nigel99

Our TIs all disconnect the rsl prior to landing in case of needing to chop. One of the most experienced guys disconnects it at about 500 ft, but he uses his teeth. As he pointed out the tag is right there and no need to take your hands off the controls. Just another potential plan you could have. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

All he wanted was a quick clip for retirement party, say something before jumping and after landing. Yip, and most regular jumpers have camera anyway. Skydivers are getting greedy turning down free beer money Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Yeah the weather is not great right now. I just remembered these new guides. http://4way.dk/index.php/dive-pool They are great as they are colour coded and also show where you should be looking. Just print out and work from the randoms sheet for now

So you passed your 1st 4 way? If you made it to your slot safely then it shouldn't matter if you only got one point. Don't be hard on yourself, lots of people never make it to their first 4 way. http://www.apf.asn.au/Comps-Events/Dive-Pools/Dive-Pools/default.aspx Your formation from the picture is the Star (M). By the way if you plan on doing much 4 way it is better to move across to using the letters and numbers to remember the formations. In the draws they will only give the letter or number, not the name. I know the names and am struggling to change across. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Don't be fooled or complacent by size of the hazard. I've ended up under a reserve because of a 5mm snag hazard. Pissfish has a horror story that nearly killed him with a snag hazard much less than 6-8 inches. There's plenty of examples of small things snagging over the years. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

For my packer B test, the guys chopped the canopy and tangled it up. Spent an hour untangling everything and hooking it up only to very nearly fail the test due to not stowing the brakes. Like you and Nat have both said it felt 'odd', basically the tail was in the wrong place. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Honestly, be very careful whose advice you take on this, hopefully Davelepka will give his opinion. Openings that are hard enough to break lines are unusual and in my opinion dangerous. There are a couple of concerns in your post, including the not cutting away from broken lines. Hard openings can be caused, by incorrect body position, bad packing, poor equipment maintenance, certain brands of equipment and occasionally just pure bad luck. Do you know what equipment you were jumping (specifically the size, make and model of main parachute) that may help some of the experienced jumpers give an informed opinion. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

For B-10's my personal preference is to take the first one out as a linked exit. It is your first experience with 3 other people in the sky and I've not seen many unlinked dives come together on their first attempt for B-rels. If you are jumping from a Caravan, then do a nice tight formation for the exit, something like the stairstep diamond (B) is very easy to take out and hold. Also keep the turns to the minimum, so I'd suggest B (stairstep diamond), J (donut) and then M (star). Don't plan for more than that, and remember to relax and have fun. I know it can be difficult to get jumpers to go on a B-10 with you, but be a little bit selective. Don't ask the biggest heaviest dude, or the smallest lightest either. Dirt dive it on creepers until you know it backwards! Make sure everyone is wearing a relative work suit with grippers, it makes your life much easier. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I would make it very clear from day 1 what the expectations are. So decide how many jumps a month, any tunnel time, coach costs, competitions etc and agree to that. People have very different goals and it isn't always clear, or they are very keen initially and then the enthusiasm wears off. I would also make it clear under what conditions someone will get cut from the team. So miss 3 training dates in a row and you are cut for example. Expect to see quite a high turnover of team members initially, but if you persist eventually it will come together. Last point, appoint an organiser/leader/captain whatever you want to call it, but it helps to have responsibilities identified early on. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Don't let people bully you into doing what THEY want. You did fine. Yes, an RSL might save you, it also might kill you but they never mention that point. Hey Ron, I'm in the process of adding an RSL, but what you say is spot on. Most of my life I've been involved in design engineering, and if it has taught me nothing else, it is that the wierdest unexpected shit can happen with a design. As a result I look at an RSL and it gives me the shits when I visualise the potential failure modes that are blatantly apparent, people fail to realise the trade-offs. On balance I believe a standard RSL is a good investment and the total risk almost certainly decreases (although, I will be sorely upset if I go in because of my RSL) Skyhook is a whole different ball game, seems like a fantastic idea to anchor your bridle to your main. Total malfunction on your main and small rigging error and you are well and truly screwed. I realise that it is almost certainly going to be a rigging error that would cause this, but mistakes happen to all of us including riggers. I really like increase in reliability due to parallel systems, as soon as the main and reserve are coupled you degrade the overall system reliability. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

