Raistlin

I would guess that a Raven I and a MicroRaven are two completely different beasts, correct? Or is there some other name that the Raven I goes by? I can't seem to find it either in the review section or on Precision site.

All the ride-your-reserve talk lately has led me to think there's gonna be that one time I'm going to be suspended under my old Raven I 181, mfd 10/92. A quick search around has produced ridiculously little input... Precision only lists Raven Dash-M, Super Raven, Micro Raven, Raven MZ. I have heard of Raven II, Raven III, Raven IV, and own Raven I. What are the differences between the latter four? Can someone who has flown specifically a Raven I loaded lightly at about 1.1, preferably from the early 90s, share their experience at what was the ride like, how it landed, etc? Thanks!

"Update on my eye today: The blood is slowly oozing (or redistributing) throughout my eye. I'm assuming that by the end of the week, the entire white part (sclera) will be blood red." We demand more pictures

"why doesn't he demo a 190 spectre or sabre2 from PD?" Stupid ocean gets in the way, y'know :p So going from 1.19 on a 7-cell to 1.33 on a 9-cell is too risky I guess? My own transition to Hornet 170 at the exact same wingloading, at about 50 jumps, was marked by a few landings on concrete which accounted for bruised palms, knees, elbows, and ego... though frankly I don't see how one could break leg if they made no stupid low turn close to the ground (that's exactly why I landed on concrete - I didn't want to turn 60 ft up and the canopy was going faster than expected). The main problem seems to be the proper flare, which at worst results in that you flare too early / too jerkily and don't have a stand-up landing. Looks like he gets to jump the 210, and I get to jump his sweet rig as backup meanwhile :) Thanks everybody for the answers and patience, as it's been discussed to death before.

To shun away the "have him talk to their instructor" answers, the instructor says "go if you feel like it, I think you can handle it". :) Basically, a low-jump friend has been jumping a Spectre 190 at 1.19 and been fine. I think he's got around 30 jumps at this point, with at least 5 on said Spectre, in nil and very low winds. What he is having doubts about, is going to his own Sabre2 170 (at 1.33 respectively). Problem is that the Spectre 190 is not rental and not going to be available for some time (the owner going on vacation), and the only rental canopy, a Hornet 210 (1.08), he lands no problem. He is either going to have to wait a few weeks to jump the Spectre 190 a few times again, or go with his Sabre2 170. I said I'd ask the DZ.com folks what they think about it... The DZ is pretty small and nobody else jumps anything 190 there - a few 150s and a 230...

For some unidentified reason, _some_ posts show up as having 0 views and 0 replies, even though they have plenty of both. Examples of such for me are: http://www.dropzone.com/forum/Skydiving_C1/General_Skydiving_Discussions_F18/GATESVILLE_TEXAS_WHERE_CAN_I_JUMP........_P1098619/ http://www.dropzone.com/forum/Skydiving_C1/General_Skydiving_Discussions_F18/News%3AEloy_approves_wind_tunnel_permit_P1098189/ http://www.dropzone.com/forum/Skydiving_C1/General_Skydiving_Discussions_F18/Coaches_at_SouthEast_DZs_P1088008/ etc.

For the record, a busy rental Hornet 210 at our DZ required a small patch to be done at just under 1000 jumps as it blew up in the air. It has since been jumped and is believed to fly fine :)

Probably not. I cross enough roads and drive enough miles not to want to give the grim reaper yet another chance :)

Enlighten me as to when was the last time a reserve from a fairly well-known manufacturer blew up after being deployed because it wasn't strong enough, O mighty sardonic one?

I've never had a true cutaway, but a fair lot of small mals... On my first post-AFF solo jump (8th jump total), the spring-loaded pilot chute fell on my back and so I had a 2100 ft opening. The alti hand reached the red and I dug for the cutaway pillow, and it probably made the PC get off me and finally open the main. A few jumps later that same day, alti broke in freefall, I opened very low, the canopy fully inflated and just as I reached up to unstow the brakes, pop went the Cypres-released reserve... two-canopy landing. A few jumps later still, I had my first ride on a then ridiculously small Spectre 190 that neither the owner nor any other student of my level of experience wanted to jump because of nil winds. The toggle was in a few knots around itself and so appeared like it was pulled halfway down. I opened very high because it was such a dangerous canopy (actually, after a 280 F-111 it was), at about 6k, noticed the toggle problem and remember thinking: shit, I am going to have to cut-away, but I don't want to! I looked at previously beautiful and now bloodthirsty ground far below and felt scared. Since it was someone else's brand new canopy, I did not want to chop it that high, and decided to ride it down to 2k and meanwhile try to unknot the toggle, to no avail. So I pulled the other toggle so the canopy flew even, had a stand-up landing and was happy.

