I'm pretty new to these forums so not sure how to quote anybody, but if i can refer back to the start of AiRpollUtiOn's post and particularly his 'disclaimer about his jump numbers' remark. This is something that seems to happen a lot on this forum. A guy/gal posts something innocent, and sometimes naively, about swooping and the first thing that happens is he/she is flamed for there jump numbers. Before I go any further I'm not trying to put myself up there for anybody to throw shit at me coz I am in no way trying to tout myself as a bad ass skydiver let alone a swooper. But it does annoy me when guys like me want to get information or advice and it gets shunned because of our skill level. I've been on a few canopy piloting courses here in the UK and regularly attend the UK Tour events (if only to watch and film). On a recent course of 30 canopy pilots, I ended up on the final day's swooping seminar with 2 other pilots. If its all about numbers then these guys stats would probably make you think they knew what they were doing until you looked at their logbooks. One had 1200 jumps and the other had 750, compared to my 170 at the time. The point I want to make is that neither of these pilots had touched their front risers or tried any type of performance landing manouever before that seminar. This was my second course of instruction with the instructor and had been working on building my skills for over 18 months and over 100 jumps, nothing big but still considered high performance. So I guess I'm saying how can I feel I can post a question or seek advice if I only stand to get shot down like the others???
