davelepka

Then buy one designed for skydiving. Here's the thing about being 'certified'. if you hit the groudn hard enough to need a 'certified' helmet, you're going to have a host of other problems. The majority of motorcycle related crashes involve an impact with the ground with a low-ish vertical speed, where the helmet works wonders and let's guys get up and walk away. When the severity of the impact goes up, or you introduce a wall or tree or car, and there's a high energy impact, often times the helmet has reached it's limit of protection, the the body recieves severe injuries as well. This is how bikers end up dead. In skydiving, nothing is going to help you if you go in. The helmet in the skydiving environment is closer to a pair of gloves. It provides comfort and protection against 'casual' contact, with the helmet also being light, low profile, and providing a good field of vision. Buy a skydiving helmet for skydiving, and do your best to avoid needing it for anything.

You can hang onto a PC for an entire jump. Back when there were more tubes around, someone figured that if you could handhold a tube, you could hang onto a PC 'just for fun'. We sewed a loop into the end of a couple old bridles and made a few jumps with everyone sit-flying while hanging one-handed off a PC .

For what? BASE? Apex says it's the shit for 'low airspeed jumps wth a close proximity openings'. They also suggest losing the visor, like you mentioned. Sounds like a good deal for low airpseed jumps with close proximity openings.

It makes it easier to control during the swoop/flare. Keep in mind that control response increases with airspeed, so if your toggles are a 'hair trigger' at full flight, imagine the hyper-sensitivity you would get at the bottom of a long dive. There's a story about John LeBlanc watching landings at the DZ one day, and after watching Stiletto jumpers see-sawing back and forth on the toggles during the flare, came to the conclusion that it was too quick on the toggles, and they dialed out some of the response. As others have mentioned, any HP canopy can turn fast enough to spin itself up if given enough input. So you tone down the reponse to smooth out the high speed handling, and the pilot can still get any rate of turn they want by just honking down on the thing. Just to make a comparison, with electric power steering, you could easily make (or just program) a car to give full wheel deflection from 1/4 turn of the wheel. Imagine how easy it would make parking and manuvering, but then imagine how scary it would make going 70mph where if you breathe on the wheel, you'll swerve across three lanes.

Fender washer.

Caveat emptor is all I can say up to this point, but in terms of what to do now, I have a couple ideas. I would place a call to the sellers home DZ and explain the situation. See if they have any input or ideas, and see if they know who the sellers rigger is. if there was damage to the canopy, there's a chance that the rigger or someone at the DZ would have known about it. If the canopy is as you described, crispy and new except for some localized damage, that would something that a jumper might show people at the DZ looking for input/info. In terms of that damage, it might have been due to a cutaway and spending some time 'lost' and sitting in the sun. If just one part of the canopy was exposed to the sun for a couple days, that's the damage that would occur. Again, the rigger might have a record of an 'unscheduled' repack, and the DZ might remember spending some time looking for a cutaway main. Beyond that, I would stay on the seller to make good. Maybe agree to split the cost of an inspection at PD where they can give you a hard price for the repairs, and then you can proceed from there, at least you would know where you stand. If they guy wants to stonewall you, post up his name, user name and location. Again, you might find that someone out there knows the guy and the canopy and might be able to back up your story that there's something wrong with the canopy. A note to others - PD is an awesome company who is really easy to work with. If you're looking to buy a used PD canopy, have the seller ship it to PD for an inspection and have them copy you on all the emails between them and PD. Once the canopy passes, you can pay the seller, and they can inform PD to ship the canopy to you. Nice and easy.

