jerry81

What kind of site do you want to set up and what are your priorities? Really cool graphic design? Incredibly easy to use? Dynamic content? You going to maintain it yourself or have someeone else do it, etc.? I don't know if the amount of work I have at the moment would really allow me to make a bid for it anyway, but I'd at least like to know what kind of 'shit hot' you're looking for.

McDragon; talk to George. Or you can drop me a pm and we can cover some of the basics of flying and landing a canopy like that. Getting video for analysis can help as well.

Non-linear editing rocks, is that what you're saying? Whew, and here I thought I was swimming against the current...

OK, so it ripped along the seam between 1st and 2nd cell on both sides, bottom skin. You asked who can help you- perhaps the manufacturer would be your best option.

Is the rip anywhere near the winglets (or whatever those things are called)? They're sewn between the first and second cell, right?

Low-right-left-up, with bridle coming from under maybe? Of course with Atoms, you may get three rigs and five different flap/loop combinations...

Can you attach the picture or post a link to it? I'm a little bored...

My first pondswoop ever had a very crowd-pleasing ending. Let's just say the banks are a bit too steep at the moment... Even though I had sand in my mouth I was grinning like a little kid in Disneyland when I got up.

Thanks to some heavy rain last weekend, it filled up sooner than we expected, but noone's complaining... Some pictures from this saturday attached.

Hi, I sent you an email since the name and rig info aren't really that relevant for this thread.

A few months ago a girl jumping here asked me and another packer to tell her what she's doing wrong because her canopy was consistently opening into linetwists. After a wwhile the problem was finally traced to her Advance container on which the main llift webbing on one side was more than 1 cm longer than on the other...she said the rig had already been sent back once because it was custom ordered, but didn't fit properly. I've seen and packed a few Advance rigs and while I'm not aware of any major problems with them I can't understand how the hell something like the above could have slipped their quality control...

If you took a hp canopy and changed the length of the lines below the cascades by: a)2% (to keep the proportions) b)2" c)same options, but just the C lines from links to the cascades... ...any idea what the result would be? (Besides becoming a test pilot on the next jump.

Crazy Doc (their resident doctor) is a pretty good freeflyer and coach. Also, Gian Carlo says he's going there again this summer, but I don't know when exactly. Kolomna is a huge operation in the summer so I'm sure it'd be hard not to find a good coach or two when you're there...

I've seen cameras mounted with brackets die after flying through rain clouds (a neoprene condom woould have helped)...just a thought. You can fit a lot of things on a Z1 if you have the time and the energy...

Just to sum it up briefly, if you want more performance, you're better off with the PF pants (even better if combined with the jacket) or a cheap pair of homemade smoke pants (search the BASE forum for those). If you want to look cool, you need the Birdman Pantz. While the other two options work better in the air, they're hardly suitable for post-jump socializing at the dz bar. And don't even get me started on the Pressurized tracking pants. Note that none of these products can magically improve your skills, especially skills you don't even possess yet and might even hinder your progress if used at a too early stage. It's easier to go unstable with tracking pants and end up fighting them for control instead of flying them and of course even easier for that to happen if your body/air awareness is under a certain level. Also, to the original poster- if you are serious about BASE jumping in the next 100 jumps or so, I hope you've already considered making most of those jumps a preparation for it.

I realize that. My main concern is the part about pushing it so much that a slight bump in the air or a whuffo spectator trying to jump the wrong way would cause an accident...

This is a hypothetical situation based on recent experience I had; You have a very experienced jumper visiting at your dropzone (say, 10.000+ jumps) with less than desirable canopy flying habits. Disregard for landing pattern, low hook turns, landing wherever he wants. He probably has the skill to pull it off continuously, but the way he's pushing it sometimes makes the margin for error so small that even a slight change of uncontrollable factors would make him hurt not just himself but others, too. Do you approach such a person and what do you say to them? If you have a lot less jumps, but still feel they're too dangerous? Or if you are the DZO or S&TA of the dropzone, considering that what you say may cause a person with a lot of influence to talk badly of your place? I prefer to see really experienced people leading by example, but as I've seen, sometimes that's just too much to hope for...

Well, I was thinking more in terms of different move (your wrist, your arm)-different leverage. I doubt you could grab and punch as effectively with a handle that's somewhere above your ass, unless you're triple jointed...I know I can't, but most of my joints bend merely in one additional direction.

