JohanW

And look at the horizon. Don't look at the ground, look at the horizon. Finish the flare, and the ground will come up to meet your feet.

If you haven't done so yet, make a rodeo jump without a wingsuit beforehand.
I always climb out as frontfloater with my passenger as backfloater, it works for me (but I have more experience frontfloating than any other position, with or without a suit); make sure passenger knows timing is important in order to make a close exit (arms bent!), it helps to prevent funnels. It is in fact possible to make a stable exit.
Video should be wearing a wingsuit. You can keep up in a track, but the wingsuit will outfly you horizontally after exit.
Required experience: with 110 jumps, I'd take you as a rider (if you also were a pretty little girl, of course ); with you being the horse I'd advise my hypothetical G/F not to get on your back for a couple hundred jumps.
I never bother with a frontloop to throw off my rider, they leave by 5000' by themselves (if your exit altitude is below that, practice the exit but for goodness' sake make it an unlinked one Have you actually practiced instability recovery lately?

Oh, did I mention I think you ought not be in a wingsuit at your jumpnumbers anyway? Also, I think you should upsize your main (you can keep the reserve, but lay off the BASE for some more skydives too) and do things a little differently from those around you

Be safe, have fun, and know we worry.

One life or 200, they're priceless. You can always buy a new plane.

Sure, more is at stake. But the cut-off is between 0 and 1, no higher.

(I actually think spectators are worth keeping in one piece too.)

Not a tandem instructor.

Actually, I mean the harness/container. I should probably reread the TSO and find out. The cypres doesn't worry me, the main not so much, but the harness and the reserve had better work, right?

People have jumped in colder than -40°C of course, I've never heard of gear freezing to the point of breaking, but I'm not sure it's certified below -40.

Maybe you don't want to know, but isn't your gear certified to -40°C? Anyway, below -30°C the visor in my helmet starts to freeze over, that's about my limit. But it rarely gets that cold here (in the Netherlands).

Also, make sure you throw your pilot far, far away from you. A 10' bridle may help, though it's by no means necessary.

BTW, is your profile accurate? I sure hope you forgot to log a couple hundred jumps ..

You are a falling leave!

The 1.2 wingload would be with the weights, and you were not going to do that, I read that. (Phew! Good.)

Even if you have your A, you're going to be challenged to find people to jump with with your fallrate. Because it wouldn't help you to have the A now anyway, my advice would be to work on the fallrate first. Make some more soloes, maybe get used to wearing some weight. Get the jumpsuit reworked. Work on your arch and body position; there are techniques to fall faster. Even then, I know some guys you're never going to catch without weights, or resorting to freeflying.

Yes. Yes.

There are goggles that fit over glasses, there are helmets that fit over glasses. I have a helmet that does not fit over my glasses, and when jumping I wear contacts instead. Both the goggles and the helmets that would fit over my glasses are too big for my liking. Goggles can actually blow off at 200 mph.

Wearing a (hard) helmet is mandatory for AFF and S/L students everywhere I know of, but not required for tandem. For tandem, you could wear a frap hat (sort of a 'soft helmet'). Ask. Helmets and the like mostly protect your ears from riser slap on opening, otherwise the effect is mostly cosmetic.

Ask your instructor before you jump.

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Now after spending countless hours reading threads on here, I already know the response that I'll get, but I'll say it anyway. Personal ability differs from person to person.

I'll bite.

See you in Incidents.

If your natural fallrate is indeed (now) around 97 mph, there is not a real problem with strapping on some weight. 120 mph is not an unreasonable fallrate. Later, you'll be able to fall faster without the weight, and it might be a good idea to make some more jumps and get your fallrate up. There is always a problem jumping with weight, because it's not your own weight you're carrying. There is a difference.

For a 1.2 wingload on a 135, according to Brian Germain's wingload chart, you would need about 300 jumps (200 for the 1.2, and 100 more for the size below 150). That's the minimum, nobody says you have to load that aggressively. Maybe, with flying experience (you flew a parapente once, I seem to remember?), you can get away with it a little earlier. But not 90% earlier, I think.

I just checked something. Here in the Netherlands, we have a canopy sizing chart that says you need 400 (FOUR HUNDRED) jumps to jump any 135, and by way of currency, you need to have made more jumps in the last 12 months than you have (50). Aren't you lucky you're in a different country?

I really start to feel like a canopy nazi and a conservative old fart now. Chris, go out, have fun, be safe, work with your instructors, and please come back and tell us everything has been just fine in two years from now.

You didn't even try to talk to him? He might not have listened, then again, he might have. You don't know beforehand, do you? I hope I never become that cynical.

Maybe chasing him to another DZ would be a good idea .. if the other one is next to a hospital. Or a cemetery.