Yup, lot's of input. For starters, chest rings aren't 'all that'. Too much articulation has shown to allow for too much movement of the rig. Look around and see how many rigs have cehst rings comapred to how many rigs have just hip rings. Your MLW doesn't need to flex near your chest like it does at the hip junction. It sounds like you're just checking every box on the order form, but somehow you left off the Skyhook. Skydiving isn't a 'gear contest', and having a loaded flashy rig isn't going to help you. Something like a Skyhook could help you. If $500 for jumps is important to you, buy a used rig. I see from your other post that you weigh 160, so you have an exit weight of something like 185/190, pushing your WL on the 150 up over 1.2, which is on the high side for a new jumper. It sounds like you're trying to wdge yourself into a smaller rig than you should based on the idea that you wnat to keep it for several years, and that's a mistake. Buy gear that you should be jumping today, and worry about next year next year. You never mentioned the reserve, what size are you planning for that? Look for a used rig that will hold a 170 main/170 reserve. It will serve you well through a downsize or two, and cost less than half the price of a new rig. Your money will be MUCH better spent on additional jumps and training than on a new rig at this time. Keep your canopy choices conservative, and remain upright long enough to develop the skills to be able to buy a rig that will keep you happy for many years. Having all the 'cool stuff' means nothing in this sport. Making jumps and building skills and experience are where it's at. Funnel your cash into those areas, and ease up on the bling-bling.

You should be flaring your canopy fully on every landing. Provided your steering lines are the correct lenght, you won't stall your canopy be completing the flare, and you should end each landing with your toggles all the way down. If you're putting your feet down to run before finishing the flare, you're putting your feet down too soon. Keep flying the canopy until it's sinking you into the ground, then put your feet, and even then keep flying the canopy. Even if the canopy cannot support your full weight (like when it's sinking you into the ground) it can still support some of your weight. So you put your feet down and begin to run, but hold the toggles down and finish the flare. As your speed decreases, it becomes easier for you to run without the canopy supporting any of your weight, which is good because the canopy will support less and less as the speed decays. Sliding on your feet is just another way to transfer some of your weight off the canopy as it loses lift. Remember that stall speed decreases when WL decreases, so if you get some of your weight on your feet, your canopy will keep flying to a slower speed. The problem with sliding is that it's all 'technique', and unless you have impecible control over your canopy, it's tough to get the slide 'just right'. It wouldn't be hard to catch a foot and twist an ankle, or put them down too hard and have them 'grab' the grass and faceplant you at high speeds. Alondg those same lines, skate shoes are the prefered shoes for sliding, as the soles are generally smooth. Hiking shoes or boots and most running shoes have too much 'tread', and don't like to slide very well. The techniques for flaring are the same upwind or downwind. You are correct that when going downwind, you may have forward speed but no airspeed for lift, so the consideration is to get on your feet before you reach that point. It won't be a 'tiptoe' landing, it will be a high-speed running landing because you'll be out of airspeed with a good hunk of groundspeed remaining. Get the idea in your head to complete your flare on every landing. In an emergency situation, no matter how hard you think you're going to hit the ground, get the toggles all the way down (or as far as you can before impact). Always keep flying the canopy until all of your motion has stopped. Even if you're sliding on your ass acorss the grass, keep flying the canopy.

No it's not. No matter what car or bike you drive, you still have to obey the rules of the road. The speed limit caps your top speed, and things like 'reckless driving' and 'display of speed' stop you from using the potential of any high performance vehicle. That aside, the point of the comparison is that the speed limit could be looked at as arbitrary and not neccesary, "If you're going to limit me to 65mph, why not just make it 30mph on the highway, that would be safer than 65mph". But we know from experience that even in the presence of a speed limit, not everyone follows it and not everyone makes good choices on the road. If you took that limit away, you would see even more of that. So in terms of canopy size/type selection, having no restrictions is the same as having no speed limit. Let's face it, the size and WL of the canopy are what define the top speed, so no limits on the canopy means no limits on the speed. Much like the idea of the speed limit, you can see that without any limitation on canopy size and type, people make poor choices. Much like the highway, if you have a speed limit, rule following types will obey it. With no limit in place, even those who would follow rules if they were in place might end up going faster than they should. So we do have a limit (on the highway) and should likewise have a limit on canopy size/type. The other side of this idea, aside from the continuing education, is that the more time jumpers spend at reasonable WL, the better canopy pilots they'll be. While there would be nothing to stop a jumper from trying a new wing every jump, they would be about the same size/performance, so what would be the point? As it sits now, jumpers can ping-pong around between WL and canopy types willy-nilly, and that doesn't help the learning process. Being on one wing for a longer period of time takes the variable of a 'new' canopy out of the equation. If you're a guy determined to follow the rule to the letter and downsize ASAP, you'll still end up with 100 jumps per wing, and that's a good foundation and more jumps than some guys put on a wing when doing a downsizing progression.

