JohnMitchell

Great advice! I think waving off should be reserved for "I'm gonna open my chute now!" My breakoff signal? The sight of the soles of my shoes as I attempt to track over the horizon.

"Think ya used enough dynamite, Butch?" What I wanna know is "did they clean that mess up?" Too many shooters leave too much trash behind.

Ten years in already? There were times we feared you wouldn't make it. Good work, bud.

Good comment by DJL. Also, I see a lot of cutaways, both live and in videos, where the jumper makes little effort to arch while cutting away. Bent at the waist, butt towards earth seems to be too common. Could this be the reason why people are taking so long to "get stable"? I've got 12+ cutaways, from spinners to streamers, arching every time and never being unstable. Disclaimer: I fly lighter wingloadings than most.

That bit right there makes me think you don't have a good understanding of the "relative wind". Basically, when we first leave the plane, we're not falling straight down at the Earth. We're falling ACROSS the sky, horizontally, due to the forward motion of the airplane we just left. So, the first few seconds of freefall "straight down" is actually towards the forward horizon. When you exit the aircraft, you need to present your body to the wind coming from in front, and not try to present your body to the Earth. Wish I was in person so I could demonstrate this more clearly.

Oh wow, gotcha. At Lodi?

A lot of great music from that guy.

You could listen to this song.

Seems that leaving from the same jump run at the same altitude and tracking perpendicular to the jump run would be a fairly objective contest. There would also be several seconds separation between each person, so that would make this much safer than many of the tracking dives I've seen. Of course, the low person has right-of-way and the high person would watch for traffic. Thanks for you thoughts on this, though. They are good points to consider. I sure wish someone who's been in one of these competitions would chime in.

I'd like to do it without flysights or any other electronics. Lodi did it for years without all that, basically an offset jumprun and a judge sitting at the finish line to see who tracked the farthest. Why did you do it from 8,500'? I'd rather do it from 13K and really get some time and distance.

To really see what's going on, I'd need to coach you in person. But 90% of any exit is presentation to the relative wind.

I would like to hold a tracking contest at my home DZ. I've never done one, and have only heard about how they do them at Bill's place in Lodi. I'm looking for advice on how to set one up, how to judge it, etc.

They're not dangerous. Lots of people spaz out for a couple of seconds on exit. Breathe, relax, smile, enjoy. You're not going to die because of a bad exit.

Plenty of people do just fine making their first AFF jump without ever doing a tandem. Quit overthinking. Just take the AFF class and make your jump. The handle will be there. Take your time and use proper technique to find it at pull time.

Standard dinner salad at our house.... Lettuce, then tomato, mushrooms, red pepper (diced), maybe thin sliced red onion or fine chopped green onion, maybe carrot slices, optional shredded cheese. Nothing fancy, and have your pick of dressings. The salad is only there to make your 24 oz. porterhouse steak guilt free.

I've taken 3 of my 4 kids on tandems, but all were in their teen years.

Cool lady. Born into privilege, yet wanted to work for a living. I respect that.

Well darn it. . ..

Hey, how about plain old "sex on the packing tables"?

There's enough BS behavior on both sides of the manifest counter to make quite a list. I've been lucky to never work at a DZ I hated, but then, I've always kept my day job.

I don't doubt you a bit. Anyone who spends any time in aviation soon learns most journalists know little about aviation . . . or science . . . or just about anything useful. .

It's important to note that the vortices that cause wake turbulence descend about 1000' before leveling off, and can, in the right conditions, persist for several minutes. This sounds like prime conditions. The description of G-forces causing the loss of control is incorrect. It was the aerodynamic force of the rotating vortices. G-forces, however, were definitely felt by the airplane as it rolled out of control and had to be recovered.

Wow, great approach. I can think of too many people who fit this profile, who want to advance so quickly but end up being outcasts.

also seems to be the first planned/ international tandem, unlike the mentioned emergency situation Yeah,, seems the article stated it was the first preplanned tandem. "Le premier saut en parachute tandem effectué volontairement"