blueshrew

Yeah, I was jumping with Antoine the last couple of dives. We had loads of fun and learned lots and lots

Hey, not too much experience on them, but demoed 2 sizes. First one for 50 jumps @ 1.25. Wouldn't say hated it, but didn't exactly like it. The other was @ 1.35 and I loved it. I guess fewer people are light enough to load them that lightly given the available sizes. First one kinda felt very "soft" coming out of turns compared to a Stiletto of the same size and a Sabre2 of a bigger size. Just my experience. Nadine

Hey Andy, it would be if the weather cleared, but right now it's cloudy and wet . cya soon hopefully. Nadine

Hey, the sensors are only being used for the open class as they move around to much with the higher gates of the intermediates. So they're doing video control of the gates. cya Nadine

Hey Lucia, your honey is in 1st place right now after the semi-finals, with 2 final rounds to go in zone accuracy which seems is his speciality!! Brian is in 13th waiting to go into semi-finals tomorrow and Dani 43rd, Danilo is 41st, Bruno 7th. And I am packing for Brian after his cutaway cause he's afraid to pack himself now. The standings for Open now are (those are the people going into semis tomorrow): 1st Jonathan Tagle (USA) 2nd Shannon Pilcher (USA) 3rd JC Colclasure (USA) 4th Drew Lepinski (Australia) 4th Jay Moledzki (Canada) 6th Francisco Neri (Venzuela) 7th John Zuliani (Canada) 7th Bruno Brokken (Belgium) 9th Ian Bobo (USA) 9th Clint Clawson (USA) 11th Jim Slaton (USA) 12th Luis Cani (Brazil) 13th Brian Vacher (UK) 14th Robbie McMillan (Australia) 15th Andy Farrington (USA) 15th Paul Rademacher (Canada) 17th Clint McBeth (Canada) 18th Fabio Brandt (Brazil) 19th Jason Eames (USA) 20th Michael Vaughan (Australia) 20th Chris Lynch (UK) 22nd Paul Gurteen (UK) Intermediate (going onto finals) 1st Pablo Hernandez (Spain) 2nd Chris Johnston (USA) 3rd Paul Rossouw (UK) 4th Ian Brown (UK, out because of injury) 5th Brian McNenny (USA) 6th Martin Backlin (Sweden) 7th Curt Swanson (USA) 8th Gary Gregory (USA) 9th Jimmy Smith (Australia) 10th Sami Lethinen (Finland) 11th Livio Piccolo (Italy) c you soon Nadine

Cutaways were Brian Vacher from the UK and either a Canadian or US intermediate. Start was delayed because of heavy fog. Both speed round were completed however. Open 1st Jonathan Tagle 2nd Shannon Pilcher 3rd JC Colclasure Intermediate 1st Curt Swanson 2nd Ian Brown 3rd Gary Gregory Edit: I believe the scores will be up tonight on the DZ site. cya Nadine

Hey Ginger Jo, I attended Brian Vacher's course in November and would recommend it to everyone. Brian's a great teacher. I have just spent 4 weeks in Lillo and seen a lot of his other students improving their skills and landings in just very few jumps as well. Drop him an email through http://www.safeflightschool.com, he is very friendly and helpful. Nadine

Goto www.safeflightschool.com and click on the link in the box :) Featuring Brian Vacher, PD Velocity 96 and El Nuevo Isuzu Rodeo.

I just came back from there this morning, and I absolutely loved the DZ and the people. Will definitely be back for XMas (though this time packing, not jumping ). The canopy school is also running through the boogie. Brian Vacher's course rocks, and it teaches you more than you'd dream of. So who else is going? cya Nadine

I met Brian Vacher the coach at Lillo recently. He's happy to share all his experience, and has a great way of explaining things. Lillo would be safer weather wise. Empuria has really bad wind days, which will most likely ground you at less than 400 jumps and will not be that great for a CC course.

Half Past Dead, haven't seen it, but they did freefall stunts in Hoexter, Germany for it.

The best 6 nations in the overall ranking.

