EvilLurker

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content

    391

  • Joined

  • Last visited

    Never

  • Feedback

    0%

Everything posted by EvilLurker

  1. EvilLurker
    Well, I don't know either of these guys personally, but it sounds like Andy got a low-risk lesson in how to run a DZ and I expect that he's going to come out of this just fine. Sometimes it costs you some pain and effort to get established and it sounds like Andy's gotten through that phase and is ready to go it alone. If you look at the positive side of it, SD now has a decent DZ (facilities wise, at least) and a new DZO that wants to repeat the process. If the hatin' ruins all that effort, the skydiving community is the loser. If the local jumpers want to sacrifice it all, so be it. The future may be that Buzz runs SSD into the ground and it folds while Andy starts a new DZ and prospers, or they could both do well. Good luck to both of you is my opinion.
  2. EvilLurker
    One big help in getting back from a long spot is making the frontal area of your body as small as possible. Sit back in your harness, get your knees up and keep your elbows close to your body. Partial brakes might help, depending on your canopy. I got the best glide when flying downwind with about 1/4 brakes, but I'm sure it varies. Getting "small" is what really helped me out, though, and I've gotten back from some loooong spots (every time, I never did land out). I throw my PC at 3500, also, which is a huge advantage.
  3. EvilLurker
    If it passes it's self-test, it's safe to jump. There's a big safety margin built into the CYPRES, give it a last day of service and a decent burial.
  4. EvilLurker
    I bounced off the tire with my knee once chasing a 3-way out the door while doing video. That sent me spinning like a top. After I got stable I got some real nice long-range video of the jump (you could almost make out that there were 3 of them at a couple of point, even). They were underwhelmed at my skills. Nose to the step sounds bad, glad you're okay.
  5. EvilLurker
    Me too, but what do you bet we're in the minority?
  6. EvilLurker
    So, did you watch the plane as you left? Have any trouble staying stable and on-heading? Congrats!
  7. EvilLurker
    In my experience, the most dangerous type of "turbulance" is gusting winds, when your canopy is surging forward and dropping as the relative airspeed drops. That got me once, and there wasn't a thing I could do. I'd say an airlocked canopy is superior in that type of conditions since you don't get as severe depressurization, but it's not a cure-all for gusts or rotors. I started sitting out days when the wind is "gusting and quitting", it's too risky and all the experience in the world won't remove the risk if it happens when you're low on final.
  8. EvilLurker
    Watching the plane after exit is a tool that can help you develop good form while on the "hill". After you get a feel for it, you'll be able to perform a nice stable exit without watching the plane, it will just "feel right". I do know it helped me a lot on my first 30 or so jumps. After that, they were all dive outs or RW chunks, but I could maintain heading and stability due to the "watch the plane" practice I had done. I'd recommend it highly as a learning tool.
  9. EvilLurker
    If you keep jumping thiose Cessnas you'll learn how to spot. There's just no substitute in the turbine world for acquiring that skill. No kidding. Take a look at the VVI and when it's at 200 FPM you're about ready to get out, in my experience. I never jumped a turbine until 100+ Cessna jumps. It was quite the eye-opener the first time I lined up with 20 other people and started marching towards the door. Yeah baby!
  10. EvilLurker
    Well, if you're under your reserve, it means you chopped your main, so you lost about 10 pounds. I'm jumping a 170 main and a 160 reserve, so the wing loading should be about the same. I weigh 150-155 without gear, so that's not in any way a highly loaded reserve, in my opinion. I figure I could survive landing it without a flare, or unconscious. (Until it put me into the river or high-tension lines, with my luck). Choosing a reserve that requires a high degree of skill to land safely always seemed risky, so I gave up some "sleekness" for peace of mind. Personal choice.
  11. EvilLurker
    If you don't get any points, though, you'll remember that forever. I know that from experience.
  12. EvilLurker
    Sounds like something I'd do, not that that makes it "right". Glad it worked out okay. One foot from the peas, huh? Heh..heh.
  13. EvilLurker
    I went through IAD instead of static line (your JM throws the pilot chuts as soon as you release from the strut). We did 5 of those, then went straight to BOC deployment by the student. I never jumped a static line once. 5 IADs then 5 second freefall, if all went well with your practice pulls.
  14. EvilLurker