Or come to Holland and pay €1250. Or go to Belgium, and pay €1050.

No, I don't know if BPA like our licenses, and people might practice their English on you

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Nope, Tandem harnesses are VERY uncomfortable and restricting – student rigs are much better in comparison, sport rigs are much better still

Tandem harnesses are *worse* than student rigs ?!?

I was not about to make a tandem jump any time soon, but that is one more reason ..

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I've been wanting to ask this for a while and this seems to be a good opportunity.

Is there even a point to a low WL on a HP canopy? I mean, people usually have at least 1.4 or so on a canopy like a Stilleto...especially since you could easily load a Sabre2 or Spectre up to 1.5 or 1.6 within the mfg specs.

A higher performance canopy will have a higher rate of turn, lose more altitude in a turn, dive longer after a turn and may have more oversteer after a turn than a less high performance canopy. It may also react more to front or rear riser or harness input.

It can definitely be more fun. For all these reasons you also need to be a higher performance pilot on a higher performance canopy.

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The comparison I can think of is overpowering a sedan and what you can do driving with it vs just getting a sports car. If a V6 is fine with you in the sports sedan and the associated performance, then fine, but it is pointless to just drive sports car around at only the speed limit.

The sports car accelerates away from the traffic lights faster, doesn't it? It's probably able to negotiate turns faster and tighter than the sedan. Being built for it, it might feel more connected to the road.

There is more to performance than flying or driving straight ahead at top speed.

On the other hand, when your vehicle starts to become the limiting factor instead of you, when you're really wringing it out, that can be really fun too. And your margin of safety can be higher, because you just can't make your vehicle do some, very aggressive, things.

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As far as the reserve goes, it's a pd143 and I've flown it already 2 weeks ago, unintentionally. It was fine.

I just love n=1 experiments. But I think you've had enough shit over your choice of main, and do not deserve the same shit over your choice of reserve. (My opinion everyone! Let the flamefest continue, but direct it at me!)

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For body position, I think I'm pretty stable for the most part. I haven't had line twists since my student jumps and once on the Sabre 150 due to end cell closure on one side.

Packing. I've packed every chute I've jumped since about jump 10 as well. To be honest, I think my packing goes into the bag very nicely and have never had a problem on deployment. I take a lot of care in my packing, especially since my reserve ride which I thought was my fault, but turned out to be a tension knot. Still could be packing error but it happened and I got out of it.

There was a thread somewhere 'round here recently which mentioned the common cause for tension knots. I can't be bothered to search for it myself right now, but it should pop right up. Tension knots are caused by .. bad body position on opening, specifically a dipped shoulder (or deploying more or less on your side), so that the lines have uneven tension. So not having twists anymore may not be totally indicative of good body position. My own body position on opening has been less than perfect significantly later than at 30 jumps; I respectfully suggest you can only compare to worse performances, not to better than you have ever done. You've learned a lot, but there may be a lot more to learn still.

According to your profile, you currently jump a Spectre. I've been told they both have the same airfoil, but the planforms are dramatically different. Chalk and cheese - they're both solids

What are you looking for in a canopy?

Not to mention, demo it! Discuss how to fly and flare a Stiletto with an experienced canopy pilot who's flown both, and find out. You should be able to land it, @1.0, with 400 jumps. If you flare evenly.

And I don't know what a hesitation band is either.

Care to enlighten me? TIA.

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How's the Vision fly at 1.3? Aerodyne's website seems to vaguely recommend a 1.6 loading [per the 'canopy selector' chart]. Just curious for curiosity's sake, I've yet to read much about it.

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I really don't know what I'm talking about

And you should not. Nor should he.

C'mon guys, he's Russian .. anything goes They do things a little differently over there

At least, that's the reasoning I seem to remember from another thread, involving this and another jumper from Russia.

Katzurki, I don't know how to get through to you .. but we worry. Please don't end up a statistic.

You could have warned that's a 60MB vid

12 looks like Veronika Emer. 64 would be Elisabeth Ganzer. The resolution sucks, though.

And one of these days you'll get my name right ..

You didn't count in the very big bird numbered 72, did you?

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I don't even know if Porters are certified for flight in instrument conditions.

At least here in the Netherlands, they are. Skydive Rotterdam has one, and has done night jumps with it. 'Round here, that's IFR - no such thing as Night VFR.

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I also know a fatality of a friend that the gloves played a part...He could have prevented it, but without the gloves it would have not been an issue.

Ron, sorry to hear about your friend.
Even if this is not Incidents, could you please elaborate on this? I'm one of those that jumps with gloves even in 100+ temps, and I'd like to learn from this if possible; otherwise, sorry I asked.

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We did it!! It was a blast, and made for a great video.

So - where is the video?

Congratulations on your 100th jump, and keep having fun!