diveout

Oh well I guess we'll have to get Hi-Per or Icarus or Precision Aero, or Aerodyne to send us a free canopy... maybee half off a new canopy or a free reserve would be good!? How are the prizes coming, STU? What's the grand prize so far?

sweet we're having an event where prizes are actually involved at OUR DZ- cool... Think PD will donate 100% off a canopy of choice as a prize...?

Jeff- Don't sell yourself short dude! I finished ahead of a lot of good canopy pilots (several in the "PRO" category -I'm an "ADVANCED" pilot) class at the PST even here in Oregon not because I could fly my XOAS 125 faster or further, but because I made decent runs and refused to make a vertical extension foul on any of my runs. What I'm saying is two solid 220 foot swoops count as better than one ripping 320 footer followed by a big ol' vertical... earning you 0. Stay consistent and you'll surprise yourself, I guarantee it.

gates can be made very cheaply using 5-8 feet of small -diameter pvc with about 18 inches of flexible sprinkler tubing attached to the top and bent back to get the "blade" shape. then just sew up the flag portion or tear up some old scrap nylon fabric and attach it to the poles. I made four of them at a total cost of like 7 or 8 bucks each last year. If I were up at SDO I'd jsut put up one set of gates in the HP landing area right next to the pond. I can't imagine a problem with having a set of gates there for practice.

SUPerSTU! you are da man for setting this up! It'll be cool to see how you'll set up the accuracy course, there's so many options -gates, targets, high-jumps, my favorite is noodles/ balls as targets to kick for points. All you kids that can make it check it out! This is gonna be totally sweet and you might even win some cash-we're about two hours from portland. If you're not there WERE GONNA HAVE MORE FUN THAN YOU!

SuperSTU- You might consider having just ONE class especially with out-of towners coming in. you can set up an accuracy course, for example that could actually favor a slightly lower wing loading- like yours. Don't mean to preach, this is totally your deal and I'll be there with rear-risers in hand. rock on buddy!

nice-I think I see what you're referring to in the photo- the area between the two amusement park looking areas? Thanks for the info-

for those of you who've been to the boogie previously- WHERE ON THE BEACH IS IT?! no one seems to have this information- does anyone have an address or the name of a landmark that the manifest/ landing area is near to? looking online the beach looks like it stretches for miles, I don't want to book a room and be miles away from where the action is. anyone?!

hey jeff you ought to bring that thing down to creswell on sunday so you can take pics of us swooping the pond --you can also check Kim out

I'm planning on being there from the morning of the 29th to the evening of the 4th, I'll be flying in the advances series comp even though I'm not sure (I guess no one is) what the dates and times of the comp are About the rooms- If you/we pile enough people into one room we should be able to break it down to $35 or so per person per night-not cheap but almost tolerable. Still looking for people to commit to sharing a room-sent me a pm

sounds good, I'll give 'em a call when the day gets a little closer.

So I booked a flight, I arrive in Philly @9 am on the 29th, then fly out the evening of the 4th. see all you cats there, if anybody knows that they're going, send me a pm or e-mail if they think they could pick me up from the airport. looking to get a ride to and from if possible, will share driving time, split hotel/ condo room. --or pack your reserve if you're gonna need it done .

Yea, I've seen that info, I was wondering if someone had anything further like the schedule for the event itself between the 30th and the 4th. I guess that will be upcoming in the next couple of weeks. Last year there was online registration and everything. I was planning to fly in on the 28th or the 29th, I still havn't booked an acutal flight yet.

Hey, anybody from Oregon/ Washington headed to the 2004 swoop festival in Wildwood, NJ. Panama City was awesome last year. Troy? Tye? Zaz? Eldon? Any other SDO or Kapowsin jumper maybee looking to share a rental car/ hotel or condo for the week in Wildwood? send me an e-mail or PM thanks, -Dan

Anybody out there got any info on the July 30-July 4th swoop festival in Wildwood, NJ? I can get a killer deal on a plane ticket into Philly and just wondering if anyone has any info in addition to the links from canopypiloting.com. Anyone already planning on driving up gonna be near philly and wanna pick me up from the airport?

