Why do I fall so fast?

[gimpboogie 0]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBvgkCgj1hg


Here's one of my sunset tracking dives (with Andy, a tandem video flyer and one of only 2 guys here who can keep up to me -yeti)

This was a fun sunset load.
We decided to take the old door-less 206 out and get some 'race you to the bottom' going down,

seems my fall rate is so fast (well over 150mph on belly and tracking 180+ now that I've started practicing Atmo the Vigil tells upwards of 200 and neptune says 190-200 range whats up with that?)our video flyers need to catch up in head down =whats with that?

is that the case with the other paralyzed fellows around here-you fall fast?

I mean I'm not the skinniest girl around, but we sure have some much bigger/heavier guys (and gals) around and I haven't yet found someone else who falls like a HOUSE!

whats up with that?

To become active member in the Bonus Days Club you must very narrowly escape eternal freefall ... one exciting time.)-Pat Works

[crashtested 0]

I have no idea if you have leg movement or not.... your tracking dive has very little drive, due to leg position.

i'm guessing you are tracking with more head down movement as in Italian in style. so those kinds of speeds are consistent with that style.

good luck with it all

[Amazon 7]

Quote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBvgkCgj1hg


Here's one of my sunset tracking dives (with Andy, a tandem video flyer and one of only 2 guys here who can keep up to me -yeti)

This was a fun sunset load.
We decided to take the old door-less 206 out and get some 'race you to the bottom' going down,

seems my fall rate is so fast (well over 150mph on belly and tracking 180+ now that I've started practicing Atmo the Vigil tells upwards of 200 and neptune says 190-200 range whats up with that?)our video flyers need to catch up in head down =whats with that?

is that the case with the other paralyzed fellows around here-you fall fast?

I mean I'm not the skinniest girl around, but we sure have some much bigger/heavier guys (and gals) around and I haven't yet found someone else who falls like a HOUSE!

whats up with that?

I fall much faster than any house ever has

If that is you in the video.. it seems you have a very tight suit ... very tight at the ankles.. tight at the wrist...

Large people need to dress for success.. large canvas jumpsuit with some extra drag will help immensely.

When I want to go fast ( 300MPH+) I wear a tight suit.... when I want to jump with the tiny little floaty butts who weigh half of what I do.. I wear a large suit with lots of drag... booties... big underarm wings.. and I can get down to fall rates around 104.

Dress for Success.

[gimpboogie 0]

Quote

I fall much faster than any house ever has

If that is you in the video.. it seems you have a very tight suit ... very tight at the ankles.. tight at the wrist...

Large people need to dress for success.. large canvas jumpsuit with some extra drag will help immensely.

When I want to go fast ( 300MPH+) I wear a tight suit.... when I want to jump with the tiny little floaty butts who weigh half of what I do.. I wear a large suit with lots of drag... booties... big underarm wings.. and I can get down to fall rates around 104.

Dress for Success.

i cant wear loose-Angus (my AFF instructor realized (and its been proven in the air as well as the tunnel) that as soon as I put on even a long sleeved cotton sirt, the extra 'floppy' material creates so much instability that i flop around like a rag doll.

well maybe not that bad-but bad enough that I cant deploy in a safe body position as I have no idea what position i will be in, by that time

With no control of my body under all that body armor (i call it my body cast) as I literally am locked into position under neath TONS of very tight layers under the motocross pants there are the hard metal braces for mets-then several layers of tensor bandages and other materials to keep all the metal in place - [i told my DZO that i need to start doing blind man landings consistently because its the only way i can ensure i wont break myself one day-if i time my flare just a little wrong-in the too low department, or if the ground is not smooth enough or grass not cut so i cant see the contours of the terrain where im going to land-my heel can catch the ground first-and thats it-there are no joints above it that will have any give-everything is locked into place.

