evan85

Yes! I was at the MOAB boogie that year and got to do a jump with him! He was incredibly nice and down-to-earth, despite having showed him in his own G5 with "MS" painted on the sides, as you mention

Thanks! Are these the suggested pencils to use when pencil-packing a reserve?

I'm not certain just yet where I stand on the ultimate question, but here's something additional -- couldn't jumpers (and planes) in the air help spot a downed jumper/canopy that could not be seen from the ground?

*CALLED IT* http://squirrel.ws/skysnatch The "SkySnatch" is now available. I can see why a "more stable" pilot chute could be desirable in edge-case scenarios while wingsuiting, CRW, or similar. In freefall, I'm not sure I see any benefit. Anyone with more knowledge than me have additional insight on who, if anyone, should be looking at getting one of these?

Only thing I'd change, Id' say center of pressure rather than center of gravity though. But yeah, generally speaking, that's the idea. Yes, that is more technically correct, but I think more students will be familiar with "center of gravity" :). Regardless, I should note that this is obviously a "beginner" way to think about side slides; i.e. once more advanced you should be doing more knee/elbow dropping as in the video that was posted above. But I think this is a really intuitive way to teach the technique that folks not experienced with flying their bodies can understand (that is, understand not only what to do but why it works).

Objectively, the suit is not too tight. For someone with 90 jumps, however, you may find yourself stuff with "only one speed" -- i.e. not able to slow down enough when you need to do so. If you're set on getting into RW competition, like 4way, this may not be a problem -- others can put on weights and you want to be on the fast end anyway. But if you are trying to jump with a wide range of folks doing different types of jumps, you may have difficulty keeping up with anyone who doesn't fall fast.

A coach I really like explains it this way: Your hands and feet form 4 corners of a rectangle. Wherever your center of gravity is within that rectangle is the direction you want to go. So when you bring R hand and R leg in and push L hand an L leg out (like in your drawing), you're biasing your CoG on the right side of the rectangle, and you're going to go right. Indeed, this explanation works for forward and backward motion just as well as sidesliding. (Turns are a slightly different story but if you think about it, it's a good way of teaching why centerpoint turns work the way they do.)

PMed

This might sound harsh but... maybe don't take other people's money to pack their canopies for them if you don't know how to prevent line-overs.

Brian, this is a great article and some really good suggestions to stay current over the winter. One comment though -- as a climber, I've always been told never to clip metal to metal, if there will ever be fabric attached to either of those things. For example, on a quickdraw, one carabiner is always the "rope" side, and the other is always the "wall" side (where it is clipped to a piece of metal on the wall). The idea is that the "wall" side carabiner can get worn, get burrs, etc., and you wouldn't want your rope rubbing against that. I think the same concern is at issue here. If you clip carabiners directly to the large ring -- and then swing around in your harness over and over -- you are risking introducing wear to that large ring, putting burrs in it, etc. Your risers will then be rubbing against that wear/burrs/etc. and this could potentially cause a failure of the riser. Perhaps you could use risers properly installed on the rig and clip the carabiner through the top of the risers instead, where the metal-on-metal wear wouldn't be an issue?

3000' seems excessive for this. Recall that the SIM only requires main pack opening by 2500' (for C/D license) on a standard skydive--plenty of folks open there and are fine with it. "But evan85," you say, "what's wrong with using my reserve that high? Maybe I don't need to do it, but it's my call whether to spend that extra $70 on a reserve pack job!" Here's what's wrong: you are wasting a precious safety opportunity. What if your reserve has some kind of malfunction? There's no way to (quickly and easily) cut it away and go to your main -- but your main was literally designed to do exactly that and let you switch to your reserve. Even at maximum conservativeness, your main should always be your first option if you're high enough to be in the saddle with enough time to cutaway if necessary. 3000' should be plenty high for that, for most people.

You are both right--depending on the mal. The difference is that you are describing "best practices," while the podcast is discussing what to do when you find yourself in a non-ideal situation. For example: Do you have a broken brake line, but your canopy is still flying straight and properly, and you feel confident landing it on rears? Then go ahead and land that main, my friend -- you're too low to cutaway and wouldn't want to risk fouling up your (almost perfectly good) main with a reserve pull. Do you have some kind of catastrophic malfunction (say, for the sake of argument, your main canopy has torn in half), but somehow accidentally missed your hard deck without cutting away yet? I cannot recommend enough that you pull your reserve, and do not "ride the main down" just because you passed your hard deck. Obviously these are the far ends of the spectrum. What if you have 5 broken lines? What if you have tension knots? What if you have a torn cell but the canopy is holding together?

I don't know whether this applies here, but is it a "student" jump if the passenger is an experienced jumper? That could be the explanation.

^^^ This. But if you're the type of person who really likes to read and learn by reading, a couple other suggestions: Brian Germain's "The Parachute and its Pilot". Read it now. Read it again at 100 jumps. Then again at 200. And again at 500. Also, read everything Brian Burke has ever written about safety in skydiving. Probably read that again at 100 jumps too, once you have a better appreciation of what he's talking about and why it matters.

I understand the new FF handles are a bit bigger and have the same grippy material as the cutaway handles. Mine is set to arrive Monday so I'll post a pic when it does