a planned event, not an actual 'emergency'. Everyone knows how to pull handles, it's not that hard. The hard part is being able to do it, and the desison making process behind it, under extreme stress with your life literally on the line. Again, no intentional cutaway rig is going to replicate that. If you consider the time and cost of doing an intentional cutaway, I would think a new jumper would be better served my making a days worth of regular jumps as opposed to the intentional cutaway. It would take the better part of a day to train, jump, and retrieve the 'lost' parts, and cost upwards of $100 including the slot. They could use that time/money to make 4 jumps, which for a newbie is just about a full day at the DZ. There are more pressing skills they should be developing as opposed to learning to do a 'stunt' jump like an intentional cutaway. In time, maybe after 100 jumps, it's not a bad idea if the jumper is so inclined, but before hand it seems like an unneccesary risk, and a waste of time and resources.

Let's hear more about this. What's with the 50 second time frame? Is that a Sony thing, or just you seeing what the camera could do during an average tandem jump? So 18 would be the limit in freefall, but we could take additional still both before and after the jump on the same card? Are these manually triggered, or on a timed interval, like one every 1.5 seconds or something? Does it have the D-port for a Hype-eye, and would the Hype-eye be able to trigger the stills? It seems like every year we get just a little closer to being able to do video/still in one camera, I wonder if this is the year? I'm not willing to make a huge sacrifice in terms of quality, but we could get a nice 8x10 out of the stills, that would pass my 'good enough' for tandem test, and it'd shelf my still cam ASAP. I'm always up for smaller, lighter and simpler when it comes to a camera helmet.

I would disagree with this advice for a student buying their first rig. Keep in mind that telling a student/newbie to 'just put 10 or 20 jumps' on a demo is a tall order. Things move a little more slowly when you're new and trying to put together a rig, and making 10 to 20 jumps on a demo is a huge obstacle, and will only further slow the process. I would suggest that the size is the most important feature for a new jumper, and then being easy to pack next on the list. With only 10 or 20 jumps to their name, split up between a variety of student canopies, they don't even have a solid frame of reference with which to anaylze a demo canopy. The better advice is to look for a cheapo used canopy in the right size. Get a rig together, get your license then make 40 or 50 jumps on it. Get used to jumping in general, packing, and working with your own rig. Then, if you feel the need, demo some other models and see if anything is better enough than what you have to warrant a change. If so, sell your cheapo for about what you paid, and buy another used canopy. For experienced jumper, yes, I agree with the demo program. It's a good way to learn about different canopies and see what the market has to offer. If a student is fortunate enough to jump at a DZ with a gear dealer who does demos, or at a boogie with demos available, sure they should take advantage of the opportunity, but for an average student at an average DZ, it's just more hoops to jump through at a time when they don't need the additional hoops, and really won't get that much out of it.

For the most part, yes. Keep in mind that this is the speed of the canopy in the deployment configuration (as-in with the brakes set on most canopies). In the case of slower openings, the bulk of your freefall airsped is bled off by the time the slider comes down to the stops. In the case of a faster opening, there may be some residual energy left over due to the lack of time for decelleration, so maybe the fully opened canopy might descend faster than normal for a period of time (a very short period).

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4282480;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread

I think you're missing the point. There's no way for the flyers back in the V to fly any higher or further than the lead flyer. The benefits of the formation depend on the formation itself remaining intact, so if you attempt to pass the leader, you lose the benefits. Birds use it to fly the same distance/speed as the lead flyer with less effort. They rotate the positions, so all the brids have an equal exposure to the benefits, and the whole flock gets further.