    You get a tension knot if you twist a line so that it has "tension" in it, then when it goes slack, it wants to twist on itself and loop. When this happens, it can loop around itself and get a loop trapped in it when the slack is removed. That's why you chase your steering lines out and insure they're untwisted when you pack. Take a piece of any kind of rope or line, stand on one end and twist it up, then release the tension and watch, you'll get the picture real quick.
  15. EvilLurker
    I think you have that backwards, 200 grit is more agressive than 400 grit. Or am I missing something?
  16. EvilLurker
    I had some spinning issues when I started and I'll tell you how I stopped the spin successfully: (1) Go into a delta position until the spin stops (2) Go get a session in a wind tunnel and learn how to maintain a heading (2) is a lot better solution than repeating AFF jumps, it saves money and frustration. Good luck, buddy.
  17. EvilLurker
    I don't really see any reason to learn to flat pack (though I went that route), unless you're planning on packing tandems for extra cash. Just go with Pro packing from the start. I liked flat packing, and I got nice openings, but the people at a busy DZ will give you a lot of grief for using up so much floor space and it's no faster than Pro packing.
  18. EvilLurker
    I'd be interested in having a comparison, too. My bet is the hybrid has a miniscule decrease in performance vs. the ZP and better openings. That's what I love about my Silhouette, it doesn't need any "special techniques" to get nice openings, and they're consistent.
  19. EvilLurker
    Does the hybrid have a lot nicer openings? I'd like to read the comparison, too, because I'm of the opinion that a hybrid has better openings and very little loss in performance. And yes, I have a hybrid (Silhouette) and I know how to pack a ZP. I have close to or slightly over 500 jumps on the Silhouette and I don't see any drcrease in performance yet. You sure they'll only last 5-600 jumps? I never heard anyone say that.
  20. EvilLurker
    I reread it with my brain engaged. Yes, the student should be willing to make a reasonable effort to watch/find the main and help recover it, but the fact is, the DZO knows the area, has a plane and has a staff, and they should all chip in and expend the effort to find/recover the gear, and if that's not possible, they eat the cost. Every student chop I saw, the main landed pretty close to the landing area, since the JMs were doing a good job of spotting, and we recovered them in just a few minutes. "I was responding to the poster who said that the DZ should have insurance for the rentals. " I guess if they want their money back, that's their choice, but if the DZO thinks a 5 year old Manta that's lost is going to get replaced full-value, they haven't dealt with an insurance claim before. But if you rent a boat to someone and it has an engine fire, you'll have quite a challenge collecting, I'm willing to bet.
  21. EvilLurker
    I never had that option while I was on student status. They told me what gear I would be jumping. Once I had my "A", of course, I had the choice to rent or buy, so I bought. I'm pretty sure that's SOP at most DZ's.
  22. EvilLurker
    Heh, what if you're a JM that takes students up for IAD/SL every day but only makes 3 or 4 jumps a week? Their criteria makes no real-world sense. They would have a lot better idea of battery usage if they monitored how many times the unit did a Power-on self-test.
  23. EvilLurker
    Let's see: The DZO selected the gear, assembled the gear, maintained the gear and packed the gear. The DZO supposedly decided on a rental price that would make enough profit to replace the gear as it wore out/was lost or damaged. In fact, if the DZO has several sets of student gear, they make a nice profit on the rent over a period of time. Now they have a student cutaway and lose a main, it's suddenly the student's responsibility to pay for a new main canopy? If a DZO did that to me, I'd ask for the rental records since the main was installed and break it down 25% main, 25% container, 25% reserve and 25% AAD after subtracting $5/jump for the pack job and $50 per 6 months for a reserve repack. I'm betting in 90% of the cases, the money from rental already paid for the main and the DZO would owe me money. Know what I mean?
  24. EvilLurker
    When I'm not jumping I keep my rig in a sealed gear bag. I've had it in there from October till April before and the cutaway cables were clean. How the hell would they get dirty? I inspect mine prior to each day of jumping, same as my reserve cable, instead of ignoring them completely for a 30 day duration. Makes a lot more sense to me to do it that way.
  25. EvilLurker
    Man, you must have one hell of a furnace! I can sit on my vents and it's not even umcomfortably warm. That said, if you have air conditioning, it will dry faster than from heat, because your AC puts out very dry air.