excaza

If the reason you have for not spiraling during an 8k H&P above the briefed cutoff altitude is because you think your AAD will fire, you don't understand your equipment.

Don't regurgitate, learn why they're saying it. You should understand how your equipment works at a deeper level than "don't do it because I said so." If he specifically stated "holding area" then you're generally below 2000 feet, an altitude where you should stop doing extreme maneuvers. There's another 5000 feet above that to play around in if you're doing a hop & pop from that high up. Again, understand what they're telling you. I know what they would say, because it's what I said for the reasons that I gave.

While caution is always to be encouraged, this is a bit much. There is no problem with investigating your canopy's performance envelope provided you receive a proper briefing from someone qualified to do so. This doesn't require a canopy course (though they're awesome and everyone should take them all the time). There is also nothing wrong with spiraling nor stalling given sufficient altitude and airspace. Your AAD is not going to fire at 3000 feet. The problem with newer jumpers spiraling down, besides maybe not doing the most perfect job clearing their airspace, is that it puts them in the pattern with experienced jumpers at a higher wing loading and congests the pattern. It's advisable to do all of this kind of canopy work on hop & pops to avoid this.

Along with the DZ.com classifieds, there's also some highly active facebook groups, like this one. I think some people sell things on ebay too, but it's not an avenue I've ever explored.

Yes it does. It's confusingly labeled as "classifieds" at the top of the page.

It's entirely up to you which route you take. You can go directly between the seller or you can use a rigger as a 3rd party for the transaction. Going with a rigger or another 3rd party (Chutingstar, for example) allows you to have your gear inspected prior to sending money (other than shipping) so you don't get a dud. However, some sellers prefer not to go through the hassle and there are plenty of folks looking for gear who will indulge them.

That is not what I implied. My statement was that the logic does not follow your examples, as billvon and others have already pointed out. Another non sequitur. Sorry, that's not how it works. You are the one that claims doing a 3.5k H&P is putting the student at unnecessary risk. What's your justification? Because it's scary? Meanwhile we've got 65,000 people with USPA A licenses now who have all done at least one 3.5k H&P, more for those who learned using a static line or IAD progression. That's a lot of supposed danger. Where are the incidents? Should be pretty easy to find with a sample size that large, no? Same goes if someone has a container lock, what's your point? Perhaps you should educate yourself on both the purpose of the BSRs and the USPA A license progression. Yet oddly enough you feel your total lack of evidence other than "it's scary" sufficient to demand the removal of the 3.5k H&P from instruction. You'll have to forgive me if I decide to side with the more experienced folks on this one. Meaningless drivel. Besides, if I had a round then I could probably just get out at 500 feet. Four line check & clear air channel? It'll open.

Nobody said there was anything wrong with it. The USPA A card has a 5.5k for exactly this reason, and there is nothing prohibiting a student from doing more.

Like...AFF? Static line? IAD? The 5.5k H&P requirement for your A license? The very logic you're trying to use is the justification for doing the jump in the first place. The whole point of getting out at 3.5k is to show that it's not any more dangerous than a higher altitude. I'll be in the saddle at practically the same altitude as I would if I pulled at the same altitude from terminal. It's not a big deal. Really not a big deal. Honestly, if someone makes a post about how horrible the 3.5k h&p requirement is without actually doing one, their computer should explode. Nice non sequitur. Congratulations. This isn't flight or scuba school.

It's a noble idea, but I think it would be a logistical headache to establish and enforce authority. That being said, it does hit on a larger issue and one that I think should be addressed with better education across the community as a whole. People need to understand the dangers of the jump they want to participate in, and they need to be more cognizant of their own abilities. I can see the thought process of "hey I track on every jump, how hard can this group angle fly thing be? I just have to bend my knees and stuff" as something easily arrived on, where you generally wouldn't see the same attitude with a 12 way RW jump or group FF jumps. It seems to me, inexperienced skydiver #123963628.5, that it's far more likely that the average jumper recognizes and understands that these more complicated RW/FF jumps take a more specific skill set to pull off without putting the group in danger, and it doesn't seem that this same level of recognition is present for tracking & angle dives.

Thanks for the info. I'm a little confused as to how an 'explosive' is better in checked baggage than it is in carry-on.

What happens when a new jumper has to get out of the plane in an emergency and has never gotten out lower than 13.5k feet?

Whoa, my drogue Cd guess was way off, thanks John!

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say.

Floating exit is an exit from outside the door, as opposed to poised or diving exits from inside the plane. The blue and yellow helmets here are doing floating exits. A brake fire is when one of your toggles becomes unstowed during your opening sequence, causing your parachute to spiral.

I could have used slinches

Using a drag mat or a rubbermaid lid averts any crisis.

Assuming I did my math right, which is a tall order this late in the day, this should be good for a spitball of the terminal velocity. m here is the total mass, which would include TI, student, and rig. g would be gravitational acceleration, which is around 32 ft/s^2. Unless you know the mass of everything in slugs, you can use the total weight in place of mg. Cd and A are the respective drag coefficients and projected areas for the tandem pair (TP) and the drogue (D). I'd use a drag coefficient of 1.0-1.1 for the tandem pair and something like 0.75 - 0.85 for the drag coefficient of a flat circular parachute. EDIT: I forgot the rho (air density) in the denominator of the final equation. Whoops!

Just to clarify, did you buy the canopy new?

Right, that's not creepy at all

Skydive Pepperell would be the closest, I haven't jumped there yet so I can't speak to what it's like. It's also real close to Skyventure if you wanted to hop in the tunnel. Plenty of lodging & food in the area. Jumptown in Orange would be the next closest, nice open landing area and fun folks to jump with. I'm not sure what DZ accommodations are like, but there are a couple hotels right down the road and a few scattered down Rt. 2. Food on site & plenty of restaurants in the area. Skydive New England is also a really good option (the most awesome option but I'm slightly biased ). Lots of loads all day and plenty of freefly folks around. There is a bunkhouse & quite a few hotels in the Rochester area. Food on site & plenty of restaurants in the area.

I spent 9000 feet on my first solo staring at my altimeter. It was pretty boring

I still think we're a little ways off from cell phones being compact enough to be a thing you'd want to get into your pack tray. There's also pretty significant battery limitations with existing technology. GPS transmitters and RFID systems are already compact and low-power enough to fill the role, it's just a question of putting time and effort into development and finding the appropriate battery pack. For an interesting read, check out what the FBI did for their tracking devices with technology that was already pretty old.

I hope you'd realize your chest strap was undone before you made it to the plane. No such check for a zip tie.