And one beautiful poem, by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air. Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or even eagle flew - And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

One sullen song: Blood on the risers (TO THE TUNE OF"GLORY, GLORY, HALLELUJAH") He was just a rookie trooper, And he surely shook with fright As he checked all his equipment And he made sure his pack was tight. "Is everyone happy?", cried the sargeant, looking up, Our hero feebly answered "Yes," and then they stood him up He leaped right out into the blast, his static line unhooked, HE AIN'T GONNA JUMP NO MORE! (CHORUS) He counted long, he counted loud, he waited for the shock He felt the wind, he felt the clouds, he felt the awful drop, He jerked his cord, the silk spilled out and wrapped around his legs, HE AIN'T GONNA JUMP NO MORE! (CHORUS) The risers wrapped around his neck, connectors cracked his dome The lines were snarled and tied in knots, around his skinny bones The canopy became his shroud, he hurtled to the ground, HE AIN'T GONNA JUMP NO MORE! (CHORUS) The days he's lived and loved and laughed kept running through his mind, He thought about his girl back home, the one he left behind, He thought about the medics and wondered what they'd find, HE AIN'T GONNA JUMP NO MORE! (CHORUS) The ambulance was on the spot, the jeeps were running wild, The medics jumped and screamed with glee, they rolled their sleeves and smiled For it had been a week or more since last a 'chute had failed HE AIN'T GONNA JUMP NO MORE! (CHORUS) He hit the ground, the sound was "SPLATT", his blood went spurting high His comrades then were heard to say "A helluva way to die!" He lay there rolling 'round in the welter of his gore HE AIN'T GONNA JUMP NO MORE! (CHORUS) There was blood upon the risers, there were brains upon his 'chute Intestines were a'dangling from his Paratrooper's boots, They picked him up, still in his 'chute and poured him from his boots. HE AIN'T GONNA JUMP NO MORE! (CHORUS) GORY, GORY, WHAT A HELLUVA WAY TO DIE! GORY, GORY, WHAT A HELLUVA WAY TO DIE! GORY, GORY, WHAT A HELLUVA WAY TO DIE! HE AIN'T GONNA JUMP NO MORE!!!!!

Cool - can you give me (us) the reasoning behind your decision? I chose Raven back then, because I had a good deal and was short on $, but am looking to replace it with something in the near future... Basically what do you want out of a reserve? I'll go by 1) how safe, 2) how much pack volume, 3) price... you?

Just my .02 worth on reserves.. you can pick PD because it's fabulous for its reliability (and expensive), or go for smaller pack volume with a reserve like Quick - I don't really think they are much less reliable than the PDs...

Isn't FT50 a french altimeter, and isn't it metric (or do they come in varieties)? They seem to be fragile tho. One broke right on me in freefall, got stuck at 8k.. and I saw/heard of other occurences.

Just to bump the old thread up and for lack of anything else to do, I'll say that I bought my rig while still not having done AFF 1. Altho by the time it finally got shipped overseas (from the USA / Canada), I was already past AFF 5, so once I was off AFF and with a few jumps on bigger rental, I was able to use my own gear: a Hornet 170 which serves me up to day, and a Raven 181. So, I went to do AFF in November, but the weahter never cooperated till the end of March. I did plenty of reading and hanged out on DZ a lot. Plus, it seemed like I wouldn't find anything better than Hornet price/quality-wise anyway, and I need the container to last only about 150 jumps, after which it can rip apart and I wouldn't care (it's an old design 1992 EOS retrofit for Cypres) :) Saving for new atm.

