Deimian

I haven't flew the Odyssey EVO, and I have just a few jumps on Katanas, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Just judging by planform design, top-skin smoothness and miniribs, I would say that the Odyssey is a much better/modern/efficient design. It will probably carry you longer on your swoop, for a given airspeed. It will also probably behave better on rears and have better slow flight characteristics. Openings, judging on videos, are also good. But there is more to a canopy than that. I really have no idea what is its behaviour in turbulence, its "ground-hungriness", recovery arc, etc. Also the resale value.

It doesn't look like a bit issue looking at the first video. The amount of wobbling is fairly small, and I would expect that the inflated PC could at least help causing that. Does it also happen with a fully collapsed PC, in calm days? Being said that, under normal circumstances I have never experienced wobbling on my X-Fires (flew 124, 113 and 102) Another thing you can check is the length of the A2s. See:

Most federations recommend 1000 jumps before flying cross-braced canopies. Besides that, loading a cross-braced at 1.05 is kind of, for lack of a better word, useless. These canopies are designed for higher winloads, without exception I would say. Loading them so lightly is probably counterproductive. The wing will be less pressurized, and that could be dangerous. To give you an example, Fluid Wings recommends the Gangster for wingloads starting at 1.5. Most other recommend 1.8 at least. I am unsure what is the local culture at your DZ, but judging from the first post looks like the understanding of the different canopy designs and their effect on flying characteristics is a bit lacking. When in doubt, try to be conservative. It is better than been scrapped out of the ground.

Normally it is something like: 1. Belly flying 2. Back flying 3. Beginner head up 4. Intermediate head up (at this point you can share time with other people, so prices start to vary wildly) 5. Beginner head down 6. Intermediate head down After that it depends heavily on your targets 7.1. Advanced head up/down (sequentials with pancakes, infinity grips, ropes and similar. The lexicon can vary per area I guess). This implies sharing time 7.2. Dynamic. This implies being alone. 7.2.1. Advanced dynamic (think 2 or 4 way dynamic) Money depends on time (the the price of the local tunnel of course), and time depends on talent and the quality of the coaching. I don't feel qualified to tell how many hours per item you would need. But it is common to have spent 20-30 hours by the time you start point 7. More if you get "distracted" (let's say you have a 4 way belly team and you spend many hours flying belly on the tunnel). Take a look at https://www.tunnelflight.com/skills even though sequential stuff is not really covered in detail.

Judging by the line trim charts, definitely not. The velocity has a way more "curvy" trailing edge, and that's why the D lines are missing on the 3 and 4 groups (the 2 groups closer to the sides of the canopy, there the profile is narrower than in the middle due to the curvature of the trailing edge). But the bottom line is totally true, there is much more to a canopy than it's planform.

Thanks for the info. I can confirm that a lineset produced by paraconcepts in November, for an XFire 102, has also its A2s 4cm too short. The fingertrap is 10.5cm long. Maybe unpicking the bartack and lengthening the A2 is an option, I am not sure if a fingertrap that is 6cm long is enough.

Do you know which serial numbers and sizes are affected?

They are quieter than G3s. The people I know that have them (in Belgium) are quite happy with it. They do have an audible pocket, and from what I remember, they have some sort of impact protection certification, similarly to G4s or TonFly TFX. To my knowledge, these are the only 3 skydiving full face helmets with some sort of certification. I don't know the details of the certification though. They get scratched quite easily though, so the shiny finish don't last long if you are not careful. And after heavy use the strap starts tearing up. I have seen that in one of the first batches, maybe they corrected that already. I have never seen that in G3s The protection they offer is mainly because of the padding they have, nothing to do with the carbon fibre shell. I don't know why people keep associating carbon fibre with protection. Some people even "show it off" by comparing how ABS shells buckle and how carbon fibre shells don't. That has nothing to do with protection. A steel pot doesn't buckle either, but you don't want that on your head.

As a tandem student/passenger, all that information is practically irrelevant for you. Your DZ will provide you everything you need for that jump. If you look just out of curiosity, yes, there is a lot of information, but you shouldn't try to soak up everything before your first jump, it will overwhelm you and you are likely to misunderstand things. Welcome to the sky.

I did tandem videos a couple of years ago and I have some of the passengers on facebook. I did a tandem in 2009, with 3 friends of mine in a small dropzone in Portugal. 9 years later, after I moved to Germany and started jumping on my own, and I made ~800 jumps, I saw one of the tandem masters on facebook and I added him. I thought it would be cool for him to know that one of his passengers is now jumping often somewhere else.

I don't want to be harsh, but I think you need to adjust your perception on a couple of things: This is a subforum for general skydiving discussion. This is a family problem, not a skydiving discussion. I think other subforums are better suited. It is not your family duty to spend tens of thousands of dollars so you can have fun. If they want do it, that's awesome (for you), but I find that expecting it or demand it is out of line. If you need your family to financially support, your savings are not your savings. It is the money that thanks to them you have not spent. Expect them to have an opinion and a follow up action if you do what you want with your "savings" without their approval. Skydiving is expensive. You are making long term plans without even starting on the sport. You have enough money for a couple of AFF jumps, which is 1% of the money you'll spend skydiving. You are complaining about the price of videos. It kind of shows that you have no idea of how much money you'll need to spend to have a minimally safe skydiving career. A lowball break down: Gear price: Altimeter $150, audible $200, jumpsuit $200, helmet $200, rig $2500 License/maintenance: $300 per year Jumps: $3000 per year That just to be "that guy" with the ragged out gear with barely any skills. Multiply the gear price x3 if you want to be a shinny power-ranger like skydiver. Multiply the maintenance x1.5 if you jump a lot and get often new gear. Multiply x3 the jumps if you plan to jump every weekend, both days. And then add tunnel time (I guess around $900 per hour in your area), boogies and skill camps fees ($100-$200), canopy courses ($150-$200) if you want to be a rockstar. And that is without thinking about other things like cameras, wingsuits, multiple suits, etc. That is not to say it is impossible. But the first step to achieve it is having a realistic perception of who you are now, who you want to be and how to get there. My advice would be to follow a path to a successful career, where you earn enough money to jump as much as you can on your free time. Some skydiving rockstars followed the alternative way (basically committing everything they had to skydiving and tunnel flying), and they are the guys we look up to now. But don't overestimate the talent, work they put on, and help they've got to achieve it. Many of them are 2nd generation skydivers. And don't ignore all the others that did the same thing, and achieved nothing. Remember that the sky will always be there, you don't have to start jumping your ass off now (and doing 20 jumps a year does not make sense, you'll get stuck and bored fairly quick). Good luck.