I didn't mention landscaping, so no right now we don't have permission to knock the bank down. He was very quiet and not excited about skydivers landed on his property but he did grant us permission to land there after some convincing that we would stay clear of his crop. I think if we are respectful of the area, minor smoothing with hand tools should be fine, I know that he's fine with people driving vehicles right up to the edge of the pond to fish. He was actually driving a huge front loader and had to climb down out of the driver's seat to come talk to kim and I. The whole conversation was over the sound of the running engine on the thing, maybee that'll be a question for next season after we can prove that we can land out there without messing up the crop

I don't think the pond is as scary as Steve makes it sound, but it's not exactly for beginners. You don't have to hit the landing area steve described, but if you miss the 10-12 ft wide area, and you're on water level you do have to pop up over a bank of 2-4 feet. You can avoid the pop-up by flaring high and staying away from the actual water, and land anywhere on the bank which is like 120 feet wide. If you overshoot the bank (10-30ft) you will be in a corn field. If you come up short there is no place to bail by carving off to the side, you get wet. The Power lines are less of an obstacle than the trees that run along the length of the right side of pond at SDO. It was a nice surprise to get permission from the farmer, all you SDO cats should come check it out.

looks like I'll be bangin tandems out on Sat here in Crewell, sorry no word from the super inefficient and not helpful county land mgmt. office on ownership of our new pond, See you Molalla kids @ Creswell on Suday though

Anybody seen the shut down on this kind of landing? I wonder what you could possibly do to besides turn back around and then go for a swim, are pilots doing these hands off type of landings able to get back on their rear risers and land dry after swoopin water?

I have the taxation lot number from the county land mgmt office but I didn't get the actual info on our pond from the deeds and records office yet, I should be able to have our property ownership issue answered tomorrow, once we find out that it's public land (cross your fingers everyone) we can go big with the landscaping--real big.

slider in back ouf your helmet sounds kinda dangerous to me, especially in that cutaway situation... I guess it's better than wrapping the draw-sting around your neck and securing with a surgeon's knot

sat @sdo would be cool, However- if I find out in next next couple of days that we have permission to do major landscaping at our new swoop pond I'll probably want to stay down south so that we can arrange for earth-moving equipment and soforth. I'll know in the next couple of days. Either way you cats should come down and play, on Sunday member- you can hop and pop for $5

I strongly caution anybody learning about swooping not to dive your canopy lower than normal and try to plane it out. try to imagine yourself doing this... Instead, try to find out the right amount of input for your canopy and wing loading to create the best results, I guarantee on a veng. loaded at 1.6 there is going to be just a bit on input involved. Out of all of the competitions that I've been in and seen in person and on video, the most efficient plane-out IS THE SAME as the best technique for a distance score after making a 5-foot entry gate, when the pilot is planing out their foot will just barely eclipse the gate and then off they go, usually staying 2-3 feet above ground lever or higher during the course of the run. its important to note that this is not a lot of input to create this effect, you are just maximizing the efficiency in your canopy's recovery arc. If you get a chance, talk to Dusty about this on your next trip to Eloy, or shoot him an E-mail, I know he's been a Freefly coach of yours, but he's been swooping competetively for years also, he would be a good source info on this.

I like what Kelly F did for me on my Infinity, the 1 inch by four inch hook velcro sew onto the yoke of the rig, directly through the binding tape, with matching thread and type four webbing (it looks really clean and sharp)-the other half of the velcro is on the slider of the main canopy. warning-don't sew on a rig that is packed up.

The GTI is ready to rock. As you can see by kim's post the local girlies are all over that bird-stuff (Kim likes to ride me... sorry Kim, couldn't resist. Kim will probably have enough jumps by this weekend to do some bird-coaching if you bring your GTI town, she makes like 50 jumps a week. I'm always down to flock as long as you don't mind flying dirty and keep the laughing about my stonelike fall rate to a minimum