davelepka

One thing to remember is that the body position the instructors are asking for isn't a 'rigid' position, it's more like if you were laying on a bed shaped like an arch. Try the trick where you stick your hand out the window of the car. Face your palm into the oncoming wind, and hold your arm and hand very still. You'll see that as the wind pushes on your hand with all of it's little variations, your hand gets bounced around. Now try relaxing, and using just the 'right' amount of pressure to hold your arm and hand in position, and you'll see that you can keep your hand fairly still by letting the variations of the wind 'move' your hand a little. What you don't see in freefall is that a stable jumper has just found that 'just right' balance of relaxing and body position. When the wind wants to push on one leg more than the other, you let it push to the degree that your leg moves a fraction of inch, so little that can't see it and it doesn't effect your stability, and then return your leg to it's original posiiton. It's like suspension for your body in that your parts move to conform to the 'bumps' in the wind, but your body remains in the same place. So that's the idea, and making it happen is just a matter of practice. If you feel like your not relaxed, tell your instructor and have them give you a relax signal at the beginning of the jump, even if it looks like you don't need it. If you feel smooth and relaxed, then it was just a pre-planned signal that you can ignore. If it turns out you were pre-occupied thinhking about other things (like jumping out of a plane) it's just a freindly reminder to take it easy, and soak up the bumps.

Don't do it. Unless you have significant experience flying with wings of all different sizes and shapes, and you are also a talented sewer and rigger, you're asking for trouble. A bad set of wings will fly like shit. A poorly built or poorly desgned set of wings may not be functional at all, may develop into a hazard with regards to deployment or working your handles, or may self destruct in any number of ways, causing you any number of problems in freefall. You use your arms, and the area around the wings (your hackey down by the base of the wing, and your handles along the body of the wings) for too many important things to chicken-shit together a pair of home-made wings for a suit that was never designed for them. If you need wings, borrow a proper suit, or scan the classifieds for a used suit.

In a previous post, I explained why 'cash flow' doesn't apply to the custom ordered gear business, where you're making a limited number of transactions with a very low % of profit. Here's that verbatim - On to this - In the post I quoted above, I commented on that very sbuject, and here that is - I'll wrap this up by taking a shot at this - We're not talking about creditors. These aren't people who sent Gary money based on the idea of a continuing business relationship or repayment to include interest, both of which would be considered 'business', and as such, contains a level of implied risk. The people here were customers, who placed an order for products and paid for them, as is their responsibility in the transaction. The only way they would be taking a 'risk' is if Gary failed in his duty. The products they ordered were from long-standing, reputable companies that they could count on to deliver the product as-ordered, or make reasonable adjustment if they didn't. In the end, the one risk they too, Gary, turned out to be one too many. Gary blew it, he took those peoples money, lied to them for months on end, and never even ordered the merchandise. ONE time is a mistake, and I could see not calling it a crime if he begged for foregiveness, and immediately began repayment to that single customer. The instant he accepted one more order which he did not remit to the manufacturer, it's a crime and his one freebie (the first order) becomes a crime as well.

Hey, what's your 'day job'? Are you, by any chance, an engineer?

Dude, you're standing up. If that's not enough indication to you and the TI that something isn't right, you both should be grounded. Keep in mind, it's not your job to save their lives, it's your job to stay out of their way and not take them out. Unless you have the freefly chops to stay with a drougless tandem (which will not be the rock-solid stable base a tandem in drougefall is) and throw a useful and helpful pull signal, you shouldn't be anywhere near them. In fact, you should be staying well clear of them because when the TI figures out what's going, something big is going to happen. If he sets the drouge, they'll drop 50mph off their fall rate in under 2 seconds. if he dumps the reserve, they'll drop 150mph off their fall rate in 5 seconds. Either way, you don't need to be anywhere near that. What would happen if you were diving down to them when either one of those brakes were applied? It's like an AFF student below the hard deck, when you chase them all they see is you in freefall, which is what they expect to see, so everything seems 'fine'. The better move is to get the fuck out of there and stay clear, maybe cluing the TI into the idea that you don't like what you see. For the above reasons, the guy you know is an idiot. Staying with them down to Cypres fire altitude is dumb as shit, and he probably told you the story to stroke his own ego, and show you how 'cool' he is. Camera flying isn't rocket science in many ways, and break off is one of them. You're filming a skydive, and when it's over, you stop filming. For a tandem, it's over at pull time. For RW, the filming is over when the group breaks off. Either way, your job ends well before anyone should be in 'danger'. So don't be stupid and don't be a hero, and get the hell out when the job is done and open a parachute.

