Westerly

I've always been concerned if I try to land on my rears and then flare with the toggles the last minute, letting up from the rears will cause the canopy to dive. Sort of like if you went into a half-flare, then completely let up and went into a full flare. So I guess the question is can you safely try to level out on your rears a few feet off the ground, release the rears and then flare with the toggles?

I actually think that so much flexibility in an AAD is a horrible idea. If that was possible you'll have all sorts of misconfigured AADs and a spike in misfires. People don't know how to turn off their VISOs, why should we play with AADs settings that freely and dangerously? Multimode AADs and user selectable altitude are already a possibility. And despite that simplicity there were misfires. Well if they offer a wingsuit AAD, then most of the demands for AAD modes will be met. But to date, aside from the really overpriced and quite strange Cypress WS AAD, there are no WS AAD modes. Set your AAD to pro and you risk no fire on a WS. Set it to student and you risk a two-out if you swoop. Why not have an AAD mode that activates at 60 MPH instead? It will allow canopy work that is within the realm of what most WS fliers would be doing, but not so low that it would risk a two out.

If they were not motivated enough to come on here when they were running, why would you think they would after they won?

Two quick stories about that. First was back around 1995 when we were in St. Maarten. We took a day trip to Saba to go diving. We were with a cheap dive operator operating out of a Zodiac. On our first dive (to 80 feet) we went a little over our planned time and depth. I got out the tables after the dive to see if we had gone over on nitrogen but by that time we were slamming through the waves to the next site, where the divemaster hustled us into the water ("storm coming!") We did the second dive at 50 feet and again went slightly over. When we got back to the dock I finally looked at the tables - and we were significantly over safe nitrogen loads on both dives. I asked my three friends who I was with if they felt OK and we all did. Thinking we dodged a bullet and could chalk it up to a learning experience, we decided to get lunch before we went back. (Fortunately we came by boat, so no risks of flying back.) So we got a taxi who drove us 20 minutes to a restaurant further inland. While we were waiting for a food I noticed my thumb going numb. Jan got a splitting headache. Marc's knee started to hurt. I looked out and noticed how the view was REALLY nice - you could see for miles. "How high are we?" I asked the waiter. "Oh, very high, 500 meters here," he said. I hadn't even thought about a taxi ride being a problem. Yep, I've heard that story many times. It's pretty common I think. People do a dive, drive inland and suddenly everyone in the car is having issues. So the real question, which is more dangerous, SCUBA to recreational depths (130' max) or skydiving? I bet if I went on a SCUBA forum, everyone would say skydiving. edit: I decided to look it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort SCUBA: 1 death per 186,666 dives. Skydiving: 1 death per 117,675 jumps. If you consider a skydiver will get in more jumps in a weekend than a diver will get in dives (probably by double easily), then skydiving comes out as being 2x as risky as SCUBA according to Wikipedia.

It would be nice to have an AAD that allows for user selectable altitude and speed deployment. Most AADs already allow for altitude adjustment, and some adjustment of the speed based on settings (e.g. student, pro, CP). Mind as well just make it full custom. Type in the altitude and speed you want in increments of 5 MPH / 25'. That way if you want to wingsuit, you can drop the speed to say 60 MPH. If you want to swoop, you can just bump it back up to 100 or whatever you want.

Yea, well the same goes for SCUBA divers talking about skydiving. Only a few do both. SCUBA and skydiving doesent mix because you need to wait 24 hours after diving before you can jump. So you can jump on a Sat and dive on Sun, but not the other way around. Breathing through a regulator is not that hard anyway. Like skydiving in many ways, SCUBA is largely about being comfortable in uncomfortable situations. Once you get used to it, it's not that bad. But also like skydiving, if shit hits the fan in SCUBA, crap gets real very quickly. Underwater emergencies are life threatening and require prompt and correct action.

You're talking about a completely different, unrelated industry. There are tons of drugs that have been out for as long as 70+ years and not only have they not gone down in price, some have increased in price by more than 200 fold. It's simple. When you need it to save your life, you can bet the manufacturer is going to charge an absolutely astronomical price for it. No one needs an old phone to save their life. https://www.drugs.com/slideshow/old-drugs-new-pricetag-1206

Anyone have tips for washing a Squirrel WS? One guy I know mentioned he doesent wash it at all because the one time he tried it adversely affected the flight of the suit after.

