FrogNog

The only Winter problems I have are: * weather. Getting even 3k clear under the clouds is difficult some days. * hours. Dropzones may not be open 5 days per week in the Winter, and the Sun may set at 16:30, and (see weather above) the fog might not break until 12:00. (Or the fog might not break ever. I didn't see the sun at home for ten days a while back...) * cold hands. Not really a problem for hop-and-pops. * hard or wet ground (take your pick

Another technique for new, super-slippery canopies that works for some people - but not everyone - is to ask men to put it in the bag for you, for free. I'm not going to get into details, but my suspicion is this would work pretty well for Evelyn. Maybe not so well for Nick. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

The only time I spend worrying whether my reserve will open is the time between when I activate my reserve and when it opens. I've had only one reserve ride, but I have to say that couple of seconds was... concerning. (I was OK for the first second, but once I felt my speed start to increase, then I worried.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

How many square inches of frontal drag area does this reduce? And, are the swoopers jumping these risers already wearing downhill ski suits? Or are they wearing shorts and t-shirts, and they don't even bother to shave their arms and legs? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

The thing I like about using time is it's about the easiest value to reliably get the stick/group/jumper after you to give before following you out. I can trust most people to count 10 seconds, somewhat reliably, if I make them swear to me in the plane that they will do so after I jump.

Yes, that's in the reply immediately preceeding yours, dated 181 minutes earlier.

When you don't feel a significant difference between two sizes of canopies (or two sizes of the same canopy), you could try flying them harder to see if that makes the differences more apparent. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Gotta love any label that has the precise words "resulting in your death". -=-=-=-=- Pull.

You can take a reserve canopy and jump it as a main if you like. The "problems" with this are: * reserves are exclusively non-ZP (i.e. the material commonly referred to as "F-111"). While this is acceptable, and in some ways very good for reserve canopies, for main canopies it tends to result in problems like a weakened flare after a number of jumps (say, several hundred). * reserves are exclusively (or nearly exclusively) 7-cell. If someone doesn't like jumping 7-cell canopies, obviously this is a problem. :) * reserve canopies produced to actually be used as reserves won't have bag/bridle attachment points. So you'll either have to sew one on, or use a slider-attached "detachable" bag and pilot chute (something of an exotic method, especially for an F-111 7-cell canopy

The serial number may also help someone, perhaps KellyF, very easily determine the rig's freefly friendliness. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Ski goggles are an option for glasses wearers, because some (edit) ski goggles will go over glasses. But they (especially the OtG goggles) are definitely bulky as people point out, which can lead to "flipping", and they significantly reduce peripheral vision. I could never truly see my handles while wearing them, for one thing. That said, it still worked for me for some time, and I found them more comfortable in general than crushing my glasses against my face under a Kroops goggle. When I finally switched to a pair of prescription Barz I was so happy because I could see everywhere all at once. If you don't wear glasses, nevermind. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Bala and Pro-tec like this?

For my own information (because I've been following the Rocket-EZ a bit) what was the distance of that hop? And, the problem with the rocket-EZ is there's no room for a single passenger, let alone skydivers, with gear, plural. Apparently there's these big ol' rocket engines / fuel tanks in the way.

Bill, how would you classify a system where the SL pulls the pin (or shorty ripcord - same diff) then is attached to the base of the spring-loaded PC with Velcro, so it opens the container and helps ensure the PC comes out of the container and holds the bag until linestretch? This seems to be a variant on the direct-bag method that adds redundancy in case the static line should somehow separate from the bag/PC prematurely (but after pulling the pin), plus allows the same student rigs to be used for static-line jumps and the later freefall jumps. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

You could wear a passive radar reflector and guarantee ATC can see you. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I like the 182 because no matter where you sit, you can hold onto a couple of walls and the ceiling. :) On climbing out of the 182, you can keep your feet on the wheel / wheel cover and swing around under the strut so you're sort of hanging under the strut, standing on the wheel / wheel cover. On the ground it's harder than in the air, where the wind pushes on your back and helps hold you up. Once nice thing about this position is you can look in the windshield at the pilot.

My brief experience with "hot" Under Armor, which I use for running in the Winter (under my sweater and coat) is it gets sweat off of you and into whatever else it can. I haven't tried "cold" Under Armor, so I don't know what it does differently. But I found "hot" Under Armor was chilling me once I was dry and I was sitting around with two shirts over it. It was weird. Maybe Aggie Dave will know more. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

It is my opinion that no regular reserve deployment compares in speed (or vertical distance) to a skyhook deployment from an inflated canopy. Everything else (pulling the reserve handle, having the reserve ripcord / pin pulled, or having the loop cut) just gets the reserve container open so the PC can eject, and then it takes airspeed and time to yank on the reserve PC and go through the steps of deployment to line-stretch and bag removal. The skyhook should (when cutting away from an inflated canopy) get to that point in about the vertical distance of all the webbing involved. Riggers vary. I am always concerned about what my riggers know and I make sure each is competent for my equipment. If a riggger isn't, he (or she) drops out of my rigger pool. Pop-tops, when packed properly, typically suck down into the reserve container area pretty well. I don't know about Racers specifically. However, people who worry about lines going over their backs do voice concerns about having pop-tops. I don't know if their concerns have any incidental or statistical backing, but line-container entanglements seem like they would be "as bad as anything could possibly get" so I can see why people would want to be overly cautious about this. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

It doesn't look that bad to me. It's not so loose your head would fit under one of the reserve risers so you could sneak out of the rig that way, and the chest strap doesn't look like it's a choker, and the handles seem to be in about the right place. How loose are the leg straps when they are cinched all the way down? The hip rings look like they're in the right place; are they? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I never said I thought women can't or won't pack. I said I thought if I got me a skydiving girlfriend, she would suddenly decide she was too good to pack. (I admit another reading of my words implies she would have been too good to pack for herself before I got me her.) Now, I don't know how many women, in how many dropzones around the world, you think I intend to have as my skydiving girlfriends, but I meant this to apply in all likelihood to just one or two or three or four women, probably. This year. Tops. Now, the only women I know who pack more than I do[footnote 1] are professional packers. Because I pack my own main and, whenever I'm waiting in line or waiting for a second person to decide to jump so we can hop-and-pop, I'll offer to pack for other people, just for the practice and to watch them squirm when they invariably ask me how I think it's going to open. (Seriously, don't ask! ) footnote 1: the metric of "more" packing I am using here is the ratio of pack jobs to canopy openings. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

If you pull the reserve handle and pull the freebag off, then give your rigger all the parts in a bag, you usually get an honest repack. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

How new is the canopy? If those are the first three jumps on the canopy, ever, then that may be normal. Jumping it more should quickly make it quit doing that. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Girls do jump for free - they just have to get their boyfriend to pay for it. This has been my fear of having a skydiving girlfriend. Oh, it would cost me more than double because she'd be too good to pack for herself, too. So either I'd pack twice per jump or I'd pay a packer. Wanting there to be women where you are is just TS. Be a guy, suck it up, realize often the women are somewhere else doing something smarter than watching sports, telling lies, and hurling themselves at the earth. Now, it's not that I'm bitter. (I mean, that's not what's driving my statements here. ) I'm just trying to be caustically humorously realistic. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

You can try riding a motorcycle on cold nights with your visor open a bit. The cold air jammed in my face at first stalled my breathing; I realized it was the same as on a bike, so I trained for it a bit that way. Or you can just jump more. That's the easy way. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

And never double-wrap a rubber band on a locking stow. (Locking stows being the ones where the rubber band goes through a grommet or other opening in the bag mouth flap.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.