No it doesn't. This isn't a court of law, and in terms of who took the money these jumpers are out, KK is (or was) a one-man operation, so the person responsible for the theft is Gary. If KK was an established corp with doznes of employees, then yes, it becomes less clear who is responsible for what, and there is a distinct possibility that the owner of the corp was not the guilty party. However, in this case, the owner who is also the sole-employee is most certainly to blame, he's the one who took the money and did not deliver the goods, and he is the one who recieved the benefit of the ill-gotten funds. I don't know what it is about this situation that leads to improperly applied business or legal princiapls, but between gary spouting off about cash flow in his made-to-order gear dealership, or you claiming his innosence based on the pricipal that he could 'hide' behidn his corportate name, but lets all 'keep it real'. A dude named Gary took a whole pile of money from a bunch of people, and never ordered or delivered their gear. There's no way to explain that situation away, that's what happened, and it's a crime.

No, you think about it. Do you really think you can stay with a drougeless tandem? You didn't mention anything about freefly skills, but you'll need some top notch ones to stay with a drougeless tandem. If it's not perfectly clear to you within 10 or 15 seconds of exit that things aren't right when a TI forgets to set the drouge, you have no business shooting video. Besides, you have two audibles, where are they set for? One should go off before the tandem pull altitude, so you know it's coming, and are ready for it. Another should be set above your pull altitude, so you know that's coming, and in case you missed the first one, and so did the TI, you can still get clear and pull close to you planned pull altitude. The others should be related your hard deck, and your 'don't cut away' altitude. No offence, but you've posted some ideas that show a fundamental lack of forethought. Break off from a tandem? Drougless tandems down to Cypres fire altitude with you filming the whole time? Do either of those seem based in reality?

The idea is to get the guy to leave earlier than later, and keep him away from the drouge. He's got the whole jump to catch them if need be, which is preferable to taking a drouge to the face. A tandem will fall faster down the hill then say, an AFF or other RW group, and will be easier to catch if you leave early. The belly fliers will get blown up over your head, while the tandem will be out in front of you. Seeing as you need to keep your head up for camera sighting, the easier gap to close is the horizontal, not the vertical. How does the old saying go, "If you're low and looking up, you'll never get back in"? If I had to choose, 30 feet under or 30 feet horizontally, I'd take the horizontal any day. In fact, I'd take 30 feet horizontal AND 30 feet low over 30 feet under any day (of course I mean 'mostly' under, because directly under is a huge no-no, and the reason I told the guy to practice with something other than tandems).

Did you give this much thought before you posted? Tandems dump on the high side of 5k, leaving you alone in the sky at 4.5k. Do you really need a plan for that? Four way teams break off between 4.5k and 3.5k, again, leaving you alone in the middle. Care to guess what comes next? The exits are one thing, as they are unique to tandems and cannot really be learned by anything but just doing them. "Being there" on the other hand, is similar to any RW speed jump. Once the drougue is out, most tandems sit fairly still. Any changes they make to fall rate or direction are very slight, and you could easily encoutner a wider range on an average RW jump. If you cannot consistantly stay with an RW jump, you shouldn't be jumping with tandems at all. Keep in mind that before you make jump #1 with a tandem, you should be a 'professional' level jumper, at least to the extent that you can reliably stay out of their way and 'do no harm'. You and the TI might know you're the 'new guy' and just getting started, but to the passenger, you're a 'professional', and they expect (and deserve) you to perform like one. Learn to fall straight down, close a gap from above, below and from the side BEFORE you jump with a tandem. Paid or not, a tandem is no time to learn that you can't control your proximity and go flying into them. The Tonysuit will only make it worse. Once you can shoot good, consistant, controlled RW video, from exit to break off, then start jumping with the tandems. For exits, start off by getting off early. Go on the 'set' of the count. Tandems fall fast before the drouge comes out, so even if you get off early, their speed right out of the door will help you close the gap. If you don't get off early, they will catch you on the hill. If they get next to you before they set the drouge, you might be in the 'line of fire' and take a drouge to the face. Staying tight makes for nice exit shots, but staying clear of the drouge is 1000% more important. The exit is only one small part of the video. Sacrifice the tightness of the shot for the safety in the beginning and creep your way in little by little each jump. Within 20 or 30 you'll be within a good range, until then, keep back and be patient. Once the drouge is set you'll have plenty of time to get in there and get the tight shot.

