sovietskee

I'd like to learn to ground launch and I was wondering if anyone had experience with ground launch schools in California such as Jim Slaton's ground launch center. From your experience whats the best affordable groundlaunch center in the US? Thanks

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He bought a canopy off of me and everything went smooth as silk. likestojump does rock!

ok that was a misstatement on my part. I always pull somewhere between 3 and 2.5 on normal freefall jumps and I'm always open by 2. If I pull at 2,5 I'm open just above 2000 which is cool with me. What I meant to say was you can expect a Sabre to be open in 500 feet, or at least I can from personal experience. Is it really such a bad thing to have a parachute that opens "briskly." edit: but then again I have a few friends who have had their ass kicked by their Sabre 1(and one who got royally fucked up by a hard opening from his sabre 2). Maybe I've just been lucky or haven't done a statistically adequate number of jumps to get slammed. All I know is they're cheap, they open reliably (from my experience) and fly superb. I'm happy to stick with a Sabre as long as it keeps doing what it has been doing for me. And I plowed myself into the ground pretty good a few times on the 170, just being a newbie idiot, and it let me go without injury. It was a great first canopy for me, and I know it will be a great second canopy for me.

notice the comma after "your right," the rest of that sentence was my thoughts. Pulling at 3500 is safer than pulling at 2500, just like 4500 would be safer than 3500. It's all personal comfort level. If I was jumping a snively canopy or something more high performance that is known to have squirrely openings I'd move my pull altitude higher.

emergency exit at 2000 I'd pull main, remember 2k subterminal is not 2k terminal, anything below that I'd pull reserve. It's not hard to crane your neck to clear the airspace. I had a friend nearly fall through my canopy when I pitched below him when I had less than 100 jumps this summer, we had both fucked up and failed to clear our airspace. I take a look above me as I'm waving off ever since then. There's plenty of people who are proficient skydivers who pull at 2000 on every jump and they can handle it, Personally I feel comfortable with a pull altitude that has me open somewhere above 2000. Maybe you don't see a good reason to go under 3500 and your right, there's no good reason for any of this stuff we do. Its just a matter of personal comfort level.

You can't always pull as high as you plan to; what if break off goes to shit and there's someone above you, or you go up for a cloud ceiling load and the ceiling is lower than expected, or an airplane emergency at 2k? There's a lot of RW people out there that never break off above 4000. I pull somewhere in between 2.5 and 3 on freefall jumps, If I had a pilot it'd probably be between 3 and 3.5. Ideal would be 5-700 foot snivel, soft and not too much wasted altitude. The 50 or so jumps I put on a pilot my average opening was close to 1000 feet. Thats too much.

I was originally going to buy a pilot 168 for my beer canopy but what turned me off were the 800-1000 foot openings.

When I bought my rig and first canopy (the sabre you bought off of me) I had my rigger inspect everything. If I were buying a rig or a reserve I would have it sent to my rigger. Main parachutes or aad I wouldn't, and haven't bothered. Plus the community is so small it seems that your always going to be maybe 1 step of separation away from the seller if your worried about someone's credibility. The lady that sold me that Sabre 170 wasn't willing to let me come get the canopy to put a few jumps on it before I paid her; she was willing to ship it to my rigger who took responsibility for it and then I was able to put a few jumps on it.

haha yea. I had developed the habit of grabbing my rear risers as soon as I got stood up on deployment; after I started jumping the sabre every so often I would land and one of my hands would be all bloody and I couldn't figure out why.

i think an 800 foot snivel on a sabre would scare me. The only time I've jumped something that wasn't a sabre since I had 80 jumps was sigma for an instructor that was working on his rating and I was genuinley nervous during the snivel because I have become so accustomed to brisk openings. Not that I would have anything against a snively canopy. I'd pull a bit higher though. and Megatron its sabre not saber

the Sabre 1 isn't very forgiving of sloppy packing, and it still will open more briskly than the stuff that you're probably used to. I've actually come to appreciate the brisk openings. It's nice being able to pull at 2500 and be open well above 2000. I bought a Sabre 170 at about a 1.15 wl at 80 jumps. I put a little over 100 jumps on it and sold it for exactly what I paid for it, and have replaced it with a Sabre 150. I personally have no complaints about the Sabre; It will get you back from a long spot, has a powerful flare, and its dirt cheap(which is a huge plus for me). edit: if its going to be your first canopy it probably won't be very long before your looking for your next canopy. Older parachutes don't seem to lose their value nearly as much as newer ones(look at how cars lose value) so that may be another thing to look at if you don't have much money. The best idea would be to put a few jumps on one before you make a decision

So as an update: I had the main canopy inspected along with the repack and my rigger reiterated that the current lineset is still "perfectly" jumpable but I will notice a significant improvement in flare and the openings might be nicer with a new set... so he ordered the new lineset the day before yesterday and it came in this morning! PD RULES! I'll update after this weekend.

Fuck! I can understand why people jump lines until they start breaking. That's twice as much as I spent on the canopy.

Thanks. From the 15 jumps I've done on it so far it opens pretty much like my old sabre and those lines were in trim so that's a good sign. As I said I'll have the trim checked when I get a repack and I'll go from there. $350, Its really that expensive? And shipping? I'm not going to send it to PD . I'll get it done in the loft.