BMFin

Went to empuria around easter and also participated the go vertical boogie. ABOUT THE MANIFEST: Plane capacity was good. Beech99, Super otter, Skyvan and the porter. But sometimes it felt it just wasent enough. During the busy times I had to wait more than 2 hours just to manifest my self solo on the next availeable load. But wait, thats not all.. The next guy (who obviously knows the manifest) goes and manifests him self and some friends on a 25 minute call right after me. Im like What the **** is this ? This was happening thru the whole day. ABOUT RIGGIN LOFT: After a few jumps on my new canopy I noticed I should lenghten my brakelines. I took my canopy to the riggin loft and explained the rigger what I needed. He asked me "what canopy is that" I said "Its a 120 vengeace" and He started shouting me "why the F**K do you have spectra lines on your vengeace!!!??" Where I couldn´t really say nothing else then "Im very sorry but PD installed them in the factory" (that is the way how the canopy is designed by PD) After that he grabbed my helmet and started wrapping a line from my canopy over my camerahelmet and telling me how this helmet is going to kill me... (its a normal bonehead optik) Eventually the next day I finally got him to lenghten my brakelines after having to listen his mumbo jumbo for 2 hours... So word of advice .. Have your rigging made at your home DZ before leaving to empuria. WEATHER: I think the location isnt exactly the optimal skydiving location in terms of weather. The wind is often very hard as also said in the other reviews. Still empuria manages to be the worlds second biggest DZ with a lot of days nonjumpable. PILOT: In empuria all the jumpruns are spotted by GPS and always flown from south to north. This is because of the city right to the south of the airstrip. The only place where you can land in the city are the canals, so you really dont want to end up over the city. One of the days i was manifested on the skyvan for a few jumps and noticed that on the earlier loads the last ones out didnt make back to the DZ becouse the Skyvan pilot was dropping people so far away. When we went on the next load we asked the pilot if he could make 2 jumpruns where he immediedly said "NO !!" very stern. Earlier on that day there was one fatal incident from the skyvan. Lot of jumpers again couldnt make it back and one died to his injuries later due to a bad off landing.. Next day we were flying not two but THREE jumpruns.. But suprise suprise no one wanted to load on the skyvan anymore so the DZ made it tandem only for the rest of the day.. Other than this. I had fun in empuria. The city is close by. There are nice small towns to visit close by. The bunkhouses are nice. Mostly people were very professional.

Opens really nice. Not 100% on heading but enough anyway. I have dumped it leading an atmo dive and I think I could dump it even headdown.. I love the way how the canopy feels really solid, much more rigid than most 9 cells, due to the partially closed nose. I think this is an exellent canopy for learning to swoop and moving to xbraced. Xfire2 also has really good bottomend lift that allows you to just step down at the end.. I load mine about 1.7, but I think the sweet spot would be a little higher..

I also had wrinkles in my G4.1 when it was new.. Now that it isnt that new anymore it is not that stiff anymore and wont wrinkle at all.. I heard a lot of people reporting this before and I think its pretty normal with a new G4 (especially the bigger sizes I understand)After time I think it will flex from the right places and wont wrinkle anymore. If it is the way mine was, its only cosmetic and doesnt really matter that much at all...

I Need some white smoke from somewhere in europe. Anyone know a good place to buy ? thanks !

You guys..I have asked this sometimes before here but I ask again... I would really apprechiate if you could come up with some video / still footage of a vladiball. Also I would like to see some pics close up since I have never seen one.. Cannot find any pics online. I have heard there has been some issues of balls blowing up accidentally and being very fragile... Also I have heard they are not so stable. Is this true ?

VISO 105kmh (about 65mph) on a XF2 @ 1.7 practicing 180´s (only 10 jumps so far...) about 100kmh with vengeance 120 @ 1.56 180´s also

What you should understand there are situations where suing is reasonable. Think about jump pilot being heavily toxicated killing many people. I could come up with a lot of examples, but Im sure you could too, so I dont need to bother. At the point where another one does something that is really wrong it doesnt matter if it happens while we are doing something we love and have our small little community. It will still be wrong... Totally another question is, where to draw the line of what is at your own risk and what is negligence... Waiver is a waiver, not a licence to kill and do what ever.. (im sorry if I had to really take my example to the extreme to get my point understood)

I think in particular to this situation, and this DZ, suing is not reasonable and that may be why it has not been stated here. I remember reading a LOT of "skydivers dont sue" mentality even on this paricular thread. This mentality sure doesnt sound like you would admit there are situations where suing is reasonable. Be careful making generalizations and assumptions. You don't know me or what I will admit to based difference circumstances. I spoke specifically and said "I think in particular to this situation, and this DZ, suing is not reasonable and that may be why it has not been stated here." Im sorry.. Instead of saying you I should have said most people EDIT : And to make my self more clear : this is the mentality I was talking about... Didnt mean to talk to you directly..