I disagree. My response was accurate and correct. You took is as hostile because it didn't agree with your shortsighted point of view. Don't like Jump Shack's attitude? Don't jump their gear. Otherwise, trust their judgement, just like you trust them to design and build your container, and wait to see what they have to say. You're a rigger and you know how it works. The factory can say or do anything they want at any time, and some of it can make your rig, either whole or in part, illegal to jump in the US. Who was it, Butler or Softie or one of PEP manufacturers that suddenly chose to life limit their gear, so pilots with PEPs with no jumps and in perfect shape suddenly found out riggers wouldn't touch their gear. It sucks, but that's how the system works.

Yep. The rig has been TSO'd and we know it works without an AAD. When you add a component whose functionality is questionable, and could possibly comprimise the functionality of the rig, you have possibly done more harm than good. Without the AAD, the rig works. With the AAD, who knows? You would prefer the latter? So your AAD has worked before in your rig? If not, how can you be reasonably sure that it will, or at the very least, do no harm? There have been problems with those AADs in the past, and to date nobody has really been able to nail down exactly how those problems came be, or the conditions that led to them. With that in mind, how do you know that your AAD and your rig do not fit the bill? You may be juming the 'perfect storm' of Agrus malfunctions, and just don't know it. Let's keep in mind that misfires were never part of the problem, so if your AAD has sat quitely since it's installation, that's hardly proof that it works. You only find out that it works when things have already gone horribly wrong, and at that point all you have to go by is the track record of the product.

For who? For you and your own rig, maybe. For your customers? I don't think so. Do you honestly believe that you, and every other rigger, knows as much as John Sherman, Bill Booth, Kelly Farrington, Mark Procos, etc? Those are the guys with the authority to issue SBs, and it's because they know the rigs inside and out, and they are the ones who take the phone calls and emails from jumpers and riggers every time there's even the slightest hiccup with their rigs. That's what it would take to insure the safety of every riggers customers across the country. Being a rigger is not a license to design and configure equipemnt, it's a license to follow manufacturers requirements for their equipment. Why do you think you're required to have the manual present when packing a reserve, and one of the trick questions on the riggers test is, 'What do you do when you're not sure and the manual is of no help?', with the answer being 'call the manufacturer'. I understand your sentiment, but be realistic about your position in the 'pecking order' as a rigger. If you want to move up, get your master riggers ticket, and either TSO your own rig or go to work for someone who has. The simple fact is that you only have to be halfway intelligent to get a riggers ticket, and that's not enough to allow riggers to make significant decisions about gear configuration. Don't feel bad, you don't have to be intelligent at all to skydive or get a license, so as a rigger you are a step above the average jumper at the DZ.

First off, those risers are F'ed. Second, you can't ignore the fact that after setting her brakes, and lining up her risers to run up the lines, she never noticed one being almost an inch off from the other. That aside, just swap in another set of risers and see if the canopy behaves better. They don't have to be new, just confirm they're the same length and in good working order and have her put a dozen jumps on them. In terms of putting 1000 jumps on a set of risers, it can be done, but why? It's a heavily loaded, integral part of the cutaway and brake system, and they can be replaced for under $150 and without the need for a rigger or a repack.

I've always worked under the same system at two different DZs. It goes like this, if there are full-time instructors, who commit to and are available 7 days a week, they get first dibs on work. What that means is that if you're at the DZ, and the full time guy isn't already on a jump, they can take the next thing that walks through the door. It's the bonus for commiting to the DZ, you're kept busy above all others. That aside, the rest of the staff works on a rotation based on what time you showed up that morning. The first guy in is the first guy on the rotation, and so on. It's up to the DZ to limit the number of instructors in the rotation so everyone stays busy. If every instructor can stay busy for 75% of the day, that's a good number to shoot for. Fewer instructors means that nobody gets a lunch (or maybe bathroom) break, and if a group of walk-ins shows up, the DZ is in trouble. more instructors than that means too much time to go through the rotation and get guy #1 back up to the top. If you're instructors have an hour of down time between jumps, they're not going to be working there for long. Generally there's no distinction between AFF, tandem or video. Most guys are multi rated, and it's generally just looked at as 'work jumps'. If everyone has about the same number at the end of the day, that's good enough. Even if, say, video paid more than tandem, and one guy got more videos than the other guy who got more tandems, sure the first guy makes more, but that's just the way it goes. Jumps are assigned based more on who's available, what the jump is, and who would be the best fit.

