arlo

congrats cory!!!! :) see? didn't i tell you zhills was the place to go for your aff? stay current, ;) arlo arlo

trent, have juliana call sergey and ask him if he wants it for the russians.... dave.... arlo

see andrea, that whole tag-team things works great...just like you told me it would. hmmm. it just occurred to me that if you wanna do some shit-hot freefly jumps, you might want to consider going to titusville, too. juliana and fabian just moved there from deland and are the new LOs there. sounds like titusville is gonna be the new "artistic" dz. the talent there is outstanding. having those two and joao covering freefly and freestyle and pauline doing skysurf will definitely make skydive space center a hot spot in FL now. they also have $15 to 15K...on wednesdays, i believe. so that would fit right into your "non-schedule". you may end up having to extend your vacation just to hit all the highlights in fl. cya at the tunnel next week... a

are you sponsored in full or in part by precision?

i knew this would be nit-picked. that will teach me to post something when i come home really late from the tunnel. btw, i have had tires blow out going in excess of 90mph with no problems (other than having to buy a new tire). good car - bad road hazard. (here come the flames about driving fast) and i'm not gonna quit skydiving. i simply stated an expectation that i have about things that i buy. i do expect it to work. if it doesn't, then i deal with the problem in whatever manner i deem necessary to save my life at the time. i think that covers it...

No, I wouldn't. But if I was withing the operating limitations and simply deployed it and it came apart and the manufacturer released a SB to fix what broke on the reserve, yes, I would sue. Derek (general reply...not directed towards derek) i'm with derek on this one. the reserve deployment was within tso limits and the reserve failed. a SB was released shortly after to fix a problem on the reserves (at the owners' expense, by the way). this isn't like suing firestone because you fucked up and went drunk driving off a cliff. this is like suing firestone because all the faulty tires fucking blew out on your SUV while you were on a sunday drive thru the mountains and caused you to careen down the cliff. i know and expect shit to happen in skydiving. but i also expect my gear to work at least up to the bare f-ing minimums of the TSOs that have been set forth. i will NOT knowingly jump substandard equipment...which would include a fucked up reserve. arlo

a girl after my own heart. new F-111 wildfire 170 (mine gave me whiplash and a f-ed up neck...but pretty MRI pics as souvenirs) used spectre 135 used jedei 136 (for my transition back to a 9 cell) used stiletto 120 used jedei 105....which i absolutely adore. i LOVE my jedei. hmm. i've only ever bought 1 new canopy...go figure. a

one thing i've learned in this sport: if you have a weird feeling about something, listen to it. "instinct" isn't just a word in the dictionary...it has some merit. i've stood down from jumps because of it before. worse thing that can happen is that you miss a load. if there's EVER a doubt about your gear, do something about it. stay safe.... :) a

okay. how much do you love me? i called one of my friends from sunpath (designer) and asked him what sunpath recommended. he said, "we don't recommend storing your equipment. we recommend you move to a place with better weather." we both got a good laugh out of that one (especially since he was from the UK as well). then he said that "sunpath recommends you hang the rig if it's to be stored for any length of time." i know that sunpath is closed until next week, so that's the quickest way for me to get you an answer.

the gear store is called WINDLINE and Billy Bradshaw is the owner. those folks are good people and billy has a nice selection of helmets to choose from and try-on. make sure to ask questions about the fit. billy is quite knowledgeable on them and would be happy to answer them for you. :) have a great time at lake wales. also, if you get a chance, shoot by zhills on that trip, too. it is just under an hour away from lake wales. sebastian is about 2 hrs, deland is one and a half hours away.

ding ding.

paul, maybe add a silhouette of a goth nixon waving his peace signs saying "i am NOT a goth..." oh god i'm bored. btw, i hear the tunnel is running mad out there. congrats to you guys for having that thing chugging away. :) a

this is what mine said: "You have an entrancing kiss~ the kind that leaves your partner bedazzled and maybe even feeling he/she is dreaming. Quite effective; the kiss that never lessens and always blows your partner away like the first time." i will neither confirm nor deny, but i will say this: kissing has got to be one of THE best things in the world to do...period. there are very few things that are more sexy or more arousing than a passionate, lingering, well-placed kiss...