so anyways I do trust Angus when it comes to skydiving, with his30+ yrs of experience (world records, and truly being the only one in Canada who could have taught me to fly-except perhaps Mario -re team evolution)...
and in the tunnel- i did toss up a few months back my tunnel RW camp video im wearing a long sleeved shirt-you see me potato chipping constantly.
I'm used to it, when it in the tunnel-its safe there no issues to be concerned about deployment.
infact, when recently i was doing some 2 way work,
with the huge layers of tight clothing (right now its -5 at top floor-so everyone else is wearing tons of layers as well-or hoodies under jumpsuits a few pairs of long johns under there tossed in)
and was without trouble doing between and 9 ponts but one day i forgot to tape up the sleeves of the tshirt i wore on top of those layers for warmth-as i used to duct tape the sleeves against the tight layers so even the short sleeves would not flap around,
i was not able to get 3 points,

so Angus' words resonated in my head-i taped up the sleeves, and the next jump bang im back to 8 points.

the 'point' being, that any extra material flopping around,
i loose lotts of control
since i must do all my flying with arms, and head.
levels to come forward to dock is the hardest- i need to fly levels with my head only (Olga in the tunnel taught me how to do that) and forward with my hands, then to remain stable in front of you as soon as i get to you, i need to raise my elbows
so i can use my hands to dock

i hope that was simple enough way to explain it,
as i have a tendency to have difficulty being concise

thus, even if i got fellows with their tight suits, one PFF instructor i did a 2 way with,
he's about 30 lbs more then me (again another jumper from the 70's onward, was in world champion teams, etc. etc. so someone who has an idea of what hes doing-basically)

To become active member in the Bonus Days Club you must very narrowly escape eternal freefall ... one exciting time.)-Pat Works

[Amazon 7]

Perhaps if you balanced out the floppy both upper body and on your legs for more drag... maybe try it out in the tunnel to work out the bugs there

[gimpboogie 0]

Quote

I have no idea if you have leg movement or not.... your tracking dive has very little drive, due to leg position.

i'm guessing you are tracking with more head down movement as in Italian in style. so those kinds of speeds are consistent with that style.

good luck with it all

interesting comment-I didnt ever hear of this Italian style-

now that was my 1st attempt out the 206, so we had only 6,000 f to play with, the next video i post -the video guy was so far above me that you now can see that i do have forward movement on that one-as i had to turn around and go back to jump run to deploy a little closer to home as I have a video 'winds, turbulance and trees' which im pretty sure my DZO would not like to see a 2nd episode of (I just thought it was good BASE practice to try to sink that big bus i was flying, into a hole in the bush the size of our packing room-no seriously I made the mistake on geting in the load in the first place-when tandems are standing still due to winds I WILL fly backwards, (and I also opened high, to play around, then ended up with trouble rigging up my leg straps that lift my legs for landing-as i cant do a darn thing with them-they are total floppy death traps if not braced up like I wrote in the post to the other person replying about what a body cast i wear under all those clothing)....

so anyways, thanks for the info-as i am trying to balance it out, between figuring out how to GO FAST (my love is to become proficient one day in atmo-its all i'm interested in currently for skydiving asides from the tasks required for my next licence -as I've tried sit-not work so good and back flying is fun but i like to go faster then i can on m back-so learning to go fast on my belly is first)

but DESPITE my love to try to go fast,
i MUST also be able to stay with a group. not just sink our on them all.

Much appreciate your thoughts. please check out the second video im posting to tell me if you see any differences-although im so far away from the video guy that my body position is not very evident, but you can see the distance i go before i turn around to come back to jump run.

i think that one worked better-but we also had 10,000f to play with that time.

