listo

I have to agree 100%! Burning sucks big time.....been there, done that.......it hurts like a bitch. Sitting in a hospital bed thinking, "damn, why did I do that, I knew better" is not a smart option to a slower, more methodical progression. Titanium hurts as long as you have it in there. I can tell anyone within two hours of when a thunder storm is coming. Not to mention the BS that I have to put up with when I try to get on a commercial flight somewhere because I set off the metal detectors. The worse thing is not knowing if you will ever be "right" again after such a screw up. The crazy thing is that my accident wasn't a vertical accident as much as it was horizontal. I pulled the "femur breaker" manuever trying to slide a "low" one in, which caused me to skip up and flipped me through my risers. Flipping at that speed is extremely disorienting, which caused me to "slide" off to the side, which caused me to land on my hip/butt. That is when I broke my back. Being smart and vigilant will keep you walking straight and tall a lot longer than pride and an ego when it comes to looking cool with a tiny rocket ship. BASE 698, I am not bustin on ya, just saying to be extremely careful if you are going to go with such a canopy and wing loading. One misjudgement could be extremely detrimental. Good luck brother, be safe, be smart. Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

I think that I am leaning more toward a Xaos27-108. It would be nice if the new PD canopy had a temperment between the VX and Xaos27 though. I would like it a bunch if the openings were like the Xaos but the riser pressures were between the two. Heavy front pressure means more stability in turbulence and heavy rear pressure means longer swoops.....in general. HMMMMMM.....the possibilities! Thanks for the post though. That is the type of info that I am looking for. Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

Rounds.......no way man! I ain't jumpin one of those things. Tooooooooo scarey for me. There are two things in skydiving that I am not going to do......competition CReW and jumpin a round. I have built the occasional stiletto two stack, but that is as far as I am going with CReW. I would rather see it from afar. I have a lot of respect for those guys who do that stuff, they are awesome pilots with major clankers. Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

Just to be the devil's advocate here for a second. Which is more important, altitude awareness or time awareness? Personally I think that they do go hand in hand, but altitude awareness is time awareness since the only time that really matters is how much time you have left before impact with that great big planet. Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

Shouldn't this have been covered in the FJC when you were telling them how to check to make sure the canopy was SQUARE, STABLE, STEARABLE instead of after they were on the ground from their fifth jump or in the pre-jump briefing that an instructor is supposed to give a student before each jump. Ahem! I have never had a student of mine come up to me with anything like that because they all know that as soon as that thing opens, the first thing they are supposed to do is check to make sure it is a good canopy. I teach this in my FJC and breifly cover it before each jump that I instruct on as well. However, once again this is getting off subject. Lets keep this thread open to discussion of students jumping without altimeters. I jump in the US and follow USPA standards in doing so. I would like to hear reasoning behind why people don't let students jump with altimeters from time to time. I have made my views quite clear as to why I am against such practices and others have made their views as well. If you would like to start another thread relating to subjects other than why I posted this thread, please feel free to do so, but lets keep this one on track. Listo

I know that there has been talk of it changing, but regardless my point was that it is more strict than what the BPA enforces at this time. I was just making a point. Listo

I can't read anywhere on this thread that I have retracted anything that I have said? What leads you to believe otherwise. I feel strongly about my views and yes I do base things off of facts. I gave two instances of the USPA being more strict than the BPA. Unless the BPA has changed, they have a 180 day reserve repack rule where as the USPA uses 120 days. Unless the BPA has changed, they don't require students to wear altimeters, the USPA does. I said "some" things are more strict and then I backed up what I was saying with two examples. Maybe you should read a little more carefully before posting. I think that I was pretty clear and concise without a retraction of any type. Listo

Ok, first of all I am using my name for this scenario so nobody can say that I am being condecending or jumping on anyone in particular here. Lets say that you have a static line student or 5-10 second delay without an altimeter. At deployment something snags a hole in the top skin of the canopy. The student doesn't recognize it until they are about 500 feet above the ground when it tears even more making the canopy less than stable, yet landable. Is that student going to know that they are too low to cut away from it? Sure, in free fall that student isn't really going to need an altimeter, but what about the canopy ride. Altimeters are more important for the canopy ride than anything else. Wouldn't you say? Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

If you noticed.....I said SOME of the more strict standards, not all. No need to be so cocky, friend. Reserve repack dates? Student altimeters? I don't care to get into a debate of USPA vs. other countries safety policies. Like I said I am ignorant of foreign policies. Nothing really, just for my personal knowledge.