Ok, let's go with the speed limit idea. Are you in favor of speed limits, or should every driver just be allowed to do 'whatever' they want? A speed limit is not all that different from a canopy size/type limit, in that people with knowledge and experience determined a 'safe' limit that allows the majority of participants a good balance between safety and productivity. If you're in favor of speed limits, then you should be in favor of canopy size/type limits, as the concept is the same. Let's go one step further, and say you're not in favor of speed limits. In that case, do you feel that new drivers or teenage drivers should be allowed to do 'whatever' they want? Or would you lean more toward people getting some time behind the wheel, then taking a high-performance driving school before being allowed to set their own speed limits? If you answered that everyone should be limit-free on the roads from day one of earning your license, than your thinking is flawed, and opinion on the topic of canopies probably not worth much. However, if you agree that people might be able to handle driving faster given enough experience and training, again, it's a mirror image of what canopy progressions and training should be like. I've always liked the driving example, because it's the one thing that almost every jumper can relate to. It's a dynamic and sometimes fast-paced environment, where your safety is potentially at risk. People remember what it was like when they first had a license, and they could barely drive in a straight line and turn up the radio at the same time. Within a few years, people get to the point where operating the vehicle and working with traffic becomes almost second-nature, and they can drive, drink a coffee and send a text all at the same time (I'm not supporting that, but it's the truth). I'm not saying that all drivers are created equal, but the fact is that it's a skill that people spend a good deal of time developing over the course of many years, si if you look at how much better you are at dirving today, compared to your first year on the road, you can see how much you might have to learn flying a parachute. I'm sure nobody drove around at 16 or 17 thinking, 'Man, I really suck at driving', is was probably more like, 'Man, I'm like Mario Andretti behind the wheel'. Despite what you thought you knew, the truth turned out to be much different. The same can be said for canopies, and until you've put in a few years and 500-ish jumps, you don't even know what you don't know. That's why I say continuing education, and restrictions on canopy size/type up until that point. You need less and less education, and less and less restriction as you go, but there needs to be some guidance in place for jumpers to follow, and as we can see whan you give them their choice, they pass on the education and reasonable canopy choices. So make it a rule, and force people who can't see the forest from the trees to follow along.

I get that. The guy did say 206, so I went with 10 jumper per hour, but even that deal is still close to a wash. You get more jumpers per hour in the 206, but it costs more to feed and run a 206. It's the tandems and students that will make the difference. If you can pocket $75 or $85 per tandem, and fly 4 of them per hour, now you're making $300/hr, not $50/hour. It's not the easiest way to make money, but you can make some money, and it's probably a good time in the process. It almost sounds to me like this guy is part of a club, and in that case, making money isn't really the goal. The goal is to have the plane available and pay for itslef, and any 'profits' can just be applied toward lowering jump prices. Even if the plane just breaks even all year, the club benefits by having the plane available and being able to jump.

It's just business. You have to calculate the cost of ownership of a plane in your country. This includes insurance, and hanger rent. Then look at the cost per hour to operate the plane you're interested in, and this includes fuel, oil, required inspections, and money to go toward an engine overhaul. Finally, look at the price of jumps, and how many jumpers you can haul per hour. Let's say the cost of ownership is $1000/month. Let's also say it costs $200/hour to operate, and you can carry 10 jumpers per hour at $25/jump, for an income of $250/hour. With a gross profit if $50/hr, you would need to fly 20 hours per month (about 40 loads) to cover your expenses and 'break even'. If you have to take out a loan to buy the plane, add your loan payments to the cost of ownership, and the additional loads per month you'll need to cover them. If you can pay cash for the plane, you could look at the interest you're not earning on the money you spent on the plane as a 'cost', so you could add that to the cost of ownership. All of the above numbers are just for example, and I chose them to make the math easy, but I don't think any of them are too far off.

Stop overthinking everything. Flare height is different for every canopy and every landing. It's a 'fluid' motion, and you will need to alter for every landing as the situation dictates. The only real way to practice flaring is to do it. Build familiarity with your canopy and the 'look and feel' of the flare each time you jump, and that's how you'll 'learn' to flare. Standing on a ladder in the middle of a field, or looking down from the top of the stairs isn't going to help.

