sdctlc

There are a few of them at DZ's. I think Eloy has one and I know that Toledo in Washington has one. Mostly seen them with small doors and they are tricky to get out of with the small door with a Tandem strapped on, not bad just tricky. They also are not that friendly in regard to chunking off a group with the small door. That large door looks about like the size in the Westwind conversions. There use to be two (2) of them at Molalla in Oregon but were sold a few years back and are now mostly on the East coast, Orange might have one if I am remembering correctly. The Door is close to an Otter is size but slightly different in shape. They can carry I think 11-12 in a standard Beech-18 and maybe 14 in a westwind. But they are cramped when full. It has been a long time since jumping from a westwind and I am fuzzy on the exact number so if somebody knows dont jump all over me if I am way off.. There is a pic somewhere with a Beech-18, "Coors" logo aft of the jump door (I think), and jumpers climbing all over the outside of the airplane. Kinda makes you feel sorry for the pilot of the King Air that got in trouble when Orly climbed on top of the horizontal. that has to be a late 70's early 80's photo. I am sure somebody will get a link to it somewhere and post it.. Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Probably get better openings on Diablo with is straighter leading edge. Turns in the air are going to be comparable in speed with the stilletto being a little faster on a front riser turn. Both seem to have a oversteer with the diablo being slightly more prone to oversteer. With landing you can get a swoop out of the Stiletto and not out of the diablo but the Diablo will sink in better. Performance wise you will find the stiletto higher performance all around but the diablo is no slouch, it jsut does not swoop nearly as well as a 9 cell eliptical. Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

There is a company that USPA has a group policy through. You can get a life ADD policy that covers skydiving accidents, in addition to every thing else at I believe 25, 50, 75 and 100K. It was pretty cheap but the premiums went up recently, still less then I have seen quoted with a skydiving rider. It is not a bad idea as a backup policy for Skydiving in addition to what ever one you have normally that may not pay out on a skydiving accident. Scott C.

The Monarch is very similar to the Sabre, exactly the same no. Please, I dont want a bunch of people yelling that they are completely different. They may be different but they are similar and are, by many, considered to be close in how they behave. If you are having hard openings on any canopy consider having your rigger sew a "pocket" on the slider. It does help slow the opening down and make them much more tolerable. As to the technology advances, somebody was absolutly correct in saying that there are many great parachute technology advances out there BUT if a new jumper can get a fair deal on a decent canopy that will allow for more jumping, i.e. spend less on canopy and in turn get more jumping, that new jumper will probably come out ahead in the long run. I would guess that in 90%+ of first canopy purchases the jumper only puts a couple hunderd jumps on it. They use it as a transition canopy to enable more jumps but also to gain greater canopy skills and a better understanding of what they want to look for in a more permanant canopy. I agree that an old clapped out F-111 or even ZP canopy should not be sold to a new jumper . Taking that thought a step further, any jumper trying to make a few bucks on their crummy gear is doing a diservice to the uninformed new jumper. For the reasoning stated above though, a fair deal on a canopy in good shape, espically one that is still being sold today by the manufacturer (like the Monarch people seem to not like) The new jumper can gain a lot. Just my $0.02 Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Speaking of canopy progression and performance, I remember reading an atricle that basically stated (paraphrased) the following: "as people progress downward in canopy size seeking higher performance, they dont realize that they have not even come close to the performance limits of the canopy they had been jumping" I think there is a lot of truth in that statment. Something has to be said for jumping a canopy for a longer time and really learning how to fly it before going small really fast. The mistakes you make while learning on a sllightly larger canopy dont bite nearly as hard as they do on the smaller ones. Even in a time of rapid development of very good parachute technology. Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Is the Valentines meet at Eloy not going to be assiciated with the SSL? Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Speaking of the Cocks I have always thought the best bowl game, at least for the fun signs in the stadium, would have to be USC (South Carolina) vs. USC (Southern California) "Cocks vs. Trojans" I leave the possibilities up to your imagination! Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

"fill in name"'s Law, Murphy was an optimist!

N/A

Hey all. I am thinking about a crossfire2. I have head nothing but good things but am curious what the going rate is on a new one. Any feedback would be great. Scott C.

Slinks are great for putting the slider behind your head or under your chin, personal preference. If your slider is not a collapsible or you do not like to pull the slider down slinks are probably not for you. I collapse my slider and pull it down before I even think about releasing the toggles. I am fine with controlling the canopy with rears or shifting weight while I get the slider down. The speed of getting the slider down with the slinks vs. rapide links is worth it to me but again it is my personal preference... Scott C.