no not really. skyventure is in the business of making money and tunnelcamp.com is a skyventure, uh, venture. the camps listed on tunnelcamp.com are INHOUSE camps and the profit goes to us. the other "camps" are simply bookings on our schedule. they buy time from us and call it whatever they want to. if wouldn't be economically feasible to list everybody's tunnel camps on tunnelcamp.com because we don't make camp money on them. pretty simple business decision if you look at it. we provide 'quality control' for the tunnelcamp.com camps. it's not our realm for the non-skyventure tunnel camps. seriously. too, we know the quality of the camps on tunnelcamp.com. that is not to say that other camps aren't great - some are outstanding. some aren't worth a pinch of monkey shit. i have seen some camps that are an absolutely ripoff to the skydivers buying into them. for example, one that make me nauseous was from an east coast dz that had a "coach" (maybe 500-600 jumps) who couldn't fly worth a shit. HE was charging coaching/camp fees and people were paying him because they didn't know any better. it made me sick to see it. they were being taught bad habits by someone that honest to god flew like shit. out of curiosity, i asked him how he thought he flew. his response? "I did great in there." he didn't have a clue how badly he sucked. When i'm at work, it is bad business protocol to tell someone that they suck. anyone that knows me knows how hard it is for me to NOT comment on something like that. but if said coach books time under his name and decides to bring his dz fledglings to the tunnel for a 'camp', we have no control over how he teaches. hell, same goes for a "well reknown" coaching organization (which i'll leave unnamed). this organization used to be something respected, but after seeing the requirements for the coaches they have, the program has become quite diluted. then on the flip side, there are camps hosted by folks that are quite fluent to the ways of modern flying (mantis, freefly, whatever) and do an exemplary job of tunnel coaching because they have participated and are outstanding body flyers. Juliana, Fabian, and Joao come to mind. they (thank god) are part of the skyventure tunnelcamp team and are an incredibly wonderful addition. they compliment the team. so after spewing forth all of that, bottom line is to do your homework about a tunnel camp if you choose to participate. just because someone says "we're doing a tunnel camp", don't assume that it's associated with skyventure. we provide the venue. think about it this way: just because the college league team plays at yankee stadium doesn't mean that their schedule should be listed on the yankees homepage. same with anything calling itself a tunnelcamp. if you have further questions, PM me. most of these responses i post are from my other job, so i'll respond as best i can in as timely a fashion as possible. if not, remind me. i really don't mind helping out folks by being able to answer whatever questions you have. blues, arlo

if you have specific questions, please PM me. i work at skyventure in orlando and i can answer pretty much any question you have regarding tunnel camps, booking time, instruction, blah blah. :) and no need to worry about me trying to "sell" you any particular program. i'll shoot straight with you regardless... blues, arlo

$550 per hour between noon and 5pm M-F (but i would NOT recommend you do this because you'd have to fly 1 hr straight and it will kick your butt) $600 per hour all other times $185 for 15 minutes $135 for 10 minutes $38.50 for 2 minute ticket $28.50 for uspa members for 2 minutes

hey blake. :) straight from the C2 manual: "once the switch-on procedure is finished, the unit will run through its self-test. initially, the display will show the number '10' and then a countdown ending in '0'. when the '0' with the arrow down is shown, the unit is functional for the next 14 hours. after 14 hrs have passed, the unit will switch itself off automatically." lemme know if you have any more questions. :) blues, arlo edited to add: error displays. if there is an error condition detected during the self-test countdown, C2 displays a number on the display for approx 2 seconds, then it switches itself off (display goes blank). the error codes are "1111", "2222" or "3333".

yes. it is most definitely worth the trip to the tunnel. it is effective for people in all stages of their skydiving 'career.' if you want specifics regarding how the whole thing works, prices, etc, PM me (i work there). bring your USPA (or equivalent) card. reservations are required, too. blues, arlo

i just spoke with alti-2 and they no longer service the altimaster V. they do, however, offer a trade-in program. if you send your V in, they replace it with a galaxy for $99 + shipping ($6.50-ish). now, for spatula, i would recommend an analog. it's what you're used to right not, it's inexpensive and there's really no need in throwing in more variables this early in the game.

god did good when he made a pig. bring on the bacon.

colleen and i did deland to san diego in 42 or 46 hrs, i believe. i know it was a few hours shy of 2 days. FYI: I-10 thru texas has to be the longest, most boring stretch of road i have ever been on. if i ever have to make that drive again, i will drive via canada before i drive that section of road again. BUT, the storm clouds i saw were the absolute coolest ever. and the sand dunes in AZ near Yuma were phenomenal - breathtaking, actually. a

wanted to bump this up to see if anyone has more news on jim. i've known jim since he was going thru aff and just wanted to make sure he's improving... thanks guys, arlo

i thought i was pretty clear on my post, but obviously a few people still think i am trying to "defend" the newness of the vigil. my post was in response to someone saying the vigil didn't have much real world testing. i called bullshit. simple as that. not once did i say it had the time in the field as the cypres does. you guys can stop with your "it hasn't been out there as long as the cypres" stuff because HELLO! that's pretty obvious to most anyone that can grasp simple concepts. did i ever say that the vigil had an equivalent amount of time in the field? NO. go back and read again. i just pointed out an example of two rw teams that used the vigil and put thousands of jumps on them. i pointed this out because someone said they didn't think the vigil had any significant pre-release jumps in the real world. The cypres has over 1000 saves over the 12 years it has been out. OF COURSE the vigil doesn't have 1000+ saves. who would be silly enough to think it could possibly have that many real world saves? test jumpers would have been humming it down about once a day to meet those numbers before it was released. and you're right. no matter how much testing is done things can still go wrong - but don't fool yourself into thinking it can only happen upon its release. it can happen ANYTIME. shit happens sometimes regardless. its over time that these glitches are fixed/minimized. i have no problems with the cypres - i jump one. our former 4-way team videographer's life was saved by one (his neck was broken in freefall and was paralyzed so he couldn't physically pull). so singing its praises to me is preaching to the choir. but i believe if someone if going to put out misleading information about a product because they "think it might happen to do this" or they "think it never went thru the rigors of testing in this particular manner", then it should be corrected. arlo

randy :) no way did i think you implied lack of learning in the tunnel. on the contrary, i thought your post was great!