chachi

the reality of pond swooping is that to do it right you may end up short on distance sometimes and not making it out of the water. or, you develop the sense that you can make the gates with a proper setup and slide out the side bank if you don't have the distance. what you CAN NOT DO is setup tight to the gates. you WILL smack the pond if you try this too many times by diving at the gates too much. swooping the pond is about everything being right from your setup in both height and distance, to your turn rate and dive, to your roll out and recovery, to placing your foot on the water. it looks easy when done right but to not make all of those steps perfectly and expect to have the same results is not reality. expect to get wet sometimes, it's fun and no big deal.

some people in this post are making references to your reflection and ripples to deal with your actual height and i want to say i think those are dangerous references. you should be knowing how high you are above the water by looking far ahead like we teach students. you are going to fly where you look.

i would almost bet that this person was looking at the spot on the water where he wanted to put his foot down and flew right into it. the very first time i came in for waht would have been a pond clearing toe drag i ended up doing just that and getting too low catching my knee and smashing into the pond. you MUST look at where you are flying and not where you want to touch the water. the first practice runs should be proximity vs. going big. once you fly straight and level over the water you want to PLACE your foot on the pond and not drive it in. sorry about your friend.

i bought the cheap ones from ebay @ like 8 bucks each for the "canon" release and cut them off.

buy a bonehead FTP and be done with it. service is unreal. product is beyond amazing. i probably have 600 jumps on my FTP and it looks as if i bought it yesterday.

after 10 dislocations i took about 4 months off to strictly work out. i think i was in some of the best shape of my life. i went out to the dz to pick up my weight belt as we were heading to california to train for a week and decided to jump on a load. got out, pulled, sublocated my shoulder and finally realized surgery was the solution. i had surgery and 6 weeks later i was doing hop 'n pops. 8 weeks later i was skydiving. almost one year later i can tell you that my shoulder is soooo strong. surgery was the best thing i decided to do and you will be happy once it's done. good luck. :)

the fatality list is exactly like the incident forum. meant to be a reminder and learned from. if you don't like it don't read it. if you read through these forums you would think this was the sport of arguements. fuck base jumpers whine a lot.

i think the xfire gls xf would be a good canopy to step into if you were looking to get more performance without going xbraced. check it out http://www.nzaerosports.com/GLSXF.htm

thanks Tom. $1500 it is; I have no patience for this sort of thing.

yes; vtech with 5th brake line

i have a flik w/o multi (100 jumps approx) and an odyssey velcro rig. can anyone help me out with approximate used market value.

you are clearly not ready for a x-brace canopy. in fact, your questions even show a lack of understanding. speed will accentuate your mistakes. mistakes and speed will break you. you MUST be able to land any canopy with a straight in approach in case of emergency and if you can not land the canopy straight in you have no business swooping it. take a few steps back. the crossfire is a killer platform to get good under. if the 139 was too big step down to the 129/119 and spend a few hundred jumps perfecting your technique before you get yourself under a canopy that you can't handle. get coaching!

absolutely. worth repeating. absolutely the only thought in your head in any out of control maneuver is to keep flying the brakes until you are at a dead stop. hoefully you are not dead, just your speed. even if you strike something and pop up keep flying the canopies brakes. rear risers are NEVER the option for low turns. check out superstu's carnage video on skydiving movies. there is a good scene where luke smoked the water and flipped through his canopy but he totally continued his flare and it definitely eased the second impact.

apparently you have just been registered; jim noted it in the post.

precisely.

You can, but you might not want to. If you video tandems on your belly, you really want to get a little lower than the tandem looking up to get a good face shot (even more so with Vector rigs). I find that freefly pants put way too much drag on my legs to make it easy to film in this position. They want to pull your legs up and put you slightly head down. What about the wings. I know they make different styles, freefly vs belly. Can you backfly with a traditional suit (w/o booties) and vice versa. I've heard the wings on a freefly suit are sewn to high on the front of the arms to be effective on your belly. i disagree with the statement about the drag pictching you forward. first off, the one you shoose based on your size would have minimal drag. the second thing is this camera suit is awesome for using the wings to prop you up while pushing a little forward with the legs to keep you in place. i fly mostly on my belly with some back flying since ive gotton better at it. great all around suit and absolutely flawless manufacturing. it has held up without a single repair for over 500 camera jumps already.

if i were you i would sew the ring through a small piece of fabric in the middle of the riser right below the loop where the slink goes through on the riser. it will mean that the times you want to pull the slider down it will move more freely over the ring.

i will make a post right now for you.

i think this is something hard to describe but land once with it and i reckon you won't go back. taylor, of course you can take a look. i think sewing the ring on the riser is smarter though. it stops the possible slider grommet on metal and lays more flat for pulling down the slider over top.

ian - it's awesome! no additioanl wear and tear either. i've been doing this since 2005 and the feel is wicked. you take a guide ring and sew it right below the split in riser. the line only goes through this ring but you take the brake setting and feed it through the lower ring to set the brake. it allows your hands to go up right at the top of the riser with your toggles in hand. the feel is more smooth for sure. i know dave hebert uses it as he is the one that showed me. it is just being talked about on cp.com. i will try and grab a picture this weekend.

you freefly a lot dont you? i have firefly's camera freefly suit and love the versatility and construction. they make a 2 piece option which i would have bought in retrospect. i have used it for us national 4 way, 8 way, multi plane big way, tandem, etc... i would not get booties personally.

oh, he sent me a PM. make a new post under ASK JIM.

lol are you serious? i think he is probably about 5 times better than the average skydiver with that kind of currency and training. jealous much?

ps. if you spent half the time listening to the smart guys on here and then regurgitating that information instead of the BS about SDA being right and awesome you would actually be doing some good.

they have gone so far past stupid i would prefer to just jump else where but i wanted to chime in and find out why YOU are so interested in defending them when they could care less. they are not listening to the local professionals with experience in the 3-10k for each of lets say 15 ppl?, how about a guy like jim slaton that has created professional associations to help educate and teach saftey, uhhh, nope. im sure betsy has read the words on here and see's how many swoopers this has disappointed between the lack of interest in their sport and their stupidity in thinking 180's will make the difference. they do not listen to logic that suggests trying to cram all those people into little tiny strips of grass may acutally perpetuate the issue. as possibly the most profitable dropzone on the planet they can't be bothered to have facilities for all disciplines. personally i think they are happy they have an excuse to simply focus on freefall business. in fact; diverting attention away from the real problem and blaming it on swoopers is really what they have done. "THEY ARE LULLING SKYDIVERS INTO A FALSE SENSE OF SAFTEY FOR PROFIT" no i think i will save my creative energy to continue trying to make my little corner safer. we have 1/1000th of the space Eloy has and we have managed to have completely separate landing area's for the past 2 seasons! we have a dropzone that has given us 1 pass rate so that hop 'n pop loads remain cheap and available to progress canopy piloting. we have a dz owner that while stubborn at times actually gives a shit about the sport and safety and takes the advice of people that know more than he about things. so really that is why i couldn't be bothered.