diveout

I'd love to come up to SDO on Saturday- If you cats wanna organize some kind of low key swoop thing we should get on it and put it together. All of our comps in creswell are straight distance, it would be fun to do an in-lane-carving contest or something like that (assuming it's gonna be warm)

I think the best swoops I've ever had required just a hint of input to plane the canopy out -flying a xoas @2.0- the best performance (I'm referring to making a 5 foot gate and going for distance) is going to come from an approach that does require just a touch of input to get the canopy planed out, some people will call this a "bump" on the toggles, or if you use your rear risers its when your comming our of your turn, facing your target and you just barely give the rears a little nudge, if done properly you're really just trimming the canopy to the precise ange that you want it, not pulling it our of it's dive pre-maturely, that's stabbing your toggles because you're low-- -just my $.02

no, we suck we never made it up. There were a ton of tandems and we "opened" a new swoop pond that is right near the dropzone. We're checking up on land ownership, and being able moving some dirt around the edges to make it more swooper friendly, but it's pretty sweet. Y'all can come to down here to Creswell and pracitce your dead-man swoops over water for $5/ per hop-n-pop.

see you chowderheads at SDO tomorrow hey kim-are you comming?

that canopy looks like it would fly kinda wierd on lines that short...gee whiz

any demo availability yet? I'm sure a lot of pilots would be willing to demo and eventually purchase one if they fly as advertised -me included. put me on the list for a 115

count me in stu, let me know if you need anything.

The only true test of whether it is "OK" will be over the next several months of the season when kim flies her 120 on a regular basis. It is entirely likely the she will develop into a good canopy pilot and do just fine under a 120, plenty of people have been at her wing loading and her jump numbers without incident, but some haven't --and herein lies the rub. Whenever people ask my advice I always tell them honestly what I think, even if I know my advice will conflict with another person's. There is a huge tendency in our sport to say "Just stay on your toes and you'll be fine" For the most part this is true, but what happens if you have to land crosswind in a backyard? What if you get cut off on final by another canopy pilot who didn't see you- it can turn into bad times in a hurry-

I think a pack of four pro-track/pro-dytter batteries was $7.99 or something close to that the last time I replaced mine. You can pay less per battery at batteries plus if you buy a larger quantity

kim you're such a rookie...just kidding. Batteries plus on Coburg Rd. has them, they even have little tiny screw drivers you can use to change them right in the store.

In my humble opinion as a canopy competitor and instructor, kim is acually downsizing too soon. I have seen her land her sabre 2's and she is definitely not flying her 135 to it's full potential (I'd say she knows how I feel about her flying the 120) There are a lot of exceptional canopy pilots at our dropzone, and kim has a chance to be one of them but she is rushing it. She sees superstu and renfro and the brians and I swooping 250-300 feet in no wind when we hold our mini $5 buy in swoop comps and she wants to swoop too --what she doesn't realize is that stu and I both spent like 400 jumps under moderately loaded canopyies learning the skills that allow us to safely fly our pocket rockets. Stu is a very new HP canopy pilot but he is rock solid. As far as jump #'s I've seen intermediate PST competitors with 600 jumps rear-riser cross-braced loaded at 2.1 to a full stop. Some people dedicate their whole world to HP canpopy flight and get it dialed in really quickly, but even these guys spent time on larger canopies when they were learning about HP landings, which is where Kim is right now. Kudos to her for staying ultra-current and asking the right questions of the right people but my $.02 is that she's moving a bit to quickly.

I don't like them because they take more time, are difficult to get to look neat when they're all closed up. Also- the design is really not as secure as containers with a covered or partially covered reserve pilot chute. Para-Gear charges $25 more to re-pack a racer (see pg 190 of the catalog). I don't think they're unfamiliar with them or don't know the tricks to make it easier, it's because racers are sort of a pain in the ass to close. This doesn't mean that they're wrong or bad or anything, they just take how they are

I attended a racer reserve pack seminar at the holiday boogie in Eloy this past year. I wouldn't have any problem packing one for a customer, but I would probably charge $5 or $10 more. I just don't like the design as well as other rigs that are out there.

on the west coast, as a skydiver i never wanted to be an experienced base jumper so much as this last weekend, I was in the area on a fishing trip and I took a stroll accross the bridge. beautiful, just an amazing visual of the ocean, it looks like the trail to hike out might be a bit harry for the walk back out. other than that it looks perfect

I just got my temporary certificate. My DPRE said that if I didn't receive the permanent one with 90 days I should contact him and he would help me track it down. I'll bet you get it in the next couple of weeks.

