Auryn

damn it!

Got pulled over on the way to the DZ at 3:30 AM.. that's right kids.. a cop had a speed trap set up that damn early in the am.. I didn't even think to tell him where I was going.. the ticket was for 21 over the limit right after a change from 55 to 35.. sucked big time. Blue Ones ! Bryan

Blue Skies ! Bryan

We cannot let this little incident get out on my home dropzone.. I don't want any nicknames.. See you soon samantha.. remember.. keep the cat incident a secret. Blue Ones ! Bryan

as an experiment you might consider wearing a heart monitor on a jump.. I did so and got a max reading of 188 BPM (on opening).. if you focus on that compared with mental performance, you might come up with a pretty good presentation. Blue Ones ! Bryan

You know you're a skydiver when.. your girlfriend is a skydiver. your best friend came over to show you..... skydiving video he had edited. you just dropped 300 dollars on a camera helmet. you own a mini DV camera and don't even consider using it on the ground. you took your bed out of your room to make room to be able to lay your canopy out to dry because.... you had to wash it when your cat pissed on it because she's jealous of said girlfriend. you're seriously considering getting rid of said cat. farts are funnier when you're 23 than they were when you were 8. you had a 6 pack of beer for dinner. you know what blue sky twitch is. this is me, right now :) Blue Ones !! Bryan.. anyone care to add to the list ?

I currently have, and have always had, a phantom 180 square reserve... If I have to use it, what can I expect about how it flies ??? please give me your experience if you have it !!! Bryan A-33374 251 jumps.. trying to set the world record for the most jumps with an A license. Blue Ones !

ROL has another drawback that has not been mentioned yet. If you accidentally twist your leg strap when you put on your rig and dont catch it, you will have a pilot chute in tow malfuction.. the bridle will be unable to extract the bag from the container. The mainainace mentinioned eariler will be a serious hassle as well.. trust me.. I spent a lot of $$ maintaining velcro on a vector II... it was less than it was worth. not being able to reach your BOC may have been just as much a part of tension from the skydive as anything else.... relax your whole body, become one with the air, and you may find it to be easier to get to that pesky handle.. ROL is old technology and may be a bad idea. Blue Skies Bryan Klindworth A-33374 251 jumps, refuses to get a better license. DAMN the night jumps, they dont happen often enough.

here's a funny story, and Ill try to tell it even tho I suck at telling funny stories. I was doing a three way with my DZM and his wife, who have a billion jumps each, so I was excited to be able to learn some stuff from them. As we were going on to jump run and I was doing my final gear check, the DZM said to me "don't screw up, or else I will beat you with a newspaper." I looked at him, laughed a bit, and made a mental note that I would be getting hit with a newspaper after we landed. We chunked a compressed accordion which went off perfectly, and not 2 seconds into the freefall, I hear the "WHAP" of something against my helmet. I turn and look at my DZM just in time to see him hit me 2 more times with a rolled up newspaper. :) We turned about 12 or so points with him holding onto the newspaper the entire time. he let it go at about 5 grand and we broke off. what happened was: the plane we were jumping had just been ferried from another DZ and someone riding it had left a newspaper behind. he found it, managed to hide it under his arm and get it right on exit. before this tho, he showed his wife, so she knew the whole time what was going to happen :) Blue Skies ! Bryan

Here is a little info I'd like to share with everyone and see who else has done this. A friend of mine has a watch that works with a heart rate monitor worn over the heart. It is entirely wireless working on radio signal from the monitor over the heart to the watch. sooo.. I wore it skydiving. Here is that data collected: btw, Im a 23 year old male, 155lbs 235ish jumps. resting heart rate, around 80 bpm. gearing up: 120 bpm, fluctuating somewhat. walking to the the plane, 155 bpm :) climb to altitude and door couldn't be read because the radios in the plane interfered with the transmission of the data. freefall, steady 177 bpm, checked 3 times. immediately after opening: 188 bmp. highest recorded. heart rate stayed above 170 bpm for the majority of the canopy ride. 150 bpm immediately after landing. it took about 15 minutes after landing to return back to normal. Anyone else done this ?? what kind of data did you get ? Blue Skies ! Bryan

pulling an all nighter for school ?? I need some support !! arghhh. This really sucks ! and what's worse is, I have a date tomorrow night, and might be absolutely worthless for it ! any tips on how to impress a girl when you haven't slept the night before ? Blue Ones ! Bryan

