gunsmokex

Hey Eddie could you update us as to what the problem was? I'm really curious as to what it was. No offense to your packer but I am done with others packing my gear. The few times I've paid a packer for a canopy which I HAD to pay for pack jobs as we jumped every 30mins on hop and pops, had a hard opening. Didn't quite expect this on a hop and pop and I had a pilot chute hesitation, I looked over my shoulder and TWACK! sucker opened fast! So I guess it could've been the packer or could've just been pure luck. And then since I'm in a northern DZ I left the rig down there to have my reserve done, new lines and some work done to the container. I jump it this spring thinking well they packed my reserve so they must know how to pack a main, WROOOONGG!! had to land a step through!! Either way though unless I know the person personally and trust them I'll be the only one packing my canopy from now on. But hey at least I got to feel what a hard opening is I guess and had all winter to heal lol. Not sure what your situation is but I'd start packing my own until you nail down what the problem is.

http://www.bigairsportz.com/pdf/bas-sizingchart.pdf http://www.dropzone.com/safety/Canopy_Control/Downsizing_Checklist_47.html#flat

Just posting these in case you have never seen them before, very useful and valuable information in both of these articles. This I what I plan on doing before I change to a more aggressive or downsize my canopy. Also are you wanting fully elliptical or semi elliptical? There seems to be a mix of canopies that have been mentioned. http://www.bigairsportz.com/pdf/bas-sizingchart.pdf http://www.dropzone.com/safety/Canopy_Control/Downsizing_Checklist_47.html#flat

Very interesting plane. What exactly are the advantages and disadvantages to having that rear prop? Damn that sounds like a fun plane!

Looks like the Lost Prairie boogie. (also on the shirt ) Flashbacks of blue jello fill my head! 4 more months to go!! :)

Thanks Wendy! Hmm maybe I might order the visor then, it's the old oxygn and I have heard there had been problems with it getting dinged up and scratched easy, opening in free fall and shattering. Have you had any problems like that? I don't really want to spend much $$ on it if the visor isn't great anyways :/ I mean it did only cost $50 lol. Hmm I was just looking at the reviews and I think this actually might be the newer oxygn, it looks like the old A3 oxygn had the pocket for the audibles on the outside. http://www.dropzone.com/gear/Detailed/112.htmlMine has a small pocket (at least what's left of a pocket) on the inside.

This sux to lose a skydiving company like this. I was really hoping to possibly get some cams and a replacement lens for my old Oxygn helmet that I bought used but guess I'll just continue on jumping it open faced with goggles not biggie.

I had to read this out loud at work, that's frigging awesome! Skydiving is like any other hobby any of them can cost a lot of time and energy. Here were some of my other hobbies past and present: Drag racing. WAY more expensive that skydiving. Snow skiing just as expensive as skydiving maybe more unless you become a ski bum which would essentially be a packer. Snowmobiling or 'snowmachines' definitely can get expensive. Boating/fishing. There are two good days the day that you buy your boat and the day that you sell your boat. Essentially though any hobby can get expensive and cost a lot of time and energy. There are those out there that live, breathe and spend every bit of free time that they have towards racing, fishing, golf, skiing, boating, horses, camping and whatever other kind of hobby that you want to list here. Its all relative but with skydiving yes it is more of a culture and lifestyle but that can be said as well for bikers and the racing community as well. By racing community I'm referring to dirt track racing which is huge where I'm at, drag racing I got out of years ago.

Did you guys ever get this thing off of the ground?