I don't think so. I think what they did was re-write the SB and the manual so that anyone who wants to jump an Argus can, provided their rig manufacturer hasn't banned them. It's almost another nod toward their attitude that nothing is wrong, because they're basically taking down any of their own barriers to jumping an Argus, so the only thing standing in the way is the manufacturers position. However, it also specifies only rigs that position the cutter under the PC, which sort of acknowledges that above the PC might actually be problematic. Weird. The other thing it does is free up some space in the market for Argus. It's already suffering because the majority of rig manufacturers have banned them, so in order to make the Argus more viable to those jumping other rigs, they made it easier to use them. I wonder what their position is on cutters, as-in, do they have them in stock, or are they waiting for them to be delivered from contractors, contractors who want to be paid. Would you really want to invest in a shipment of cutters if the future of your product was iffy?

Almost certainly? Does anyone else recall Gary mentioning winning big money playing online poker back in the day when he used to post all the time? Am I confusing him with someone else (quite possible)? If not, winning big usually turns in to losing big at some point, thus the nature of gambling. Per chance he was doing it with other peoples money?

The lawyer/pre-nup deal is the way to go. You, your mom, your sister, nobody really knows what's going on inside the relationship between your friend and her hubby-to-be, only they do. Because of that, it's hard to give advice because it's really just your opinion, and if someone isn't interested in it, they just won't listen. However, there are lots of people who absolutely do understand the laws in your state, and no matter what the personal relationship is like, the laws apply to everyone just the same in the case of a marriage or divorce. So while your opinion about the guy is one thing, the legal position she's putting herself in is fact, and she needs to protect herself. Maybe appeal to that, and express your concerns along those lines. It's not that you're concerned about the relationship (even though you are), it's that you're concerned about her home and estate. I had a similar situation happen to a friend of mine lately. She was dating a guy for about 6 months, and announced that she, along with her kids, were going to move in with him. The guy seemed nice enough, had a job, house, etc, but I expressed concern that it was too soon. After talking, she agreed to not put her (very nice) home on the market for at least 6 months or a year, just to make sure things worked out. In that case, keeping her house was her version of a pre-nup, whatever happened, she always had that to fall back on. Sure enough, less than two months later she broke up with the guy and moved right back into her house that same day.

I have done this on an Otter my old DZ used to bring in a few weekends each year. When the plane would leave on Sunday night to return to it's home base, the pilot would take one last load up to 5k or 6k, let us out, and then continue on to fly the 200 miles home. I would climb out to the camera step, and lower the door before I left. While I felt like I was doing the pilot the biggest favor of all time, I was later told that if I didn't shut the door, the pilot would have trimmed the plane for cruise, left the cockpit and walked back to shut the door himself.

No way bro. No way. You're way off base with the comparisons your making to business and cash flow. He was in a 'boutique' custom product business with very, very low profit margins. if he was in retail, making 50% on everything he sold, then you float things along with 'cash flow' and set up a system of recieveables, payables, and credit, and you work it to the best of your ability. When you're selling $8000 custom built rigs for people, and you're clearing 10% (at best) on the sale, you can't float 90%+ of the sale and use that money for other things. You need to sell 10 more rigs with every penny of that profit going to repay the 90% float on the first rig. So to successfully get $8000 to play with, you need to sell 11 rigs and collect no profit, just a temporary loan of $8000 to use for expenses. it just doesn't work that way. I've said it before, the guy gets ONE chance at this. Once you take one order and collect payment and then don't send the order in, you know what you did and that you have to stop right then and there. Even then that's a crime if he doesn't repay every cent, and even if he does, it was still the wrong thing to do. Gary kept taking orders, collecting payment, and not forwarding the orders or the money to the manufacturers, over and over again, to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. There is no excuse for that.

