Fast

The USPA is frustrating to me.

They do things that make no sense. They can't fix a broken website after 5 years? They care more about their own interests than ours. If I could jump and do the things I do without being a member I would.

Mostly it's just sad to me.

In another effort of horrible self promotion:

Freefall Radio #9: Loving Life (1h18m)

This is a deep house, groovy kind of mix. Almost leans towards chillout music but still has a lot of energy. Thanks for the listen :)

Southern_Man

******recent I've listened to:

...

All Live

Like live recordings or actually live? Either way - nice list.

Sam Smith has a great voice - this is a pretty laid back soulful track.

https://soundcloud.com/samsmithworld/samsmithasaprocky

I saw all of them live at Lockn' Music festival Except Trombone Shorty. Decided we hadn't had enough music so we went to see him last Thursday in Charlottesville.
Nice!

Southern_Man

recent I've listened to:

...

All Live

Like live recordings or actually live? Either way - nice list.

Sam Smith has a great voice - this is a pretty laid back soulful track.

https://soundcloud.com/samsmithworld/samsmithasaprocky

Not a big fan of country but that guy has a decent voice.

Here is a track I came across today. Great acoustic version of a song I have been listening to as a dance track. I think I actually like this acoustic version better.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf2DZeG2Zcc

promise5

I'm boring. I listen to country. Tim McGraw, Deirks Bentley, Eric church, Miranda lambert, little big town.

And more!!!

Everyone has their thing!

If anyone is into vintage 40s/50s type of stuff, this could be up your alley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex8NBCuwcdA. They do remakes of modern tracks in old styles. It's actually pretty interesting.

Pfarnacho

Ill be safe about it.

You're intentionally denying logic.

You can't be safe about jumping a canopy outside of the manufacturer recommended specifications.

I have a 139 crossfire2 as a second rig canopy. Great parachute if loaded correctly. Even at 1.43 which is my loading on it, the canopy is very mushy. I will not fly it in moderate wind or on days with any amount of bumpiness to the air.

Edit:

phoenixlpr

Quote

Perhaps you could explain why the OP won't get "any benefits out of it" at 1.2, but at 1.4 it would all be tickety-boo?

Your ram-air canopy is flying as long as it is pressurized. If it was designed for higher WL, means higher higher speed needed ,it would not be as stable as designed at lower speed.

It's more than not flying stable even. The wing deforms easy if there isn't pressure in the canopy. It literally loses performance and doesn't fly the way it's supposed to. You would have better performance out of a canopy that has a completely open nose. You need the wing to maintain shape to have proper airflow and generate maximum lift and performance.

The Dotan was a cool track and I like Jam music tooo. I wouldn't mind seeing a string cheese, phish or widespread panic show. Hell, even DMB, never seen him live.

I don't really know what you're on about.

Sure ok, the car might be far fetched or whatever. Your previous comment seemed to suggest that flow batteries were witchcraft. I linked a website from the Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Science that suggested that in fact flow batteries may be promising.

I guess I don't get what point you're trying to make with all of this:

Quote

A battery does not power a car the same way a fuel tank does not power a car. The energy contained in a ("salt water"Unimpressed) flow battery powers the car the way the fuel contained in a fuel tank powers a car.

turtlespeed

*********You can download the full press kit from their website.

They are rather nebulous about which 'electrolyte solutions' are used. One is probably salt water, the other is ????

Sounds like cold fusion.

I've got enough chemistry background to opine that there's no potential energy in salt water that can drive a car 240 mph. I smell something fishy.

Wikipedia article on flow batteries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery

And yes, their claims are so outlandish that I even looked for an article on Snopes.

Witchcraft

or not? http://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2014/01/organic-mega-flow-battery-promises-breakthrough-for-renewable-energy

MisterCrash

The basic line I got from the conversation was "you are responsible for your depression, you should solve it".

Some truth to that. You're responsible for who you are - be it your internal chemistry, life experience or mindset. You have to do the hard work to fix the problems too.

I really wish you well. As much as trying different meds has been suggested - sometimes trying different doctors is a good idea too.

I do have one question for you, where are you going in life? What's your goal? You don't have to actually answer that. I find when I am most unhappy with myself it's because I feel aimless. Finding a new pursuit tends to turn it around for me. It's just something to think about.

