Westerly

So, this would then be related only to the canopy design itself? I would say so, yes. Different canopies flare differently. This is well-known. The lines type does not have much influence on how the canopy flares. Dacron lines arnt as elastic as people think either. Dacron is polyester and polyester rope and webbing is typically intended to be inelastic. Polyester static ropes used in rope access are among the lowest stretch lines available. It's just that polyester stretches a lot compared to other high tech fibers like HMA (Technora), Dyneema, and Vectran which is why they get coined as being elastic, but in reality compare to other types of rope (like nylon), polyester is not that elastic. If you took a 10' piece of Dacron line and tied one end to a car and pulled on the other end, it's not going to be like a bungee cord. It wont stretch nearly as much as you think it will and chances are you could only get it to stretch a few inches by pulling on it, if that.

That is false. Also, not all student canopies have elastic Dacron lines. Many do not especially considering 'student canopy' really just means some large, lightly loaded semi-elliptical or square canopy of some sort to most drop zones. I absolutely would not jump straight from a 300 to a 230 unless your wingloading on the 300 is absurdly light, like less than 0.5. Going down that fast would be a great way to get hurt on your first jump. I only downsized 20 square feet at a time and each time I did it the first 20+ jumps felt faster than the previous 20. Just a 20 square foot difference made a rather noticeable difference in the landing speed. Dont downsize more than one size at a time and do a minimal of a half dozen jumps on each size as you do it. Dont be in a hurry to downsize as the cons can far exceed the pros if you dont do it correctly.

Fox news is a joke and a complete disgrace to resemble anything anyone would call 'news.' The only thing more ridiculous than Fox News are the people who watch it and think they are watching legitimate news.

I dont know what you are talking about, they use the Skyvans all day every weekend. They are running from load #1 through sunset every Sat and Sun that I've been there.

Sure, but those have short battery lives. You have to charge them every few weeks.

So it looks like we just need to get rid of the Skyvan and use a different airplane with an large rear door. What other options exist other than a C130?

I thought most suits dont have them? Do any of the modern Squirl suits have them? I dident see one on the ATC or Swift 3 when I looked them over yesterday.

It doesent. If you dont have cellular service the thing is a brick. You shouldent need LTE though. I checked with Ping and they said the device will work on 2G.

Perris has LOs every day of the week, not just weekends so if the OP is looking to go somewhere on a vacation it sounds like Perris is the better fit at least for during the week. Perris also has Skyvans which is reason by itself to jump there.

I was looking at getting a cellular tracker for my canopy and putting it in the D bag to make it easier to find after a cutaway. Anyway, I dont know of any skydiving specific device so I was looking at pet trackers and things of the sort. One option I learned about is Ping https://pinggps.com/ Has anyone used anything similar? I am not looking for a Bluetooth tracker, I am looking for something that uses cellular, GPS or some other option that can be tracked from miles away.

Perris has accommodations right on site. I think it's $15 a night if I recall.

That's pretty funny. More like an extremely basic, loose understanding of how things theoretically work in a vacuum. But yes, I get what you're saying.

That is not true. I am not aware of a single model of aircraft that is capable of flying from take off to landing without any input whatsoever from the pilot that is both (1) beyond prototype stage and (2) actually used in that manner commercially. http://www.askthepilot.com/questionanswers/automation-myths/ You’ve heard it a million times: modern aircraft are flown by computer, and in some not-too-distant future, pilots will be engineered out of the picture altogether. The biggest problem with this line of thought is that it begins with a false premise: the idea that jetliners are superautomated machines, with pilots on hand merely to play a backup role in case of trouble. Indeed, the notion of the automatic airplane that “essentially flies itself” is perhaps the most aggravating and stubborn myth in all of aviation.

Ok. But I don't think it is an interesting problem. You want a car to drive for it's entire service life (10 years) without a single human help event before you say the fully autonomous car is a reality. I don't care when that standard is met. If once or twice a year someone has to help remotely I'm fine calling that car fully autonomous. Waymo is planning on having remote support people, but it is not a 1-1 plan. If you have 1 person "monitoring" 10 cars, from an economic standpoint you are still getting significant benefit from the technology. That point is coming soon. I am not talking about maintenance, I am talking about design. By it's very nature, a vehicle with a steering wheel and all other standard controls is intended to be driven by a human. Why could a computer need a steering wheel? As such, how can you say the vehicle is intended to be operated solely by a computer when the design is very obviously intended to allow for human operation? They are not building robot cars here, they are talking standard everyday automotive designs that have existed for the last 50 years and retrofitting them with advanced computers to automate some of the process. That is not the same as building a car ground up with the intended function of being fully autonomous with no human control.