Like I said in my post for the "experiment". There will be a dive flow. He is to pull when he is supposed to without using a visual altimeter. I will be there for a back up of altitude awareness with my TWO altimeters. Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

I am about to buy a new canopy and would like experienced opinions on these canopies by people who have jumped them. Thanks, Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

A good rule of thumb that I go by is to make the first couple of jumps with double fronts like you say you have been doing. Personally, I like to ease my way into things with carves. They are easier to bail out of if you need to. As for how many jumps it takes to get to a certain point.....well that is solely up to you. I would say that once you have mastered a carving 360, then go back and try some high snappy 90's. Stay with the same approach for a while until you have it mastered though. Just because you pull something off doesn't mean that you have it mastered. Good judgement should always prevail. For instance, if you are used to jumping a 96 velocity and hooking the snot out of it and then go test jump a PD 190 for a friend and come down and hook the snot out of it, then chances are you will misjudge your approach on that PD 190. I tend to err on the side of conservancy. I have biffed in before and it hurts like a bitch. Then you have to consider what getting hurt will do to your job as well as how many skydives you will miss out on. Oh yeah, getting hurt really plays hell on your sex life too. Play it safe and don't let your desire to get good out weigh your experience on the canopy you are flying. Chics dig scars and glory, but you won't get any if you are a gimp. Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

yeah target fixation will eventually hurt or kill you. I had a few close calls where I was in the "corner", was digging like crazy, skimmed the ground causing dust to fly up and then ballooned 20' back into the air. I would never listen to anyone when they would tell me that I was going to kill myself. Luckily I just ended up with broken bones. I could have just as easily been dead. I never learned anything until I taught myself the hard way. Sometimes when someone is amped up about getting good, they lose focus on safety or how dangerous what they are doing can be. Most of the time someone like that doesn't see themself as being good, it is more of an issue of trying to get good. The only thing I can suggest is to keep talking to him in a way that isn't degrading and ask him to slow down. The more you tell him he is going to get hurt, the more he is going to let what you are saying go in one ear and right out the other. It is a funky mindset or trance of some sort for some people. It was for me. Just pray that he doesn't kill himself. Listo

I would suggest practicing up high too. Something that I do on every jump is practice landings. Keep in mind that I fly a small highly loaded wing but the technique is the same. Your overall goal at flare time is to convert as much forward speed into lift as possible. A perfect flare is one that has transfered as much forward speed to lift as the canopy is capable of doing at about 1 second before your feet touch the ground. A good way to practice this is by doing it up high. I see a lot of students and low time jumpers come in and "stab" the breaks for the flare. This can cause you to flare too early or too late, either of which can lead to a less than desirable landing. I would say to practice this scenario up high a few times while still above 2,000 AGL. Your timing should be dictated like this....... Add input to the point that you feel the canopy start to feel like it is lifting. When it feels like it isn't lifting anymore at that setting, then add more input and so on until you are at a complete flare. Once you have either reached a full flare or if the canopy comes to a stop, slowly let up on the toggles to regain full flight. The main focus is to do this in one movement instead of a "staged" one. However, there will be times on landing where you may need to "stage" you inputs based on the lift you are getting from the flare. Winds and thermals can sometimes add unexpected lift. Just remember that letting up on the toggles at the real flare time is a bad thing to do. It can cause you to dive into the ground. Hold what you have for the real flare. Practice: If the canopy comes to a complete stop and you continue to hold the flare, it is going to stall out. If it stalls and begins to "drop" you, slowly return the toggles to full flight. Returning them abruptly might cause a bad dive or serious line twists. This process should take about 3 seconds if done smooth and slow. Keep in mind that you may need to flare faster for landing if you are decending below head height faster than you can land. Practice these "flares" up high repeatedly and keep an eye on your altimeter before and immediately after each practice flare. The overall reason for these practice flares is to give you a "feel" for how your canopy is going to fly at landing time and help you with your muscle memory for your flare. Before you know it, you will be landing smoothly and touching down on your tippie toes. Like I said earlier, I do this on every jump and the reason why is because I like to know how "dense" the air is plus it helps to always practice a full range of flight on a canopy at altitude. If there is anything in the world wrong with your canopy, you will definately find out when you fly it through the full range of its capabilities. Example: if you have a tear somewhere on the top of the canopy that is going to cause the canopy to fail at flare time, it is a good idea to find out at an altitude safe for cutting away rather than 10 feet off of the ground and cause you to go "what the...............?"......ouch! Always keep an eye out for other traffic while you are doing this. Remember to keep your eyes on the horizon while you are practicing and executing the real flare as well. Looking directly where you are going to land will throw off your depth perception. As a low time jumper there are going to be times when your landings are less than what you desire. Don't get down on yourself. Any landing you can walk away from with out pain is a good one. Some are just better than others. As Derek just stated, being relaxed will do as much for a good landing as a good flare will. That doesn't mean to just relax yourself into the ground, but I think that you get my drift. Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

