Reginald

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Is full breaking at 100-150 ft weighing 150 with a 209 sq ft canopy something I never should have thought of? Could the canopy just collapse all of a sudden?

Any advice is appreciate.. Thanks

Wow, you got some responses, eh? Reading your post I think the issue is that breaking that low is probably unnecessary and does contain quite a bit of risk. If it was not necessary to hitting your landing area I would say it was something that should not have been done. If you just wanted to learn to fly your canopy better you can experiment above 1,000 or 1,500 feet with that sort of thing. Experimenting at 150 feet is not necessarily a good idea. You should be able to plan a landing pattern that in full flight will allow you to hit your target with reasonable accuracy.

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I'll be there this Sunday Bill. I should be able to give you a realistic unstable freefall.

Shane

LOL!

Bill,

I was honored to meet you at SD Dallas over the summer. I can say nothing about your career in skydiving that would do it justice so I'll just say, "Thank You"

Please do come back to dz.com often. While you might not be jumping anymore you can share some of your wisdom with us.

Blue Skies,
Ron

i'll try and help to 2000 and then if the person made a choice to jump without an ADD they will die with that choice. No point in 2 of us going.

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>I see far too many black and blue people bleeding from eye's noses,
>etc. that are wearing open face helmets.

Although that is more a problem with the person's skill at RW than what sort of helmet they wear. Getting kicked hard in the face is not acceptable no matter what sort of helmet you wear; a full-face does not have much padding, nor does it do anything to protect your neck. Indeed, it may aggravate injuries to your neck because it sticks out farther than your chin (and thus increases leverage on your spine.)

>I consider freefall collisions a very real high probability event . . . .

If you're about to do a skydive with a high probablility of freefall collisions - stay in the plane! That will do far more to protect you than any helmet.

Sorry my friend it's the experienced 4 way teams that I see the most collisions on. It's the block moves at high speed on your way to a 20 point round that are the killers. Fortunately, the really experienced teams all religiously wear full-face helmets, even still I’ve seen some pretty beat up people. With open face helmets they would have been minced meet.

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I wonder if this is a serious enough issue that folks should be considering it before making the decision to use a full-face??? Or does the protection it provides outweigh the probability of a situation where the full-face helmet becomes a hazard?

People that jump without a full face are crazy if they are doing RW, IMHO. I see far too many black and blue people bleeding from eye's noses, etc. that are wearing open face helmets. Some are so bad I wonder how they managed to even pull. Most of these injuries would have been highly mitigated with a full face. I consider freefall collisions a very real high probability event with potentially catastrophic consequences. In my view this far outweighs the very remote possibility of there being a problem with a full face in the event of a catastrophic injury on landing.

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Q: How do you know a skydiver when you see one?
A: He'll tell you.

LOL! So true. There was this one time at skydiving camp...

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If I had the choice on the vector, I woulda gone with cordura. But then again, Bill Booth went with spandura and he knows just a tad more about this sorta thing than I do.
Dave

LOL!

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You haven't seen me skydive!! 15 minutes will not do it!!

You never saw him jump before he did it!

Hey, I resemble that remark! Okay, I NEEDED some tunnel time to get through AFF.

Good for you! Now as my instructors said when i got my A, "you have a license to do almost anthing you want to do...don't do anythign stupid" Keep it simple for your first 100 jumps.

Say Hi to Karol Antantis from Ron in Dallas. She helepd me with a few coach jumps when I was on student status in Dallas and escaped the crap winter weather. Z Hills is a great DZ!

You don't need 1.5 hours of tunnel time to work out the kinks with backsliding, etc. 15 to 30 minutes of coached time will solve most of your problems. You can potentially do both.

One of the TM's at my DZ is a sniper for a suburban police department.

My fav was on a trip where security x-rayd it and the screener froze it and stared with a confuded look for about 15 seconds. He shruged his shouldersand then let it through. Great security!

What are the "lowered" requirments to be an instructor?

Dude, read about my AFF.

