JasonYergin

What's up? There's a sh** ton of people who jump near Charlotte and they only have one of the best boogies in the world every summer.

Check out Skydive Carolina of course :-)

Welcome to the forums. Don't believe everything that you read but do take in what makes sense.

Cheers and blue skies.

Welcome back. :-)

Enjoy!! And get pictures and/or video when you can

Hola

Some of the current world record holders came up on static line. At least you won't be scared out of your mind when it comes time to do a hop n' pop.

My advice is (listen to your instructors of course) and after that visualize. Visualize your jump as often as you feel like. Visualizing activates some of the same electrical signals in the brain as the actual activity and it, at least to some degree, familiarizes you with the dive flow.

Oh and talk to as many people at your DZ as possible. Cheers :-)

That's a pretty solid plan :-) and there are very few people better qualified to give you canopy advise than the guys/gals down there.

Come to think of it I might spend a week down there next time I decide to change canopies.

I agree with checking out a JFX or like someone said a Velo 111. The Velo's recovery arc is considerably longer than a JFX's in my experience. So that's something to consider. Someone might like a JFX a lot at first then wish they had a longer RA... you see where I'm going with that.

I absolutely agree with the don't downsize and switch planforms thing when you're not flying at a pretty fast level already but assuming someone is ready to switch to a 100-ish crossbraced and they're gonna be conservative there's probably a little more wiggle room.

What I know for sure is after going crossbraced I don't want to go back to a conventional canopy for regular use (barring wingsuiting, maybe BASE, etc)

They're totally decent canopies from what I've seen. People say they are a Crossfire2 copy because they look exactly like one. Crossfire2's have a pretty unique nose shape which makes them easy to identify but I don't think the Odyssey is a direct copy.

I'm not a parachute designer and I've only flown Crossfire2's. From what I know I can say what I like about Odyssey's is I know a chick who can't be much over 135 lbs. out the door that flies an Odyssey 150 and has no issues whatsoever. Some would say that's underloading on a Crossfire but Odyssey doesn't seem to mind at all.

Thread revival alert.... that said.... I love this thread!! It actually stayed on topic for like 60 posts and has a ton of good info in it.

Thanks everybody for the information about Curv's. I've had my eye on the design for years now and wasn't completely decided until reading so much about it.

I love that so many have great experiences and that there don't seem to be any major bitches, gripes or complaints. Cheers.

I say the same thing all the time. Best thing that ever happened to me :-)

Yep, I see this post was a few months ago but +1 for the Skydivers Handbook. I actually think it is a super good read for all skydivers when getting into the sport.

Yeah... opinions are like assholes I guess, we've all got one. I maintain it's interesting to see the different takes people have on it. The way one person describes it might make no sense to me but I still know the affect they're talking about.

I like seeing all the different ways people have of describing this. Pretty cool how it gets us all thinking. The way I describe it is: There's a little bit of amplification to the whole process going on with the extra wind in your face.

Assuming we've established air speed vs. ground speed and how wind speed affects us, that we've discussed how the canopy doesn't really see or feel (if you know what I mean) any difference whether it's windy or calm, the canopy just goes through the air as it's designed to do, albeit with a flight that is now more compressed since it isn't traveling as far... well then that leaves us with just one other thing.

By amplification I mean I think that it's kind of like a moped going down a hill. Said moped can go 34 MPH on a flat surface but get it going down a big hill and it can get up to 43!! I think that's what is happening in a strong wind landing. A given wing with given wing loading given a pilot's consistent maneuver can achieve X speed and lift with no wind but in a strong head wind it can up the lift ante by an extra few percent because there's an extra bit of push that wasn't there before. The thrust on the wing (gravity) doesn't change but now the wing is getting more lift with that weight and maneuver than it would normally because the wind is giving it a little push that would not and could not be there otherwise.