from an aerodynamic stand point I think it would hurt more than help. If the rear risers deflect along with a toggle input then the whole canopy's angle of attack increases causing more drag. It might help to give a little more lift, but I think it would hurt the distance by killing speed faster. I had a rigger sew some "4" guide ring extensions" to my risers because of this theory. My swoops tend to be just a little bit longer because of the less distortion to the rears. My angle of attack doesn't change as much (on video) when I go to toggles and my speed tends to stay higher longer. I switched back to some risers that were the same length, but without the extensions on the same no wind day and I ended up with consistantly longer swoops with the extensions than without. It might just be me and the way that I fly, but these are the findings that we came up with. The reason that I chose a 4" extension was because from head on video, it appeared that the way that I flare cause a 4" distortion in the rears. Now with the head on video, there is hardly any distortion at all and my canopy doesn't seem to "drop" me nearly as much when it is time to shut it down. Not saying that they are bad, but I just couldn't get used to triple risers. They felt squirrelly and awkward to me, more like a BASE canopy. I also felt like I lost harness control with the triple risers too, but these are just my personal likes and dislikes. Video is always a very helpful tool when trying to find a better way or solution to something in question. Most importantly, you might see something the third or fourth time around that you or someone else would've missed on the first go around. Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

no worries now though, I have recovered and made almost 500 jumps since then. I started back on a larger more docile canopy and worked my way back down to the small stuff. I am currently jumping a stiletto 120 @2.0 I took a lot of pain and persistance to get myself back in the air, but I am a firm believer of "getting back on the horse". To this day though, I am very leary of the "snappy" hook turns. I prefer the long high pressure carving turns that build the best speed and offer the safest means of "bailing" out if I need to. I still watch my video of the "incident" at least once a month to remind myself of what I did. It has kept me from doing it again I can tell you that much. It has also kept a few of my buddies who wanted to "rush" things from doing it quite so agressively. Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

No, but since my accident where I almost died, He and I have a pretty good relationship and He talks to me quite a bit. We made a deal that if he let me live I would do my best to educate the ignorant souls that had attitudes like I did that almost killed me. Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

I understand that people from other countries have different BSRs. I believe that in an earlier post I mentioned that I am ignorant of foreign policies and in no way wanted to offend any of my foreign brethren. However, I still don't think that it is a good idea to put anyone out of an airplane without any type of altimeter. I don't care how long it has been done or with any certain safety record. I am sure that somewhere in the world there has been at least one injury because of a low cut away or low pull resulting in a cypres fire because of a lack of an altimeter. I would certainly hope that anyone not jumping with an altimeter has a cypres equipped rig and has it turned on for the jump. I asked the question earlier on in this thread....how many people who advocate jumping without an altimeter jump year round (52 weekends a year)? I never got a reply. I don't know of any dropzones anywhere that advocate anyone jumping without one that jumps year round. I might be wrong, but I am speaking from what I know. Can anyone shead some light on this for me? Do foreign dropzone have a "safety day" such as the USPA dropzones. Again, I am not saying that the USPA is all mighty by any means. I do believe that the USPA has some of the more strict standards in the world though. I wonder why that is? Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

Assumptions can make a person look uneducated on certain facts. I have indeed jumped without an altimeter on a few dives. Most of them were tandem video jumps so all I had to do was roll over an pull after the tandem deployed. Most of the time when I do have an altimeter I don't look at it for my pull time. I usually look at it once my canopy has opened. I know pretty well where I am in the air, but I also have nearly 700 jumps worth of experience in doing so. My pull altitudes have always been around 3,000 feet. I have that sight picture engrained in my noodle. Low timers don't have this experience and I don't encourage them in the least to go out and jump without an altimeter. It is lunacy to suggest such a thing. If someone has 500 or more jumps in a pretty current succession, then maybe it might not be so dangerous to try it, but anyone with less than 500 jumps......well it is just too dangerous in my opinion. Maybe this is could be a partial reason for the USPA changing the D license requirement to 500 jumps from 200. They must recognize that at 200 jumps a person really doesn't know enough for a "D"....which is the "professional" license since it is the highest one attainable. The rules are changing and I for one am personally very happy to see it. Go USPA, keep people safe from themselves. It is obviously a serious matter in this sport. Who would have ever known that a sport as serious and intricate as what we do could be so full of ignorance. .....and for anyone out there that doesn't think that what we do is serious business, may I suggest getting out while you still can. Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

