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Cool to see that you have gotten on board with socialism!

Maybe beating a dead horse here, but this is what I'm looking at. I have 2 static lines on a 220 and then 180 main, 10 min tunnel time, and have been speed flying for 8 years, current speed wing loading is about 2 on my 9m rapi-dos (95sqft) with a projected aspect ratio of 3. I don't intend to be doing any swoops or notable low turns right off the bat, and I am generally reserved under canopy which will hopefully demonstrate diligence to my instructor. All this being said, if I am getting stable freefall and clean openings on whatever student rigs they put me on... wouldn't it seem completely reasonable for me to be eyeballing something like a 150 main as soon as I am ready to pick up a rig? Starting my A license course next week and plan to work with instructors so I don't have any issues with the DZ when I buy my first rig, but I want to pick something up early on.

Do not, under any circumstances, say "but they said on DZ dot com to..." Make sure you understand. If you don't keep asking until you do. Stay hydrated & fed. Have fun.

Ok I'll bite, you do present an interesting case! If the DZ has some good rental gear for downsizing, maybe you can at least convince them to allow a rapid downsizing. Back in the old days, early in the zero-p canopy era, if you were good you might do a couple jumps on a particular size canopy, then downsize a size, and repeat. If going to a sportier canopy, have a few jumps on a more docile canopy of the same size. Anyway, that was my experience in the early 1990s as someone who also thought they were a special case -- a pilot in my case. Try to borrow rigs as well, if needed to help with the downsizing. At least then you might have an idea what works for you before you spend money on gear yourself. If you're already on a 180 at 2 jumps that's just one 1 to 2 more downsizes to a 150 anyway. I'm not a great source of advice as I don't speedfly (only paraglide). I'm not sure of the glide ratios current speedflying or riding canopies are built for, but I'd warn you to be careful of the more ground hungry skydiving canopies until you worked your way into them. At the same wing loading, there can be canopies of widely varying flight characteristics. I guess they aren't really common at say 150 size, but at 135 and under they start to be more common. They have a steep descent (say, glide ratio of under 2.5) and dive sharply in turns. So be careful of the model of canopy and not just size. Whether you end up buying a 150 or whatever, it is just very difficult to know what to look for (in a rig, reserve, and main) when you've only barely started skydiving. You could probably fly and land smaller than a 150 easily enough, but you would also be learning to deal with packing, body position on opening, and dealing with other skydivers on opening and in the landing pattern. So who knows, maybe a 150 at 1.25 loading or thereabouts might be reasonable to stay at for a little while.

Faux Spews is amazing. Imagine how stupid people (the viewers) would feel if they knew that it was owned by an Australian billionaire who doesn't give a shit about facts and truth. One who owns and runs some of the most heinous media outlets on the planet.

Quite often the product is manufactured in another country and there is a different import fee on top of the item price. You get burn a few times then you start looking into the total landed cost. As an example my last purchase was for a Pilot ZPX. On this particular purchase, I was able to avoid the import fees because I was cooperative with the agent and I didn't tell her that the canopy was made in South Africa. After 15 min of searching, she got tired of looking at websites that didn't provide the country of origin and decided that it was coming from the US. US =1750$ original price of purchase CAD = 2425$ include shipping and paypal fees because transferwise was not available with this seller US import fee 0% Taxes = 345$ Total landed = 2770$ South Africa import fee 10% Import fee = 243$ Taxes = 400$ Total landed = 3068$ And yes the tax amount changes because they tax the import fees. Look at duty calculator websites to see your landed cost prior to purchasing anything in a different country to see if it's worth it. https://customsdutyfree.com/duty-calculator/

It sounds like it's built into the fabric. This can happen. They go to great lengths to inspect the fabric and avoid biased rolls, and they flip panels, and other things to try and avoid this but some times the tolerances stack up and you get a canopy with a turn. Their are no good ways to fix it but there are some half assed ways. First try pulling the slider down and letting your chest strap out. It's a small thing but the more curved the canopy is, the closer the risers are together, the more twitchy they tend to be. It just exaggerates the problem. Letting it expand may make it less noticeable. Some thing else you can do, you can't fix the canopy but you can induce a turn the other way. You can do this by intentionally fucking with the symmetry of the line set by changing the trim of one side vs the other. But if you don't to get that adventurous the easiest thing you can do is to extend the full line set on one side. Sounds strange, but we all know that if your harness is asymmetric, one side slips, that it will cause a turn. If for example you add a second set of links to one side of the canopy, both front and back, you have now built a permanent asymmetry into your rig. So you have a permanent 1.25 inch harness turn built into your canopy. In this day in age, you might just have some one build you a pair of longer slinks for one side. It will look goofy. It will freak some people out. If it works you could even shorten the lines on the other side to make it less noticeable but this is the easiest way to half ass fix it. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com