Even if a business was started in good failth, and operated as such for years, when you defruad as many people as Gary did, eventaully the intent is there. I could see if he was running a business with dozens of regular customers, and then due some circumstance the business suffered a critical blow, and all of the customers were out in some way. In that case, there would be a number of people who suffered a loss, but not neccessarily an intent to defraud. In this case, however, none of these people were regular customers with active accounts and on-going business, these were are single-transaction customers and the dates of their business dealings are spread out over a large time frame. After he took the first payment for gear that was never ordered, that's day one of the fraud. Any business after that would have been entered into with Gary's knowledge of the trouble the business was in, and that he was not following the standard business practices (as-in, ordering gear the customers paid for). Despite this previous knowledge (aka intent) he took their money anyway. Whatever the case is, the was entitled to make ONE mistake of this nature. At that point he could have locked the doors, begged that ONE customer for forgivness, and set up a repayment schedule to return that persons money to them. By not following that course of action, and knowingly continuing on taking money and not placing orders, he used his one 'get out jail free' card, and became a crook. The majority of jumper are not wealthy people, and they spend a good hunk of their income on jumping. The rig is the big purchase, and the key to everything that follows. To pray on jumpers and take their rig money, only to spend it on whatever personal affairs you see fit is a crime, both legally and morally. Fuck that guy.

Stop tyring to engineer this too. Just go to the DZ every weekend, and pack the student rigs every chance you get. In less than 20 packjobs, you'll see that packing is like any other pedestrian skill in that with a little bit of practice, you can easliy be as good as 90% of the packers out there. If you spent 1/4 of the time you think about packing actually packing, you would be past this issue, and on to thinking about things worth thinking about (hint- packing isn't one of them). Your good friend who is a 'supurb' packer is not a 'supurb' thinker when it comes to deployment. Routing the bridle out the side will not cause linetwists or any other unwanted consequences on opening. Consider the size of the PC vs. the size of the canopy, and tell me you think the one is going to effect the other (laterally) in a high speed airstream. Beyond that, the PC is seperate from the bridle routing in the bag, and it's out there doing it's job, pulling directly in-line with the airstream long before the canopy ever sees the light of day.

Yeah, for himself. For his customers, not so much.

Every jumper needs something different for their first rig, and it all depends on how they perform as a student. Once you get through your first ten jumps, they'll have a good idea of what you'll need as a starter rig, and can start looking then. Anything they do before you make 10 or 12 jumps is just a guess, and might turn out to be a waste of time once they see you in the air. You'll want to contact the DZ before your trip. Let them know what your plans are with regards to AFF, an A license, jumping after your license and buying a rig. Some DZ have a package deal where you pay for all of AFF (or all the way to an A license) up front in one lump sum, and you get a discount for pre-payment. Some DZs offer block rates for buying jump tickets. If you plan to make 50 or 100 jumps after you get your license, you can buy them in a block for a cheaper price than paying one by one. In either case, the AFF package or the block ticket packages, find out if there is a refund policy and what it is before you pay for anything. If it's 'no refunds for any reason' you may want to just pay full price, and not risk losing your money in the event of an inury or bad weather limiting your jumps. Do give them a heads up that you'll want gear, but don't expect a rig waiting for you when you arrive. They may keep an eye out for anything close to what you might need, but again, you need a handful of jumps before you can be sure.

How much time do you plan to spend jumping? If you give it five days per week, you should be able to complete your A license program in two weeks. Beyond that, you are free to make as many jumps as you can manage, with the limiting factors being how many loads the DZ is flying during the week, how many of those loads you can make (you'll probably need to use a packer), and of course the weather. Again, if you figure on five days per week jumping, times four weeks after you get a license, that's 20 jumping days total. I would guess 5 jumps per day, maybe 6, is a good guess for an average number of jumps per day, so you're looking at 100-ish jumps, plus the 25 you need to get the A license. So starting from nothing, you could be at 125-ish jumps in six weeks. Cost wise, the A license will run you about $2000 (including the first 25 jumps), 100 jumps will run you $2500 ($3000 if you pay a packer every time), a handful of rig rentals before you find a rig will run about $100/$150, and a nice used rig about $3000 ($4000 with an AAD). All in, about $8000 to $10,000, and you go home with a license, 125 jumps and a rig. You could maybe double that if you jumped every day the DZ was open and flying, and you rented or bought two rigs so you could make back to backs, and you got on every load that flew. If you follow that plan, and use a rental rig and your own rig, figure on another $3000 for 100 more jumps (with a packer) and $300 for the additional gear rental, so total about $12,500. HOWEVER, either one of those plans is a shit ton of jumps for anyone. For a new jumper, even the 125 jump plan will be a lot of 'work' to make it happen. Jumping all day, every day, for weeks on end takes a real commitment and most of your time and energy. Either way, good luck.

This is a flat out lie. No other DZ has been fined $650k by the FAA for ignoring required maintenance on a Twin Otter. None. Don't fool yourself into thinking everything will be fine. Bill already lost a King Air up in Canada due to incomplete maintenance, and was lucky nobody was killed in the process.