A few minutes later we got the next example of being a dick adding no value. Your post is not funny. If you don't like the idea, buy a cutaway system and be happy. BTW: using this system with the spring outside the helmet can/will cause an addiditonal snag hazard. http://www.chutingstar.com/skydive/bonehead-cutaway-chincup-kit It's not meant to be funny. It's shocking how people will rush out and spend money on the latest camera and then bitch about the cost of a cutaway system. I've seen one full camera setup (SLR and side box) with no cutaway, and the proliferation of G3's with Gopros right on top is scary. I wonder how long it is before we have a serious injury or death, due to this? I can't watch Brian's video, but a cutaway system doesn't have to be expensive to be functional, so if he's come up with a clever use for a piece of string that works, fantastic! Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Also, if you plan on getting married soon, remember to account for the wedding cake effect on wingloading Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

My first day at my new DZ on Saturday someone stayed inside the beer line by all of about a foot. People were like "oooooOOOOHHH aw damn" Yeah sometimes it's silly. I've seen people called for beer cause their canopy landed 'just' over the line. We have a beer line which makes up a staff landing area and then there is the spectator zone, where it is an automatic grounding, even staff will get grounded for landing into the spectators. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Mad Skillz? Saturday SUCKED ARSE. Im at Jurien this weekend so if you want your money in a hurry give me your details, or come to Jurien :) Not naming names, you can guess Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Saturday had appalling weather, but Sunday was great. Got to have fun doing coach jumps all day, love the coaching almost as much as doing 4 way. Got to jump a Crossfire, and learn't that there are canopies that are superior to a Sabre 2

I think you could get good data for a study by having a questionnaire for tandem passengers, along with a follow up call a month and then maybe 6 months later. Personally I think the demographics of tandem passengers and 'sport' jumpers are simply different. My experience is that the vast majority of tandems are a bucket list item or to mark a milestone, very few are interested in making a sport of it. Many tandems would do a repeat tandem for another milestone event (so 30th, 40th birthday etc). I've heard many people describe skydiving as an 'addiction' and I don't like it. I do it for sport and skill development, I think the addicts get bored and move on. But I see many tandems who view us sports jumpers as addicts, not sportsmen. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Hi, At present you only support USPA coach as a rating. Could you either make it generic or ideally make it more international and discipline specific? For example here in Australia we have RW tutor, freefly tutor and wingsuit tutor as recognised ratings. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I mostly do small rw (4 to 16 ways) 4500 breakoff 3000 wave and pull 2000 hard deck Just a comment on some.of the people doing 1000 foot between breakoff and pull, that isn't giving yourself much opportunity to properly track away. Personally I think you should be looking at 7 -10 seconds to reduce the risk of collision. Like most others I'll occasionally trip the third alarm, as the canopy snivels. While I don't jump in the US and therefore the revised BSR isn't binding I might bump everything up by 500 foot to get used to the new norm. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I use my phone a lot (Android) and it drives me crazy. The problem is that you only have to screw up one letter and the autocorrect changes the word, when you press space, of you type the whole word correctly and miss the space key so it replaces the word with some random shit. Due to the screen layout, you can't always see that it has changed a word, and preview is hopeless. The best solution is to proofread after posting and edit. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

People forget that when a tandem does a butt slide, the instructor is actually highly experienced. Newbie's trying base ball slides and butt slides simply don't have the experience to do it safely. I started on rounds and had PLF's drummed into me, far more thoroughly than anybody has nowadays. I honestly believe that your average jumper nowadays doesn't know 'how' to do a PLF properly and it isn't second nature due to minimal training during AFF. I also believe that PLF's and how they are taught need to be completely re-thought. The old rounds came straight down and a PLF is well suited to that, a modern canopy has significant forward speed and I think something based on a martial arts or gymnastics roll would be better suited. BUT all those rolls take significant practice to master, not 30 minutes during an AFF course. Look at the rolls the guys doing Parkour are doing on their big jumps, they are very different to a PLF, to me it appears a good way to go, not that I have the training or knowledge to even begin to try one myself. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Thanks Lee, From what you are saying, it is important to leave 'modern' gear to settle for as long as possible prior to closing the loop? Everything you've said makes sense and clarifies some of what was alluded to in previous threads. It always amazes me how 2 or 3mm can sometimes be the difference between life and death (not specific to closing loops, but in general). Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Thanks Rob, that is the kind of information I was looking for. The guy who packs my reserve religiously sticks to the closing loop lengths (I know cause he's taken issue with two other peoples loops when I've been repacking with him). My curiosity is a general interest issue rather than a specific concern about my equipment. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Long long ago, I did a cross country jump where a nice cold beer was involved prior to landing Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Very interesting, but are you saying that would NOT have happened when pulling the pin? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

A few times in recent threads about slower deploying reserves or TSO a few respected riggers have mentioned there is a difference between cutting the loop and pulling the pin. It is fairly clear that some knowledgeable people feel that there is a difference that can be attributed to the 'how' the deployment is initiated. I'm interested to learn more? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.