Yeah, UPT. Call them on Monday. But seriously, have the serial number of the rig and a set of measurements for yourself off of a V3 order form handy when you call, it will help them determine the scope of the work needed.

Note that I said a 'conservative' jump number requirement, meaning that it's not fraught with risk based on the ideas that A) it's a conservative number, and that B) nobody is required to downsize at that number, it's just the earliest they could if that was their desire. A performance-based test is fraught with more risk than a jump number requirement. The test itself would have to challenge the jumper to prove they could handle the new canopy, and that challenge combined with the pressure to perform creates a 'perfect storm' for an incident. Similar to swooping competitions, or even just setting up a target or set of gates in the LZ, when you give someone a 'target' and the desire to succeed, sometimes those factors overshadow good choices or reasonable thinking. The problem with canopy flight is that it's a 100% solo activity, so if you're going to leave the plane with canopy in your rig, you personally need to be able to operate it 100% and make good choices 100% of the time, regarless of what events, collisions, or injuries occur between exit and landing, and the truth is that there's no really good way to test for that. It's hard to tell how people are going to perform when the shit hits the fan, and this is what the whole thing is about. The rule of thumb is to jump a canopy you can safely land in the worst possible scenario, and unless you can put yourself into that scenario and really 'test' yourself, you just don't know what you can do. The work-around to this is to jump a canopy that represents a conservative choice. Not one that you 'think' you could handle, or one that you 'should be' OK with, but one that you (and the experienced jumpers around you) have no doubt that you can handle.

Sort of, but not completely. Even thought it's a futile argument, your core point about the nature of how we train new jumpers is correct. The freefall skills needed to make a safe jump pale in comparison to the canopy skills needed, yet the focus is clearly on freefall. If you can get stable at pull time, you can make a safe freefall, while a safe canopy ride cannot be summed up in so few words. With that in mind, there's no reason that we need to do away with AFF, we just need to re-focus it. People want to jump for fun, and a freefall from 13k is a big draw from a 'marketing' perspective. With the level of training and oversight, the frist few levels don't even need to be changed all that much, but once you hit lv. 4 or 5, there needs to be a shift where there's another ground school, focused on canopy control, and that becomes the real point of the jumps. Let's face it, beyond learing to fly stable, freefall is just a series of 'tricks'. Rolls, flips and spins, it sounds like a 3rd grade gym class. None of it is that hard or that important that you can't have your 'fun' in freefall, while still having 'work to do' under canopy. Even if you could get those changes instituted, you still need some control beyond student status in terms of canopy size and selection. Let's face it, we're dealing exclusively with skydivers, and there's going to be a large percentage of highly confident, type A personalities, so their nature is going to be to push the limits. When you combine that with no limitations on canopy size or type, and the current selection of canopies, you're going to have trouble. People like to come back to the general aviation comparison, and true to form, they have 'hoops' that need to be jumped through in order to fly certain aricraft. The high performance and complex sign-offs come to mind, and while those technically have no min hours required (just a PPL), you better be an exceptional pilot if you think any CFI is going to sign you off on those with the ink still wet on your PPL. Likewise, the IFR rating actaully does have a min experience requirement in that you need a PPL and something like 50 hours cross country time as PIC, and a certain number of dual hours in simulated IFR before you can take your check ride, and again, if you schedule a check ride with the bare minimum hours, you better be razor sharp or the check airman will fail you in a hurry. Lacking the ability to really provide 'dual' training (tandems don't count, I'm talking about licensed jumpers) or any sort of check ride, the best alternative we have a is a conservative jump numbner requirement, one where we can safely assume that 'most' jumpers at that point have achieved 'x' level of skill under canopy. As I pointed out before, these restrictions don't stop anyone from jumping, or having fun, or building skills under canopy, it's just a matter of helping them make good canopy size/type selections while they're learning how to make those choices for themselves. Anyone who's been in the sport for more than a few years knows how much you learn in your first 3 or 4 years and 300 or 400 jumps. It's a real process, but until you go trough it, it's tough to comprehend.