One student of mine was kind enough to throw his head back as hard as he could to try and do backflips mid drogue-fall. That was the end of not wearing a full face when I do tandems.

I was quite mad at him cause I told him we couldn't do flips in freefall even if we wanted to. He thought he was going to prove me wrong. I just let it all go though. Those people get account flagged incase they show back up for AFF.

Xitesmai

So this may seem abit strange but I'm having some trouble understanding the DZ social structure and where exactly I fit in.

So I'm still a student, and I have yet to convince any of my friends to come jump with me. So often I drive down by myself and stay at the DZ two days(typically) sometimes on the weekend and sometimes in the week.

It seems like there are 4-5 groups of jumpers.

Tandems - They come, they pay, they jump, they leave...
Fun Jumpers - They come, they pay, they jump, they may leave depending if they are jumping the next day.
Teams - They are always there, jump all the time, but are not the most social if you're not in their class/crowd already.
Staff - Always there, relatively friendly and easy going

I've noticed at times that there can be tension between the teams, and the staff at times and when you hang out with either group they either bitch about each other, or they talk about DZ elements/goings on that as a fun jumper/student really puts a damper on social enjoyment.

So I guess my question is this:

How as a new jumper can I make friends at the DZ without being drawn into the politics/sexcapades/BS of the DZ?

I hope this question made sense...

Your question makes a lot of sense to me actually. It's a good question.

First off, remember this - a lot of those people at the dropzone have been friends for a long time. You're new, you're in their world. Be a courteous guest until it's your world too. We have had a few people show up at our DZ who unsuccessfully tried to bring it full steam the first few times they were at the DZ. They pretty much are all considered creepy and/or no longer jump at the dz. This happened because they scared people by trying to act like the rest of us who have known eachother for years and years. The sad truth of things is that unless you're a cute girl or a super experienced skydiver you're not going to integrate into the DZ overnight in most cases.

Get to know people, make skydives, focus on learning.

lurch

Just keep jumping and doing your best to be a good person and your place in the social scene will work itself out. Have faith in the future cause if you keep jumping you're gonna get there sooner or later anyway.

Couldn't have said that better myself. I jump at a mid-sized-small-dropzone (that's a mouthful) where everyone pretty much knows everyone. We try to be friendly with everyone and stuff - but at the end of the day - my friends are my friends and I don't exactly know a new person yet. Making some skydives with them and seeing that they are trying to learn goes a long way.


As for the comments about the different groups complaining about each other, it's pretty common. The thing you have to remember is that you haven't really been at the dropzone long enough to have opinions on that kind of stuff. If you're around long enough you will. The key is to try and not be a jerk. Be nice to everyone cause it's the right thing to do. Don't complain about things that you can't fix or can't be fixed.

turtlespeed

******The usual punk rock rotation on my MP3 and a little NPR jazz and blues. Going to see Soundgarden and Pharrell Williams play before the Seahawks game this afternoon. Go Hawks!

Hey enjoy the music, but here is hoping you aren't happy about the game! (Go Pack)

What is a Hawk Pack?

?

JohnMitchell

The usual punk rock rotation on my MP3 and a little NPR jazz and blues. Going to see Soundgarden and Pharrell Williams play before the Seahawks game this afternoon. Go Hawks!

Hey enjoy the music, but here is hoping you aren't happy about the game! (Go Pack)

Lately I have been pretty much stuck on dance music and remixes. I dunno why really.

I did listen through all of Dark Side of the Moon a few weeks ago, but driving around in the car I keep gravitating back to BPM (Sirius Channel 51). I have been learning to mix and I think that might be why.

So what's been trippin your trigger lately? New stuff? Old Stuff? Fast? Slow? Need some inspiration of stuff to listen to that is interesting.


Also, some shameless self promotion:
My latest mix (aptly named of course) which is all really bouncy electro house festival type music: Freefall Radio #8

You can find all my past mixes here too (mostly house music): Delta Kilo

The nearest AWOS + personal experience with "how it feels" seems to be a good indicator to stop jumping. Same with watching the people who are already jumping.

We have one on our DZ mostly for sticking to the limits for students. As a sport jumper I don't really base my decision to jump on what it says though - it's either sketchy or jumpable based on so many factors up to and including the current wind speed.

