lyosha

So... How much does a plane ticket to 41k go for these days?

That's above jet flight levels! How do you get ATC to clear the airspace for you? If you wear a wingsuit you probably need many miles...

what dz was this?

I jump a Pilot and the openings are definitely its strong point. Pulse if I remember correctly has harder than average openings - very surprised to hear you mention that it has soft openings. So I would imagine Pilot will have much softer openings than a Pulse. The other thing that a Pilot has that a Pulse does not is flare power. People who demo the Pulse typically end up landing on their ass a lot. Pilot doesn't have S2/3 flare power, but enough for a proper two stage flare. Pulse just does not.

The folks at AON2 are hard at work on this. https://www.facebook.com/aonsquared

I don't judge, but I prefer my gear to not have failure scenarios. Especially ones that trip up so many people that there are YouTube videos. Truth be told I liked curv 1.0. I think 2.0 was a step backwards.

Mag stow.

I would advise against the curv because they currently have the worst dbag design on the market. I personally know someone that's had two streamers caused by messing up the holes in which lines go. No other manufacturer's design is as unforgiving. There are better options. Maybe consider vector or infinity?

Wingsuits for sure not only have that issue, it's worse. The low pressure zone on top of a wingsuit due to the suit generating lift is substantially greater than the one on top of a belly flier. Main canopies have gotten sucked in back onto the WS back from a nearly deployed state.

I'll second the snatch. If you're going to get a new PC, snatch is probably top of class. Marginally better than F-111. But in my experience, the bridle length plays a more critical factor than PC material or shape, so you'll be fine with anything so long as you have enough bridle for your PC to reach clean air.

I thought F-111 did? ...and the advantage of ZP was longevity (more jumps before it turns into a rag)? This is just with regards to fabric, not the shape (i.e. torroidal vs. conventional)

Unsure about a Prime, but having seen people try to land a Pulse, I'd recommend you look into a ZPX Pilot 9 as well. It will have the same pack volume as a Prime or a Pulse, but will be all ZP and will have significantly better flare and be much easier to land well.

1. Semi stowless bags are very popular now. I don't know if they are more or less common than standard D Bags (ask your local gear dealer...) but I would not be surprised if they were more popular at this point for new gear. 2. Kind of. Hard openings can happen for a variety of reasons. There's a video from PD at PIA that talks about some of them for like an hour. The general gist is in modern canopies if you have a properly sequenced deployment within reasonable parameters (i.e. not going 200 mph, no line dump, no slider dropping prematurely) your opening should be fine. The primary control of your opening is your slider. The line stows were there to largely prevent line dump, not to slow down the speed of the bag. That said, reserves and BASE have taught us over some decades that line stows are not the only way to prevent line dump. Each of the semi-stowless bag designs should have some way to ensure a properly staged opening (hopefully...). But staging/sequence is half the story. The rubber bands do slow things down a little. That's why PD keeps on with the "double stow everything!" diatribe. Being in the sport long enough to remember switching from a standard D-Bag to a semi-stowless, I can tell you that the openings did become slightly more positive. But the difference wasn't nearly the dramatic difference PD made it out to be. Just a slight difference and I didn't mind it. So technically, more likely - yes. How much is the real difference? Perceptible, but with a reasonable canopy you should be fine. One other aspect - semi-stowless bag designs vary based on manufacturer. Some really suck. One design that really really sucks was just posted to this thread. Talk to your rigger if in doubt. My personal favorite is the old UPT design (still used by sunpath I believe). I personally don't like the Chutingstar/RI design. 3. Much better heading performance. Pretty night and day. That's the reason everyone gets them these days. A lot fewer line twists.