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=798179;search_string=reginald;#798179

Funny thing is now I'm a respectable skydiver at my DZ, do a 4 way team, get invited to join big ways (small ones), etc. So what if you repeated a few levels, if its nerves see about doing 15 mintues of tunnel time, it will teach you to relax..

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If you are carrying it on, is it going to be small enough?
-Serious question.

Not a problem at all. I put mine in a small suitcase along with my alti, gloves, etc. it fits perfectly in every overhead bin in every airplane I've been on; 737’s, 767’s 777’s…

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Here's a couple pics of diving exits. One person left belly to earth, the other belly to the relative wind. Any guesses which one went hilariously unstable?

Naw. Diving exits are easy and fun. You'll love 'em.

LOL! I'm voting for Ron's exit being the stable one!

Blue Skies,
Ron

Man I prefer diving exits. Why wuold I want to climb ontot he otuside of an airplane and cling to it in 100mph wind? that's hard man! Just hang out inside the plane and dive out. It's cool!

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2 PD canopies are measured the same. If you have a larger PD main and a smaller PD-Reserve, the reserve really is smaller. Its only when you start comparing a PD 143 to a PA 150 will the Pd be larger.

I'm not sure this is the case. I was told by a experienced rigger that PD measures reserve size on the bottom of the canopy and mains on the top (or something like that) but that my PD 176 main is actually closer to 180 to 185 if I wanted to make a direct comparison to my Sabre 2, 190.

Do post WHY you repeated levels. Personally, last fall I repeated alevel 3 times and another one 4 times. Then I did a little tunnle time, which taught me to RELAX, and i finished AFF like a rock star.

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I'm trying to figure out why is it that most (if not all) of the systems I have demo-ed have a reserve that is about 20 sqft smaller than the main.

I’m surprised no one has hit on this. There was some research a few years back on 2 outs. The best general configuration was to have a slightly smaller reserve. This increased the probability of a 2 out going into a controllable biplane. I do not claim to be an expert on this but the research should be easily available online. I think there was a study by both PD and one by the military at about the same time. A quick search should turn it all up.

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>Forgive me but a "PD 170" made with F-111?

A PD170 is an F-111 9 cell main.

Wow, must be an older model..

Well, some of the things you are talking about for example, ½ breaks with the wind will actually keep you aloft longer. You did notice on final with some breaks (into the wind) that you descended slower. Breaks into and with the wind do very different things and I would talk to your instructors about it in more detail. I would doubt that you were in thermals but it is possible. My best guess is that it felt like a long time but it was probably normal. Secondly, you did do some things to keep you aloft longer, so when in doubt just let it glide with the toggles up. Spirals will cause you to lose altitude, trust me.
Your instructor told you to do 360’s above 1,500 feet and you were worried about “doing low turns”. 1,500 is NOT low for a turn. 200 or 300 feet IS low for a turn, 1,000 is most peoples cut off for any sort of turn other than gentle 90’s in their landing pattern. So don’t worry about “gentle 360's” above 1,500 as your instructor stated.

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I was hoping for some answers from people who specifically knew the flying characteristics of the 2 canopies mentioned.

Forgive me but a "PD 170" made with F-111? That sounds like the PD reserve. This would make an unusual main. Is it a 7 cell? Can you tell us a little more about what the canopy is exactly?

Great, at first I thougth it was some nice coverage. than it all went badly...

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Are we certain that the pictures on the site are copyrighted photos? I understand people getting pissy about their pictures being used w/o their permission but unless the picture has been copyrighted (which i bet they have not) then there is nothing to stop someone from using it.

Well, nothing personal but you aren’t going to make a living as an intellectual property attorney. I’m not either but I have researched the issue before and you don’t actually have to officially apply for a copyright to have one. There are any number of other ways to have a copyright. Public performance, or display, is sufficient. You do have to be able to prove that you created it. If this company took other peoples original photos off the net and used them in its advertising then it is in violation of copyright laws. It should at minimum take them down immediately upon request. A photographer could sue have them pulled down and for compensation, but that’s a lot of work for a little gain; which is what the offender is counting on.