In a sit, a low hip junction will allow the legstraps to 'swing' around, and maybe creep up be back of your legs behind the knees. A bungee connecting the legstraps will help this, unless you fly with your legs close together. You really need to try it on, packed up with a main/reserve, and cinched down like you're going to jump it and see how it feels. 1.5" is probably a little loose, but you might get lucky and find that this one 'fits' you better then you expect. Also, give UPT a call and get a quote on a harness resize, just for kicks. Maybe hit the seller up to split the difference with you, and knock a few bucks off the price, then you end up with a 'perfect' harness.

Let me clarify my point about the 20 year old standard. The argument against these types of things often comes down to people don't want their 'fun' limited by having to jump 'slow' canopies. With that in mind, I'm suggesting that the beginner WL off of B Germains chart puts the new jumper, in terms of the canopy performance they get, on par with an experienced jumper 20 years ago. Within 200 jumps, a jumper would qualify to jump canopies and WL that would be higher performance than anyone could get 20 years ago. So the point is that skydiving was fun enough 20 years ago, with the canopies available, that people jumped everyday and stuck with the sport for years on end. This was with F-111 canopies, most of them loaded at less than 1.0, and it wasn't so 'boring' that people just up and quit. It's still jumping out of airplanes, and a modern ZP canopoy loaded at something less than 1.1 is a pretty good ride. Furthermore, jumpers 20 years ago stuck with the sport with no promise of higher performance canopies to come. None of them knew what was just around the corner, and what was to come in 20 years, it was all just 'daydreams'. It was fun enough that they didn't even need to lure of high performance canopies or swooping to keep their interest. New jumpers today have a guarantee that higher performance canopies are in their future if they so desire. It's not a daydream, it's a reality. The point is that it's not going to 'ruin' skydiving, or turn into some boring nanny-state that nobody will be interested in, it's just about 'getting with the times'. As previously mentioned several times, 20 years ago the 'ceiling' of canopy performance was prettty low, so there was no need for any concern of formal regulation of who could jump what. Now that the 'ceiling' has risen so far that a canopy less than halfway up the performance ladder can easily kill you, we need to make some changes for the new guys. Just letting them do 'whatever' doesn't cut it anymore. Fortunately we have the knowledge to train them, and the busy turbine DZs to let them crank out the jumps that in short order they can be 'up to speed' and more or less allowed to do 'whatever', but that's not right off student status. Not by a long shot.

Removing them all together isn't really helping the problem either, It's a two-pronged approach, combining the continuing education AND jump number based canopy/Wl restrictions. To move forward without one or the other isn't going to solve the problem. There will always be people better suited toward bookwork and classroom time, who will be able to succeed in contuing eduction, but faced with a random, unexpected problem in the real world, will not be able to perform. There will always be people who have a natural talent for flying parachutes, but who don't do well in structured classroom situations or test scenarios, and as 'natural' as they way be, when the need arises to fall back on solid classroom training, the will fail. The only solutuion to make both aspect part of the plan. I'm not sure how anyone can argue against the idea in the sense that it absolutely will increase the average level of knowledge and skill among the jumping public in regards to canopy flight. More learning is always a good thing, and a slower parachute is always a safer choice. 'Personal freedom' is a machismo bullshit argument. You have the freedom to jump at more DZ and for less money than anywhere else in the world. If a canopy type/WL restriction was introduced, let's say based on B Germains chart, right off student status you would be able to jump canopies and WL with performance that's better than most 20 years ago. By 200 jumps, you'll be exceeding what jumpers had 20 years ago. Let's keep in mind that 20 years ago, skydiving had been alive, well, and prospering for better than 30 years, so jumpers for the first 30 years found that level of canopy performance to be 'acceptable' such that they kept jumping.

Did you mean 'let's make it 1.0'? Makes more sense that way. Back to your point, most states in the US have limitations on new drivers licenses, where you cannot drive without a licensed driver, or cannot drive at night, and for teenagers, you cannot drive with 'x' number of teens in the car. These are in place for some specified length of time, at which point the restrictions are lifted. Many European countries have tiered licensing, where your first licence only allows you limited privledges as to what, where and when you can drive. After a certain amount of time, you can take a class to upgrade to the nect level of license. In all cases, a drivers education class is always required before anyone can earn any type of license. Why should flying a parachute be any different? Case in point, countries that currently have WL limitations and tiered canopy licenses in place have lower incident rates (I think it's the Swiss that have the best system). You want freedom? EARN it. Take the classes, make the jumps, and develop yourself in to competent canopy pilot who is able to both correctly choose and fly a parachute. Freedom isn't really free, you have to work at it.

