jdathome

One thing I don't think was covered that may help a little, when using a knee to hold down the folded canopy, be sure to not use too much pressure. Use just enough weight to hold things in place. Pushing too hard makes things squirt out the sides. Do watch Nick Grillet's 3 part packing video on youtube. It may show you some things to help you control the pack job though out the process? Good Luck. Blues... Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

91% of the people in who voted in your poll disagree with you. This is why I wanted to get the opinion of others. I started out thinking the canopy would be a hazard and not worth the money. But after really thinking about it, maybe repairing it will be a good idea? Ultimatly, it is the owner of the canopy that has to decide and I was hoping to get enough info from this poll to help make my case for him to retire the canopy. Even though the poll is very one sided to support my original thoughts, I now see better reasons to fix it, fly it, and go from there. Thanks Again Everyone! Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

Thanks for all the great feedback! I enjoyed all the interesting comments and ideas. The one thing I failed to think of was brought up by sundevil777. I always try to avoid sweating on the canopies I pack. But when it’s 100 degrees and humid, it’s going to happen. Also, the thought of selling a canopy that has been certified by the mfg makes this item more appealing to potential buyers. Just an update on what the owner of the canopy did decide. He is fixing the canopy. At first my thought was to talk him out of it, this was before posting the subject. After he convinced me it was worth it, I decided to ask the group. After all the debate, I guess I’ve changed my mind and think repairing the canopy is a good idea. You guys rock! Blues… Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

Are they really free climbing with no “full time” attachment to the tower? You clearly see him hook up at times. Maybe he is resting, planning hand and foot placement, or a combination of both? I can’t imagine there are too many people with the nerve to do this? Before skydiving, I can honestly say, “No fucking way!” After the few jumps I have, I can say, “I sure as hell wouldn’t be climbing down, I’ve got the “A” in BASE covered!” What a way to make a living! I love this video Blues… Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

Dealing with a 1996 Stiletto and looking for opinions of whether to repair it, or replace it. This canopy has been well used and if the line set is replaced, this will be the third, or forth set. We have no way of knowing how many total jumps it has? This is the third owner of said canopy. The Stiletto was sent in due to the lines being “way” out of trim. So, the lines were an expected expense. It was also known the slider was going to need to be replaced. It was just time. These are pretty normal wear items, right? Well, when the factory received the canopy and noted the fading on the top skin, they performed a pull test. The center panel on the top skin failed. Would you pay to replace the top skin of the center cell and call it good, or would you retire the canopy and start over? After all, how much time will pass for one of the other panels to fail, while you’re falling? Repair totals: $550.00 $250.00 for the line set. (Sounds a little high? But it is being done by the manufacturer, not an independent loft.) $25.00 for a slider. $225.00 to replace top skin center cell panel. What would you do if this was your canopy? As a rigger, what would your advise be to your fellow skydiver?

A friend of mine keeps telling me he won't skydive because he's afraid of getting hooked. Of course he knows I spend a lot of time at the DZ. Then one day it came out....he's sure it has to get boring, after you've done it a few times? I just smiled and told him he'll never know till he tries. What say, anybody out there bored with skydiving? Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

it looks like it has 2 hard drives. one is labelled OS(C:) and has 49GB of 74.5 GB free and the other is labelled DATA(D:) and has 208 GB of 208 GB free. it seems odd to me that there would two hard drives in a laptop. is it possible that there is one hard drive that is partitioned to look like two hard drives? it also has an AMD Turoin X2 Dual-Core Mobile RM-75 2.2 GHz processor and 4 GB of RAM. it doesn't seem to me that there should be a problem surfing the internet. This should be a pretty good laptop. Looks like you have a 320GB hard drive partitioned into 2 physical drives. Try Google Chrome and see what happens. Asus has wonderful support too. You could give them a shout, but it would cost you if it's not under warranty. Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

Send some stats on the thing. Need to know more. RAM is key when dealing with Vista and WIN7. 3 Gigs minimum, 4 is better. A clean instal, from a borrowed, or disc aquired online, would be best. As a previous poster said, you have a KEY CODE for WIN7, you don't need a specific disc, or set of Asus installation discs. Any WIN7 disc will work. Also, not sure why you can't remove all unwanted programs and crap-ware? Get in the "Add-Remove Programs" and start uninstalling. Also, may I suggest you try Google Chrome Browser, or Firefox by Mozilla? You may have better luck over using Int Explorer? Blues... Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