I'm in the same boat as you, did my ankle in over 20 yrs on a 3-wheeler, the ankle went in the front of the fender tire sucked my leg in and got spit out the back, the end results was something similar to this http://www.medicalexhibits.com/medical_exhibits_image.php?exhibit=11214_01X although my fracture was open it was very similar. Now I have metal in it. Fast forward to last year and I did a hard PLF on a high density altitude day, I PLF'd R and my L compromised ankle got turned the same way that I had previously injured it. End result was some pretty bad tendon and ligament damage with no refracture and I had to sit at one of the most legendary boogies with a friggin boot on my ankle walking around on crutches for a week, one and done. I took 2-3 mos off. Doc tried to tell me to wait until this year to jump, so I got on top of a chair in the exam room and jump off of it and explained to that essentially when I land and do a proper flare that is the same type of forces I expose my ankle to. Most docs have absolutely no clue when it comes to skydiving. I now use a brace on my ankle that prevents my ankle from turning in medially towards the center to keep the same injury from happening. Similar this one but without the hard plastic http://www.braceshop.com/donjoy-universal-ankle-stirrup.htm?gdftrk=gdfV28018_a_7c2568_a_7c10961_a_7c28999&gclid=CLWIr8ajkswCFQ1ahgodkeIIFw I may actually buy this one and try it out instead of my other one as I want the best brace I can get my hands on. Anyways I learned a lot. The air their was completely different than at home that's no excuse though I should quite simply I'm pretty sure I fucked my flare up plain and simple, I just really was not expecting that at all my canopy just didn't seem to respond and basically I know I should have started the flare higher on a high density altitude day at least that how it felt to me. Since then I took a canopy course got my B and am working on knowing every damn characteristic my canopy has to perfect my flare. Its also making me question whether or not I should swap my canopy out for a canopy that is known for great flares, any ideas on this let me know and send me a PM. Enough about my story though, in your case, I'm no bone specialist but I would find yourself the right brace that works for you and work with your doctor on it. Yes the brace may be expensive as ALL medical equipment is but I would NOT suggest going to the local sports store and picking up some rinky dink brace, get a brace specifically designed for your injury and wear it when you jump. In your case it sounds like you need a pretty extensive brace that is going to protect your entire lower leg and upper ankle, so you will need something that support the upper ankle and allow knee movement so you aren't restricted on your landings at all. I'm absolutely sure there is a proper brace out there for you, I'd talk with an orthopedic surgeon, P.A. or N.P. that is well versed on what is available to hook you up with the right medical supplier. Another that I'm going to try to work on is figuring out my perfect PLF, I thought I did everything right and still got injured. I have the tendency to PLF towards my R (L ankle is injured) basically putting my good leg first however that's what caused my injury because the forces of that PLF bent my ankle the same direction as the old injury. I'm going to have to redo my PLF entirely and go the other way. This all reminds me that I need to get some slick shoes as well. Anyways sorry for the long post I hope this helps a little and that you find the right brace, you may need a combination of an ankle brace and a shin guard but there are tons of medical equipment manufacturers out there so you should be able to find the right one that works for you.

Point well taken. I don't know crap about relationships but I think what I was trying to get at is that if she had no reservations about it then but now suddenly does....well that's just not very cool for a chick to pull that on a guy. Almost like being someone you aren't. I would think they would have talked about it then. Pretty damn cool to do that for a 3rd date, if I were in the same shoes I would have thought 'yeah this chick is pretty cool'. But yes I can see where that kind of mentality would come into play. I understand the sentiment but there's a difference between doing things once as a novelty once and adopting something as a lifestyle. (Baksteen made a similar point.) For example, some young jumper on dz.com once had that issue: His parents didn't want him to start skydiving but came to accept he would go make a jump. He made his first jump, and the parents thought, "Phew, thankfully that's over with! He diced with death, has made a skydive, but now that'll be out of his system, no need to ever do that again!" Which might work for a majority of the people who do tandems, but for those who end up on dz.com, generally is just about the opposite of what they feel...

That's crazy. Makes me wonder how many others are floating around out there with the same problem. If after only 3 yrs something like this happens you would think they'd be a little more concerned about it than trying to place blame back on you or the rigger for "digging it out with a tool". So as of right now this post has had 2943 views, as there are multiple views let give it a lowball and say that roughly 1000-1500 people have seen this thread. Of those lets say 1/2 are going to say "well I'd go ahead and buy a Mirage anyways" the other 1/2 have definitely taken notice and now have just completely ruled out buying a Mirage. So that's 500 less customers +/-250. Those are all potential customers that have taken notice that Mirage hasn't remedied a problem with the most basic of customer service. That's pretty sad especially when I'm almost sure that they or one of their reps has probably been one of the 2943 views. I'll stick with my 22yr old container for now which I will probably need to replace soon.....that probably won't be a Mirage though. I'll have to look at my 22yr old pin and see if its in better shape than your 3yr old pin :)

I think she is playing you honestly. If she did a tandem on your 3rd date, then why did she think she would be ok then and now is against it. Your title says "death wish" and in your post it says she is afraid you might get hurt. Either way though whichever it is I find it really disturbing that she jumped on a tandem and now apparently thinks that its not ok. So a tandem is ok but learning how yourself isn't!?! I'd honestly call her out on it and ask her why in the hell she did a tandem back then if she thought its a "death wish". Sounds to me like she is manipulative and that she needs to be honest with you and is holding something back. I'd have a differing opinion on all of this is she hadn'talready done a skydive. That's just me though. Guess that's why I'm still single and never been married.

Recently I finally upgraded my phone and I looked around for skydiving apps for it. I didn't find much. The only really useful thing that I found out as far apps go well at least I'm curious as to how it will work is an app called "Skydive Sensor Logger" It looks interesting its an open source code project that I think some math guys developed you can log up to 10 sensors including things like: Accelerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope, gravity, linear acceleration, rotation vector and a bunch of other crap. Looks great but I have my doubts that its going to work (weather has been crap here and haven't been able to jump yet this season). Guess I was just looking for something that had altimeter, speed, G-forces, free fall time crap like that in a phone app. I'll probably just end up buying an Altitrack in the end but was thinking if I could find a decent phone app that had MPH, freefall time, etc then I could just buy a Solo. None of the MPH, freefall time etc is essential for me but would just be fun to know is all.