Nobody should do that. Of course, for the rest of the jumpers out there who are less qualified, there's something to be said about adding some 'structure' to the current landscape.

No they don't, but they do make it hard for him to get to that level, needing to earn a private pilot, then add on a high performance and complex endorsement, and then earn an IFR rating. Add up the amount of dual time, ground school, book work, and the number of written exams and check rides needed to get to that point, and then compare that to the training required to fly a canopy. I'll admit that flying a canopy if far simpler than taking a Bonanza in to actual IFR, but given that both represent a risk to the pilots life, you can see that the training required to fly a canopy is severly lacking, and if it was brought up to a proportionate level to that of earning an IFR ticket, we wouldn't need any restrictions on canopy selection.

Just for reference, our local S&TA just bought a Storm 120 for a dedicated wingsuit rig. He's about 15 - 20 lbs lighter than you, is an AFFI and TI, and has 3000+ jumps with 1000's of jumps on a pair of FX 99s. See? That guy, with those qulifications and that body weight bought a 120. You're heavier and far less qualified (disregarding your profile info, if you had the expereince of the other guy, you wouldn't need to ask about what canopy to buy), and you're on the fence between the 120 and 107. Very little good ever comes out of loading a canopy to the 'max'. Add in a wingsuit, and even less good will come. I think Chuck Blue jumps a 97 or a 107 Sabre2 as a wingsuit canopy, but Chuck is a far cry from 180 lbs, and is an expert canopy pilot (and all around jumper) on top of that.

This is the key to all of the 'arguments' against any type of canopy size/type restrictions. For example, when was the last time you heard a student complain about the size of their canopy? Probably never, because they have no preconcieved notions about canopy size (or skydiving in general) and are willing to accept whatever rig they are handed as being 'good'. Likewise with these types of restrictions, all of the whiners will eventually either amass the jump numbers to be 'unlimited', or they won't meet those requirements and shouldn't be 'unlimited' anyway, or they'll quit jumping. Every single new jumper will walk onto the DZ, and know from day one that canopy progressions are regulated, and that will be that. Without the expectation that they can just do 'whatever they want', there won't be any hard feelings about not being able to. I have yet to see a proposal for one of these plans that doesn't ultimately allow for 'unlimited' choices once a jumper has reached a certain level of experience, so if a jumper is dedicated and going to stick with the sport, they'll get their chance, and if they don't intend to be around that long, or would be willing to quit jumping because they can't downsize fast enough, fuck 'em.

Sure it is. The type of camera is irrelevant in skydiving, you turn it on and exit, so provided you can read a manual and take care of the settings, the type of camera you use does not matter. Yes, there are better brands, and there are differing levels of quality, but anything that turns on records can be used to develop video flying skills. The lens is the real variable, and in the sense that you can't put a lens on a Go-Pro, I guess the camera becomes a variable in that sense, but seeing as the stock Go-Pro is 'suitable' for skydiving, it's sort of a wash. Back to the idea of the lens, all the lens does is dictate your slot as the camera flyer, and if you have the skills to shoot video for money, you have the skills to fly in different slots. Got a .5 or .6 on a tandem? Your slot is going to be 5 or 6 feet away from the tandem. Switch up to a .3, you're going to need to cut that distance in half. If you can't handle that, then how would you shoot a 4-way on one load and then an 8-way on another? Or a tandem, and then an AFF? They're all different 'sizes' and if you use the same lens, you'll need to fly in different slots relative to the subject in order to properly frame them. Truth is, when it comes to equipment selection for paid video work, more and more it's sort of up to the DZ policy as to what you fly. If they have an editing suite in place, you need to shoot what works with their equipment, and if you have to provide your own editing equipment, your video choices will depend on what's compatible with your editing choices.