I've contacted them three times, I am still waiting for a response. My experience with L&B is not very good! Anyone want to buy a lightly used Altitrack? My attempt to contact L&B has nothing to do with the altimeter. I am trying to figure out how to get my software to update my total freefall time when I download my jumps. You would think it would be easy to say, "yes, here is your sollution.", or "We don't know either?" Anything but..."NO RESPONSE" would be apreciated! $85.00 dollars for the software package, what a screw job. Shouldn't be that hard for a programer to figure it out? Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

I used to love building and flying R/C! I started flying models when I was around 7 or 8 with my dad. Of course then we just got dizzy going in circles flying our control line, or u-control, planes. I built my first R/C plane when I was 14. The included photo is a quarter scale Airtec Eagle. Small chain saw motor swinging a 18" prop. 6 1/2' wing span. I was in my early twenties and it was the mid 80's, when the picture was taken. The helicopter is a .30 size Shuttle ZX. Very sweet machine. Loops, rolls and inverted flight are all possible. I never bought one of the computer radios, so inverted was impossible for me at the time. I was able to do loops and rolls. I even pulled off a couple “auto rotations” too! When the motor dies, it’s your only hope! I also have owned two versions of the Real Flight line. I have the Real Flight Deluxe and Real Flight G3.5. You’ll want a fast computer and lots of RAM to run the newer version. But I recommend Real Flight to develop you mad skillz…lol. Have fun and keep the blades on. Some day I will go back to building airplanes. Not too many things in life are as satisfying as building it, making it pretty and then flying it! “Almost” as good as the first time you took the door for a skydive….ALMOST! Blues… Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

That size rubber band is popular with the BASE community. If you go to the link, look in the middle of the page at the "Tail Gate" photo. The picture is a little small, but I believe these are the bands you are looking for? I recieved a bunch of those with my BASE FJC kit. http://www.adrenalinbase.com/index.php?L=fr&T=accessoires Hope this helps? Blues... Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

Yeah, and if you had a problem on the way down, you could just track over to the teather line and hook on! The balloon would then slow your decent to avoid injury. It may be hard putting together a good RW jump? Those fricking balloons keep tangleing when we real them in. Oh well, who cares, FREE FLYING is alive and well! Spotting could be a problem? Wind would always carry you the wrong way of your optimum exit point. On calm days, it wouldn't be an issue. Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

Not to mention, the rig probably isn't set up for an AAD?...you'll probably want one of those!?! Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

By "sleeve", are you refering to the diaper that wraps around the base of the foded parachute? Or does it have an actual sleeve that encloses the entire parachute? Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

This makes sense. I didn't even notice the flag was above the jumpers head. We do fly "drop" type flags. (FYI: we have a couple demo jumpers I would love to CLOSELINE when they land...) But seriously, thanks for the clarification! Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

In the second picture, it looks like two of the ground crew personal are catching the flag to keep it off the turf. What a nice touch! When we fly a flag at demo's, our goal (as ground crew, I don't jump demos obviously) is to get the flag picked up as soon as we can. From the observers point of view, is that what they are trying to acomplish? A little hard to speculate from a still shot, but that's what it looks like? Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

+1 Congrats on the win! Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

OMG...talk about beating a dead horse! Can't we just tell the guy "NO, don't even think about it!" and go on with life? Or just cut/copy/paste all the bullshit from the other threads covering this subject? Maybe we need a catagory for "If we must discuss it again, do it here!"? Saturday, for my 70th jump, I'm going to wear my IPod while taking video with my new GoPro of my first wingsuit jump (that I lied about my jump numbers to do) and land it all with my 1:4 wing loaded canopy that I know 120 sq ft is too small, but it's cool!! Then, just to be sure I've covered everything, I'm not going to check in at the manifest station and tell them I made it back. OKay, I'm back....sorry, I just had to get that out. Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