Hand held meters are nice for demos though where you aren't used to the exact area and how different conditions feel.

This map can help you find the nearest reported wind conditions. http://aviationweather.gov/metar

david3

***Got to see the hoover dam (freakin cool) and went to a huge music festival with a good friend and my wife.

The stage in the second picture is the one glowing red in the overview picture for some perspective on how big it was. Fun!

He said "put up a damn picture" not a dam picture.

Pretty cool though.

Couldn't resist could you?

Got to see the hoover dam (freakin cool) and went to a huge music festival with a good friend and my wife.

The stage in the second picture is the one glowing red in the overview picture for some perspective on how big it was. Fun!

Andy9o8

***

Quote

Almost all the violence is confined to 2 small neighborhoods (Lawndale and Englewood) that are run by the street gangs.

Soo...might you be implying that since the violence is confined to 2 small neighborhoods that are run by the street gangs, it's palatable to understand the violence or maybe accept it? That is sheer equivocation. Sorry, not buying your argument.

That's not the take-away I got from his post; but I'll let him speak for himself.

It is exactly the attitude that a lot of people in chicago have though. The violence gets trumped through the papers by politicians to try and win arguments and boost votes but at the end of the day no one is actually doing much to fix the problem.

Chicago and Milwaukee (where I live) are both very segregated and as long as the problems aren't in the "good" neighborhoods not a whole lot gets done about it.

kiwiscantfly

Hi Spot, I'm using a Rawa vison with a tight chin cup, when I turn the stabilization off its fine and the gopro mounted at the same time is also fine. I like the 120 fov vs the 170 but there's no way to have that without the stabilization turned on.

I tried a crap ton of different mounting options, two different helmets (both chincup camera helmets) multiple different mounts and couldn't get it to go away completely. Just living with it at this point.

SkymonkeyONE

FWIW: every one of the riggers here where I work has the skill set to cut down/ modify a jumpsuit.

I think it's a localized problem. Where I am there are no riggers willing to work on jumpsuits. "I only sew parachutes, not clothes".

It's plenty fast.

:)

[inline 10339486_10152158831873940_5053628637333009001_o.jpg]

The tunnel in Chicago is in the shadow of O'Hare airport - you can fly non-stop there from tokyo.

It's fast enough for freefly and brand new. I have 3 hours in there, I found it to be a nice tunnel.

There are 4 turbine DZs within an hour and a half drive.

It's situated in an entertainment district, bars/restaurant/hotel/movie theater all in walking distance.

corpkid

***Didn't like the feedback and lack of sympathy, so he pulled the video. nice.

The video was pulled by my friend's request, dude. It's been reinstated as a learning tool. Nice, eh?

Learning tool, here is some constructive (I hope) feedback.

Orlando is small, but you guys should have plenty of room for flying more cleanly than that. You said you're a slow learner, but part of that might be from poor practice. The saying actually goes, perfect practice makes perfect.

First, slow down. Tunneling for the most part isn't a race. It looks like you guys were just somewhat floundering around taking grips on one another. If it was "just for fun" then well whatever I guess - but you're making a point of training bad habits. It will carry over to your skydiving and other tunnel time. You were racing for the grips as opposed to flying the slots and taking the grips as a secondary action.

Second, it got somewhat better in the second half of the video but I notice in the first half that you guys were yo-yo'ing. Each time you would drop grips you guys would come down, when you picked them up you would go up. This is something that happens in formations in the air as well and most people don't notice it (and it leads to low experienced people going low on formations that have slowed down). Side body grips fly slower, you should be able to take them without going up by compensating with a fall rate correction through arching more, if not you're flying the tunnel faster than neutral and should ask for less airspeed.

You mentioned something about your leg, but you should also still be seeking more "calm" in your flying. Less movement can be more (better flying). You can fly circles in the tunnel just by turning your hands (only your hands).

Starting position (no grips) calm and stable, maintaining even levels 3-4 feet up. Turn to next point position, calm and level and at the same height in the tunnel. Take grips, calm and on level. Let go and move to next point and be patient. All of this requires paying more attention to the walls/surroundings. That might seem kind of stupid but it's half the point of being in a wind tunnel. You can actually see what is happening, make use of it.

3 calm, clean, flown in slot points is far better training than 30 sloppy ones.

Hope this helps you.