jerry81

The diagrams you may have seen on the website can be a bit misleading. The relative wind does not hit you head on when you're flying atmo...your body may be positioned at 45° (or thereabouts) to the horizon, but the angle of attack is definitely not zero. However, the airflow around your body does feel a bit like headdown flying and makes it seem like you're gliding down instead of pushing on the air to move forward. Does that make it clearer?

By that theory then crossbraced canopies would be 28 and 36 cell canopies. Ummmm, there is ONE And probably just the one, since according to that logic, the others would be 35- and 45-cell canopies. What a wonderfully confusing thread...

Because when you get to crossbraced designs, regular definitions suddenly don't apply anymore and you're free to make up new ones? Just my guess... Or maybe it's because cells divided in two are 'regular' and cells divided in three are not...although techically, you could also call it 'quint-cell' since most crossbraced canopies have cells divided into 5 parts...

IMO, the easiest way would be to treat them as tracking dives- a good atmonauti flock can easily cover the same distance as a group of trackers with the average fallrate being, at least in my experience, around 170-180km/h. In addition to exit order, it's important for the 'navigator' leading the dive to know the jump run direction and wind conditions and adjust the flight accordingly. Most of the time, that means either flying 45° to the jump run or straight up the line of flight for a group that exits last on an upwind jump run. So basically, these are jumps that can have considerable horizontal movement and require some flight planning as well as proper exit order. Make sure the people doing it at your dz understand that. Hope this helps.

Thiene is relatively close. But beware- in august, most of the country (more literally than you'd imagine) goes on holiday. Just something to take into consideration...

One: search this forum for Kolomna and you should find plenty of information on just about everything. Two: no, you can not jump without an aad. Try borrowing one off a friend if you're really set on going there.

There's this Italian guy named Philippe Leroy who's over 70. I packed for him a few times when he was jumping atmonauti two weeks ago at the Atmo Pro2 boogie. Does that count?

I doubt the small rubber bands will stretch to the point where you can double wrap them and besides, they don't just stretch, they wear out as well. Better to replace them when they get too loose. Also, it's good to keep things symmetrical, so ideally, you should replace them on both sides of the bag at the same time.

I'm pretty sure the neptune wave is an audible only. They advertise it for those that already have a neptune to use as a visual. It's more like a pro dytter (though way better). Dave Guess you're right...my bad. I wonder if Alti-2 could make a visual firmware upgrade for it if the need arose...

I think you could get a Neptune Wave for about the same price as a Digitude. All the bling of a regular Neptune, just without jump logging. I use mine (normal Neptune, that is) as a visual on canopy control jumps and must say I'm very satisfied.

I guess I'll have to try...hope it's still a valid comparison, regardless of the different deployment system.

Last hop&pop yesterday, I had an extremely weird opening. I did a gainer out the door and pitched belly to the relative wind, nothing unusual about body position, packjob or throw, but instead of a subterminal snivel and the expected swing forward, it looked like my canopy started to inflate and then lost line tension for a moment or so, meaning it was halfway open when I reached linestretch. It wasn't extremely hard, but it was violent and it got me thinking; could it be that when the parachute was coming out of the bag, my body was still moving independently down the hill and instead of being snatched by the opening canopy, I slid just enough to lose line tension? Has anyone ever experienced something similar and in what circumstances? I've done gainers and normal diving deployments from this plane (antonov-2) and never had anything unusual happen before...

Here's one such page: http://www.parachuteriggers.com/packing%20instructions.htm. Harness/container manuals, some canopies and some other stuff... Definitely one of my bookmarks.

Yep. I'm going there primarily for packing, but I've a feeling I could end up just jumping and partying with friends... Ditto on the Belgian beer.

I badly sprained an ankle when I swooped into the edge of a ditch last year (miscalculated approach and wrongly assumed it's ok to go a bit longer). Didn't get x-rays, but it's quite possible something was cracked as well. Second worst injury was a dislocated knee on exit (bad count, the guy I was jumping with pulled me out and my right leg kinda got left in the plane ). Don't remember if it was the same knee, but one of them got twisted on a dirtdive that year as well (2003 really sucked for my legs).

So...from the pictures it seems that instead of launching down a slope, you get your canopy up and into the wind and then just run off the edge, right? Hardcore! (would be nice to see outside video, too)

Yo, Barbara! If you find the time, please visit our forum at http://www.padalstvo.com/forum_viewforum.php?27 and post the exact same message. It oughta drive a few people crazy... See you in Spa. PS: WHEEEEEEE!!

I have an AV port built into my helmet (left of the lens on the picture...I'm fixing some details right now, so I can't take a better one since the helmet looks much worse). No problems with filming and playback. This solution was shamelessly copied from a friend. He uses a PC109 (I have a PC9), also without problems.

Possible...but the fact is, my Demon "120" has both bigger span and cord compared to other 120 canopies of the same class. Plus we measured it with Stane and he calculated a surface of 130 sq. ft. And just to add, the canopy does seem quite stable in turbulence and flying in brakes, although the closed end cells (usually just one side) often need some pumping to inflate completely. 'Fast and soft' is exactly how I'd describe most of the openings, although from time to time I might get a fast and brutal one (bad body position, most likely).

I have about 200 jumps on a Demon right now. One thing I would definitely advise is to check the size of the canopy you're getting. Mine says 120 on the label but is practically the same size as a Cobalt or a Stiletto 135, so it's either a mistake by the manufacturer or a radically different measuring method. Unfortunately, I have exactly one jump on a Stiletto (120), so all that follows is more or less one-sided; First of all, for one pro, the Demon would be easier to pack. Not that I have problems packing PD canopies, but that's just the way it is. Secondly, the Demon's recovery arc is probably longer...of course I can not say for sure until I've tried the same thing on a same-sized Stiletto, but with my canopy I'm currently doing 90° carving approaches with some added harness input and starting them at almost 100m. Riser pressure in this kind of maneuvre isn't very high. Also, if you start the turn with a sharper hook, the pressure will start seriously building somewhere around 270°. With a gentler carving turn, though, the canopy will try to level out much faster and the front riser will get harder to pull, so I wouldn't want to make generalizations about that, especially since I don't have enough jumps, both on this canopy and on others. Landings are, speaking again from my own experience, quite nice. I've read reports of Demons stalling abruptly near the end of the flare, but from what I understand, those were earlier/experimental models. Mine may require a little run-out on no-wind days, but performs well otherwise. If it's any help at all, there's an opening, some flying and some landings of my Demon in our newest video. Sorry I can't write more, but, as I said, I don't feel exactly qualified to compare my canopy to one I've never flown.

Try this...

They look cool...but are you sure they're low-profile enough to withstand the kind of speeds and different angles at which the air will be hitting them?

Claus, you skinny f*ck, I didn't realize this was you! What happened to your other dz.com handle? I've had this video on my pc for some time now- did you do any changes to it or just announced it here a bit late? Heh, my beer video was Russia as well, but I still haven't gotten around to compressing it for internet... Maybe we'll see you in Kolomna again...some people from Slovenia are discussing it atm, but nothing is very clear yet. f we do go, it'll be end of june, beginning of july, similar as last year... PS: Fuck you for doing so much jumps in one year!

I know that guy...he said another skydiver grabbed him on exit and knocked the handle loose. Made it down ok, though.

I witnessed something similar last year...low pull, FXC fire, began with a slight main/reserve entanglement and went into a downplane at maybe 300'. The guy walked away as soon as they got him down from the tree that stopped his fall...