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I dont work in skydiving HR so I cant speak from direct experience, but my guess would be that they don't want to be bothered with the extra work. It's a lot easier to hire a US citizen than a non-resident alien. It's not as simple as just sponsoring you over. It's more involved than that and many work visa requests are denied. The US government would prefer US jobs go to US citizens and so there are limitations of issuance on work visas and many people do not qualify for one.

Here is a video of a guy having a chop on a Storm after a WS jump:

When I colored my lines I only colored the attachment point webbing that extends beyond the bar tack. If you look at the attachment point you'll see that the canopy manufacturer does not usually trim the webbing right at the bar tack that connects it to the canopy. Usually there is about 10mm of material that extends beyond the bar tack. I color that material because it is not load bearing.

If the Strix is similar to the ATC then I am wondering why Squirrel calls for 70 WS jumps for the ATC but Phoenix Fly wants you to have 200 WS jumps to fly the Strix. I have my own theory as to why this is, but I am curious what others say.

Ron Bell talks about the new AAD BSR here: https://www.skydive-tv.com/pia-symposium-2019-ron-bell/ Also, UPT mentions it around 4:50 here: https://www.skydive-tv.com/pia-symposium-2019-tom-noonan-upt/

Facebook. There are tons of groups with thousands of items.

Ron Bell talks about the new AAD BSR here: https://www.skydive-tv.com/pia-symposium-2019-ron-bell/ UPT talks a bit about it here as well (4:55): https://www.skydive-tv.com/pia-symposium-2019-tom-noonan-upt/ These USPA conspiracy theories are getting a bit ridiculous. Tabulating statistical data on incidents is a core function of improving safety in every single industry in existence. There are people who's entire careers are solely to run statics on incidents and determine outcomes--it is in itself a career field. Many of the safety improvements that have occurred to products and practices over the years have come directly from analyzing statistical data obtained from incident reports. Detailed and comprehensive reports allow people to better understand legitimate, real-world risks and their applicability to certain situations and conditions. Likewise, a complete lack of reporting leaves little more than random guessing which will never further the advancement of anything.

You can set the backlight on the X2 to stay on all the time if you want. The manufacturer has it disabled by default because the backlight will eat up battery life quickly.

Not necessarily. I colored my attachment points on my first canopy and I used the colored attachment points for my first 500 jumps. It was not until I had my D license that I packed a canopy without colored attachment points (it was a demo), and I found it to be just as easy as a canopy with the colored attachment points. At that point I had enough pack jobs that I was not even really paying attention to the colors much anymore. However, the colored attachment points helped big time when I was learning to pack. It made the process easier and if I had to start over again I'd 100% be down for using colored attachment points. It's useful when you're new.

I own an X2 and use it on every jump. Currently there is not really anyway to export and view GPS data. The most you get is GPS navigation while in flight. It will give you an arrow and a distance indicator (in mi or km) pointing to the DZ while the device is in wingsuit mode. This is in case you get lost in the air or whatever. I have not used a Dekunu but I've seen them on the plane many times. They dont look attractive to me in that they seem to have a quite short battery life and there is way too much info on the screen. It's too complex and convoluted. The X2 is much more simple in that regard. If you want to actually analyze your flight you're going to need a FlySight or other portable GPS. The X2 is really just an altimeter that is supplemented by limited GPS info to tell you what direction you're going, how fast and how far away you are from the DZ. Regardless of which device you get, expect to charge it every day you jump. The Bluetooth and GPS functionality eats up a ton of battery life. I can only get about three full days of jumping out of my X2 before I'm around 20% battery. They claim they intend to reprogram the Bluetooth module in the future to reduce battery consumption, but regardless you'll need to charge it regularly. Also know that the X2 is still extremely new and there are only a few hundred units in existence. This means that the device is receiving regular software updates (nearly bi-weekly at the moment) and the software will probably change a lot over the coming year.

I've used colored permanent markers to color the line attachment points. It's unlikely using a marker on your canopy will cause it to fail. Rock climbers use permanent markers to mark nylon climbing ropes all the time and that's been a practice for decades already. Anyway, what I did was I only colored the attachment point fabric that extends beyond the bar tack. So then even if there was some effect, it would not matter because the marker was not used on any load bearing fabric.

I don't know why this is still a debate. The manufacturers are nearly in universal agreement--double stow. Virtually every manufacturer out there says this. By contrast, I don't know of even one major manufacturer who currently recommends against double stowing rubber bands. Bag strip is a very serious malfunction and if it happens to you there is a legitimate chance you could die from the resulting hard opening. Double stowing is explicitly intended to prevent a bag strip malfunction and it is more effective at doing it than other forms of stowing. At the bare minimum, if you dont double stow you should be able to easily lift your bag off the ground by the lines without them falling off. If you cannot do that, you need to use a different stow method that provides greater stow tension. One of the problems that makes single stowing seem attractive is that the problem that is created with single stowing does not immediately manifest itself. You could go thousands of jumps without ever having a problem. But one day out of nowhere the physics align and you get slammed like you just got into a car accident at 120 MPH. That would be the bag stripping off the parachute causing premature inflation because your locking stows were too lose.

There is not too much point in going from a Sabre 2 to a Pilot. They are both 9-cell canopies and while the Pilot is a bit more docile than the S2, it's still a fairly lateral move. You'd be much better off buying a Pilot 7 if you're getting into WS. I own a P7 and it works very well with WS. If you bought a P7 187 in ZPX, it should pack around the size of a Sabre 2 170. The fact that it is 7 cell knocks off about half of a size by itself and the ZPX knocks off at least another half size. Also know that Aerodyne does make the P7 in Ultra LPV as well, but that might actually be too small for your container. Ultra LPV is around two sizes smaller.

They seem to be a lot more common than one would think. Cypress' website says ' The first life saved by a CYPRES dates back to April of 1991. Since then, more than 4,000 lives have been saved!'. Vigil reports 329 saves so far. Not sure how many MARS has. I have not personally witnessed an AAD fire, but I've talked to a few instructors who have.

I want something I can do some backflying and transitioning in, but I am not an acro flyer. I mostly do simple stuff. Formations, docking, stacks, some basic backflying and transisioning, but that's about it. If the Strix and ATC are more or less the same in terms of performance, I dont think it would make sense for me to buy one. But the Strix does seem to have more surface area than the ATC and so I assumed it would be faster and have more L/D.