GordonH

On behalf of others, I'm looking for two Lightnings - a 143 AND a 176. Any currently for sale please PM with details. Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

Hi, The best ways to the club are: 1. Hire a car - it's just over a 1hr drive from Dublin, and if you do this I'll mail you directions. 2. Ask for a lift from Dublin-based jumpers, and the best way to do this is to send an email to the club's email mailing list: ipcganglist@yahoogroups.com . Unfortunately there aren't any good public transport options for you. I'll be there that weekend (but travelling from Galway on the other coast, so can't offer a lift). See you there!

Do we need another category added, to include sequential records such as "RWS-Relative Work Sequential" such as "Florida RWS 2-point 139" Also there is a new CRW record of 36 over Spain on 31 May 2007, details here...http://www.skydiveempuriabrava.com/noticies2.php?id=2&idnoticia=52 Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

No nothing in the junk email box in hotmail. I tried registering twice but never go the confirmation. Thanks for posting the question for me chachi. Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

Well I've tried registering at that forum twice now but it fails to send the email to confirm the registration - and without that I can't post there. Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

That's a great shot Dave, well worth the full page. (sorry no scanner) Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

I'm interested in learning how to perform two-person sychronised landings - where both pilots fly the pattern together and execute a 90degree front riser turn to land side-by-side at the same time. The sort of stuff you see the Airspeed 4-way team doing. About my experience level...I have about 1500 jumps of which around 150 are CRW (row 2, row 3 and row 4 wings and lower level locks on diamonds (largest 20-way), various stacks up to 13-way, a few 4-way rotations). The jumps will be alongside a fellow CRW jumper, however we will be using our non-CRW canopies. We already comfortably fly end-cell to end-cell at altitude on the canopies, but would like advice about how to go about planning, learning and executing side-by-side landings. Edited to add: I'm not a high-performance swooper, but usually do 90degree front-riser turn landings on my Sabre 150. Thanks Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

Yes I found that on very long swoops when doing the 400-ways, I occasionally got into a position where the wind would get into the visor. The air was also fairly dry as we were using aviation oxygen in the plane...so to be sure we didn't lose our contact lenses, a couple of us wore goggles under our visors! You need to do whatever it takes to be safe, if that means doing this to ensure your lenses stay in then try it. Since then I've never done it, but at the time I was holding the swoop position for 15-20 secs and my pro-Track was averaging 225mph. dress for success. Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

Chester (real name Eric Schaechter) who was in sector 11 has made an unoffical DVD of World Team 2006. I'll take a copy along to the big-way sequentials at Z-hills next week if anyone wants to see it. Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

Hey Tash - welcome to the world of CRW! Hope to jump with you sometime soon. Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

Nice job swoop - great memories! Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

Paul can't reply right now, the wireless link on his yacht is playing up Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

Just to add, the first tunnel I flew in was at Airodium Zurich. I needed a baggy suit to fly, had about 100 jumps at the time, and I learnt loads from a great instructor. Nowadays I'd fly in any tunnel for the fun, and with a good instructor would learn loads. If I want to learn advanced FS (4-way randoms and blocks etc) then I'd personally look for a tunnel where I can fly in my normal suit. But IMHO the coaching skills of the instructor are more important than the size/type of tunnel. Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

[reply I did feel that I really didn't get a lot of feedback apart from a few comments like "try to do barrel rolls" during our haf-time break and "you are good" when I was leaving. I felt more frustrated because compared to how I fly in the sky, I thought I sucked, which is why I left there thinking there wasn't much point going back. I think you answered your own question - the quality of the instruction is probably more important that the characteristics of any particular tunnel. However if you want to learn advanced FS techniques then you probably want a tunnel where you can fly in your normal suit, so the moves are as similar as possible to your skydiving. Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

Hi Conor, I guess you are enquiring ahead of the Irish record jumps in August. Currently FAI don't accredit National records, however http://www.theworldteam.com/06MediaHistory.htm has some words on what the FAI guidelines are. There's no time-limit anymore, however the formation must be as stamped in advance, grip perfect and stable with photo evidence. Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

When I was there in May, Pete Jones said he'd sold the windtunnel people some land. He pointed over to the corner of the airfield near the boat showroom/Maurici Park. I also got the impression it was going to be a bespoke design - which could take a while. Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