Yes. And they are paid by the manufacturer to do so, probably have signed a ton of waivers and have heaps of experience. That is not comparable in any way to someone asking if they can put a pilot slider on a sabre 2 210.

It is also used in most paragliders, AFAIK. But they don't call them cross-braces, they call them diagonal ribs. These are interesting articles: https://www.advance.ch/nc/en/home/news-pages/tech-series/tech-report-sliced-diagonals/ https://paraglidingmechanics.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/structural-design-of-a-modern-paraglider/ It is my understanding that paragliding wings are much more advanced than skydiving wings. But they have a totally different set of constraints, and a bigger market, so the difference in development is justified IMO. Here some examples

Some (elliptical) canopies are quite "searchy" on openings. They will shake you from side to side, no matter how you pack them. I am not sure there is a lot to do about it. Katanas and Velos are prime examples. I have no experience with Hurricane's, but I am not surprised. If you want to get rid of that I would suggest to change canopies to something less elliptical, or a more modern design with the openings a bit more under control. I can recommend an X-Fire for that. I think that the Echo from FW and the Crossfire 3 are also canopies with great on-heading openings.

The same happened to SunPath https://www.sunpath.com/wp-content/uploads/SPSB004.pdf But those were exceptions more than 15 years ago

Very interesting video! Jumping in front of a turbofan engine gives me the shivers. It seems like the engine is off during the jumps, but still.

Appropriately sized rubber bands do not hold the whole line group tight if they are not single stowed and any force pulls a bit on them. The lines on the gap between the rubber band and the bag will be loose. Hence, single stowing short rubber bands do not eliminate the need for double stowing. I single stowed many jumps. I agree that in many canopy/line/bag combinations a tight rubber band will be enough for most of the time. But the mechanics are there and support that double stowing is the best way to ensure that the whole group will release at once. Whether that is important or not depends entirely on the situation of each jump, but for sure it won't hurt.

Except that single handed vs 2 handed reserve procedures both have pros and cons, and therefore they could be discussed or be a matter of preference. Double stowing doesn't have any in-air "con". Sure, replacing rubber bands more often is a pain in the ass, but that is far from "with single handed EP you can die this way, and with double handed EP you can die this other way".

That'd mean you can be on sit as fast as the 100th fastest head-down skydiver ever recorded...... http://www.speed-skydiving.com/index.php/rankings/eternal-ranking-barometric. If 420 km/h was your normal speed your skydives would take around 30-35 seconds, including time to accelerate and decelerate. I bet they are a bit longer. I do believe though that you can see that on your app or even protracks, but you are not accounting for burble effects and sudden changes in pressure. For instance, when switching from forward flying (wind on the back while sitflying) to backward flying (wind on the chest). In these cases the sensor will register very rapid changes in pressure, and the formula will result in a calculated vertical speed that is far far away from the reality.

If I shave with a razor blade and jump or fly in the tunnel, the helmet and suit neck rub against my neck and I get a bit of acne for a couple of days. The area is also itchy. Are you shaving with a razor blade before jumping? Maybe try something that lets the hair a bit longer? I am using for the last couple of years Philips OneBlade, and even though my shave doesn't look as neat as with a razor blade, my skin is much better and I have no issues with the neck of the suit or anything like that.

Maybe you could get a FAI license in the US? That should make it easier to convince them. In any case, it doesn't tell you that you have to do a course, just that you have to pass a (written) exam. Maybe the DZ would like also to make an AFF jump with you.

If deflection of the airflow off the bottom skin is the cause, then a domed slider would inflate in the opposite direction, and the deflection would push it down the lines harder, no?

I think that's the point of the BSR. To make it conclusive they have to make sure that the vast majority of people reports incidents. My understanding is that BSRs are the only tool USPA has to pressure members, ST&As, DZOs, etc to report. Some might choose to don't do it out of hypothetical "what if"s, and operate on the "margins". Most would probably do it because it is in their best interest. You have repeatedly asked why a BSR, since it is too aggressive and unnecessary in your view. What would be the alternative to ensure the highest number of reports possible, without making it a BSR? I don't see it, but I am not based in the US. Besides that, what some people are telling you, is that you are coming across as a whinny person accusing USPA and the board of being evil-doers and self interested. The reason for that is that you complain without offering an alternative, and you are repeating yourself without listening. Focus on proposing alternatives and you'd be seen as someone constructive, and how people perceive you will change. Keep focusing on complaining and no one will listen to you. Just my 2 cents.

IMO the same applies to back riser landings. Stalling the canopy on rears is quite easy, and novice jumpers just don't have the finesse to know when this is going to happen. Even in flight 1 courses rear riser landings are out of the question until 201 or 202 (don't quite remember). I think that list makes a lot of sense for the intermediate crowd, but a couple of bullet points should be adjusted for novice jumpers (again, just IMO)

SIFE and SWS use both collins lanyards with pin based MARDS.