apincus

Yes, drink beer when your done jumping.... Go for it!

In addition to training for it which is the #1 item, watch what you eat and stay hydrated....On long calls try to walk the jump every 20 minutes or so, and creep it at least once an hour. Stop staying out 1/2 the night and showing up to skydive Alex PS: Great to see you doing 4-way....

Congrats Scott: That's awesome...I remember you taking time to do a two way with me when I had 50 -100 jumps down at Billy World (The Old Atlanta Skydiving Center) in the late 80's. I've done a lot of cool stuff in this sport since then, but that little two way was one of my most memorable jumps. Alex

yep.....every day

That being said, can one of our lawyer types out there draft up a letter (Steve). All of us can download the letter from this forum. We can then print and sign our names and mail to USPA. We can also forward the letter to our fellow competitors that have lives and don't visit this forum.

Medals are awarded after the event in the Olympics. The closing ceremonies of the Olympics are not a medal ceremony, but a celebration and closing of the Olympics.. I'm pretty sure the medalist at the Olympics, who could not stick around for the closing ceremonies, went home with their hard earned medals. This is neither here nor there. Skydiving is not an Olympic sport. The fact is most of the competitors thought medals would be awarded after 4-way, and were very disappointed to realize differently. Shame on us for making that assumption. This should have been addressed months ago. Let's utilize the avenues open to us to make sure this does not happen again. Let's write letters to USPA asking them to place verbiage in the bid document for nationals including a statement regarding the timing of awarding medals in the 4-way competition. This would take this decision out of the meet directors’ hands. Weather this is 2 hours to 30 hours warrants some discussion. For next year, let's contact the meet director and find out his plan. If his/her plan is unacceptable to competitors, then you don't have to attend. Sky Quest could be come a whole lot larger. Stepping back for a minute, let’s also hope Nationals is not all about the medals. Let’s remember it’s a time where many of us with similar passions gather once a year to compete, hang out, and celebrate. It’s a giant family reunion and an excuse to take a vacation. Alex

I'm not sure how many 4-way competitors were at the award ceremony out of the 325 - 400 people, I'm guessing less than 40%. However, it was very disappointing not to see the winning teams recognized for the performance in front of their piers. It was also very shocking to watch the teams go home without their hardware. For some of the competitiors winning a medal in 4-way at Nationals is a life time achievement. Those who had to leave prior to the awards feel there was no closure to their season. At Skydive Chicago in 2002, medals were awarded within hours of the competition. The ceremony also had a video complied of the winning teams to go along with medal presentation. I can say this one one of the best award presentations I've attended. I hope this will be the case next year. As competitors we need to make sure this gets addressed up front. How do we make sure we are heard by USPA, and they act on our concerns? I doubt this forum is the place to address USPA, but if there are any USPA savy folks, prehaps you could let us know our next steps. Alex

Spaceland Inferno all the way In reality, since two of these teams are no longer in existance, we will never know. Mass defience wins by default, they are still skydiving together. Biq queston, who's gonna win the Tour de France this year? Wrong forum... Alex

How about Martini's in the old GT team room

The easiest way to win the advanced class: Score more points than all the other teams. Alex

Hey Ron: Tell me again, why you don't want a female class. More females standing on the Podium the better.

Outside leg. It does not matter if you take the inside or outside gripper, or any legal grip on that leg. However, the inside gripper of outside leg seems to be the easier grip. This is NOT the same leg that is involved in the compressed accordian between the Point Flyer and Outside Center. Alex

Years ago we routinly had pack opening altitude at 2000 FT AGL. Back then line twist were rarely, if ever, a high speed malfunction, and canopies did not take 500- 1000 feet to inflate. Be aware that the lower you open you parachute, the less time you have to deal with situations. The extra 500FT of altitude may be the difference between you kicking out of line twists (or other issue) or cutting away. There is a baseline of risk in this sport. The choices we make effect the level of risk we take. Weigh the risks wisely and look at the possible consequences. At this point, you are ready to make a decision. Alex

The original question: When should a team go Advanced? Answer: 1. When they are elgible. 2. They want the challenge of a more complicated draw then intermediate. 3. Their egos will not let them compete in intermmediate. It 's all based on individual goals, and how people want to chanllenge themselves. If it's in the rules, and you feel good doing it, then that decision is most likely the best decision for you. Alex Pincus

Dave: I agree, I've never seen you work Alex

Eat your Wheaties :-) .... You guys will do great. Alex

Hi Matt: Alex, Ron, an Chromy as far as I know. C-U Saturday. We're gonna have some fun. Alex

I do not really care about what class a professional skydiver competes in. However, make no mistake a team is as good as the whole team, not the weakest skydiver. Trust Me, Good Skydivers can do a lot to compensate for somebody not in thier slot, or not making the correct move. Good luck w/ your team. IC's are hard to find these days. Seems like their is an abundance of front half folks. I'm sure Hammo can fly anyslot. You may want to find a good skydiver who wants to learn, and take advantage of a great opportunity to fly with your team. Alex

You guys did great. As alway we enjoy working with each of you. You all have come leaps and bounds since we started working with you a year ago. I'm looking forward to the next camp in May. Keep up the good work. Alex

I second Ron's comments. Alex

Steve: You know me very well. I do much better when I don't try to help. It took many Martini's with yourself and many discussions with Ron before I really had an opinion. I think you and Ron both have great ideas, and I would support any or all of them. Just show me where to sign. Alex

I'm pretty neutral on the player coach discussion. The only rules I can find that govern who can compete in addition to having a 'B' License in Advanced is: It is my feeling you should compete where there is competion, as long as you play within the rules Doing a 16 or 17 in Advanced, based on passed scores would not be the correct place to compete, especially with a World Class Competitor. Doing a 13 in open would not prove very competitive. In my experience you do not get the same feeling playing in Open as you do battling for medals in Advance at the same point average. One way is a boogie, the other is real competition. I do agree with Ron that it is very strange that PD Blue can compete in Advance at a 19 AVG, but Taiwaz, Inferno, Frost, Adrenalin can't put a team together and compete at a 15 AVG. However these are the rules. This rule forces these Skydivers either to put together full time teams to be competitive, or go to Nationals in Boogie mode. Based only on the previous statement, it is my feeling the rules should be changed to: eliminate the move up rule above, or to follow the current proposal not to allow medal winners of a higher class to compete in a lower class. Until the rules are changed we should quit giving PC teams grief about where they compete. They are following the rules. If they get caught breaking the rules they will likely get DQ’d, and this is mute point. Alex

I'm not sure how your mounting your camera. I will clue you in on that the extended life batteries do not allow you to close the box due to the increase in size. They are very bulky and the box is molded for the standard size batteries. As far as lens angle goes, it kind of depends on what your filming and what kind of style you have. I think a 0.5 is a pretty good all around lens.

You should check out Bonehead Flattop as well. www.boneheadcomposites.com