***A while back when I posted some rubbish I made I am also a student skydiver and I have asked dropzone staff and riggers for this sort of stuff, but they have decided to go down the 'don't mix business with pleasure'*** Think these two things might be related? There's a diffence between a student saying, 'I have an interest in rigging, can you point me in the right direction', and, 'Look at the rig I designed and built with no real knowledge of equipment or materials'. The frist one makes you sound like a guy with an interest in rigging, the second one might make you sound like a pain in the ass know-it-all, who's trying to put the cart before the horse. Maybe your instructors are right, and you should sitck to the skydiving business when the sun is shining at the DZ. A better question to ask would be, 'Can you point me in the direction of a rigger I might be able to work with to learn more about gear', and then ask that rigger about sitting in on some rigging sessions whenever it's convienient for him. Another tip - forget anything you think you know about rigging. Based on the fact that without and 'real' knowledge, you tried to build a container, I get the feeling that you did all sorts of internet 'research'. I'm not sure what you read, or what you think you know, but you (and any rigger you work with) will be much better off if you start rigging lesson #1 with blank slate, and get all you info in person, from an actual rigger. It's become somewhat of a negative side-effect of the internet, is that we see more and more students and newbie jumpers showing up thinking they 'know' things because they read or saw them on the internet. Big surprise, you can't a;ways believe what you read or see on the internet, and in terms of the $20 million a Nigerian prince is trying to give them, these jumpers seem to know that, but in terms of skydiving issues, they seem ready to trust their lives to info or techniques they read or saw online. Case in point - you've already made up your mind that you want a career building parachutes or parachute equipment. You're not licesned, not a rigger, and don't own a rig, but that's what you want to do with your life. Can you see how that might seem like a bit much for the established jumpers or riggers you might be working with? Be interested? Yes. Be enthusiastic? Yes. Be humble? Yes. Be realistic? Another big yes.

If you have the STC, and the gas is properly stored, go for it. Any chance your favorite Colorado DZ runs auto gas in their jump plane?

Cool your jets Bandit-boy. See my post above, and you'll find that I'm not shooting anything down and that I back you up by saying that as long as your intel is good (or at least you honestly think it is) your motivations for posting it are not relevant. I think the facts should be revealed, and if you have them, you should share them. If it happens satisfy some personal agenda you have, then good for you. However, if that agenda leads to post mis-information, or to claim that you 'heard' such and such, when it's purely your own speculation, that's just a waste of everyones time.

Axe or no axe, as long as he's only posting info he believes to be correct, I can't fauly him for putting it out there. Let's face it, almost every fatality has one group pointing fingers and another group (generally the locals) pointing fingers back at the first group. I don't see the CO incident as any different, either group could be right and we might find out in time. That said, I'm wondering if the rigging of a Strong drouge to a Vector tandem could have anything to do with a failure of the drouge releases? The report seems clear on a two-out, and those generally happen when there's a main deployment problem that clears itself during the reserve deployment (I guess you could incldue a low pull into an ADD fire as a 'deployment problem'). So could rigging one drouge to another tandem system create that sort of problem? Of course, there could have been a rigging problem independent of the mis-matched drouge. Provided they were the same size, you could safely put a Ford wheel on a Chevy, but if you don't tighten the lug nuts, you're going to have a problem. At this point all we know is that there was a two-out that became a downplane that was flown all the way to the ground. Right off the top you have a rigging or operational problem with the rig leading to a two-out, and a rigging or operational problem based on the lack of a cutaway. If you believe the report that the cutaway handle was in place (on velcro) upon impact, then it's an operational problem on the TI for not cutting away. If you believe that the handle was either off the velcro or pulled alltogether without the main departing, you have a rigging problem. In either case, it would appear (like most incidents) that several problems (and possibly several people) were to blame.

Let's see, the OP only seems to post about incidents at one specific Colorado DZ, there was recently an incident at said Colorado DZ involving a Vector tandem, one of the reports claimed a two-out and downplane from 4k, and one way to get a two-out is a main canopy deployment problem that clears itself during the reserve deployment, etc, etc. My guess is that it has something to do with that. Maybe he heard they were using a Strong drouge on a Vector tandem, and either he doesn't know if it's legal or safe, or he's just trying to find a 'sly' way to spread the word that this was the configuration thay were jumping. But again, that's just my guess.

FYI- it means that the riser covers and pin cover flaps will probably not stay shut if exposed directly to too much wind. When you're in an arch postion, not much wind is hitting the rig on your back, it's hitting your front. If you get into freeflying, you end up with wind directly hitting your rig at high speeds for long periods of time. If the risers covers or pin covers come open, then your risers and pins are exposed to that same wind, and that's bad. What you want is for everything to stay closed until pull time, when you want everything to come open. What this means to you - most rigs built in the last ten years are freefly friendly. If the one you were looking at was not, it most likely means it was old, and that most likely explains why it was cheap. The good news- since you don't need a new (or even newer) rig to get one that's freefly friendly, you don't have to spend a fortune. There are affordable rigs out there that are freefly friendly. Even if you don't plan to freefly, being freefly friendly should be a requirement for any rig you buy. The added protection will help for more than just freeflying, and is a good thing on any jump.

