el_chester

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    i roam...
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    Formation Skydiving

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  1. This is a picture of the 5 mexicans who participated on the World Team 2006 (400-way) in Thailand. Toño is in blue on the far left, then Nacho, Laura, me and Mach.
  2. It is with a lot of sadness that the Mexican, Latin American and world skydiving community bids farewell to Toño. He died yesterday afternoon after 1 month in the ICU fighting COVID. He was one of the great promoters of the sport in Mexico and through Latin America. In skydiving, he is best known for being the DZO of Skydive Cuautla near Mexico City and his boogies at Puerto Escondido. He also participated on multiple bigway records (300, 357, 400 that I can remember). However, he will mostly be remembered not for his achievements in skydiving, but for his wonderful personality, his big grin, for being a great friend, for his positive attitude to life, for being fun and generous, for being the soul of any party. Ironically, the first time I remember him was in the mid-90's as he was singing a mariachi song during the funeral of a fellow skydiver who had died in a general aviation accident in a small plane. Toño's singing would make any party better. Blue skies Toño!
  3. Nice to read you! And no, I haven't jumped since 2011... but maybe one day I'll come back. How about you, still jumping? -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.
  4. See attachment... Is anybody I know (mostly from the belly bigway circuit 2004-2009) still around here? -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.
  5. We are actually making the same point about "once at terminal". I also thought about the focus thing… but not fully convinced by that theory. More inclined to go for the "relaxed" vs. "tense" explanation. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.
  6. Just don't do public transport… I once took the train to Picton, then that's still like 10k from the dz, couldn't get a cab, didn't find a ride, and in the end it took quite a while until a nice jumper had the time to leave the dz and come fetch me. As you become a regular at Picton you'll start meeting people to carpool with - it's a super nice community. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.
  7. Yeah, I know it's a limited time and probably too short to pass out, –but even if not passing out–, if one stands on one's head "on the ground", the discomfort is noticeable immediately, and I haven't heard of anyone feeling this while flying head down. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.
  8. It is quite obvious to me that the blood does not rush to the head of head-down fliers, because otherwise we would constantly have people fainting and this would be a comfort and safety issue. However, when I was asked by a friend WHY this didn't happen, I could not really find a convincing explanation of the physics of it. TUNNEL FLYING How is being "on your head" in the tunnel different from being "on your head" in the room next to the tunnel, in terms of blood weight/acceleration. Why can the guy outside the tunnel only tolerate it for a short while and get a red head, while the guy flying in the tunnel doesn't experience the red head? AIRPLANE JUMPS During the acceleration phase of an airplane jump, one could say it's conditions similar to zero-g. However, once in terminal velocity, the blood from the body would still "rush down to the head", wouldn't it? As stated above, clearly it is not the case that blood rushes to the head on head-down, but WHY? Anyone who knows what they're talking about care to explain the physics of it? -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.
  9. I don't post on dz.com often anymore, but Feb. 8th is a special day in my skydiving career... In 1992 I jumped for the first time in Celaya, Mexico an AFF with just one instructor from a Cessna 182 from 6,500ft. In 2006 as part of World Team '06, at Udon Thani, Thailand, I took part in a big jump with 399 others in the formation plus over a dozen cameramen and women from 5 C-130's "Hercules" form 25,500ft. Both seem like yesterday, even though I've more than doubled my age since Feb. 1992, and almost doubled my jumps since 2006. Best regards to all my WT buddies around the world! Looking fwd. to the record being broken soon-ish! -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.
  10. I once had the phone ring on me under canopy, but it was in my shorts pocket under the legstrap, so I could not answer. I think I would have otherwise. Did return the call first thing after landing. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.
  11. I have nothing but good memories of Michael from various bigways including World Team 2006. It was a pleasure sharing the skies with him, and I am happy to have met him. RIP -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.
  12. http://www.theworldteam.com/10_11Skydives.htm The World Team's webpage has been updated with a lot of new info, including formation designs, sector captains, dates. The new design has a 60-way base with a 12-way star in the middle, and the 1st row of whackers for each sector (a row of 3). To the base are attached 12 whacker sectors with 36 or 37 jumpers each. Each whacker sector is made up of 7 rows of whackers (not counting the 1st row of 3 that belongs to the base). The whackers rows are either (4-4-5-6-6-6-6) or (4-4-5-5-6-6-6). But seriously, why are you reading this text description? Go see for yourself!
  13. As I stated in my original post, both him and me tracked off in a direction away from jumprun, which indicates that after being in freefall for a certain amount of seconds longer than their group, we ended up sharing roughly the same column of air. Given that we were first and belly, and they were second and freeflying, the only explanation I can come up for this to happen is if either or both groups didn't fall on their column of air and flew a significant distance along the jumprun towards the other group. I don't think that winds alone could have put one group overtop of the other. Try it out yourself with John Kallend's model. I was watching other loads and separation between groups had been and continued to be good. Our group I'm quite certain didn't slide over towards theirs, and I did not ask them whether it could have been them. I don't know if they were sitflying, head down, or their experience level. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.
  14. Firstly: you are right - I never assigned blame solely to them. However, if you go by everything we've learned here, if a group of freeflyers leaves after a group of belly fliers, and leaves a reasonable separation, with their extra "throw" during the first seconds of freefall, that separation should increase. It would take a hell of an upper wind to elliminate this separation (try it out yourself with John Kallend's model here.). So surely this had to do with the way the group(s) flew towards each other along the jumprun line. And this is where it gets scary... because you cannot control every person in the plane and how they will fly. Hence an added awareness (/paranoia) is not a bad thing during trackoff. And that added awareness, in my case, comes from reading here, and knowing that there WILL be dangers out there, some of them out of your control. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it.
  15. In other words... "To be old and wise you must first be young and stupid"