I disagree. First of all, designs of freefly handles vary much more than designs of cutaway pillows. If nothing else, most of them are a little shorter than your average cutaway handle. Second, I'd say you grab them differently, your hand is in a different position and you do a different move when using one than when using the other. But the gloves you choose certainly shouldn't prevent you from doing anything you otherwise could...pulling, cutting away, using a knife, whatever.

Thanks, that's clear enough, if slightly scary. The longest I've encountered so far was about 1" on the new Legend, but that one has a special pocket to tuck the stiffener tab into and is really tight (the velcro idea sounds good for your rig). But I suppose a rectangular handle with the webbing attached just in the middle can still get entangled with the bridle (although the bridle knotting around the pc is not a very common occurence, I've personally seen it happen on a rig with a little plush toy instead of a regular pc handle) while a freefly handle sewn directly onto the pc is a bit less likely to in similar circumstances. And of course, floating handle can now apparently be a problem even on boc rigs...

Good call, obviously, but could you elaborate a bit on the design of your freefly handle? You say you felt the boc pouch, but couldn't grab the handle- with a pull-out (no boc), the pad can get knocked loose and if it's trailing in your burble it would be harder to reach, but with a throw-away, the handle should be right there by the mouth of the pouch. Most freefly handles I've seen are attached directly to the pilot chute, and none of the ones that are attached with webbing like hackeys or pvc handles have webbing long enough that a loose handle would be unreachable... Still, on the matter of freefly handles- I had a similar situation on a wings rig 500 jumps ago; borrowed gear, touched the handle a few times on the ground but didn't try grabbing it and when it was time to pull, it slipped out of my hand after the pc was halfway out...as I was trying to get it again, I felt the pc slip out completely and fortunately this lead to a normal opening. And although I've probably seen about 10-15 different freefly handle designs since then (the Wings I jumped had the handle attached directly to the pc, hence my above question), ranging from retrofitted homemade pillows to handles that sit so tight it makes you wonder how the person can even pull, I still don't trust them completely... I'd listen to Bill Booth, but the Skydive Radio site seems to be down because of excessive traffic.

If you're looking for a visual/audible altimeter with logging, my advice would be to get a Neptune. Among other things, it's been around for two years now so you wouldn't be among the first jumpers to test a new toy, plus it has updateable firmware, so it keeps getting better and better...

I'm flying over on nov. 28th and staying till february. Beats spending the winter in Europe!

There's a sub-discipline of freeflying called atmonauti which is bassically doing relative work (in the sense of doing docks on other people) while moving horizontally across the sky. The body position is a bit different to facilitate fine movements and taking grips, but the speeds are comparable to tracking. Maybe you'd like it, it can be quite fun when you get people good enough to fly formations. There's also tracking competitions such as the Space Games tracking race (1-on-1, shorts and t-shirt only, get further than the other guy and pull above 3000' is the absic rules) and the Tracking Derby (worldwide rankings based on tracking performance measured by gps) and various other stuff that might get organised at dropzones, as well as 'regular' tracking dives, which can be a fun way to end the day and also, depending on the people you're jumping with, a good learning tool. I recently had a demo wingsuit and did a week of just ws jumping and while it rocks, it also brings some extra hassles, some limitations and fabric dependancy. Some people also claim it's addictive, but I felt I could quit whenever I wanted. (Or at least I was able to send my demo suit back when the time was up.) I think if you enjoy tracking for the flying sensation (actually going somewhere instead of just down), you're probably in the higher-risk group for getting a wingsuit someday, although it doesn't say anywhere all your jumps should be ws flights...

I really hope this doesn't mean freeflying will eventualy become mostly honing your head-up and headdown skills to perfection so you can turn points faster. Don't get me wrong- that is some sick stuff going on there. Bending-down-picking-up-my-jaw kinda sick, just so we're clear. But to me it also carries a possibility of people focusing on evolving the discipline horizontally instead of vertically (no pun intended), especially if 4-way vrw is classified as formation skydiving instead of an artistic discipline. Which I suppose is not that bad, as long as we don't forget freeflying should be about flying your body however you can imagine...so let's not let anything limit our imagination.