I think in particular to this situation, and this DZ, suing is not reasonable and that may be why it has not been stated here. I remember reading a LOT of "skydivers dont sue" mentality even on this paricular thread. This mentality sure doesnt sound like you would admit there are situations where suing is reasonable.

You must understand that there is a limit to how much you can waiver off your liability. Waiver doesnt mean that a DZ can do anything what so ever without liability. DZ´s can make you sign what they want. Different thing is what will be binding and what not.. Im not taking sides on this incident (since I dont know the facts), but I would like to state that I find it a little biassed that no skydiver here has really admitted that there are situtations where suing a DZ might be reasonable.

It was most likly this phenomina. But what is it about the water that is different then grass for this to happen? My view is that the texture of water (and snow) makes it much more difficult to evaluate the hight/speed than the texture of grass. I think way more often these incidents happen over water than over land..

While I have nothing against what Bill just said, I feel that I should remind anyone who doesnt already know that being upwind is exactly the opposite of flying upwind and ofcourse being downwind is the opposite of flying downwind

Anyone know what altitude are they flying ?

Some manufactures offer double layer arms and legs. This way you get more drag on your suit and wont have to make the suit so baggy. For example sonic does this

You could maby try mailing apex and ask if they are interested on doing it. heres some info It could be that they only do it to their own canopies, but you could always ask.

Why shouldnt you have some salt to go with those advice given by the local heros ? I think you should.. more so becouse then nobody else will be there to correct them if they tell you something 1on1. This I agree 100%

Im no camera hero, but the little experience I have from filming tandems has taught me how much you benefit from freeflying skills while filming tandems. If you can freefly you can always go faster and you already have a really big range of speed availeable. Then again if you have no freeflying skills, wings (and weight) might give you some more range of speed, but not as much.

Why does he want to stay with tandems ? Does he pull before of after the tandem does ? Is he regularly doing CRW with tandems ?

Generally I would agree that education is a good thing. It sure is. On the other hand Im not so sure weather it would really make that much difference. Im sure most of us have been taught that doing HP -landings in traffic is dangerous. On this specific problem education IMO is not the biggest problem. The attitudes towards these known facts are. I dont see why specific HP-landing areas whould be that bad idea. After all its going to make my airspace clear and this way decreasing the possibility of me being cut off by a SLP jumper below me. I would see this as a win win situation where no one looses and everyone wins. Sure on some dropzones this could mean the HPL area is not as ideally located next to the packing hangar, but its a fair price to pay for the advantages achieved

This is only in theory since there is always the wind factor wich will have much effect on the ground distance covered. Things like increased drag are true ofcourse, but relatively insignificant compared to wind conditions. In a nutshell higher WL is more efficient on flying upwind and lower WL is more efficient on flying downwind.

I have understod that the kind of loops shown on the videos that needtojump posted can be done if you have a canopy that has enough speed (WL more than 1.6) After a good dive you should start leveling the canopy with rears and then while still having a lot of forwad speed suddenly drop the other riser. These "loops" may not be 100% pure over horisontal axis but mostly so I guess. However I do not recommend anyone trying them by my instructions even at high altitude, since it is definetly not risk free...

Im no expert but what I understand, glide angle remains the same with any wingloading on the same canopy. Only the speed will increase as WL goes higher. Also I think you have misunderstood the word penetration. It is used on talking about ground speed, not air speed. When a high WL canopy is having a fast airspeed it will "penetrate" the upwind better

I suggest empuria, since mostly yuropeans pack themselves, and only the big DZ will have enough customers.

yeah... its fake..

Im coming on wensday 4.4 and leaving 13.4 Cya there !