To become active member in the Bonus Days Club you must very narrowly escape eternal freefall ... one exciting time.)-Pat Works

[gimpboogie 0]

Quote

Perhaps if you balanced out the floppy both upper body and on your legs for more drag... maybe try it out in the tunnel to work out the bugs there

interesting idea.
considering i must wear those same motocross pants (they have a panel at the crotch sort of like the pheonix fly tracking suits) purely just to keep my legs from falling down towards the ground at the hips level-the air catches that to keep my legs 'horizontal from hip to knees-and the knees are locked into a 90 degree angle.

these braces are really on their last few dives digging into my legs leaving bloody stab wound looking things each day-as i must weare the stuff all day if i plan to jump more then once-which i usually do every day i jump (i moved to live at the DZ just for this reason)

now, can you think of ideas i can add more drag/material for the next pair of pants that we need to make.
(after 3 yrs of sliding on my butt to land-only way i can wether its blidn man or not-the material is so thin now that one good passing gas moment and i'll blow a hole right through them)

other modifications we did to the pants were to add zippers from ankles to knees so that the essential service of draining that leg bag is possible without dragging the pants etc. all right off.
thus velcro at the ankles as motoross pants tend to be 'tighter' at the ankles.

I dont know what skydiving suit company would make something tough enough in material to both withstand the constant butt slide landings AND be strong enough not to tear at the knees. I have seat belt material sewn onto the knees, and from there they go up to my chest harness to clip them up there after deployment, but in FF the straps are inside pockets sewn on top of them-so I do not have extra material flopping around in FF to potentially interfere with my 'ooh sh*t handles'... as when I pull up the legs the pant material must be strong enough to not only with stand holding to all the hardware under them-to keep my legs in place.(and I'd still have to have a rigger to sew all these mods)

the drag addition to the legs seems interesting to try.

a tunnel trip is not in the budget this winter, as I'm trying to get to Zhills and will be at bridge day next weekend-both huge commitments financially for me.
but I'm encouraged o get some options i didn't think of myself-the drag onl egs.

i tried with a webbed glove in the tunnel, and to my surprise it was horrid-not good at all for me,
while another paralyzed fellow uses one still perhaps-i should check up on Dale and see if he still uses the glove...
but it just shows how different each paralyzed skydiver is.
another, who flies on his back,
has his legs tied together (like I used to in the beginning I'm not sure if Dale still uses his same set up as he started with-having the straps similar to mine but ist again quite different type of set up, and only goes to show how each of us need to modify things literally individually.

When I first started here, we followed Tonto's teachings (his legacy for teaching Peter to fly remains, and continues to be modified upon-that man was brilliant) so we trudged along and once I started flying, Dale showed up, and picked up this quickly (as he also had been skydiving a little pre injury and was a jump pilot if i recall) which al may help in that you at least know how its supposed to be done if your able bodied.

the came Pookie in Zhills, who is trying out a variety of ways, but gelerally has been flying in a style tuck-last video i saw of pookie was back flying, but the depoyment seems to need some fine tuning-I think he also will 'make it' (better to hold faith then the opposite),

then PackingJarrett (sorry if i miss spelled that no disrespect meant),
and he picked up on this all fastest out of us all-perhaps due to his extensive experience over the years (and probably everyone knows that well before any of the rest of us is Lonnie-he then actually is truly the 1st pioneer in flying as a paralyzed fellow

Lonnie can stand with some aid-leaning on something, being held up by friends etc so in the one video i saw of him skydiving he's absolutely awesome-better then many with no such injuries....
yet Lonnie is sort of in a class of his own, like comparing lance Armstrong to the neighbour who started biking and is entering his first race LOL.

I am comfortable enough with the skies now with a few hundred jumps that I am willing to experience with some stuff in the skies as well...
ive had to doa few 'interesting' moves up there-like the day my helmet started to slowly lift-i just gabbed it while my body was barrel rolling, and was able to tighten the buckle before my roll was becoming dangerous side spin....

i LIKE THE THING OF THE DRAG ON LEGS balanced out with arms.
i wonder if 'mini' wings like video flyers use-could help. 0nly way to know is to try to sew some with a decent cut a way system in case something drastic is happening.

please have a look at my other video and see if you can offer pointers any further.

its important for me, although I can fly 2 way on belly with folks but i wont be able to join tracking dives until figure this out.

