JumpeRod

I had a great experience at IFly Utah and I think they deserve some recognition for it. I have approximately 55-60 hours of flight time in wind tunnels (mostly in Paraclete XP), but had fallen a year out of currency. Ben and Devon helped get me back in the tube and once I was comfortable again, they immediately started pushing me to the limits of my ability. I had a ton of fun, but also felt challenged the entire time. It was the perfect balance and I feel that my time spent there was worth every cent that I paid. Thank you to Dusty Hanks for setting it all up, Ben and Devon for the coaching, and of course the lovely ladies at the front, Haley and Aja. Aloha, Rod There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day and try it. -- Douglas Adams

GoPro Hero2 It's the best bang for your buck. The CX class cameras can have better images if you shell out a lot of money for a really nice lens, but for $300 you can't go wrong. Not to mention it saves your neck over time. There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day and try it. -- Douglas Adams

I had a lightly used EG suit for about 30 jumps and about 2 tunnel hours before the arm blew up in the tunnel. By that time the top layer of fabric was also pulling away from the seams in several places. I bought it to last me until my Vertical Suit arrived. I expected to get what I paid for (about $100)... and did. I would not buy an EG again for tunnel for sure and it's unlikely that I would for sky flying as well. There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day and try it. -- Douglas Adams

The first transition to head down, as was taught to me at Raeford, is a sit to head backflip. This is when you start in a sit and do a half flip backwards to head down. Daffy is the best choice of head down positions for this transition because as you transition from head up to head down you will be carrying rotational momentum that needs to be counteracted by something. In this case, that something is your front leg. As a student weeble-wobbles their way through the learning process, they will undoubtedly put too much or too little input from time to time and it's a good (and safer) thing to fly a daffy as your base. As was mentioned by an earlier poster, if you are flying almost-shelf, then you are tracking. I love tracking, but furthest that you can go doing that without a big splat with the current tunnels out there is 16.5 feet. You might want to save that for the sky There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day and try it. -- Douglas Adams

I have many video/photo jumps on Infinity rigs and have flown on all axes in those jumps. I have not experienced that problem... ever. My rigs were both custom cut for me. There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day and try it. -- Douglas Adams

I am 6' 1.5" - 185 pounds and own two Infinitys both with chest rings. I find that due to my broad shoulders the cut and fit with chest rings is extremely comfortable and form fitting. Other Infinity rigs that I have jumped that did not have chest rings but were still cut for similar size people (several and many times) are historically less comfortable and more restricting on my shoulders. I find that being able to pull my shoulder straps nice and tight along my chest helps with rig shift during freeflying, especially back flying. I have also not experienced rig shift on my shoulders during tracking/atmonauti. I have several friends who have been jumping Infinitys for years who are smaller people (5'6-5'10) and do not feel that chest rings are necessary and do not provide any benefit for people their size. So yeah... there ya go

It depends on how quickly your coaches will allow you to get on your head... currency, skill, weight, size, etc. If you bail with enough skill that you won't atmonauti in to the wall, then I bet you will progress a lot faster than someone who is about to track themselves in to a coma. There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day and try it. -- Douglas Adams

The OP asks about a canopy where only the front 3/4 of the canopy's inner cells are cross braced, not a canopy that has cross bracing in the center cells and not the outer cells. Sounds like a Xaos21 and not a Neos to me. Upon examination of available photos of each canopy on respective company websites, it is clear that the cross braces in the Xaos21 do not extend all the way to the tail like some other 21 cell cross braced canopies such as the JFX and Velocity, nor does it like other 27 cell cross braced canopies such as the Xaos27, JVX, and VX. While the Xaos21 may be a "true cross braced canopy" it still has more separation between the tail-most cross brace and the tail. Forgive me if I have misunderstood, but I believe the OP wants to know about that design in relation to performance. I'm curious too

I don't know all of the politics of it, but yes, they were able to secure permission to cut down those particular trees. There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day and try it. -- Douglas Adams

The big trees on the east side of the LZ mentioned in DSE's post have been almost completely chopped down over the past month or so. Every one of them will be gone soon thus eliminating those rotors.