Wow I wonder how much she paid that paper to write the article for her. Are the CO Senators really listening to her? They a nuggin futz if they are listening to her. City support!?! Oh yes like the city is going to go against a judge that just awarded Mile-Hi $120,000 in damages, the appeal will probably cost another $100,000 oh yes if I were a city administrator I'd totally jump on board with 'ol Kimmie. I could totally see the mayor proclaiming a noise abatement program and exposing the city to federal fines you know cause Kimmie says its ok! That piece of journalism was pure garbage did they even bother interviewing Mile-Hi to get their point of view? Is that paper actually printed and distributed in Longmont? She is just trying to convince people that they actually have a chance against federal law. She is nutz. When is the Mile-Hi boogie? You guys definitely need one! It should be named like "Batshit Crazy Days" Definitely want to get some jumps in down there, I met a few of you at the Holiday Boogie in Eloy and had a lot of fun.

I know this will probably make some wingsuiters mad but I think some of you are over looking at to why they are even making this BSR, sure it might be to protect the tandem student or the licensed jumper under canopy.. or maybe its to protect the wingsuiter. At first this video looks kind of cool and I'm sure or hope to god that all of the people under canopy had at least agreed to have a wingsuiter fly by them. It doesn't end very well and to me it seems like the wingsuiter was focused on just flying by the canopies and lost altitude awareness, you can see there is another canopy at the end that but luckily he decided his flyby was over at that point....he deploys and surprise line twists. I'm sure everyone has probably seen this video but if you haven't here it is. I know its only one person but they shared this video to bring to light how bad it really could have been. This guy got pretty lucky. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6a63fbqnNQ

That dropzone looks amazing! Would love to jump there someday! Somewhere in Europe?

I get what you are saying but in the end...you haven't made a jump in 10yrs. You are at the mercy of the DZ. I had no problem retaking the FJC after one year off and had to take the SL FJC twice.

The speedometer in a car has backlighting and usually there's no direct sunlight but the white needle on the black face probably won't be a problem. The critical area however, is important. That's the area you want to be able to read in a split second. I'm curious as to how easy it is to read that area with a white needle in direct sunlight. Yes exactly the white needle on the black face works great! But yes I do not like the yellow and orange areas wish they would have just left them off because it does take just a split second longer to find the needle once it passes from the black into the yellow and that's the most critical area. Honestly for simplicity sake I will just say I wish it had a white face, a split second can mean 200' taking a second look can mean 500'. I've gotten used to this alti but it's something that I keep in the back of my mind. But yes I have never had a problem in direct sunlight but I don't have all that many jumps under my belt. Will test it though and zero it to the less visible areas and see what it looks like.

Looks like a Viplo FT-50, no there aren't any glare issues at all. Next time you get in your car or truck take a look at your speedometer, black background with a red/yellow needle. The only issue that I really have with this particular alti is that the needle is white/yellow and the area from 4500' to 3500' is yellow which makes it slightly difficult to find the yellow/white needle in a yellow background. The red, orange and yellow areas on the face lend themselves better to a black needle not a white/yellow one. Nonetheless its a very durable and dependable alti.

N/A

I was down in Eloy over the Holiday Boogie and there weren't any copies but will check again.

I didn't quite realize how bad ass this guy was until I ran across this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwsgCCRnUp4 before Red Bull I guess there was Marlboro lol. That was one crazy landing on top of a mountain though! I remember in high school I subscribed to POWDER Magazine and there was a sidebar article about when did his speed dive with a weighted nose cone. I didn't realize that he was sky surfer. Anyone here happen to know the details of that jump with the nose cone?

Making some flyers for our DZ and I'm just wondering if QR codes are worth it or if people even use the darn things. Thanks

Anyone have a copy that I can buy, borrow, beg or steal? Or anything of this kind of quality? I really would like to have some good skydiving footage for an Expo that our club is attending and this video is done perfectly great choice of music and some amazing footage. VHS, DVD, dropbox whatever format you have. I messaged Mike directly on facebook and haven't gotten a response yet but I really want to buy this and it seems I'm running into deadends. I think you-tube and go-pros have replaced a lot of what would be available for purchase and what is for purchase usually has BASE jumping in it. I really don't want to give the whuffos the idea to associate skydiving with BASE when we are trying to get them come do our FJC. The you-tube stuff is great but I can't burn it to a DVD and hit play is the problem. Thanks, Here's the video! I can't watch the damn thing enough! https://www.facebook.com/mike.mcgowan.1297/videos/10203100626532447/