Then if you do that same thing downwind you stretch the process out, one because you're traveling further and going faster and two because the extra speed and lift aren't increasing in a linear way in terms of flight like they were before, in fact it's kind of the opposite because while you're getting a lot more ground speed out of it your wing is actually flying less efficiently since it is cutting through a lot less air, the act of which is what gives us lift. That's where our perception of safety (headwind) vs. sketch (downwind) comes from. In my opinion

Well here goes and OLD thread revival.... not sure if the requirements have changed or what but I have over a hundred jumps on Strong systems now and am looking to change over to Sigma.

I can also relate to the handle fumbling situation on the Strong system. That's not to say I don't think it's a solid system but it seems like the handle placement on the Sigma makes more sense. The mandatory handle checks for all TI's is a good idea in my opinion.

So I guess I just have to find a Tandem IE rated for Sigma systems and do the course, whatever it entails.

I was looking into Flight1 courses myself and it turns out experienced jumpers can take the 200 series courses, starting at 201 if I remember right, without needing the 100 series courses.

When you sign up they ask for your canopy progression, specific goals and probably some other pertinent into l can't remember right now. So based on what people have said and my emails with the staff l really think they make it worth your while and then some.

Nooooope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, noope.

Never gonna let passengers take a camera of any kind due to the safety concerns.

It's going to be an awesome boogie and I can't wait. Nothing against James but it'll still be awesome without him.

Hi! And welcome to the forums and to the sport. There's a ton of good stuff here but you have to filter out the bad while you're at it.

Read up and enjoy is my advice. There's a lot of stuff out there and some of it is kind of hiding. Also check out these books for some entertainment if you can't jump as much as you'd like right now:

- Sugar Alpha: The Life and Times of Senor Huevos Grandes,
- Above All Else: A World Champion Skydiver's Story of Survival and What It Taught Him About Fear, Adversity, and Success
-Parachuting: The Skydiver's Handbook

Hi! And welcome to the forums and to the sport. There's a ton of good stuff here but you have to filter out the bad while you're at it.

Hopefully you can get a bunch of jumps in and even if not there's always the off season to keep reading, learning and saving up for a rig :-) Life is SO much better with your own rig.

Hopefully there was no issue with the rig and it was just a lack of good handle awareness. It certainly wouldn't be the first time someone pried something loose in the plane.

Still you should inform the DZ. And the next time you open that high have someone with you because high pulls are way more fun that way

I just see this as Cypres trying to meet the competition and where there's competition there are more product options.

Now if those other options (other companies) could step it up a little more too the prices might actually come down. I understand these things are complicated but the prices are beyond ridiculous at this point.

Where's that picture of the little kid throwing stacks of money out the window... the one with the caption about how that's pretty much what skydiving is, or that's how you get good at it?

Yes, you want your own rig.

http://thedropzonediaries.tumblr.com/post/44000911223

It sucks that it took GoPro so long to fix the bugs. I personally just learned to work around them and still got a lot of pics and videos but with the newest firmware update all the problems went away.

Wi-fi has always been prohibitive though because of how much battery it sucks down. Being able to adjust the cameras settings with a smart phone app is awesome but I got in the habit of turning wi-fi off immediately after using it.

I'll probably still try to conserve battery life with the 3+ since I'll be using duel GoPro's, the other one being a Hero 3. I'll still use my Hero 1 for simple things like interviews and landings if it's convenient so I definitely understand people buying the marked down models.

Andy9o8

As others have said, for most people it passes at roughly 50 jumps. That said, I can tell you from experience that currency also helps, i.e., if you jump very frequently it might pass sooner. For example, say you spend a weekend knocking out at least 4 or 5 jumps each day. By Day #2 you'll probably be pretty acclimated enough to not be very nervous during the rides up. At least that's how it was for me when I was a novice.

THIS ^^^

I haven't jumped in two months and it'll be over six before I get to go again so, I know that first one back is going to make me a little nervous. But three of four in... no sweat.

I'd say it's a good start.