DrewGPM

You start off saying SAFETY FIRST, then you mock someone who expresses a safety concern. Not even 20 jumps and you're already blowing off safety concerns. Interesting. Do you think an instructor has ever taken a graduate up on a jump that was unsafe for his/her skill level? Of course they have. If that happens, you have to be willing to say no thanks. You are responsible for your own saftey. If you are not comfortable with a jump, get off of it, regardless of what your instructor says. That's not just on this jump, it's on every jump you make after your last student jump. I know guys with 3000 jumps who routinely pull off jumps over safety concerns. Hopefully your instructor will disuade you from specialty jump like a tube or a horny gorilla. Since I don't know them, I'm not going to take the chance that you get the one guys says "sure, why not". I'm hereto let you know that those may not safe grad jumps. Even a sit train is inappropriate for a grad jump. If your instructor is an experienced freeflier, he probably won't see a problem with it. I say wait until you prove yourself a capable belly flyer before trying something like that.

sorry, i'm not familiar with that term...apparently nobody else know it either. Can you describe it at all?

for my own information, where does the Samurai fit in to all of this?

WHOA, who said anything about verticals? I just used that dive because it involves turning pieces. I've got 700 jumps and my team doesn't do vertical moves. Unless you're on a team averaging over 10 points, verticals are a not needed. Just turn the pieces normally. Piece turns are a blast, and they don't require the graduate to really do anything other than fly stable and keep eye contact. As long as they fly stable, somebody else is whipping them around the sky the whole jump. TONS OF FUN! We've never had one fail, and all the grads love it!

at least i didn't mention the beads you put in my...uh, never mind

What are telling these poor guys? If you tell the guy that you want him to buy you flowers and take you to a dinner and a movie...that shouldn't scare anyone off. If it does, that guy wasn't good enough for you anyway. If you're telling him that what you want is to tie him to the bed, shove a ball gag in his mouth and put mouse traps on his scrotum and nipples...then i understand why they get a little scared.

You don't include porosity in the equation, but it is a factor when discussing wing loading. A ZP canopy loaded a 1.3 is WAY different from an F-111 loaded at 1.3. When most people talk about wing loading they are assuming ZP fabric. Anyone jumping F-111 needs to take that in to consideration. An F-111 canopy wingloaded at 1.3 is the equivilent of a ZP loaded at _________ I don't know what the relationship is, maybe someone else knows that.

Since you want to be safe and make sure nobody gets hurt, stay away from those tubes. Half the tubes i've ever seen ended up with somebody bleeding. They are fun, but not the safest of jumps. Fruit loops are fun and pretty safe, just don't do them at break off time! I learned that lesson the hard way! I like to limit grad jumps to 4 or less. It's a nice safe group size, and the formations out there make it easy to design a fun dive. I have attached my favorite grad jump. It is from the 4-way competitions, blocks 6 and 21. These blocks are fun piece turns and the stardian exit is very easy exit. You'll impress your instructors when you whip out the color coded drawing and show some knowledge of 4-way.

I've only had to bail out once. The ride felt kind of funny and then I notice the funny look on the face of the sitting across from me. I looked over my shoulder and was dumbfounded. The left engine was stopped, so the prop wasn't turning! We were at 10,000 ft, in a twin otter...so the plane was still flyable. One of the tandem mastered relayed the instructions from the pilot. everyone out! It was during a 4-way competition and team at the door starts to climb out, like a regular exit! My team mate leans in yells "it's an emergency, get out out of the f$%@ plane" Kudos to our pilot and the instructor for keeping the situation under control and handling the situation so well. All in all, it was a pretty interesting experience. I imagine things would have been different if we were at 2,000 feet!

that's cruel...now i'm all excited! guess i gotta go watch some porn That makes me wonder... how come they don't do more advertizing in porn? You see Coke, Pepsi, Doritos, etc get prominant placement on TV shows, but never in porn. If sex really sells, then why not get your product placed in porn? talk amongst yourselves, i'll check in after my "movie" is over

Along with that website there is a forum set up, similar to dropzone.com. The guy you want is Jim Slaton(OpeningShock on that board) or email him at jim@canopypiloting.com CP forum

I assume you mean this one... clicky

I believe it was a giant pimple. sorry JP, gotta side with the babe on this one. Chet was turned in to a pile of shit.

Red has always played nice with me... white on the other hand is a big trouble maker. but does red or white wine make your urine smell or change the color of your poop? (just trying to get this thread back on topic)

don't you people read...or do i read too damn much http://www.poopreport.com/Intellectual/Content/Dye/dye.html

sadly, I have a reference that talks about that...http://my.webmd.com/content/article/43/1671_51089

wartload makes me giggle every time I see it

The 2 way competition info is now listed on http://www.vrw4way.com. The PDF document is at http://www.vrw4way.com/competitions/2005VRWdivisionoftheNSL.pdf

For the Chicago area VRW competitions we are using everything posted here: http://skydivechicago.com/forum/index.php?topic=1009.0 Many of the formations are illustrated http://www.vertigofreefly.com...that should give you something for a visual reference. If anybody can come up with a drawn out version, I'd love to see it.

Burger Time Even though I blame that game for my addiction to fast food hamburgers and resulting layers of fat that have accumulated around my waist line.

at least they caught this one on tape http://www.brycewilson.net/pafiledb/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=499 an english version, but the video isn't as good http://www.dmsjr.com/couchmedia/randyjohnson.mpg

It's not a perfect translation, but this is how I identify "the corner". Diving the canopy is like hitting the accelerator on your car...while aiming at a brick wall. As soon as you take your foot off the accelerator, you start to slow down. You will eventually get to the idle speed of your car. Then you can hit the brakes to stop. The distance you cover while you return to idle speed is the recover arch. If you take your foot off the gas too late, you will hit the wall. So you hit the breaks during the recover arch. You shorten the distance covered before stopping. Now you can leave your foot on the accelerator longer, since you're stopping faster. How hard you have to hit the breaks depends on how fast you're going and where you start to hit them. If you hit breaks and the stuff in the back seat of the car slide off the seat, you waited too long. You were in the car equilivilent of "the corner". If you stand on the breaks and still hit the wall, you were WAY past the corner. Under canopy, you can apply a certain amount of rear risers as you come out of the dive. If you have to hit the rear risers real hard, or switch to toggles sooner than you wanted, in order to save yourself...then you were in the corner. Does that make sense? The corner changes for each person..depending on a lot of variables. But the idea is that you had to give input that is beyond what you normally use, or face serious injury. That is the corner.

my "give-a-shitter" is turned off today. Maybe i'll turn it on tomorrow

my bologna has a first name...

Racist against beautiful people...that is funny shit. So there is a race of beautiful...Hitler's dream come true! Maybe she got cut 'cause she's an idiot! Bet she never thought of that.