sburkart

It's ba-ack. Hard to be believe.

Huh, well it's running now. I just saw this thread last night and went to the site and installed it, maybe you have to re-install? The skydiving aint all that, maybe I need coaching. Jumping rounds in Battlefield Vietnam is a bit more challenging/realistic than this.

Just played in there tonight...

Click your rig with the mouse.

LMAO! It's over $13 k now.

Where you got me is the tandem canopy, is that real or Photoshoped?

Fuel. They leak until they get to altitude; something about leaving room for heat expansion?

Maybe there are people who would rather be- or more able to afford to be- parachutists than skydivers. For instance, I know that unless I hit the Power Ball I'll never be able to afford much more than 60 or 70 skydives a year, a number I know wont ever lead me to be attain great skydiving skills- but maybe in time I'll be a decent accuracy pilot, and maybe that alone will be enough to keep me in the game. The industry doesn't cater to that scenario at this time, but I think there's business being lost by focusing exclusively on marketing to the public the thrill of freefall and the extreme nature of the sport. Most people would NOT engage in extreme sports or activities, so why is it that the industry portrays itself as such? Freefall, CRW, swooping etc. is extreme, no question, but canopy flight (sans hook turns and collisions of course) can be a peaceful, pleasant experience that doesn't -have- to start with going to 13.5 and falling for 60 seconds every time. When I was a kid and skateboards first came out, I would spend hours just running a slalom of pine cones on a quiet street. A deacde or so later, SOME kids (with much better boards) were building ramps and getting extreme and doing all sorts of stunts, but the other side of it is that for the most part the majority of skateboarders to this day are pretty much content to do the equivalent of running a slalom of pine cones in the street, just as most BMX bike riders dont practice stunts, they just ride around their neigborhoods. If there is a real problem with retention (is it true the average skydiver is in the sport for an average of three years?) maybe the industry would benefit from rethinking its marketing strategy, and adjust its operations accordingly. It's a big sky, it might make sense to be more inclusive. Just a thought.

A guy at work asked me to take him to my home DZ so he could do a skydive, but "I don't want to do no tandem." Fine, I'll check that out for you... This morning I learned that my DZ will not do anything BUT tandems for first-timers (or second or third-timers) for "safety reasons." Pbbbbtt. I called the DZ closer to us (not my fav) and they are more than happy to put this guy thru class starting at 8 AM and put him out with two jumpmasters that same afternoon. Hmmm... Besides not wanting to jump "with some guy on my back," I believe my co-worker understands a tandem is not as much of a skydiving experience as some would like him to think, and he wants the responsibilty of flying the canopy and landing on his own. As a 12 jump wonder I should let others editorialize on this, and I sure don't want to offend anyone at my big-time big-bird full service totally rockin' home DZ, but it can't hurt to put a second one in here: Pbbbbtt! You guys are letting that so-called tandem-mill across the river show you up for "safety reasons." WTF are waivers for?

I know 4 people killed skydiving, 0 killed on the road. I couldn't tell you how many times I've witnessed soccer moms on cell phones doing 50 MPH on undivided highways, but somehow the vast majority of them are getting away with it. Makes me think of maybe getting a Nascar harness and fire extinguishers for my car, yes. Makes me think driving is more dangerous? Those 4 skydivers make me say no.

My bad, the manual says: PD PR176, serial #029110 I hadn't looked at that since new.

I'll take 2 of the BSBD; the other one I'd like to see first.

Articulated Vector 3M w/hard housings Lotus 190 PD189R Cypres 2 26.3 lbs (hospital scale) Funny, it doesn't feel that light...

Not exactly, considering the reaction to (Pittsburgh Steelers QB) Ben Roethlisberger recent bike accident.

Sub-terminal is exactly what I was thinking, something to slow my old aint-jumped-but-11-times-five-years-ago butt down to something my back can better handle on opening. (I'm doing some jumps next week and have a Bev suit for my re-currency leap.) My rig is a not-small Vector V3 M Series w/a Lotus 190 and PD 189R stuffed in it, so you think maybe this Thunderbolt thingy might work with it? Thanks!

