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In general you can modify the main portion of the system as you see fit. If you modify the harness, that's another matter.

Another possible point is they may increase your chance of a tension knot mal. The amount of friction a line produces has an effect on the likeness of tension knots. New, slippery material is less likely to cause a knot than older, worn material.

Lines are responsible for a lot of drag which has a negative effect on how the canopy flies. This is why crossbrassed canopies use HMA 325 and such. The faster the canopy, the more it matters.

It will get better with time. It's probably just anxiety. I had it a lot for the first 40 jumps or so too. I used to loose sleep during AFF actually even though nothing really that bad actually happened to me during AFF. If it was easy, what would be the point? It's fun because it's not easy. Give it time and it will get better. The first 40 jumps are the hardest mentally.

That is not true. The SIM states you should have a B license to jump from anything other than an airplane.

ha, of course it can, in some regards. My CR+ is much faster and more powerful than my Colugo 4. But yes, all things considered the Culugo is a very powerful platform and it is great for what it is intended for. My flare height is actually slightly higher on my Culugo than on my CR+ simply for the fact that the arm wings on the CR+ are so massive that it's quite difficult to correctly flare in a suit that large. The Culugo is an easier platform to do a large flare in.

If you're trying to figure out if buying a new canopy vs an old one will make you less likely to have a cutaway, the answer is probably not. The one exception here would be the condition of the lineset. Heavily worn lines are more likely to have tension knots than new, slippery ones and they are more likely to fail on a hard opening.

Yes.

Well I dont know what your definition is of reliable. I think you're using the word reliable to mean soft. To me reliable = always on heading and never with a malfunction. In that case, the best you're going to get is a BASE canopy followed by jumping a lightly loaded reserve as a main followed by jumping a 0-3 CFM 7-cell wingsuiting canopy. No 9-cell can come even close in reliability to any of those options.

Certainly not. That's a massive leap. You're basically asking something along the lines of going from a Pilot 170 to a Sabre 2 120 in one jump. The Kataka is super ground hungry and dives like a brick with any input. If you want something more sporty, the Stiletto is very responsible to input and will feel like a race car compared to your Storm, but the trim is much flatter so it's easier to manage on landing if all you're doing is 90s.

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His exact question was "I wanted to know how dangerous it was to skydive with a slight back pain.". That is asking for medical advice. There is absolutely no way anyone on this forum could know in the slightest what types of medical issues he has and so providing any advice on this would be absolutely nothing other than a completely random guess which completely worthless advice. There is no one on here qualified to tell someone their medical condition is or is not safe for skydiving.

ATC to C-Race is too much of a step up for most people. I dont think I have ever met someone who's flying an ATC that is truly ready for a C-Race. I know guys with 600 WS jumps that still arnt ready for that suit.

It's the truth. Why would you ask for medical advice from untrained, unqualified Internet randos? Do you ask for skydiving advice from random people who have never made a jump in their life? Dident think so.

The risk with not tackling softlinks is they can rotate and lines can catch on the tab causing a malfunction. The manufacturers require they are tacked into place regardless of whether you agree or not, especially for a reserve. If other riggers are lazy and dont inspect them, then said riggers should not be riggers anymore. http://www.flyaerodyne.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ALink-Manual.pdf

I own a Freak 3 and a Colugo 4. They are both fantastic suits. The answer to your question is easy--for time the Culugo 4 will do better. It's a larger suit and it's based on the C-Race platform. The ATC2 is basically a stripped down version of the Freak 3 and the Culugo 4 is a stripped down version of the C-Race. However, the difference in time between the ATC2 and the Culugo 4 is not as much as you might think, and the difference is even less than the difference between the Freak 3 and C4. If you're pretty good and you know how to fly for time well, you might get an extra 30 seconds in a jump with the C4 vs the ATC2. Even the difference between something like a CR+ and a Freak 3 is not as large as you might think. I have done many time runs and I know exactly what I can get in a given suit that I fly regularly. In my CR+ I can get my average fall rate to about 31 MPH. 29.1 is my best. In my Freak 3, I can do 33-34 MPH. So in reality, there is only about a 3 MPH average vertical speed difference (about 30 seconds) between the CR+ and Freak 3 and those are two massively different suits. Also know the step up from the ATC2 to the C4 will be pretty big at first. The C4 is a powerful suit with quite a bit more surface area than the ATC2 and again it's based on a race platform so it's built for performance. The Freak 3 will be slightly easier to fly and pull in. Also, the C4 does not have backfly inlets. I still backfly mine and it can backfly okay, but you need to be fairly experienced and conformable to be able to do it and actually stay in formation. Overall, my personal recommendation would be the Freak as it's better for flying with other people, you can backfly it easily and you can still totally crank out close to a 4 min jump if you're good and know how to fly for time well. However, if you're truly dedicated for time only with zero care about anything else, the C4 will do slightly better and the C4 has a lot more flare power than the Freak 3. But the Corvid will do even better than the C4 will do for time at the cost of speed. The Corvid is a big suit. If time is your main goal something like a C4 would be good and then the next step would be the CR+ which is about as good as it's going to get. I've done a 5min 3 sec jump in my CR+ from 16.5k before.

There is no one on here that is qualified to give medical advice. If you want a second opinion go see another doctor.

If you're only doing 20 jumps a year and you only have 100 WS to begin with, I'd stick to a beginner suit. An intermediate suit like an ATC can spin you up with a quickness if you lose control of it.

If everyone would stay at home for just two weeks we could effectively irradiate the virus entirely. However, there will always be assholes who dont want to get with the program which means even if 99% of those are doing the right thing, the virus will happily spread to the 1% who doesn't give a shit which makes it impossible to get rid of this thing. We dont need people to stay at home for a year. We just need everyone to stay at home for two weeks and this thing would have been a done deal a long time ago. Anyway, you are right about flattening the curve. Here is the thing though. If we reopen so fast that we end up overwhelming the hospitals with new infections anyway, then what the was the point in doing everything we have been doing for the last three months?

Good luck with that. Since when has anyone ever cared about anything other than themselves. At the end of the day people are jumping because they just flat-out dont care. They want to go skydiving and they are not concerned with the risks involved. It's really not any more complicated than that.

Pretty sure most of the people at the DZ are acting out of ignorance. The general population is acting out of ignorance. Most of the people at the DZ are just laughing it off as a 1% fatality rate (which is incorrect to start) and so they likely feel that they are not in any real danger if they get it.

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And? Just go to Elsinore. They are operating and charging the usual price instead of double. Anyway, half of the DZs in the country are already open or will be open within the next two weeks. At this point DZs opening is not new news in any regard.

You're not going to get cell service that high. Usually cell service gets pretty weak above 3k-5k. You might get one bar at 7-8k if you're close to a tower, but that wont be enough for a live video feed. I have seen people do hop and pops while live streaming and even that doesn't always go so well. Also what you're explaining is not going to be possible this year anyway due to the virus. It probably wont be safe to do next year either. For sure you're going to get infected doing what you suggest.

Well I think the Havok sucks so I wouldent buy it for any amount. They are quite slow. A Swift 3 can outfly one. But if you're just doing solos on your own, then who am I tell you what you may or may not like. I just wouldent buy one myself.