drenaline

I strongly recommend that you go to a doctor, try to go a specialized doctor in nose and ears. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

sabre2 if you want 9 cell or a spectre if you want a 7 cell, those are cool canopies, open soft and fly good and as a plus the rise pressure isn't that hard, try them out and make your choice. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

That you don't have to be nervous or scared in the plane if you forget to turn on your AAD. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

you can shorten the closing loop so no problem there, the problem I see (am a newbie at the sport only 140 jumps and 3 years and no ratings at all) is that the d-bag would be big and the canopy wont pack tight inside the dbag and (wild guess here) you might get canopy dump. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

Ask another more experienced instructor at your DZ for a second opinion. I don't know much about the triathlon but the difference in wingload is not that much and you will still be in the "safe side" wingload. I am still a kindergarden skydiver with only 140 jumps so take all I said with a bunch of salt. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

Everything is ok until you open your parachute, after you pull all the sinus starts kicking in, the adrenaline starts to fade and you start to feel the pain again, you feel so bad that you prefer to die, you can't breath your eyeballs hurt as if they want to come out, you get a intensive headache, your ears want to explode and you have to wait the canopy ride down feeling like that. Well that happened to me when I had a lil cold it was very lil, for me I wasnt sick and I jumped at 9k fts opened at 3k fts. After that horrible jump I made a hop n pop at 4k fts and it didn't felt that bad but it was still spooky. If you are still gonna do it no matter what then all I can say as a friend is to get some descongestant, the spray one like afrin so you don't have to drink any pills. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

Now if there is a way they can tell other countries that it is allowed to carry on parachutes... The lame excuse they used here when they opened my chute was "united states told us not to let rigs as carry on when flying to the states". HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

I used to wear soft contacts and the goggles I used were some cheap ones that looked like a pair of torsan or peerser and it was great, I have also used those plastic ones and they were great too, no problem at all. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

I have seen a couple of toggles with the stiffened bit of toggle material (wings pic), and I really dun like it that much, it gets kinda soft in time and some of them the stitch starts to wear and gets softer making it a lil bit more difficult to set. Thats how everybody closes theyr infinity and I haven't heard of any problems by doing it. I do that every 120 days, and everybody at my dz does it every 120 days (when they repack the reserve) and its been working ok, have a friend that had a cutaway with reverse risers and it went fine (had a line twists spinning stilletto). If you feel safer doing it every 30 days, by all means do it. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

I've been jumping a wingload of 1.25 for the past 110 jumps with no problems and now I know I can get in a stilletto with a wingload of 1.2 with no problem and I only have 140 jumps. Before I felt that I could fly a elliptical loaded canopy with a wingload like that, I did what Bill Von said on a very old post, learn to do flat turns, brake turns, land crosswind, etc. then took a canopy course with Scott Miller. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

Interesting choice of words. I wonder whose fault is it, the packer who might of packed a pin like that or the jumper for been over confident on his packer and not checking his pin and PC. Lesson to learn: always check your own pin and PC before puting on your rig. The 2 DZ I went to the US the other jumpers checked theyr pins only on the plane before jumping, I wonder what would of happen if the PC is still collapsed? learn to check the gear before boarding the plane. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

It was the first thing I asked before getting the container, there is a thread about it. All grommets, except for the last one, should meet. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

I tried what they told me but I still can't make the first 2 grommets meet, maybe am too dumb and need to see somebody do it or a video of somebody closing it. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

Hey andy, I have a spectre 150 with a wingload of 1.25 and I seriously like those long snivels (I have some neck problems) I usually pack my spectre with about 10 rolls on the nose and it opens in about 1000fts and its great to have that, after you get a couple of slammer from any canopy you will start praying for those 1000fts snivels so don't worry to much just open at 3000fts and everything will be fine. If you want fast openings you can do what somebody did to me and that was to pack it with only 1 roll on the nose that thing opened very hard and fast or give it to a packer in a very busy DZ, they love to pack fast opening chutes HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

As owner of one infinity container I have some very personal opinions on my infinity here it goes: Pro's: looks great, very comfortable, safe, very good riser cover, hip rings are great, I like the way the RSL routing is velcroless, the shoulder pads are very comfortable, rigger friendly, the way it covers the risers that it don't show is very cool, wide leg pads are great and comfortable, very very good customer service and they help you in everything they can. My personal Con's: I bought my rig when it had 50 jumps, on the rig jump #76 the main pin cover tug tap broke (the plastic), on rig jump #89 the grommet of the top main flap came out (i thinks its numbered 1) had a rigger fix the grommet, I still can't pack it the way its supposed to (have the first 3 flaps meet grommets and the fourth flap only kiss the third flap) I think I need a video to see what am doing wrong in my packing or most prolly I got a bad one. I emailed velocity about my cons and they were very friendly and even asked me if I could send the rig back to them so they could check it out for free and change the tuck tab but my reality is that I live in another country and it would cost me about a 100$ to ship to washington and another 100$ to ship back and thats good jump money so the only thing they could do was send me the tuck tab for my rigger to change it. Will I buy another infinity if mine gets lost? I will have to meditate this answer. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

both rigs are great, I (remember I said I, me) would buy a rig from the nearest store. If RWS is near me then a vector if its infinity I would go for infinity. I had to buy a gear from a far place to learn that. If there is any problem with my rig it will cost me double and take longer to repair or check than if I would of bought it somewhere near. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