Hi Dave, as far as I've heard from EXI, there are 10 swooping places that will be given away at the World Cup in February. 6 will go to the best 6 nations and 4 to the remaing best overall with an option being left for a German participant (hosting country). Nadine

Well it seems to be working for DZs with the reviews and stuff. It would just be great to have an overview. There are so many coaches around, you meet so many, but you have no idea where to go or who to book if you're pressed for time. Sure you hear some names more than others, but I still have no idea who of those guys I'd try to go to, if I could choose.

As stated before, the only really approved AAD is Cypres 1 + 2. Vigil is definitely not approved by the jumping association for anyone. You can get good third-party insurance for less than 50 Euros a year (GFF Card), so you don't need to join a club if you don't want to.

You have to have a license and third party insurance. Many but not all DZs require an AAD, and the only approved AADs at the moment are Cypres/Cypres2. Don't know if FXC are approved, but they are banned by many DZs if they are.

It would be cool to have a section like the Dropzones section, where coaches are listed by loaction, and people who have received coaching from them can rate and review them. Maybe limit it to full-time/professional coaches. Nadine

I think in Spain as well.

Technically never, except hurting my back in an opening under a canopy form a certain infamous manufacturer I will never be touching anything from again. Did lots of reading, asked lots of questions, thought about the answers, practiced all the survival skills and tried not to overestimate myself. That's kept me safe and sound while landing. Luck, awareness and sometimes a fast reaction has kept me safe from other people's f**k ups. Nadine

Maybe in cases like these the best thing is just to ignore the "think they're so special" newbies when it goes so far that they're starting threads just to say how great they can land and swoop. It keeps going back and forth, they will not give in and they're just enjoying the attention and trying to prove to everyone that they in fact ARE special. Save your nerve for someone worth it. I doubt they'll get much attention when they crash cause there's so many of them. So if they're not listening, don't waste your breath. One of the instructors once told me: Do not underestimate the self-cleansing nature of this sport. If they don't listen the first or third time, chances are they won't until they hurt themselves,isnit? Maybe he'll have a good halloween costume made by Mother Earth by then Nadine

Bummer, now some teams will start floating and thinking they're better that everyone else Anways, there's info at http://www.omniskore.com and http://www.wpc2004.com.br Nadine

How come Team Alchemy isn't participating? Or am I just not recognizing the faces? Nadine

Thank you all, guys. The information has been very helpful. I have been using both fronts if I came in too high, either somewhere in the middle or after I had the heading I wanted. But pulling both before starting the turn seems like a much better idea than getting the extra speed from a toggle turn before my final approach. I guess that would improve accuracy and make it easier, too. I was under the impression that a canopy loaded that lightly was impossible to plane out without toggle input. But now that you've mentioned it, I know that in some landings I needed to use more breaks while in others it felt like I almost didn't need any toggle input. I will try to get someone to always film my landings and work towards that. I was thinking of making a kind of canopy logbook to keep track of my landings, the conditions, etc. and have a better overview at how I am progressing. And now that I have a new set of goals to work towards, that seems to make sense :) Thanks for the help, Nadine

I've been jumping a Sabre2 120 loaded at about 1.1 for the past 350 jumps. After working on all the "survival skills" and slower/faster landing methods last year, I started doing HP landings this year . I've been doing 90+- turns for the past 50 jumps or so which have gotten fairly consistent. Judging from what I've experienced up high, I still need to build some muscle for the 90-180 step (which is the same case as when I started 0-90), so that will wait. In the meantime I am trying to get the most performance I can from 90 turns with that wingloading. What I've noticed is that in a longer carve, the dive is not enough to build up more speed than I am getting. A more aggressive turn makes it obviously dive more, but the 90 degrees are over so quickly that the same thing is true, not more speed. I noticed that doing a toggle turn to gain a little speed before doing my FR turn to land, makes the canopy hold the dive better/longer. Any other tips or cosiderations? I would like to hear what experienced!! pilots suggest, and if that WL and 90 degrees can't really be improved that much. I am especially interested in people's opinions that have taken a similar progression and what your next step was, if you'd take the same path again, or if you would have done anything differently. I am getting a lot of feedback from the swooping boys over here, but none of them started swooping with that low a wing loading, so the amount of information is a bit limited in that area. Thanks, Nadine

Bump Searching by location/country would be cool, too. Nadine