It would be more accurate to compare canopies to airplanes. When you are a student, you learn to fly a high wing, docile, forgiving aircraft, like a Cessna 152…ect. Say you get your hours and your instructor clears you to solo. Well now you have a little experience and confidence in your skillz and talking to an experienced pilot, he tells you how much fun it is flying an aerobatic airplane. You would be a fool to think you could apply your Cessna experience to what it would take to fly a high performance airplane! The stall speed would be much too fast, the controls would be much too sensitive and you will surely kill yourself trying. When dealing with things that fly, you need to think of “dynamic stability” and “aerodynamics”. When you change wings, you change everything. The car analogy doesn’t work at all. As always, if you do try something stupid…GET VIDEO! Blues… Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

My guess would be the "copolymer of vinyl acetate" is the active part of the compound? The alcohol would be the thinner, or carrier. When applied, the alcohol evaporates and the vinyl sets up to remain on the treated surface holding the little ID crystals. Isopropyl alcohol is considered safe. If you get sticky tape gunk on your rig, this is what you would use to clean it. I can't speak for the acetate? Where were you going to apply this? My thought would be to put it somewhere that wouldn't effect structure at all. Let's say on the back of the data card pouch, for instance. How big of an area needs to be treated? I would think a small area the size of a coin would be pleanty? If marking the canopy, I would do it on the mfg label. Read the label and perform a test on a small, non-structural, piece of fabric. I would tend to think this will not cause any problems? It sounds like a great idea! The only thing is you need to recover the gear before you can prove it's yours with this system. Hope this helps some? Blues... Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

You are on the right track. With higher wing loads you have more forward speed, or we call it drive. But you also have more vertical speed. In other word you are falling faster. My first jump on the 190 I was told to plan my landing in the wide open area of the LZ. Sounded like a good idea! I took my downwind leg out a ways and turned to base, then final. Oh man, I couldn't beleive how short I was of my spot. Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

I am 6’ 5” tall (77 inches, or 195.6cm) and weigh 225-230 lbs (102 to 104 kilos). My first jump was on a canopy that is 290 square feet. In skydiving, we use a formula to calculate “wing loading”. You take the exit weight divided by the canopy square feet. Using 230 pounds for me and 25 pounds for my rig (255 lbs. / 290 sq ft = .88:1). In other word, each square foot of canopy is carrying .88 pounds. For a student we want to keep the wing loading less than 1:1. This configuration is considered safe and the canopy will fly and flare nicely. As you can see, even though I am at the top end of the weight limit, I am still wing loading this canopy to an acceptable level. If you hear someone talk about “downsizing”, this will be a progression taken later on. Once you learn canopy skills and get ready to purchase your own gear, flying a slightly higher wing loaded canopy will be more fun. I now fly a 190 square foot canopy. I am wing loading at 1.3:1. This is a little too high for my jump numbers, but under my instructors supervision and advise, I am making it work. It seems like a lot of information, but give it some time and get some experience. It will all start to make sense in due time. One thing to consider, beyond wing loading, is body type. You would have a tough time fitting into a rig if your body was not proportional to your height. Good luck and enjoy. Don’t worry about your weight. When I started freefalling, I fell like a rock. Now that I have somewhat learned body position, I don’t have much problem with fall rate. Blues… Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

Congrats on your TICKET! Way to go! I'm jealous you got to spend three weeks in Eloy. I did my training in Ottawa, IL in eight days. I feel very comfortable that I did enough to earn my rating, but it would have been nice to slow the pace down. It would have been nice to not do four or five pack jobs in a day, then be so dog ass tired you can't enjoy the whole experience. To be able to spend more time with the machines and tools. Shadowing the master riggers just to watch and learn from them. I’m happy for you brother! Welcome to the club… Marriage is like a deck of cards. You start with two harts and a diamond only to discover you wish you had a club and a spade!

Health insurance is generally regulated by states (at least at this point in time) so just because it was true at the one guys work doesn't necessarily mean it is true at yours. Although, I've never heard of a group health insurance plan that has excluded activities. Sorry, I should have been more clear. I was trying to say, "I checked with my agent. My group plan has no exclusions for skydiving. I am on South Dakota Blue Cross/Blue Shield" Just wanted to share my findings. It's funny, but I've avoided checking my policy for two years. I didn't want to find out I was going to be broke if I got hurt skydiving. Now I feel better!

Thanks for the reminder! I have always wanted to check my insurance. I am on Blue Cross/Blue Shield. My policy is through work. I am covered, even while skydiving! That's a relief