I really don't like velcro, they can damage the lines if you are not careful and they wear in time. Tuck tabs have no velcro mmm... I dunno what else to say. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

Always try to do stand up or PLF, don't go for the slide because, like said above, you can get some serious injuries in the spine. The only common procedure I know for slide landing is landing with your feets, slipping with the wet grass and end up doing the butt slide. I have scoliosis because I thought that landing and sliding with my butt would of been better than landing hard on my feets. How it happened? well I landed without flaring (well actually I did flared but my feets where already on the ground) was going to fast and I sliped, ended with my butt on the ground, slide a bit and finnished with huge pain in my spine. ADVICE: go for the PLF or the Stand up, your spine and coxis will thank you for it. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

I packed a spectre 150 inside a dolphin D4 made for a 230. I had the closing loop so short that it was a real bitch to close the flaps and it looked ugly as hell, but it was a beauty to pack HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

The ear had some trouble equalizing and it was a lil hurt but so small that you didn't felt the pain just the cloged ear with the crackling noise. Did you had a flu before or did after that happened? its usually that. I haven't broken my eardrums but I have hurted my eardrums very bad and it HURTS! you have no idea the pain, I also was kinda deaf for about a week or more and dizzy. From the med books when you break a eardrum you will bleed, have intensive pain, deaf in that ear and dizziness, I think thats all of the symptoms. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

I did S/L so I dunno how correct I will be when I say this. When I did my S/L progression I only got higher altitude if I could have a stable freefall at the altitude given. For a student (for me it was) it is easier to hold a stable position for 10 seconds than to hold it for 15 seconds, remember in SL you always go SOLO and have to learn how to fix problems in the air solo, specially the unvoluntary spins (spins = turns right? sorry some bad english here), while in AFF the instructors help you controll yourself in freefall. Let me set an example: imaging a student jump out of the plane for a 10 secs then pull, everything goes ok but with a very slow spin starting to happen, now on the next jump the student gets a 50 secs freefall, the slight spin might turn into a faster spin after 20 secs, after 30secs the student will have no idea how to stop that very fast spin, at 40 secs the student gets scared because the spin feels like the ultra fast fan he has at home and then pull before the 50 secs. Can you imagine how many line twist he will end up with? all that could of been prevented by giving him a slow progression and fixing the problem everytime the instructor sees something. Happened to me I had to repeat my 15 secs cause I was having uncontrolled slow spins, and instructor said I had to be stable in order to get more altitude and trust me I thank him for that. I asked the same thing and the other answer I got was "... and you don't need that much of an altitude to fix a problem, just cutaway and go for silver" Hope I could of been of help. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

Hey Jerry, what you said is correct, the pressure builds in the ear and thats what you clear when you send air from the inside to push the outside (yeah I know, this is the lazy way to explain ) To be a lil more specific: when you go up the pressure will lower, making the air expand and since you have air in the inner ear it will try to push the eardrums to the outside so you gotta counter that pressure and to do that what you can do are several things, one of them is swallow hard, yawn or close your nose and INHALE (its called inverse Valsalva or inverse Frentzen, can't remember sorry). Now what happens when you start falling from the beautiful blue skies is that the midle ear had equalize to the low pressure outside but now the pressure will start pushing it to the inside and here is when its dangerous because you can rupture the eardrum so you gotta act fast to equalize and to do so, what you can do is swallow, move your jawbone (to let air inside the midle ear and that way it will equilize), close your nose and swallow, or close your nose and blow. A great advice I can give to anybody is that you SHOULDN'T go skydiving if you have a cold, flu, and specially if you have sinus, you might hurt yourself very bad. Correct, in time the body will learn how to adjust to the pressure almost automatic with only a lil input like swallowing to help it work faster and sometimes we learn how to move the muscles that are in the ear and equalize a lot faster and easier. drenaline - PADI Dive Master

I have my dytter set on break off altitude (depends on the jump am making), the other one is 100 feets above opening altitude (i might loose about a 100 fts from when I hear it until I pull, I usually have it on 3100) and the last one is the silver beep and thats at 1800 (is what USPA recommends and I have never had a cutaway so I have no idea of how much altitude it will take me to cutaway, pull reserve AND find a place to land). HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

things that are fun and you can learn from a canopy is stalling it with rear riser and also stalling it with the control lines. do that above 2000 feets. ask your instructor for briefing on how to stalls in a safe way. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com

I recently got scolisis thanks to a bad butt landing, after 6 months ignoring the injury I finally got enough pain for me to see a doctor. The doctor grounded me for 2 weeks and I took 3 cause of the pain, gave me 1 month of physiotherapy and A-LOT of pills. After that everything has been alright, before a busy day of jumping I usually do some stretching, and after the day of jumping I cool down with some beers If you get some pain, do some physical therapy at home. HISPA 21 www.panamafreefall.com