Which costs 10x more than just having had a drivers license the entire time... Plus, there are consequences far greater than $1000 if you get into a crash without a license. Your insurance company is not likely to pay out in any claim resulting in you driving without a license and if someone gets injured in a car crash, even if it's not your fault, and you're not licensed and your insurance company wont pay, $1000 is going to be pocket change compared to what you'll face if they decide to sue you.

After about 10 jumps some of the fear went away. I was still nervous, but not really 'afraid' like I was earlier in AFF. After about 50 jumps the nervousness dropped to the point that it was mostly just a background emotion. After 150 jumps it went away almost entirely to the point that my resting HR was probably around the same on the plane as on the ground (maybe slightly elevated, but not enough to notice). That said, just because I dont really get afraid in the airplane doesent mean I wont ever get afraid. I havent had a cutaway yet and I am sure that when I do it will be a bit scary. I have hit some pretty gnarly turbulence under canopy and that's scary. I have certainly been comfortable on the exit then been wishing I was on the ground under canopy because I was getting rocked around like I was in a sand storm. Keep in mind currency plays a big role in how comfortable you are. I've talked to guys with several thousand jumps who took several months off that admitted they were scared on their first jump getting back into it.

They are still backed up by a human which by definition does not make them fully autonomous. Partly autonomous might be a better term. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcFsAedWZXc A truly autonomous car would have no need for a steering wheel or any controls of any sort and no human intervention. Those vehicles dont exist beyond the prototype stage.

The problem is when you start throwing money into the mix the priority can go from doing the job right to doing it as profitably as possible. Packers are not compensated on quality, they are compensated on quantity, so it's to their advantage to get as many pack jobs done as fast as possible. That's why I pack myself. Not to say all packers suck, many are great, but not all are. If you add to the fact that 'working under supervision of an FAA senior rigger' in some cases just means there is someone with their riggers ticket employed at the company, then that means no supervision and no quality control. That leads to employees setting their own personal standard with no accountability.

You guys speak like self-driving cars are common. They are basically all prototypes, or very early release in alpha phase testing. I drive a ton and I have not once in my life seen a self driving car on the road. They are extremely rare. There are probably some entire states that dont have a single registered self-driving car that operates in them regularly. We are so far from a fully automated roadway it's not even worth talking about. I am pretty confident not one single person in this forum will live to see the day that 100% of the cars on the road are controlled by computers. We probably wont see that until past 2100 and by then we will have a whole world of other problems regarding automotive transport to deal with.

What about wearing them on the way down? That's the concern I see. Not much point in wearing them on the way up anyway. I think the idea is to keep the noise low in freefall. I've felt my ears pop several times in freefall and that's with nothing in them. I would think putting in ear plugs would make that a whole lot worse.

I've seen several people use ear plugs with open face helmets. I always figured that was a risky move. The idea being that an ear plug is intended to block air from entering your ear which means when you're at 15k and the pressure in your ear is low, you could theoretically risk serious damage if you get down to 3k and allow an instantaneous pressure change. I figure it's like SCUBA diving down to 25' with your figures in your ears tightly and then quickly pulling them out. Of course I probably dont know what I am talking about though. Just a theory.

I think most people aren't making fashion statements. They just prefer not to have the wind in their face. (Something that I don't understand myself) For me it's not really the wind, it's the convience. The issue with an open face is usually the goggle straps need to go under which means that you have to take the helmet off, put the goggles on, put the helmet back on, ect, ect. Then when you're under canopy you cant easily take the goggles off a well-fitted helmet because the straps are over your ears so you would have to take the helmet off or leave the goggles on. Too many steps, too much on-off crap. The nice thing about the face shield is it's a single action to open or close it and I can get it done in a second flat. I can keep the shield open all the way until the green light and then close it right as I verify the spot. Then when I am under canopy I can quickly open the shield and get a clear view of everything without having to look through goggles which distorts the image some. The other advantage is the fact that close faced helmets are quieter. I've did about 150 jumps with a closed face, then I switched to an open face for one single jump and totally forgot how much louder open faces can be. Not all are really loud, but the ones I jumped were. Closed face solves that problem without needing ear plugs.

I dont always admit to doing illegal drugs, but when I do I admit it on a public forum so everyone ranging from the police to my employer can read it.

Your weather insurance policy is your credit card. If you pay for a skydive and don't get it (regardless of the reason) for no fault of your own and the company does not give you a refund, you dispute the charge with your bank for non-receipt of a paid product.

Call them out! What's the name of the DZ?