Is not that the S&TA's job? The S&TA is overall responsible for all aspects of safety and training for all fun jumpers, students and instructors at the DZ. When I think of GSO I think of a guy standing at the landing area all day, changing the wind landing direction arrow and yelling at anyone who messes up the landing pattern or does something unsafe on landing. In other words, they are the canopy traffic police. That's what I've seen GSOs do. Anything that happens in the air or anywhere other than the landing area is usually handled by the S&TA or a senior instructor/ IE. The GSO may or may not be present during said discussion of events. That's just what I have seen though.

This is the story of pretty much every student. It's no big deal. You just need more jumps. A diving exit can be difficult. I know people with 300 jumps who screw it up 50% of the time. It takes practice. As long as you're being safe, the rest is fairly inconsequential at this point. It will get easier with time.

I've been to about a dozen DZs on the west coast. Only one had a GSO, and only on the weekends. It certainly does not happen at most DZs from what I've seen. A DZ is a business intended to make money. I dont think many DZOs will see the value in posting someone out at the landing area to watch a bunch of licensed jumpers who by definition are authorized to jump without any supervision at all. I am not saying I agree with it. I think there is value in having a GSO, but I dont think many (any) DZOs are willing to pay for one and fun jumpers are not going to agree to a price increase to cover one.

Fantastic, but if this were to ever actually become a cure to cancer, you likely wont ever be able to afford it. There are lots of ground breaking treatment options out there, but for all practical purposes they mind as well not even exist because they are hugely unaffordable to the bottom 99%, and insurance sure as hell wont cover the tab. HIV is so treatable now that for all practice purposes you could pick it up when you're 30 and die at 80 from a heart attack. But the drugs also cost upwards for $400,000 for a lifetime of treatment and many insurance plans dont cover it. You find that out when your so-called 'good' health insurance plan that offers 'full coverage' in fact offers zero coverage for it. It's stuff like this that makes me cringe when I hear people skydive (even full time) with no health insurance. Most people dont seem to realize how little it takes to end up with a bill so extensive you couldent pay for it in two lifetimes. Even with insurance, even so called 'good' insurance, there are no shortage of millions upon millions - even hundreds of millions - who have ended up with medical debt exceeding the cost of a fairly nice 4-bedroom house.

Drop that mentality. It does not matter if the entire planet is behind you waiting to get out. If you have not verified it's safe, you dont get out, no matter who is telling you to (unless it's the pilot). Even if the green is on and you have verified it's clear, you can still hold on a bit if you think something is wrong. I once held the load a bit because I brushed my container along a bench while getting into place. I was afriad I dislodged my pin so I asked someone for a pin check. Everyone was giving me shit, even one instructor. 'geez, why did he have to wait until it's time to get out to get a check. what a loser'. F**k them. They are not the ones who have to deal with a potentially life ending high speed malfunction just because someone was in a rush. Take your time and never get out if you are not 100% you're good. The plane can always go around.

But I still have to land with a passenger somewhere. And I'd rather have something that will improve my glide and flare for a good landing where I want to be than have a crappy landing in an unfamiliar landing place because I couldnt glide to the landing area. Except that is not what the trade-off is. The trade-off is having good glide or good opening reliability. The goal of a reserve should be to get a good parachute over your head no matter what the cost or trade-off is.

Yea, if the canopy is packed well, then that bag is definitely too small. What brand and size container do you have? It should say on the TSO label that holds your reserve packing card.

As long as you can close it... I'd disagree with that. I've seen people close rigs that were so small that half the main was literately sticking out of the d bag. That's a serious malfunction just waiting to happen. If the main gets free out of sequence because the d bag is so small it cannot contain it, that's a bag strip malfunction and bag strip can cause lethally hard openings. My general thought is that if the rubber bands on the closing stows have to stretch across a bunch of canopy material just to close the bag, then the bag is either too small or your packing technique is poor. When the bag is closed, it should contain the entire parachute. If you want to know what a properly fitted main/ d bag combo is, look no further than your rig's user manual. Page 38 if you need an example: https://www.flyaerodyne.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/IconManual052017_online.pdf

I hear the GoPro 10 will make the 7 look like dog crap.

I dont get what problem it's supposed to solve. The curved pin works pretty well.