To become active member in the Bonus Days Club you must very narrowly escape eternal freefall ... one exciting time.)-Pat Works

[gimpboogie 0]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdxA_G6pgLQ

with CLIFF

To become active member in the Bonus Days Club you must very narrowly escape eternal freefall ... one exciting time.)-Pat Works

[Amazon 7]

Quote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdxA_G6pgLQ

with CLIFF

I could catch ya

I caught Aubrey at Perris when he was a newbie.. the man is way over 300 lbs out the door.. I could not arch hard enough to stay with him on my belly.. but in a sit.. no problem
Ok how about pants that are just really baggy like a bell bottom with an inner piece of material that velcros around your ankle. Then try a C Shaped scoop facing down that would help to inflate the bell bottom. I have seen somethign similar on one of the speed divers so that his booties inflated.. to give nim better stability when in a no lift speed dive.you can get a seamstress to build some.. out of heavy duty canvas... they would not be flatering but the extra material would help.

On the front for the knees and on your but.. do as many TI's do and have a velcro patch sewn onto the pants. you can even make it double thickness.

[gimpboogie 0]

Amazon,
so happy to know someone will say yes they can catch me
see that last video cliff was in sit you see his knees
and im so far away.
did i not go horixontal distnce last the place you see forest started and turned around to go back to jump run
at least cliff caught that all
if so far away
i respect him for trying so hard
flying with his knees tucked up to his chest
to try.
at least to watch me.

and your ideas i like.
just not toally understand what it woud all look like.

i dont care if it look like a clown
if it makes me fly slower so i can fly with others.

to do my 2 way endorsement jumps
i tried 7 coach jumps
and ony guys to keep up with me on belly wre
ether super good eperienced flyers who are not coaches but i was able t get one of those two dives signed off by a coach.

or gareth, the TM/AFF guy who is a big 6 foot tall strong muscled man
muscle weight more then fat so he may weight lots more then me
i weigh 170
thats more then enough as it is.
add that junk i got to weat it puts me up to 190 plus geat up to 205.
thats 35 lbs extra more then me alone.

but still i fall faster then the 205+ lb guys

so even gareth wore weights 16 lbs.
and the skinny Randy, who was the jump i got signed off
may weight 150-160 at most with all gear on
be tossed the 16 lbs on and i saw how he was always moving his arms and legs and folded up like a gumby doll
to fly that 2 way,
we got 9 points and he never left my level
exceot intentionally to do levels.

but those guyw are rare here.

now if i could have a drawing of what those ideas for the pants look like.
i will find a way to make it.

i still have canvas from when i was artist and painted lots and made my own frames to stretch canvas on.
that canvas should be heavy ehough.

money is always issue when you live on disability pension,
as its well below poverty level
and only way i can even jump is because my DZO never charged me more then my slot
and always allowed me to pick up garbage, keep the grounds clean and other things to put money in account for credit to even pay for that slot.

so in a sense, all these few hundred jumps DZO subsized to let me almost as if to jump for free.
as he paid the credits into my account that allowd me to just pay for that slot in the firs place.

Angus who i never will sop respecting,
he gave all his TM work of my tandem progression for free and all AFF jumps for free
tunnel donated time in NH.

i never tlell tese because i dont want peole thinking

'why not me? why do the gimps get these gifts?"
and its true valid questions,
so i dont share them

but today i do
so peole actually know
how much everyone gives to me.

even to sew my pants a rigger did the work for free.
to fix my broken zipper,
a lady who used to work in a wing suit factory
but moved to canada and does not have same kind of job bere
but is so good she sew up the whole accuracy team for canada to go to workds
their suits.
shes that good
and she helped fix the pants again for free.
Nina Topic is the lady and she gives deeply from her heart
while she can charge as its all the money she can get
is the work she does for skydivers
being new to the country
until her career life returns and she will be doing ok again.

so these gifts are all that keeps me flying as it is.

please can you draw what that looks like?
so i can try to get it swwn.

yes best idea ever
to have these things sewn on to pants,
because legs dont do anything but weigh me down
most
due to these metal braces.

i want to turn them into fibre glass braces like i had slo long ago showed Dale about in email and tell him where to go-to get original info-peter hewiitt
who first had those fibre glas braces.
DALE quickly made them,
and they working for him,

gypsum to make the casts costs $7/roll here
and it took me 6 months to save enough to to get what i thought was enough to make one leg cast.
again no help to make it,
Dale's mom patiently helped him make the first set
the ones made out of cast
to give a mold arond which to put the fibre glass.
so now, i need to save another 6 months to get more gypsum
so i can make the next leg bace
and hopw what i did for left leg wwas enough
to try to use it as mold for that let.

the fibreglass-most expensiv part of this all
costs even more!!