I guess Cypres did have bulletins, but seems like three over 30 years. Looks like the last one was right around the time I started to skydive (and I've been around for a few of the Vigil ones, hence my mis-perception). I was never able to find anything about that "best" firing logic. I'm a bit skeptical about calling it "best". Clearly it works well - as attributed by all the saves. But dealing with cleaning data on a daily basis professionally and understanding how the many techniques used can and do backfire (and have with Cypres - only need to remember their claim that it couldn't fire mid-swoop), i'm a bit uneasy. Not that it's a bad product, but given a simpler more predictable and easy to understand option, I'm inclined towards it. Vigil's logic is simple - five readings beyond firing range. Yes, it's primitive. But it's also predictable. If I put on a wingsuit - I can foresee how the unit will function differently due to it. A friend who is on a low WL canopy wants to use student mode because she's a wingsuitter? You can measure how close/far to firing she is with a fairly high degree of certainty. Opinions will vary, but, personally, I don't view that as a weakness.

Ooh, brand wars! I'm going to skip the "I like the cables on unit x" arguments. Also, lifetimes are long enough on all units to not matter. Here's the way I see it. Cypress: Pros: * Has been around the longest * No recalls or bulletins I'm aware of, which is solid Cons: * More expensive, although difference is less than it was previously * Black box - not transparent about how the unit actually works. No transparency or investigation ever about why fatality happened after cypress fire. Vigil: Pros: * Cost * Transparency - accidents investigated, algorithm published. Cons: * Had recalls on cutters for some units. Mars: Pros: Cost Cons: It's new. Not much history. I have a Vigil. When I bought it the cost difference was greater and you had to send cypress in every four years for service. I've come to appreciate the transparency and predictability. I feel more comfortable understanding the limitations of the device than being told "trust us, it'll work. It worked, even in the times it didn't" with no further explanation.

Not sure if this has been mentioned here or not, but there have been recent developments in a hydrogen fuel cell plane. In my opinion this shows more promise than batteries. https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2020/september/30/hydrogen-powered-piper-circuits-pattern

I had AFF with one instructor (it was called IAF), but my DZ has since converted to a more conventional setup. Used to be that it was three tandems before AFF - now one.

Not sure if this has been said or not, but a couple of concepts: 1. You have 100 jumps. Pretty early to be questioning foundational techniques of the sport and dictating your understanding of emergencies to a much more experienced audience. 2. From personal experience, PLF works great. Personal experience: * Many friends with lumbar fractures from "trying to slide it in" * Friends that PLF don't get injured nearly as much In about 600 jumps I have had to PLF about 3 times, but I'm glad those 3 times that was the intuition that was drilled into me - because I would have broken myself otherwise. If you have a landing emergency more than once every hundred to two hundred jumps, take a hard look back at what you are doing wrong. Maybe get canopy coaching? Stop jumping in shit winds? On an even more personal note, on the same jump, landing at the same time, my wife and I were landing in the same shit conditions a few feet from each other. I PLF'd and walked away with some bruises. She didn't jump for the rest of the season. PLF. It's better than the alternative.

omg such a winner here!

Balloon jumps rend to be less regulated in the USA. I've seen people take BASE rigs on them. For most balloon jump, the landing area is the problem. Most balloons will take you to an altitude where you can reach terminal velocity and deploy your parachute (although my first one was from ~4k into null wind, so if you're not okay with opening at 2.5k, this may not be the jump for you) If you are in the Northeast USA, will have to land out, in a clearing that may be tiny. I've had friends seriously hurt screwing that up - hospitalizations and permanent life changes and all. If you are in the South California or Arizona Desert, with a flat desert surface for miles, it's less dangerous. It's not about a number of jumps, balloons don't stay in a place - they drift elsewhere. Look at the map 10-20 mile radius from where you are going to be jumping. On the jump - look down. Do you see anywhere immediately under you that you would want to land? Be honest. People get hurt on these.

Would you really call it "non-crossbraced" though?

Bingo...

You're just your usual fountain of shit opinions and bad advice, aren't you.

I had a similar predicament when I started skydiving and did a similar thing. New wings container (found a 50% off coupon that I paid $50 for), used PDR, used sabre 2, new AAD. Worked great. Wings containers can typically hold 3 sizes. Mine was good for 150-190. I had a 190 and 170 in it before I moved on to a better container, but it could definitely hold smaller. Just decrease the closing loop size a little. Check with the manufacturer to be sure.

Zero to trash talking in one full season of jumping!