You're complaining that you're not loaning the government enough money interest free? Well, I have good news for you. You are welcome to withhold your entire paycheck if you want to. It's called additional withholdings, and you can specify any value you want. It's right on the W4 at the bottom.

It depends on how you define 'active'. I wouldent call someone an active skydiver just because they happen to have a valid membership. I think if you dont make at least 30 jumps a year, then I am not sure you're really active. That's basically just one Saturday every three months. If you use that standard, I would think the number is well under what you quoted. If you define active as someone who jumps most weekends and does say 200 jumps per year, then I bet the number is under 10,000 and many of them probably work in the industry.

Yea, I've been hearing this since the day I was born. Here's the thing though. Most people only care enough to spend 30 seconds complaining on Facebook. Anything beyond that and suddenly they find it's not worth their time anymore.

The power company is the customer. Why should they get to avoid paying for the overhead required to produce the power they purchase? The homeowner invested in solar power. Their home improvement investment should not have to go towards subsidizing your power needs. The power company is the customer because they are being nice, not because they need you. The power company couldn't give a crap about your solar. They don't need anyone's solar panels to do what they do and rooftop solar makes their job harder, not easier. Where I live, if you piss off the power company with your solar (e.g. install panels without permission or exceed your allocated capacity), they disconnect you from the grid and mail you a good luck memo. They buy your solar as a matter of public policy and not because they actually want it. The grid is not intended for two-way power traffic and the addition of solar explosion in some larger cities have caused many serious issues that the solar company isint too thrilled to be dealing with. As others have explained, net metering customers are able to sell power for more than what's actually worth. They sell at the same rate they buy, which means for every kilowatt hour the power company buys from you, they actually lose money and the deficit is recouped traditionally by charging higher prices to those who do not have solar. That's exactly what's happening where I live and non-solar customers are (rightfully) pissed off their bills keep going up and up because more people keep installing solar and not paying for grid maintenance. This is such an issue that the power company put a freeze on all new solar installations.

Sure, but at the cost of opening reliability which is not something you want to trade off in a reserve. I could be wrong, but it's been my understanding that opening reliability is linked to aspect ratio. The lower the aspect ratio, the more likely the canopy will open correctly, fly straight in line twists, ect (all other metrics like WL and size considered equal).

This is true, but it's not practically preventable by you as an average jumper. One of the risks I accept (along with several of the preventable ones I mentioned, honestly) when I go for a jump is that I have no idea how to maintain a plane. I think we're having a great time arguing semantics and we probably don't really disagree... my original problem is with people (deliberately or otherwise) blurring the line between luck and care in skydiving. You can ask the pilot when the next 100 hour inspection is due. If the aircraft is being maintained properly, he should be able to give you an answer within a few seconds. You can ask to see the maintenance logs. If the DZ refuses, it's because they have something to hide. Anyone on the aircraft has a right to see that log. Those two things would go a long ways toward implying the DZ does or does not do their due diligence.

Those are not the only non-random risks in skydiving. There is tons of stuff that could happen and they are effectively non-preventable. You could throw your PC, knot the handle and get a PCIT. It's happened more than once. People have died in BASE from it. Changing your packing method of the PC or toss method wont eliminate the risk. You could have lines snag on your container resulting in a malfunction that you cannot cut away. That's also happened and changing packing methods wont guarantee it wont occur. I am not sure that a double mal is 1 in 1mil either. If you look at the fatalities on this website, 36 people listed on this site alone have died from double malfunctions (or more specifically, 'reserve problems'). That doesent include everyone and it doesent include incidents that did not result in a death. I'd say an airplane crash is more preventable than half the stuff on your list. Almost every skydiving crash report I have ever read resulted in the NSTB either saying the pilot messed up big time or the aircraft was not maintained properly. I cant recall any incident report where the official report what that 'shit happened' and no one could have done anything about it. Almost every crash that has occurred was preventable. I agree that you can control many of the risks in skydiving, but there is some level of random risk and even if you are the most conservative of the conservative, you could still die skydiving. Honestly, IMO the most conservative people are probably not the safest on the DZ despite what it might appear. Those who tend to be hyper-conservative also tend to get scared easily, and when they finally do face a legit emergency, they are much more likely to panic and do something dangerous (or nothing at all).