Ebay is a horrible place to look for a first rig. For starters, the chances that you will find a rig that fits you, and has the appropriate size main and reserve are slim. There are many variables to a rig, and it's tough to find a used one that meets all of your needs right out of the box. A big factor is the lack of a pre-purcahse inspection. Rigs need to be inspected for compatibility and being airworthy before you buy, or you might end up with either something you can't use at all, or something that requires expensive repairs or modifications before you can jump it. The thing to do is to get with an instructor or rigger you know, and have them help you through the process, from selecting appropriate gear, to inspections and assembly. With the help of an experienced jumper, you can select individual main, reserve and harnesses from the used market, and assemble an 'ideal' rig for yourself. If you have a rigger, they should be able to arrange for pre-purchase inspections either without paying for the tiem up front, or with a one or two week money-back return period where you will pay for the tiem up front, but can return it if it does not meet your needs. If you are not working with a rigger, but another experienced jumper, you can call the Chutingstar gear store and set up an escrow/insepction deal, where the seller sends them the gear and you send them the money. They will inspect the gear and if it passes, send the payment to the seller, and the gear to you. The cost for this service (I believe) is only the cost of the inspections. Parachute equipment can be tricky to buy. Because it needs to meet certain standards and be packed by a rigger, there are all sorts of regualtory 'pitfalls' a new jumper coudl fall into and waste a bunch of time and money on gear that won't work for you. You should do fine with the help of an experienced jumper who can walk you though the process, and also teach you about the ins and outs of buying gear. By the time you buy your next rig, you'll be fine on your own. If you happen to be an attractive single female, beware of any advice from anyone who may be trying to get in your pants. Deal with your equipment needs only with professional jumpers like riggers or instructors, and keep your pants issues out of it. Granted, riggers and instructors may also try to get in your pants, but at least there's a good chance they know what they're talking about when it comes to gear.

You have way more than 4 choices. Deland, Start, and the Farm are all on the east cost (mostly) of the US, and 3000 miles further away from Asia. If you're coming to the US, pick from Perris, Elsinore, or Skydive San Diego. All three are in southern California, and you can fly direct to LAX or San Diego and then drive less than an hour to get there. Any of the east coast DZs involve another flight across the US, and then a longer drive from the airport to the DZ. There is no 'best' skydiving school like, Harvard or Yale. There are some better ones, and it's based mostly on the facilities. Modern equipment and nice ariplanes are the result of being busy and making money. amd that's easier to do when you can jump all year. However, some of the best instructors in the world work at smaller, seasonal DZ, because they're close to where they live. BTW, the 'ratings' on DZ.com are not to be taken to serisouly. They're not based on a large number of people voting, so a DZ could organize a ratings 'flood' by getting a dozen jumpers to post positive ratings, and suddenly that DZ is 'the best'. I'm not suggesting any of the DZs you mentioned are bad places, far from it, just that they're not that different from most DZs in the US.

In what ways, because I don't see them. Don't get me wrong, swooping is fun and among skydiver, cool as hell, but as far as the 'good of the sport', I'm not sure how swooping fits in. It's probably done more harm than good. Swooping pushed the performance limits of canopies to where they are now, and the trickle down effect is that newer jumpers are looking at smaller and smaller wings as just being 'moderate' as opposed to HP. When three guys on the load are jumping canopies under 80 sq ft, it's hard to convince a new jumper that a 150 or a 135 is a HP canopy. Swooping has also raised what people think of as HP landings. When swoopers are regularly pulling 270s, 450s, or more, and pushing 60 or 70 mph, new jumpers don't see double fronts or 90s as a 'big deal'. I'll be the first to admit that if these levels of performance had been properly handled from day one, we wouldn't have these problems, but the fact is that we do. What's the incentive for a DZO to spend the money to build or maintain a pond, when it's nothing but a magnet for swoopers (or wanna-be swoopers)? How about the double femur in Zhills earlier this week? Don't you think TKs life would have been easier without the drama, ambulances and reporters? I wonder what he's going to think when the ground keeper tells him the pond needs some costly maintenance? Spend the money, or save the aggrevation?