JayhawkJumper

Ok, I'm more than just a little pissed off right now. I found out that because of a class, I can't jump between the monthes of June and July. And the worst part is I won't be doing anything during the week, just the weekends. This really sucks because Mullins and a lot of other cool boogies are coming into the area. Anyway, I'm looking for someplace fun and hopefully with cheap jumps to just stay for two weeks at the end of May. Anyone know of anywhere that might fit this criteria? I'm hoping to get some good camera and freeflying in, and learn a thing or two. Thanks!

Out of curiousity, how did you have the slides printed? I have used Type R which look pretty good, but I love cibachrome, but the price sucks. Has anyone here heard of the new paper called Kodak Metallic? If you haven't seen it, it is probably the most amazing photo paper I have ever seen. I can't even describe how cool images look on it. They are extremely high gloss and metallic and reflective in a sense, but something you have to see for yourself.

How do you set it on economy mode? (its a pro-dytter). My batteries have only been lasting a few monthes.

For those that saw the episode, didn't it seem weird that they just kinda mentioned that there was this world record 300 way thing in Arizona, but the show was centered around the "historic event" of a big ball being shoved out the back of a plane and hitting the ground.

So what is everyone's favorite film to shoot? I personally think Fuji film/Fuji paper gives the best prints. Or for slides I go for velvia or provia and either cibachrome printing or scanned and printed on Kodak Metallic.

I was wondering how long everyone's batteries in pro dytters usually last. mine don't seem to be lasting very long lately.

I have a safire with the mod. I had it done by the Icarus service facility when I had it relined. I think it gave it a lot better flare, but it still doesn't have as much flare as the sabre2 I demoed. Anyway, come to think of it, it did open pretty strange for a while (off heading, surging etc...) but now it has settled down I guess. I get a nice on heading slow opening every time now. My only complaint could be that it opens too slow. There is only probably six inces from the toggles to the brake set loop, which is probably why it opens so slow. Takes about 1000 ft on average to open (thats with the nose hanging and the slider pushed back). I love the openings but I wish it would turn better with my legs and have alittle more bottom end flare.

The last sentence of your post makes sense. I don't have a SIM here with me, but if thats the way its worded, then yes there is no contradiction. If C and D license holders MUST deploy by 2000, but SHOULD initiate emergency procedures by 1800, but don't have to, then yes, there's no contradiction, just a couple good guidelines. I stand corrected.

If you threw your pilot chute at 2,000 (at terminal), would you be open by 1800? I used to jump a spectre and I definately wouldn't be. And even if you got a 200 foot opening on your canopy (ouch), you wouldn't have any control checks done.

There is an interesting contradiction in the SIM regarding pull altitudes. The SIM says that decision altitude should be 1800 feet for all licensed jumpers. If you are a C or D license holder though, it says you can pull at 2000. I personally don't see any way you could throw a pilot chute at 2000 and decide in 200 feet if you are going to cutaway or land your main. You could interpret this to say that C and D license holder should be open at 2000, but I don't think thats what it means. I am not saying that you can't cutaway below 1800. I know people that have cutaway at 1000 and were open to unstow toggles and land, but the SIM does seem to contradict itself here.

Just got my still camera attached to my helmet and I got some amazing freefall shots. A lot of them were a little high in the frame, except for the RW ones which were center. I wish I had my scanner here, but I'll try to scan them sometime. I had no idea how much fun flying outside camera is.

OK, this is a really strange dream but here goes. I had a dream where instead of driving/walking to travel around, that everyone tracked. There was no wind fans or anything, everyone just tracked and carved down the street. That oen was interesting. I also have had the dream where you don't stop falling (kinda like point break). That one was pretty cool too.

First of all, watch what you say about Kansas. There are a lot of awesome DZ's in Kansas. I haven't been to Skydive Kansas, so I can't say anything good or bad about them. I can answer your question though. For AFF, they do tandem progression so that you do your first 3 levels with a tandem/AFF jumpmaster. I would also like to point out that Skydive Kansas isn't the only DZ around with these type of restrictions. Skydive Las Vegas doesn't allow up jumpers unless you did AFF there. Skydive Key West is cypress mandatory, no wing loadings over 1.3 and jumps cost $35 to 10,000 out of a 182. Each DZ does whats best for them.

I haven't heard of anyone getting kicked but I did hear one interesting story. I've also seen a lot of videographers move out and up to get the canpoy deploying shot. One of the videographers at our DZ did this and stayed really close and aparently his head ended up inside or really close to a cell of the tandem canopy. All you could see on the vid was fabric.

What about just doing an evaluation jump with the potential videographer? I jump at a small DZ so this really isn't a problem. We don't exactly have a video concession, just a couple guys that do it. It's always up to the TM here.

We have some lightweight tandem camera flyers at our DZ and they wear FF suits, one wears a tight space suit. They belly fly with slow tandems and freefly with big ones I guess.

The theory might also be applying to something like this: Say you have 10 people and you tell them 1 of them will get hurt if they do a certain task, would they accept the risk? They say ok, then you say what if 5 people will get hurt? Maybe they say no. But then what if you increase the group size to 1,000,000 and say 5 people will get hurt in this certain activity. 5 people would still be injured, but the group may accept the risk because the group size is so much greater so each individual's chance of getting injured is less. So if you had 2,000,000 people, ten injuries would be acceptable, therefore the size of the group determines how much risk they are willing to take on.

Does anyone know what sizes they made these in? Did they make them up to 190?

I own a safire (with the new tail mod), but I recently put 7 jumps on a Sabre2 of the same size. upside: Sabre2 has so much more flare than my safire, I don't know what to do it all. downside: The Sabre2 seems to open quite a bit harder. It will snivel and then slam open. I may also feel this way b/c my safire won't open in less than 1000 ft., no matter what you do. downside: I don't have the cash for a sabre2....

Adrenaline Rush is awesome. There is an imax theatre 30 minutes from me and they have been playing it for a few monthes now. If you live near Kansas check out www.cosmo.org. That is where the imax theatre is and it is definately an amazing show.

I'd hear there are some really good dental school in Kansas City and Nebraska. There are probably some good ones in California too.......

Just as a side-note. I had soft housings on my rig when I bought it and wanted to get metal ones installed. You mentioned "tearing apart the rig". Mine was a Javelin so maybe a talon is different, but my rigger just cut off the old soft housings and installed the metal ones in about 20 minutes total. It's not that big of a job, at least on a jav.

You are right about the vaccine being a weakened version of the disease, or something else that can produce the antibodies. I've been vaccinated against a lot of stuff and I've never felt anything afterward. I need to get a lot more info on the experiment, but from what I've heard, they are considering making small pox vaccine's mandatory again and this is a new version of the vaccine that they are testing. They give it to you and then test your blood later to see if you are actually immune.

for anyone who has every built a camera helmet of had a mold of their head taken, what did you use? Plaster wrap? Something different?

Hmmm, interesting. What do you mean that the vaccine is contagious? Or do you mean infectious? I know they used to require the vaccine for everyone and pretty much everyone over a certain age has it. Didn't all of our troops get it as well before going over to Iraq?