Thats why i still fly with these metal bars inside,
wrapped up by tons of tensor bandages,
those elastic 'nads' peole use to stretch so they excercise musces
tied around that all.
to help keeo it together.

so a drawing will help me much
i can sow it to Nina
and maybe she can swe it up and not ask for much money
or i find something to give toher in return.

your words give me hope.
as i want to so much to get my A before i am too sick to get it at all.

only those coached jumps are in the way.
need 5, but have 4 that i passed,
the other 2 i failed.
as i missed that one last point the coach asked,.
i coulld make excuses and say we only got from 11,000 to 6,000 f working time
while all others who jumped with me
got 13,500f down to 4,500f
yes lots of diffence in working time
but no ecuses

i must do it regazrdless if they give me 4,000f total to work in,
like those last two dives ihad 5,000f to work in.

the last one i failed.
was so hard for me to accept.
as i had about 20f to close in to make that last dock.
while the break of he wanted was at 6,000f
i dont know why, but thats what i had towork with,
and the alti said we were below 6,500f but now quite at 6,00f
that wave off and turn to track aay
was so hard to accept
i so badly wanted to close that last 20 f and just get it -pas it.
because its not my hard deck.
anywhere close to it.
almost 1/2 the distance yet to go for my hard deck,
which is 3,500f for me.
but i had to follow coaches rule
he said break off no later then 5,000f

so i just feel devestated.

and feel like this is not the sport for me
and that i did enpugh dives to just stick with BASE from now on.
my BASE gear only have 22 jumps by me on it
and its all brand new.

so i feel like giving up on trying to get the A
and stick only to BASE.
but the risk there is, without the constant skydiving experience
i wont be any good at BASE and will kill myself sooner then i may otherwise,
ofcourse i hope i wont,
but accept that possibllity.

so your pant idea only gives me hope.
that maybe i dont need to give up on skydiving.

and maybe i can find a way to get thiis last coach dive done.

damn 20F@!!

but THANKS AMAZON! YOUR THE one here now
that whisper words of hope my way.

tonight i go chuck #23,
1st stowed terminal.
cant wait!

To become active member in the Bonus Days Club you must very narrowly escape eternal freefall ... one exciting time.)-Pat Works

[gimpboogie 0]

hey,

not to revel anyones privacy

a fellow PM me with some good questions, and offers to think of what may help.

but to answer those questions,
i tried to PM back

and it says this person has chosen not to accept PM's

if you would want me to reply to those questions here,
without revealing ofcourse your identity,
PM me back.

i will reply them here.
or PM me with a new gmail addy or something that you created just to give me a chance to reply,
so i can communicate back
and at the same time keep our privacy.

i like your questions,
want to answer them all.

and hope to hear back from you.

QUICK REPLY RE THE VIDEO AND WHICH I LIKED THE BEST

AT around seconds 37-44 guy with red helmet and black top=something i think i can do.


and at 1:42/43 the guy in all black,
i think that may work

with the way my legs are locked in.

but to answer your other questions,
id like to hear from you in a way that i can reply
that your find ok for me to reply with,

let me know


thanks,
-minna

To become active member in the Bonus Days Club you must very narrowly escape eternal freefall ... one exciting time.)-Pat Works

[Amazon 7]

I will see what I can put together for you as far as a drawing. I will send you a PM with more info

[gimpboogie 0]

Quote

I will see what I can put together for you as far as a drawing. I will send you a PM with more info

thanks

To become active member in the Bonus Days Club you must very narrowly escape eternal freefall ... one exciting time.)-Pat Works

[gimpboogie 0]

less then 10 times this summer-due to his other commitments, (and toys he bought- a glider etc.)

