4dbill

You "nailed" it! Perfecting 90's before anything else that is. I knew somebody was going to take full advantage of the situation. Hurry though. Water might dry up soon.

You are beginning to sound like Brian Germain! You don't have beers together, do you?

----------- I think 10-15 was way too high of a guess. I'm thinking its lower. ----------- Huh? If there was a swooping meet at Lodi and the rules were the present rules (no more than 90 below 500 feet), you would only get around 10% distance of your normal swoop, no matter how well it was executed? 90 is THAT slow?

If the pro swoopers were only allowed 90's, just have fast/far can they go? 50%? 80%? 90%?

Yes, you can do a controlled 90 then front riser it. If you time the carve perfectly, there really isn't a reason to double frond riser it at the end of the arc, but that's better than stabbing the brakes doing it too low! :)

Quick 90's in successions are not allowed either. You would be surprised to see how much speed you can build up using just a 90. It isn't how hard you whip it but how LONG you carve it. Brian Germain explains it really well in his book, "The Parachute and its Pilot," which is a MUST READ for all canopy pilots. He talks about reaching "Canopy Terminal Velocity" which takes 4-6 seconds. So, if you carve a slow controlled front riser 90 for 4-5 seconds, which takes discipline, you should get very close to canopy's terminal velocity. No, you won't be screaming down like after a perfectly executed 270, but it would be enough to impress the spectators. :) Quoting Brian, "Time is the most relevant variable in achieving speed when gravity is the empowering device." He is my new hero. At the swooping's infancy, I understood many things he talked about in the book, purely by trial and error, but didn't know how to verbalize it. How do you exactly describe riding a bicyle? But you just know it when you get it. Brian is a master in describing techniques, feelings, instincts, physics, etc. I never thought that any person would be able to describe a perfect swoop in plain English. He has done it in an amazing way.

Bill Dause, the DZO, won't allow initiating 180 or 270 above 500 feet. You just have to be creative doing a 90.

After a couple days of hard rain, The Parachute Center (Lodi / Acampo) pond is filled up after a long dry spell. I played hookie today because I just could not resist it just sitting there! The DZ rule states no more than 90 degree turns below 500 feet, so it takes different techniques than 180 or 270, but you can still get a decent swoop carving it slowly. I dare anyone to swoop the whole thing using 90. I am sure it can be done. Best of all, hop & pop's are only FIVE bucks at Lodi! The pond is great for beginners since it's less than a foot deep. If you are not going to make it, you can always walk out, preventing your canopy from getting wet. See you there! How do you like my pre-owned velo120? I got it for a good deal. :) 4DBill

One of my employees took the entire AFF course last week at the Parachute Center at Acampo / Lodi, CA. The entire course was $1100, which included a working tandem and 7 levels of AFF, INCLUDING video! He finished the course in just three days and did well. You can watch the entire video at, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYbpR7rwugQ Not only did I give him three paid days off for the course, but I am now going to help him get his A license asap. Am I the world's greatest boss or what?

Come on guys and ladies -- there is way too much bickering, gossiping and speculating n this thread, but that's just so typical of a skydiving community. If you are going to say something, verbalize something nice and/or useful or don't say anything at all. We should all bitch less and listen more. Steve, the DZO of Spaceland, is obviously reading this. Here's your big chance to hear directly from the horse's mouth about this topic, so instead of posting any more crap, let's just wait for him to post and give us some real answers. I am tired of reading through a whole page of garbage to extract one little tiny bit of useful information. Steve? It's all yours.. Could you please enlighten us with the real story and post some answers to the FAQ's people been asking? Thank you. 4DBill

Hippo's Hope By Shel Silverstein There once was a hippo who wanted to fly -- Fly-hi-dee, try-hi-dee, my-hi-dee-ho. So he sewed him some wings that could flap through the sky -- Sky-hi-dee, fly-hi-dee, why-hi-dee-go. He climbed to the top of a mountain of snow -- Snow-hi-dee, slow-hi-dee, oh-hi-dee-hoo. With the clouds high above and the sea down below -- Where-hi-dee, there-hi-dee, scare-hi-dee-boo. (Happy ending) And he flipped and he flapped and he bellowed so loud -- Now-hi-dee, loud-hi-dee, proud-hi-dee-poop. And he sailed like an eagle, off into the clouds -- High-hi-dee, fly-hi-dee, bye-hi-dee-boop. (Unhappy ending) And he leaped like a frog and he fell like a stone -- Stone-hi-dee, lone-hi-dee, own-hi-dee-flop. And he crashed and he drowned and broke all his bones -- Bones-hi-dee, moans-hi-dee, groans-hi-dee-glop. (Chicken ending) He looked up at the sky and looked down at the sea -- Sea-hi-dee, free-hi-dee, whee-hi-dee-way. And he turned and went home and had cookies and tea -- That's hi-dee, all hi-dee, I have to say

I got my rating in 1990 when Don Yahrling had a course at Skydance. Less than 50% of the candidates passed, which was the norm at the time. The most valuable flying skill needed to pass was being able to go from point A to B as speedily as possible. A good range of fall rate was a must. I was a stocky fast faller, so I compensated by wearing huge cotton suit. Don, when he saw me for the first time with the suit, called it the "Elephant Suit", but he understood its usefulness when he saw me fly with it. It got the job done on every evaluation jump. I saw some competition jumpers with high number of jumps fail the course because it required different skill sets. They were great at turning points, falling at the same speed, but they simply didn't have the either vertical or the horizontal range keep up with "out of control" students. Getting the rating was one of greatest accomplishments in life. It was good that only around 50% of the candidates passed back then. It weeded out the not-so-great jumpers and instructors. With a relatively low number of jumps at the time (around 550) and being known as somewhat "adventurous," almost everyone at my DZ thought I was wasting my money, surely to fail. Even after passing the course by Tuesday night, with a jump left over (2, 2, 2, 2, 4), more than a few people back at my DZ thought that I just got lucky. Well.. there was no such thing as luck back then when it came to passing the AFF course, because Don ran a tough, but fair, course. Today's courses -- CAN you get lucky these days? 4DBill

If not too late on the reply, please contact Russell Calkins, one of the first master sky surfers in the U.S. in the early 90's. He took first place in the world's first ever sky surfing championship in a demo competition. I video'ed his jumps hundreds of times when creating a promotional video. He can be contacted via Youtube link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuI7VMia45Q Good luck. 4DBill

This this out. It's from 1992! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWJZHKnkFLM I used nylon camera suit with wings. It gave me lots of range. If you don't weigh enough, wear weights! Always dirtdive with surfers so you can anticipate their moves. Do not get too close during an aggressive move. 4DBill

Having jumped Sabre 170, Sabre 150, Sabre 135, Stiletto 135, none of the above compared to Velo 120 I just demo'ed over the weekend. Even with just 90 carve, which is what Lodi allows these days, it screamed across the sky. Two greatest things about Velo is that it does NOT plane out at the bottom of the arc, which means I can take my time flattening out at optimum height. With other canopies I have swooped, the arc had to be just about perfect, therefore less room for error. When I found myself slightly low on one of the turn, a slight tap on the brake was all it was needed to correct the angle. The response was incredible. Ideally, a good swooper should never turn too low, but almost almost everyone does once in a great moon, and when it does happen, the correction is incredibly responsive. It's definitely not a canopy for a beginner, since piloting to the ground has to be close to perfect, but for an established swoopers, it really can't get much better than this - fast, responsive, long recovery arc, excellent plane, tip toe landing. I am ordering my custom color next week. Yea! BTW, my wing load was around 2 to 1.