andrewstewart

Oh man, you're making this waaaaay too easy.

That is incredibly, incredibly racist.

What's funny about this post is you actually went back and edited it. Did you misspell one of the times you said 'FUCK' ?

Now that is interesting! TomA - what do you think of this?

Mmmm, smell the danger! If you're just starting to freefly give yourself some more separation between you and the group in front and tell the group who is getting out after you. You're probably travelling horizontally somewhat in freefall, and since you probably can't hold a heading you may well be travelling back up (or down) jump run and not realize it. Add that to that fact that you pulled just after passing through a cloudbase at much higher than your predeclared pull height, and you're asking for trouble. Just my two cents.

Put your arms out wider for stability as necessary. Also, Leave more proud to the relative wind, i.e. more head high.

Dude, sign me up for one of those! Seriously, does anyone have more info on that? I'd be real interested to hear what a big manufacturer is doing to improve heading rate (with an eye, obviously, to improving my own heading rate). It would seem to me that a canopy that opens on heading close to 100% of the time will only do so if you include a caveat that says ASSUMING the body position is correct... assuming it is packed correctly, etc, etc. And so in that respect, it has to be no different that any other low aspect canopy. No?

Thanks, I've posted my question to the ABA forum.

What is considered to be diligent training for doing a gainer? I have about 30 hours of gymnastics training but it was mainly floor work. Is trampolining, spring board diving, or gymnastics most effective as a training mechanism? I have raid Dwain's 'arials in base' article but it doesn't talk specifically about training, more about the progression beyond a simple gainer. Thanks in advance, - Andrew

That's what happened to me, too. We were just finishing up a nice little three day jaunt in the Valley, when these two guys came flying by. All I could think was: "I've got to do that." Four years (and forty pounds) later, I haven't climbed anything serious in three and a half years. I've done a fair bit of jumping, though. Welcome to the club. There's more like you than you realize. Personally I started skydiving first, then climbing, then BASE. I was leading 5.11 after about 6 months of climbing ;-)

I've cut away from two spinners, both violent, and both using a pad. No problem in either case...

How far away is the nearest hospital? :-|

So you're saying that even on a solo, the multi provides more of a possibility for entanglement with an object, should you hit it?

I intended that to be implicit in my post, but it's worth restating - thanks.

Is there anyone who has jumped both a FOX/FLiK Vtec with covers and a Troll MDV that can give me a comparitive analysis? In the skydiving world I jump an Atair canopy but I have also jumped a FOX (just vtec, no covers) and thought it excellent also. Anyone qualified to comment? Thanks in advance, - A

I have had a very, very experienced canopy pilot (who is on both pro tours) express the opinion to me that no-one should try rear riser landings unless they've got 1000 jumps. He just doesn't think it's worth it regards the benefit to performance vs. the possibility of hurting yourself. Just my... er, his 2 cents.

I've also been wondering about the make of pilot chute. I'm more interested to know if it was vented or not though. Also, I've jumped from that span but I've never done a gainer. Is it possible that his body position when he pitched was a factor in causing the PC to not inflate? (Assuming it was not an over-delay). - A

i think your profile Here doesn't even match your jump numbers, unless you've done 600 jumps since July of this year. but with

Buy a smaller canopy. (I'm only 1/2 joking).

Since a bunch of us were just talking about this last weekend I'll give it a try. I fly a Cobalt 150 I rented a rig with a Sabre2 150 which I jumped a couple of times and I was kinda pissed that the Sabre2 was noticably faster and needed less toggle input(not much but it was less). Also one of the jumpers at my DZ went from a Sabre2 120 to a Cobalt 105 and she says they fly about the same. I didn't riser carve on the Sabre2 but flying straight in it is more like a Cobalt 135. IMO the Cobalt flies one size bigger then most comparable 9 cell semi or fully elliptical canopies of the same size(note this is just an opinion based on the feedback of the 6-10 jumpers who have Cobalts at my DZ and is in no way scientific) Does this mean that, essentially, the Cobalt is a more "efficient" wing? I am hesitant to use the word efficient, but that seems to be what you are suggesting (?). Personally, one of the things I love about my Cobalt is the range - it can float really well but it can also dive like crazy (when I want it to ;-)

As it worked for me too, putting the nose too far away will get some off-heading or hard openings. The idea of the 2-stage opening is that the 3 center cells will inflate under slider, slowing freefall down. Then, at the already lowered speed the outer 4 cells will be inflated. If you try to put the nose too far inside the packjob you can get too much air NOT into the nose, but into the tail and into (or under) uninflated outer cells, causing 1-stage opening without pre-slowing freefall speed down. It will be really hard... trust me... The same thing may (and will) happens, when you try to grab the risers. Tail rolling is important for first stage of opening, more and much tight rolling will make snivel longer. I've got one of my most hard openings when i touched the riser with camera box mounted on left side of helmet. A'm happy with CC105 (about 300 jumps @ 1,75) now i'm waiting to get a new CC95 just in a few weeks. This makes perfect sense to me and it explains why I get nice openings from just leaving the nose hanging there and doing nothing with it.

And why did they, and you think so? Well, it depends on your goals. As long as they are stated and known then that's fine, IMHO.

Oops, my mistake.

Interesting! I had a few 'brisk' openings on my Cobalt in the first 10 jumps or so but then it settled down and has never opened hard since. I wonder if this phenomenon of hard openings the first few times a canopy is jumped occurs in other new canopies and could possibly be due simply to a new canopy "settling in" (for want of a better term). Personally, the hardest skydiving opening I've ever had was on a PD Silhouette. (The hardest parachute opening I've had was from a two second delay, slider off, with a FOX VTEC). With my Cobalt, I pack it very neatly and do nothing with the nose except make sure it's handing straight and neat. I quarter the slider and expose the nose of the slider a couple of inches, then just put 4 or 5 rolls in the tail. If I roll the tail any more than that it snivels forever (and I've jumped a Spectre a lot so I know about snivels ;-) - Andrew

I am "focusing" on the shortcomings of other companies because some people have tried to say that because we don't hear about other manufacturers being criticized then that somehow implies that Atair is the only company with which some people have had bad experiences, which is not true. I think that we actually agree on this point, right? I have never said that I have a defense for every mistake Atair may have made, nor am I denying what other people have said. In fact I have explicitly said: "I can only post MY experiences with Atair" (which were that my demo was shipped promptly, on risers, it flew great, and I found them to be a good company to deal with - unlike some others). As far as my demo with PD goes, feel free to ask Kolla (who I think does a great job). Personally, the fact that the canopy didn't have instructions or rubber bands means nothing to me - I was just pointing out that you seemed to think that PD always does that. They don't. And as to my jump numers, how would my number of jumps influence your perception of me? If I said I had 50 jumps would you then say that since I'm so inexperienced my opinion counts for less? Or if I was to say 5000 would your opinion of me suddenly go up? Personally, I don't feel that it's right to judge people that way, but I seem to be in the minority on this forum when it comes to that.