I think you've summed up the leason I learned quite nicely with this :) you said it better than I could. my mistake was not failing to hear my audible, the mistake was not being aware of my altitude myself.. the audible is just a back up, and I had always anticipated breakoff before my audible goes off.. it's sort of a "below 5000 feet now, getting close.. getting closer.. beep ! breakoff !" sort of thing.. not being in that state of mind is just inviting problems. with failing to hear my audible it resulted in me saddling out waaaaaay too close to ground. a newbie asked me a while ago "what do you think the single most important piece of safety equipment in skydiving is ?" and I replied "my brain and my knowledge.. and always trying to expand it." and then I go and do this the next weekend. doh. thanks for the input about audible settings, and the recommendation to keep my alti on my wrist.. I will do both. and for the other question, I was wearing a Z1, so I think a second audible would be louder.. does anyone have this configuration ?? can you tell me how it works ? Blue Ones ! Bryan

Hello all ! it's been 2 weeks since this happened to me, and I've decided to post what happened so others can learn from my mistake.. I know I have. I never thought I could go low.. I'm ALWAYS altitude aware, I have an audible, and have always pulled at my intended altitude with a nice healthy track beforehand. it was jump number 210, I was doing a 3 way freefly with a a couple of friends, it was one of the guy's 100th jump. I set my audible to 4500 for break off, we wanted a lot of time to get away from each other since we were lower experience.. I have done about 20 or so freefly jumps and can keep my freefall speed up, although not always perfectly stable.. I still tend to fly on my knees.. but I can stay fast and not cork. we launched a 2 way horny gorilla w/ the third guy following us out... the Horny gorilla picked up a lot of speed (180 on the pro track) so the third guy could not keep up. mistake 1. we tried to move into a linked sit after the HG started to break, and we held it for a bit and then it let go. I couldn't find the third guy, but the other person in the HG with me was right in front of me. I worked on my sit and staying close to him (he was in a stand) and keeping my heading off flight line (i've had some back sliding issues.. I wanted to stay safe.) I was keeping the sit great and not back sliding at all.. wooohoooo !! I haven't checked my altitude yet at this point. next thing I see is the guy that's still with me go belly and pull. I immediately thought we were a little low, so I went right to my belly and was going to check my alti.. BUT when I slowed down, I heard my audible giving the 2nd PULL signal !!! my brain immediately went into OH SH@T mode (I think we've all been there before for other reasons:)) I didn't waste any time checking my altimeter. I pulled, no track or anything. as I was pulling, my audible flat lined. once I got my canopy, I looked at my altimeter. 1100 feet. I covered my cutaway handle with one hand ready to chop if I felt my reserve go off my back.. thanks cypres for NOT firing ! turned it around and was the first to land from the load. Here's what I learned. I mostly belly fly, and now know that I have to watch even more vigilantly for the shorter free fall time of free fly jumps. I had done 2 RW dives earlier that day, so my internal clock was set to RW speeds, and I didn't remind myself to ignore it. I intentionally didn't check my altimeter during the jump because I didn't want to screw up my sit fly. (JUST PLAIN DUMB) Im going to get a second audible, I couldn't hear mine because of the higher freefall speed though break off. hopefully two will be loud enough to get me faster warning if this happens again. Im going to make a mud flap mount for my alti for when I am freeflying. I hope someone can learn from this, I definately learned that I can screw up just as easily as the next guy.. Blue Skies !!! STAY SAFE ! Bryan

1:2:1 2 jumps on Saturday, one being my first REAL canopy ride. I have put over 150 jumps on my PD 170 that has been great to me.. She never malfunctioned, I got her to open beautifully every time (it's all in the slider) and I felt like I knew her in and out, like a best friend. But, shes been a little boring lately, so Ive been looking elsewhere. Enter a Jonathan 150 wing loading 1.2ish to 1. WOW. going from an f111 to an elliptical zero P is a huge difference. theres a lot of mixed reviews of the Jonathan, but I had a great experience on it. Great opening, but VERY different.. it turned super fast.. I got a lot of zero G feeling at the bottom of turns (looking up, the canopy was totally below the horizon.) much much less toggle input needed.. Risers were stable, but the front riser turns were actually not as quick to happen as my PD. Rear risers were VERY responsive. I had to shift a bit in my harness to get it to fly straight once it opened (another very interesting change) I could also really notice the steeper angle of attack.. rear risers are definately needed to get back from a long spot. landing was almost effortless. Not nearly as much toggle needed to get a flare.. The whole experience can be best described as totally bad ass, except the packing which is a lot harder. I was having as much if not MORE fun under canopy as in free fall. The PD never felt that way. I will never go back !!!!! I loved the ride, and can't wait to explore it's performance. the only other bad part is now having a fear of line twists. But it's worth it. Anyone looking for a good first canopy ? I have a PD 170 for sale ! Blue Skies ! Bryan

I have no idea.. They cost entirely too many jumps to even consider purchasing one!!