My friend Chris (this guy can fit through the holes in a screen door surely! if i guess- he's 10-120lbs!

WE jumped first with me on belly- just playing, did some RW (no contact -just proximity), while he did have to delta down to me-even though he exited first, and often had to go into stand for a few seconds and delta towards me to start again, but he was so fast at it that we if we had done this with contact we'd have gotten several points,.

then we played 'catch the gimp' i went into delta after finding him while on my belly, and this lil guy followed me right to the bottom! YAH!

so im a PLEASE TO ANNOUNCE the 1ST ROUND OF CATCH THE GIMP with CHRIS , I LOST!

(maybe some of our video flyers just arent as fast as they could be if lil Chris= who some had teased 'hey Chris do you still remember HOW to skydive' as he had done only about 10 (or less) jumps this summer.

I'm so happy, to have been right there watching him, tossing him a thumbs up and sticking my tongue out at him on deployment.

He did video tape it all-but on landing told me his camera fell off-the mount, was still hanging on by the wire (wow!) so he thinks it probably happened during deployment

then i did a back fly which i will toss up on youtube and my leg brace is so torn up, that one leg is literally bouncing around 30-40 degrees up and down- i only notice it while i flew on my back-because of the foot mount camera i was able to see myself totally and both legs.

now i know that i am in serious need of making those leg braces i really need.
out of fiber glass.
as that floppy leg, is certainly not helping the stability situation.

and once i show the video i will have another question, why i could not get up to sit from back.

yah ok, i never tried to do it that way, but regardless- the video will show what i am trying to do to get up to sit,and it just isn't working-so i just flipped back on belly to slow down as i was screaming through the skies-i didn't count the seconds -yet- but 9,000f went by VERY fast. The fellow who jumped with me- we were both on our backs-he said yah you do fall fast, he needed to occasionally go delta, curl up in a ball to catch up again and then we flew together again-im just impressed that he could do all that with me that jump.

To become active member in the Bonus Days Club you must very narrowly escape eternal freefall ... one exciting time.)-Pat Works

[gimpboogie 0]

Here is they 2nd jump I did with Chris S.
a small (110-120 LBS AT MOST) guy who merely did a dozen jumps this summer,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewo7Qgt_15E

BEAT ME (if he wanted to but was gracious and allowed us to finish together,)

I have Nope- but until I fix my knee braces im goundind myself. My right leg is totally useles hazard in the air a terminal,

the back fly jump i havent even up lodaded yet (and its a 3 min section, without the music etc.
just the real thing, only a bit of slow motion added to show what is happening to my leg.

it is stretched at the hip joint outwards,
while flopping up and down as well- there is barely any hold on that knee at all- isome places it looks to me as if it was broken-but showing it to others they say some flyers already their legs that way-i have i idea how as my hip flexors are so tight that even the physio cant make it stretch that far out to the side.

ive had more important conversation going on, and trying to rest, as my sleep pattersn sort of went out of what in last week trying to cramp in a bunch of stuff i needed done- now the knee brace will wait-until i get help somehow to make a cast and then the fibre glass thing.

anyways, this is a nice video (to me) because Chris is a very young man with his head on his shoulders, as if he was 3x his age in wisdom and I rarely see him -ben almost 2 yrs now.

a real treat-and to have him follow me like there was no effort to it,

Like Amazon said, if i just get the correct body position i i will certain learn this.

maybe it can happen, and maybe i can forget about the 2 way endorsement, if it still wont work once i get the knee braces.

i dont know, but for now.

this is CATCH THAT GIMP AND I LOST YAH!!!!
to the guy who falls lke a feather, from the woman who falls like a house- true display of some FF skills in action from Chris

To become active member in the Bonus Days Club you must very narrowly escape eternal freefall ... one exciting time.)-Pat Works