This is a message for those who report incidents, or details of incidents on dropzone.com. In these days of wireless access dropzones, email and SMS we may know the news within minutes, and it only takes a moment to pass it on here. I understand your desire to share the information promptly with the skydiving family - afterall we are one big family. But there is usually another family involved - the real family. It may take several hours to track down all the family members - who may be in meetings, driving out of mobile phone coverage, on vacation, or otherwise uncontactable. All those who lose someone close will remember forever the moment they first heard the news...try to play your part in ensuring that they hear it the right way, from the right person. If you don't know what's going on tracking the family down then don't be the one to provide details. PLEASE. Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

Just posting a stupid mistake I made, so others can learn without having to be as lucky as I was. Chest strap wasn't done up correctly and I found out under canopy. Here's the story... I'd got 17 years in sport, 1350 or so jumps. Jumping in the UK not at my regular drop-zone, but also one that requires a flight-line check from another jumper before boarding. I was in a team, and as the team members were each checking each other, one person signed for the whole team... ...but I was busy trying to plan a 'really cool' next jump, was busily trying to get names and a dive plan for a 16-way 2-plane load. I kittedup in a distracted way, and didn't ask anyone for a check as I was getting carried away planning. We then took off... ...exit at 8 grand, and dump straight away for a free-stowed (non-bagged) deployment on my Lightning for a CRW jump. [This is the 1st point when it could have been nasty - had he opening been VERY hard, or had I been head-low at deployment, I could have fallen forwards out of the harness]. But I didn't and still noticed nothing wrong... ...then I docked 3rd on stack. [2nd potential nasty point had we wrapped]... ...then someone docked on me [3rd potential nasty point had we wrapped]... then the top person rotated off the top and onto the bottom of the stack. Then the next person rotated off the top and now it's my turn to get ready to rotate... ...and slid back up the lines. As I arrived at the top with a litte bit of speed ( P I N G ! !!) my cheststrap flies undone [4th potential nasty point]... ...breathing fast, getting nervous, I cannot drop the two stack beneath me as the 4th person is arriving just beneath to dock and the two-way would drop into them. I just roll my shoulders, keep elbows in and keep as still as I can.... ...after they docked on the bottom, I carefully kicked out of the lines, headed for some clear space, and re-did my chest-strap. I then spent time on the flight down, and on the ground since contemplating how easily I could have been in freefall with no harness. So some lessons... 1. stupid mistakes can be made by anyone, even if you consider yourself safety concious and have been around for a few years. Especially if you allow yourself to get distracted because of something 'new' or 'cool' going on. 2. it's relatively easy to take your cheststrap and mis- route by not putting it through the metalwork, but fold it back through elastic keeprs so that at a glance it 'looks normal' (especially when you have knives and alti's on the cheststrap). 3. This could have easily been found if at any point on the walk to the plane, or during the flight, I had carfeully checked my gear by looking at the chestrap routing, or tugging the chestrap. 4. And I should have had a flightline check from another jumper (as is the rule in my country) which should have also spotted it Felt stupid for doing it. Feel a bit better for sharing my stupidity. Don't be as daft as me please. Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

None yet in ~1400 jumps (inc 100+ CRW). Keep wondering what it's like, and hope I'm ready when it does. Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

Nah I'm still a fat boy Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

I'm also looking for a 143, I have a 160 with less than 150 jumps to part-ex/sell. Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

You may have seen over in the World Team 2006 thread, that most of the Brits in sector 11 went along to Bodyflight Bedford for a few sessions to warm-up for the upcoming 400-ways in Thailand. Here's a bit of a summary on our blog site, and there are links to more photo's and also blog entries for each of the our four sessions in the tunnel. We surprised ourselves - and the tunnel staff - as to how much big-way related stuff we could do. Fingers crossed for the big-ways

closest I came to the 'big-way hybrid' type jump was linking up with John Sikorsky after the world record 2-point 121-way FS jump - everyone on the ground jumped up and down about doing 2 points, but John and I were enjoying being the only ones with 3 points on that dive! The photo's of the 81 and 85-ways are stunning. Well done all. Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

Just had SMS that they've beaten their own record with an 85-way! Wendy and Taz are the world's first row-10 wings. Congrats to everyone. Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)

It was also featured in an article in London's Evening Standard today - same deal a reporter's first hand experience. hmmm...think I'll phone swardy and tell him I'm a journalist, maybe get free time? BTW - the Standard article said it was the UK's FIRST skydiving windtunnel! Blue skies! Gordon Beware of advice from those with more posts than jumps ;-)