That's about 24 miles via 95 N., to Walt Whitman Bridge/76 E, to 42 S. to (make right turn) Tuckahoe road to (make right turn) Dahlia. Mostly highway...may be slow at rush hour.

Thanks for asking, but last time I posted an ebay link it got deleted. If you paste Krueger Thunderbolt Skydiving Jumpsuit into the ebay search it'll come up. Thanks again, I'm just curious about the thing.

One of these on the bay again; what was it good for? Looks like a rig would render the material under the arms useless...

Oh-my-God. Bad donkey!

Well, they may have stolen that, but there's NO WAY they are using Rob Harris' pics without permission.

Some of these threads may be helpful.

Yes. If they are still being used after the latest incident is the question. I anticipate if they are inspected (yet again) I'll be expected to use them. At this time I have no confidence in them at all, I don't care how many people have jumped them and lived to tell the tale, and it doesn't matter if they were just inspected- even by a Sunpath rep. Here's my take based on what I've read, with a little conjecture: The thing that the two incidents have in common is that the MLW adapter of the rigs that failed were for the most part rarely adjusted- the two DZ's involved are so big as to have a relatively large number of these rigs setup in a range of sizes, and therefore the adjusters are more likely to be left relatively un-touched as compared to the rigs you might find at a small DZ. The part of the webbing that is threaded through the adapter gets some degree of damage every opening, however small, and over a period if time said damage becomes visible. As those responsible say these rigs are properly maintained and inspected, and the manufacturer says that this is the key, I can only come to the conclusion that the culprit is a undocumented failure mode of the webbing produced by the conditions outlined above, the indicators of which do not redily lend themselves to visual inspection. The failure mode I envision: the damaged webbing doesn't so much fail in the manner of a tear/break across its width (as could be demonstrated with a light fabric) as snap/break through its thickness (like a sheet of plastic). Counter-intuitive and improbable, perhaps, but it beats the bleep out of thinking people are doing pencil inspections. Sorry about the length of this post. I'm usually just a little freaked, this Student Jav thing has me reaching for the Some Fear catalog.

At 11 jumps and 3 years away I'm too much of a newbie maybe, but I aint real happy about having to use Student Javelins the next couple of jumps. By rule and common sense they are inspected on a regular basis, but failures of the main lift web at two large DZ's have gotten two killed. Each DZ says all rigs were properly inspected, Sunpath says it's a maintenance issue. Great. I guess I should be preparing for the sliightly head-down deployments that will be inevitable from grabbing for the chest strap with my left hand to try to keep it from breaking my neck while throwing with my right? Anyway, Sunpath says to inspect the MLW, the DZ's say they do.... It doesn't much matter to those of us thinking "WTF?!", because we have no choice in the matter. This sucks. The only thoughts that enabled me to get in the door and jump in the first place were confidence in the mechanics of the gear used and the obvious skills of the instructors. You can strike the first bit now, as I don't know what to think of the gear, other than: "Electron microsope inspection of the gear used by a man killed skydiving last weekend revealed visually undetectable damage..." Sheesh... but given the responses it's either undetectable damage or some people are not too observant- or worse. An aside: Just how big a step-down is it from a 230 Sabre 2 to a 190 Lotus 2 loaded 1.1 anyway? At this point I'm willing to argue that I should be allowed to risk a funky landing using my own new gear than possibly getting my neck broken by a failure nobody can explain. To me, the 45 minute waiver process ought to cover that.

I've been using Firefox for a week and it really does rock. Just ran Ad Aware and Spycatcher and they came back with zilch- a first. The tab feature is great too, and pages load much faster than IE ever did. Absolute must-have for dial-up users IMHO. Go go Mozilla! (heh) Edited to add: I did have some problems using a theme other than the default, but with the default theme it's solid.

There's a bit of history on that obviously touchy subject (for Beechcraft) at that site. Beechcraft makes no mention of the thing on their own site, and they're in the process of "de-commisioning" most of the run of 53. Sad.