I don't post here very often, but I wanted to share this past weekend with someone. so why not a LOT of skydivers ? I made my 200th this weekend, and it was incredible ! more signifigant to me than my 100th, and not b/c of the jump, but the ride to altitude and the people around that weekend. first, I made my 198th and 199th with a couple of really cool guys I had only jumped with once.. they had 60ish jumps each, and we put together a couple of good learning 3 ways.. when we got to the ground and they learned from the advice I had given them, it was an incredible feeling ! the best part was what I learned from the skydive, specifically about diving at a formation (I had posted here earlier for advice, applied it, and I'll be damned if it didn't work!) I spent the 10 minute ride on Frankenotter on my 200th looking at the world beneath me and something that had been creeping around in my head for a while finally REALLY set it. Why I do this. Everything about this sport really puts me in touch with me, centers my feelings, makes me feel like a child again, a world where I can have a stupid grin on my face and it's okay. More importantly, I get to see the world created by God in the special way we see it, a way very few people get to see it. I get to feel the feelings very few but us get to feel.. Love, life, death, speed, silence, noise. Air: the ever elusive element, except to me. After landing, I immediately thought back to this poem: Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . . Up, up the long, delirious burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or ever eagle flew — And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod The high untresspassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. — John Gillespie Magee, Jr I've thought of it before, but it was different this time. I LIVE it. NOW. and so I go on my journey, now TRULY accepting who I am. A skydiver. And this weekend, I will touch the face of God again. I Love this sport. BLUE SKIES everyone ! Bryan

23 here.. been jumping for 4 years now so I started when I was 19.. and acted like it sometimes at the dz.. got me in trouble around a bunch of adults.. felt really young tho.. still do, but I love it. Blue Skies ! Bryan K.

I own a Flexon DOM 1997.. I have about 40 jumps on it, and enjoy it thoroughly, but I do have 2 questions. 1: it came with soft housing which I had converted to hard housings before I ever jumped it. After the conversion, 2 inches of cutaway cable are exposed between the housing and the pillow.. Have there been any sort of problems with this ? 2: I have noticed on mine and 1 other flexon that a touch of reserve cable is visible in the very small gap left between the reserve flap and the reserve container flaps at the top of the container.. it isn't in a housing at all.. any problems in the past with this ? Blues Ones ! Bryan

Thanks a lot y'all !! these are exactly the tips I am looking for.. I think I am in too much of a delta sort of position.. Im going to try getting my arms along my sides more(I'll try grabbing onto my rig to make myself do it), and dearching more.. can't wait to try it on my next jump.. Arghh.. forgot my reserve is being repacked now. will have to wait a week. Thanks again ! Blue Skies ! Bryan

Hey all ! I don't post often, but would love some advice from everyone here ! I have 194 jumps and have been working on various aspects of my RW skills. I've been making good progress w/ everything (side slides, orbiting, fall rate tweaking, centering turns, tracking better and better yada) EXCEPT diving at a formation. here's what typically happens: A: 90% of the time I go into a dive and am carrying too much forward motion, so I have to fly from one side of the formation to the other as a I catch up to it (slowly I might add) and end up spending a lot of time over the formation (bad bad) and get there last. B: 5 %: I don't know how I do it, but I get a great dive and get there first, dock softly, and fly my ass off, great skydive for me. C: 5%: get there waaaay early and shoot right over/under the formation while trying to slow down and dock. I guess I am asking.. what body position do you use to get a good dive w/ minimal forward motion and still be able to stop it when you need to during your approach to the base ? Blue Skies ! Bryan

I also bought my Cypres from him.. He delivered quickly and made some very special shipping arrangements to get it to my rigger for install (which turned out to be pretty complicated) He did a great job for me. Blue Skies ! Bryan

I'm here too.. (This is actually my beer post to the dz.com board) I'm taking a break from packing for Rantoul ! Unfortunately I don't get there till TUESDAY !!! arrgg.. only 6 days. Will just have to skydiver harder to make up for it. Enough ramblings, gotta get back to work. Wish I was there. Blue Skies ! Bryan

Please Help !! Is anyone coming through the Raleigh area any time this weekend to go to the convention ?? I have a way back from Rantoul but no way up there !! Please Help me ! I would be more than happy to pay for your gas and then some ! Thanks ! Bryan K AtreyuOne@hotmail.com