I'll back that up. Lets make it two cases then.... However, I don't want to condone this behavior in the least, but I do have a 200 jump wonder with a D license at my dz and I am going to get him to try to deploy 3 times at 4,500. If he goes below 3,500 on any of the jumps his instructions will be to pull when he sees me wave off. I will pull at 3,000 to make sure he doesn't go below any USPA standards. I am also going to have my camera on and keep my altimeter in sight of the camera for the whole enitre skydive. Our exit alitudes are usually 14,500. He won't be jumping "blind" since I will be there for altitude awareness for both of us and I am going to have him wear a dytter set for 3,000 and set to flatline at 2,000 for emergency procedures. We will do nothing but face each other for the whole dive. I am willing to sacrifice $60 in personal jump tickets for this experiment. He can't pull above 5,000 or pull below 4,000. This will give him 1,000 feet of leeway. Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

no....I actually had plenty of altitude. I fixated on the ground instead of looking out ahead of me. It is clear on the video that I never touched the toggles. The canopy was flying flat but just sinking a tad. My injuries came from forward speed more than vertical speed. Most of my injuries occured the second time I hit the ground. I was dazed by my first impact, but the second one is when I hit the hardest. I started digging just as I hit the first time which "ballooned" me back up into the air. I felt my back break and my hip dislocate on the second impact. I landed right on my left hip/butt. My shoulders crunched forward as I head butted myself in the nads. The first impact was the femur breaker because I tried to slide it in and my knee caught the ground which "exploded" my femur. I believe that I did the typical "femur buster" manuever on that one. Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

Pilots practice stalls with enough altitude to recover safely. A stall is not dangerous unless it is low to the ground. Stalls are practiced because there is a better chance of stalling near the ground on take off or landing. I don't know of any pilots that practice take off stalls or landing stalls. They practice those stalls at altitude. Pilots practice engine out landings by reducing the power to idle. They don't shut an engine down intentionally and practice landing without power. The same can be said for jumping without an altimeter. Just because an altimeter could fail is not an excuse to jump without one. However, jumping with one and using your eyes to judge altitude and then cross ref'ing with an altimeter IS a safe way of learning, jumping without one IS NOT. Common sense dictates this clearly. If your altimeter is reading 3,500 and you think you are lower than that, then I suggest pulling immediately, common sense. I don't need to jump without an altimeter to know that I feel lower than it is reading. If I feel low, then I am going to pull, no doubt about it what so ever. use common sense on every dive and stay alive Listo

yeah.....lets suggest to students to jump without goggles and an altimeter......that would really help them to learn faster. The planet is big enough to see, you can't miss it......literally. That altimeter is just going to tell you how long you have before you slam into that planet, but you don't need it......and those goggles.....well, they just help you see better. You really don't need to see clearly, its all just a myth. Hey Mr. Student, why don't you just go out and not pull, after all, you need to trust your cypres. Here is another idea.....Mr. Student, why not turn that cypres off and pull your reserve at 750' so you will know how long it takes to open.....and don't forget to count the seconds as they pass. After all, you wouldn't be wearing an altimeter and you couldn't see it anyway because you wouldn't be wearing goggles. However, once the fast wind stops from you being in free fall, you will be able to see how close you are to the ground so you will know better as to how high you are. To anyone reading this. My statements above were made with 100% sarcasm and should never be attempted! The point I am making is that if you take unneccessary risks, you increase your chances of injury or fatality greatly. There is no way to regain altitude on a skydive so second chances are not given. You had better make the best of the one chance you do have and never take it for granted. If you do, it might be your last time doing so. Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come

The statement you make is 100% correct and to add to it..... it isn't your buddies butt that is on the line when "you" jump......it's yours.

There is only one dumb question in skydiving. It is the one that isn't asked. Listo Live today as tomorrow may not come