I flew a minimum of 2 hours a month for a year. When I started (about 3 tunnel hours total) I was doing back fly to sit fly transitions and basic sit-flying, when I ended I was a self supervised head down flier working on carving, advanced transitions, and basic 4-way VFS. I did about 30 hours that year. Side note - I'm 6'1" and 220lbs... all the little fuckers seemed to have progressed quicker than I did A lot of my progression can be attributed directly to the kick ass instructors at Paraclete (shameless plug for all those guys). There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day and try it. -- Douglas Adams

+1 for Bomb420 and Pilot-One's posts If you can, take some time in the tunnel to fine tune that body position. It's super awkward at first, but it becomes very comfortable and also frees your hands up for docking, etc. (reference Zach in Pilot-One's photo) Another trick is to really dig in with your back (almost a backfly-sitfly hybrid) to create that lift you want. You'll have to pull your lower legs further back (feet closer to your butt while still presenting inner shins to the wind) to counter the drive, and you'll be less maneuverable but maximizing the use of the huge amount of surface area your back offers will slow you down significantly while feet-down. There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day and try it. -- Douglas Adams

I lost the little screw thingies when moving the hood around... haven't used it since. Used the lens for video/base/and on the ground. It's still in good shape. There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day and try it. -- Douglas Adams

I appreciate that feedback Stu, but I am not asking for people's opinion on my personal progression right now as I do understand that few of the people on the forum have seen me fly/land. For that information I will seek guidance from people at my dropzone and who are familiar with me in person. I'm looking for a response more in regards to specific canopy flight characteristics and how they can be used progressively to learn to swoop faster more safely. I just don't see how, from what I know (without having flown either) about Stilettos and Velocities, they can be the best choice for progression, especially a 30 sq. ft. downsize. Quick side note, in regards to "If you're going to hit the ground or When" I have already hit the ground... off the ground... in to the pond... it was a bad day, but I was very lucky. I learned that lesson the hard way and I recognize that if I had been flying a smaller canopy than my SA170, I could have been a lot worse off than a few bruises and some hurt pride. There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day and try it. -- Douglas Adams

To RichLees: I appreciate the feedback and your progression is similar to the one that I had roughly outlined as the one I would take based on demos and currency and such. There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day and try it. -- Douglas Adams

Ever since I was a baby skydiver running around the dropzone sucking my thumb and having candy stolen from me by the big bad freefliers I have been one to ask questions of everyone I could find. I would ask the instructors of course, I would ask the skygods (well, really they'd just hear me ask someone else and come over and tell me what was right), and I would ask the people in my peer experience group hoping that they might have gotten good information from someone else. I would then take all of the different opinions, references, agreements, disagreements, and snide remarks, jumble them around in what remains of my brain (thank you high school poor life decisions) and form my belief and go with it. Usually it's easy to weed through the bullshit and recognize the DGITs and DGIT like advice, but this weekend I was presented with some information that borders on disturbing and I want to run it by the infinite wisdom that this community has to offer and see if my concerns are founded OR if I was passed on some advice that, though sounding ridiculous, is in fact valid. I have begun the first step in downsizing. I have completed all of the requirements many times over on the "Do this before downsizing or you will undoubtedly die a horrible death... probably not from skydiving, but that's irrelevant" list... or whatever it's called. My next step is to decide which direction to go, do I stay with my current planform and buy a Sabre2 150 or do I demo a Sabre2 150 for several jumps, get comfortable with the downsize, and buy a Katana 150 as swooping and ultimately expensive handkerchiefs, very thin string, long yonkle lines, and a broken ankle or two are my goal. I presented this quandary to a fellow skydiver while at the Keys Boogie (sucks if you weren't there... it was awesome) who was more than happy to discuss my future nylon choices and as he is a Velocity pilot with many years of swooping under his belt, I felt that he had the potential to be a good source of information. His response was that my best next step would be to jump a Stiletto 150 based on the fact that the Sabre2 and the Stiletto are similar canopies in that the Stiletto is an elliptical modification of the Sabre1 so I will find, though more responsive and touchy, some similar flight characteristics to my Sabre2 making the transition easier and (I think he was hinting at) safer. At this point in the conversation, I was still with him but countered explaining that I do not want to be starting my turn as low as I need to on my Sabre2 and as low as I have witnessed Stiletto pilots have to for their swoop, which is why I am considering a Katana. I recognize it's a faster, more ground hungry canopy but requires more altitude to complete the turn, that makes me think that it gives more time to notice the corner and bail out of it if it's there. (Also Icarus folks, don't get your panties in a bunch, I will be demoing the Crossfire2 as well). Here is where he lost me. The conversation then switched to "there is almost no difference between a Stiletto 150 and a Velocity 120 and that would be your next step". Exqueeze me... baking powder... It sounded like you just said I should downsize from a Stiletto 150 to a Velocity 120 because they have similar flight characteristics. At this point, I discovered I was on a now call and did not know where my altimeter, parachute, or dignity from last night were so I bailed. Never got a chance to finish the conversation, so I thought I'd write a novel to you guys and for those of you still with me... what are your thoughts. -R PS - if the person who I had this conversation with would like to weigh in as well, that would be great. In no way was i trying to ridicule you in this post, but the more I think about the conversation, the more I question that particular canopy progressions merit. Please prove me wrong, I just want to learn! There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day and try it. -- Douglas Adams