As I sat in front of my computer, an interdimensional hole suddenly opened in front of my very eyes, allowing me a peek into some place that looked very much like my own home, only wasn't. I spotted a calendar-type clock that was exactly like the one sitting on my desk. Only, my one read 2004, and that one, read 2025! There was some semblance of a computer visible in that bizarre hole. Cautiously yet burning with curiosity (for I realized that fortune allowed me a peek into the future itself!), I extended my hands forward and, ignoring the hideous Windows XXX 2020 logo, ran Ultrainternet Explorer. My mind swam with possibilities. See what stocks would raise dramatically in price so as to make a fortune? Go to a History site and learn what future awaits us? Suddenly, inspiration hit me. Of course, there was no other place to go than www.dropzone.com! But as soon as I went to that site, the hole began to close slowly. I clicked on the first post I could reach and as soon as I finished copying it, the hole closed. Behold! Here it is! The post from dropzone.com of the year 2025, the words from the future! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I read the posts at today's forums, and really, sometimes they make me raise an eyebrow. A lot has changed in this sport since the day I made my first skydive on a Katana 120, and it was a mere fifteen years ago. Mere fifteen years! Back then, rigs were big and airplanes slow. The maximum altitude we got was 20k - maybe 22k on a lucky day - and the freefall time was around two minutes at most. If you wore a Skyflyer, you could increase that to four minutes. Nowadays, I read complaints about how 8 minutes isn't nearly enough to break the sound barrier. The climb to altitude used to take about 20 minutes, unlike now, when you whoosh upwards at about the same speed as you are going to be falling a minute later. Katana was considered an aggressive canopy that you shouldn't fly over 3.0, and for a first jump, over 1.8. Reserves were seldom under 100 sqf. At the DZ only our chief instructor had a XX. After all, it was 33 square feet! Yes, very few people could land a VX-26 or a Xaos-27 21, and it was unheard of in occurrence to land a wingsuit. To have your canopy wrapped around your body, or stuffed in a pocket, was an idea belonging in a trash bin. Surviving freefall was a miracle, and jumps from over 25k required oxygen masks and thermosuits. We didn't have a rigid wing to penetrate us through the choppiest of winds; canopies with lifting force were a lifelong dream of any pilot. If you started your swoop TOO low, there was the only option of banging into the ground and that was a little painful; you could not drive your canopy into a spiral motion, go up, and repeat; no siree! We had Cypres-3's and Vigil-AA's for AADs. They were pieces of geeky equipment that calculated your rate of descent by measuring air pressure. Although they were pretty reliable, they were dumb, so if you went on your head past the activation altitude at 400 mph, you were likely to break your neck. And those things cost! Mind, $1300 for a unit, and they had to be shipped back regularly for inspection. Doesn't sound at all like your Anti-G 3000 or AG-Pro that gently slow you down onto your tiptoes, does it? Back then, AG-Pro was something most skydivers would give their kidney and half their liver for. And here you are, the young generation, taking it all for granted. Years went by, but we still had to study for all of 5 jumps of our AFF. We had to actually do stuff ourselves. We did not have the survivor skills beamed right into our skulls, along with the reflexes of the world's best champions. Learning to swoop required more than 50 jumps, and you might break a leg that took three days to heal, not fifteen minutes! Nowadays, kids with the money buy themselves a ticket to Vitalizer and actually try to spiral-land their rigid-wing Cheetahs 12. What is the point of this long ranting, anyway? I don't mean to discourage you from trying out the wonderful possibilities of this perfectly safe sport, but for God's sake, try to enjoy it, try not to take it for granted, try not to complain. Think about the hazards we had to face mere fifteen years ago. We ran the constant risk of death - every year as much as 3 persons perished in accidents - but we enjoyed it. We did not have JetPack's, but we were quite happy flying our Velocity 35's even if it was not the fun of going at today's modest 200 mph speed. Please stop to think about it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi, So there are some nice applets to design your custom parachute. Is there perhapsibly one for jumpsuits? Thanks,

For me, it was the one on my fifth jump after AFF when my altimeter got broken right in freefall and stuck at 6k. So there I was, falling and thinking, hey look I never noticed this before - it seems like I'm really low while in reality I'm at 6k, woohoo! I am really now able to perceive freefall from a whole new angle... but hey.. it's approaching kinda fast. Hmm... but 6k... hmm... nope, too fast... oh damn, throw that PC out... and I did, and was under a canopy. Then, just as I reached up to unstow the brakes, there was a pop and I was under two canopies. Although I wasn't technically falling fast enough for that Cypres to fire, it did :( As luck would have it, this was the ONLY rental rig that was a Racer... get it?

In fact, it's me who should apologize for not providing enough background information, heh. Outta curiosity, why 42.5 jumps? Rode to altitude then decided not to jump out? :)

There is... but since it's in Flash, it won't translate :\ Grats to Michiko :)

Well, Things are a little different over here. $800 doesn't really sound much, but it constitutes most of what an average person earns a month (about $1000-1200). The would-be skydivers can come up with $800, but that requires what - two months of saving up - and by then they lose the zeal, or the weather turns crap, or whatever. Credit cards are pretty much non-existent in the sense of how they are used in the USA. You can't really go over-draft on them; mostly, it's just to receive your salary transfers and beyond that, bupkiss. A bank loan is also different. Practically anyone who's employed can go to a bank and get a credit without explaining what for. But are there no dropzones in existence that take up the role of the bank in this case and give the loan themselves? (in the form of: jump your cojones off now over this week; bring payment later a chunk a month) I am sure at least one person mentioned this system at their DZ...

Oops, I am sorry for being so brief. The situation is as follows: as it has been correctly said, AFF is best taken advantage of when you complete it in the course of a few days as opposed to a few months. Even though it only costs around $800 here, this is still a lot of money to cough up for most people. So I proposed to introduce a "installment deal"... you sort of get a loan from the DZ, complete AFF, keep jumping at the DZ and slowly (say, within a few months) repay your debt. I actually read about it somewhere on dz.com... So we are interested in how this has been done on those DZs that offer it. Like... how does the DZ ensure that the person doesn't complete AFF and then disappear for good... is there involvement with the bank... do you pay more in interest, or the amount stays the same... I believe this hasn't been previously done in any of the few russian dropzones, hence the post here :) Thanks,

We're discussing possible introducing of the subj at our dropzone. Can someone with first-hand experience please let me ask them a few questions (you don't have to be the guy who organized this at his DZ, just the guy who took advantage of it)? :) Thanks,

A radically new kind of canopy with lifting force? :)