Lolie rocks, she's a sit-flyin' machine. Trust me I know I checked. Thanks for the jump girl, -Dan

Brian- If it makes any difference to you I've seen most of the xaos factory pilots set up in brakes. They're flying a wing very close to yours. They might vary how much brakes they use if they are trying for speed or distance vs. accuracy.

Manbird Steve flies a sabre 2 107 @1.7 almost all birdman jumps with very good results. I wouldn't be surprised to see him chime in and post during the next day or so.

flying at his max= butt cheeks clenched, teeth gritted, instinctively trying to stay off of the mountain. I doubt he was thinking "must find optimal downward/ forward fallrate combinaton for perfect fallrate and glide andgle." To me this would not have been a technical moment of thinking (thought I can't say for sure). I'd say he was trying to keep his chest strap off of the deck.

I have watched this video many times on man-birds laptop and on the bigscreen at skydive oregon. To me it looks like he is in the 10 foot A.G.L. range, especially right when he passes the skiers. When you consider that he made flight adjustments to get closer to ground. I bet after he got closer to the mountain he was flying at his max, I know I would have been. Seems pretty much like the limit to me.

You can't go wrong with a psycho-pack on a new cross-braced canopy. I've used it on a new xaos21, 27, velocity, and fx with great success. The precision website has instructions with good pictures on it www.precison.net (I think). You can look up psycho-pack in a thread-search and get a ton of responses also.

To me, the canopy shutting down is when it runs out of lift. If you do a good job of shutting down the canopy, you don't have to run it out too much or slide it in. If you carve really hard or stab the brakes to pop up and hit a target, your canopy quickly runs out of lift and shuts down. The term has sort of come to mean getting the most low speed or last bit of flare out of your parachute, touching down as softly as possible.

I'll jump a 126, no problem. My MONEY is on the 135. I called Precision earlier about the R-Max demo. I'll meet you in Perris in September during the PST event. How's that? I think it's cool that you blow stuff up out of planes for a living. It must be great to be the undisputed lord and master of high-speed parachute drop testing data. How's that working out for you?

Stuart- If you cheat on Brian and I by getting canopy coaching from anyone other than us we'll hurt you. Brian and April will be qualifying and Will and I will be yelling at them making them chow. OK maybee talk to Jim Slaton. He's pretty good at that whole high-performance canopy coaching thing... I guess -he pretty much taught me. He'll likely be there again. Chuck is the guy to learn how to talk to much younger women from, (he also knows EVERYBODY that has ever jumped from a plane). He could probably help you slow down and dock in your spot on a 12- way so next time I don't have to hover for 9-12 seconds waiting to take my grips. Chuck you gonna be at Lost Prarie/ Rantoul?

Anything "could" blow up. My teammate who is 200 even out the door had a reserve ride this past weekend. I was kinda worried since he jumps a dash M-120. After SB manufacture date. He chopped his spinning velo, took a full 5 second delay to get perfectly stable, pulled his res. handle, and had a textbook deployment. He also did a toggle hook and swooped it for about 60 feet, right up until it tacoed and stalled as he was trying to slide it out --just a little extra dirt on the jump suit. Anyway -I have never even heard of a PD or newer Tempo (they have spanwise reinforcing tape on the inside of the bottom skin). Sustaining canopy damage on deployment. Has anyone? There must be one or two out there that I personally haven't heard of. I'll bet ya $50 I can easily land the R-Max 135 three times in a row within 15 meters of target center, just give me winds between 5 and 10.