Are you going to put the draw online? Scott "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

The “hop” Stacy mentioned on the ground is very important to what may be the single biggest key to an exit, TIMMING. Not the hop itself but the idea of getting the team timing down. If the team hits the air-stream at the same time, even with some other problems such as grips or positioning going on it wont as quickly translate to a funnel. I am not trying to say that you will not funnel with a nicely timed team exit, but the chances are lower and you have a better shot at pulling off that funky exit. A team I was on practiced out timing hop by huddling up and hopping at least 5 to 10 times at the beginning of the day. We would throw in another set of ground hops if the timing felt not quite right. Sounds funny but really helped. Another important thing to do is on the mock up. Doing the mock up after creeping is good but you have to practice a full climb out with full gear on. There is a lot of extra room if your not wearing your rig. We took the time with full gear and did each exit that we would launch over and over to get the foot position and grip/body placement in our heads. By learning it and having it in our minds when a particular exit came up later we already had a head start on what we needed to do. As a side note we did not launch everything. Sometimes it is better to launch an exit you know you can hit time after time and make a transition rather then doing a more difficult exit and losing a huge percentage of your working time because it came off bad. I don’t know anything about your team but if you do not have the time to practice each different exit multiple times to nail them down find a set of exits that you can hit each time. This approach will put you in a great position to quickly get to the first point of a dive even if it is not one of your practiced exits. As the team dynamics gets better and better you can add exits to your “exit yes list”. I my opinion there is really no "secret" trick to an exit, it is timing and knowing your job. Time on the ground is free! Working on the team exit timing along with each member knowing exactly what he needs to do will really improve your exit consistency. Put the work into the basics on the ground and it will translate to the what you see in the air. Scott

What was the end result of the Red Bull Meet in Downtown Chicago? I heard weather was not being totally friendly at first.. Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

sounds like you bought a slider

Good points were made. I just asked the question in the begining to see what others have found. I dont think I have jumped a canopy exactly at the factory marks for any legenth of time with out tweaking it a little to what I wanted. That is just me though. I was just looking for a starting point when hooking up and inspecting the canopy on the ground because the setting seemed off. I basically wanted to see what other people had found. I do appreciate the feedback and agree that people should know a little more about canopies in general, that was the basic jist of some of the responses, was it not?? People should ask if they have questions or want to learn more about a canopy. In the end will I keep the +1 inch from factory settings, maybe but I need to play with the canopy more. This Sabre2 is a nice canopy, mine is a 135 by the way, and it will be fun to find what it can do. After the small number of jumps I did put on it this is what I found (in addition to what I described in a previous post): a brake setting I like a little better for now, some limitations compared to elipticals but I expected that, and that it is a fun canopy.... Scott "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

OK, after jumping the canopy the factory settings seemed to be very good but I ended up settling on about +1 inch after jumping it at +3 for a few jumps and then a few more at +2. +3 was just too much. The factory sets would have probably been fine but I ended up liking the +1 or so a little better. Gave a little extra play with toggles before any input was noted but still gave a great flare. I must say it is a very nice canopy to fly!! Nice openings, faster flying than the old Sabre. Performance really ended up between the Stiletto class of canopy and the Sabre class. Toggle turns and front riser turns were smooth, even with a hard pull on either type gave a smooth turn. Strong flare and a fun little swoop with not much effort. Much better swoop on a 180+ front riser turn. Light front riser pressure and good recovery arch. The canopy doesn’t just flatten out when you let up on the front riser but also did not give the impression that it loves to continue diving like some of the crossbraced canopies. It was comfortable. Obviously not going to a swooping competition with a Sabre2 but I would say good fun to fly from opening to landing... Above is just my $0.02. BTW, I was loading it at the 1.6 suggested as max by PD. Scott

Let me re-phrase what I noticed. The tail was pulled down a bit and it looked that 4 inches would do two things, one would be to take that deflection out of the mix in full flight and two give a little slack in the break lines so when pulling on the front riser your not pulling the tail right away as well. The tail is not deflected 4". Just asking to see if this is the standard setup, a little downward tail deflection. I have seen that before and have legenthened it out for no tail deflection in full flight on other canopies. Thanks again, Scott "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

There has been a number of posts on the openings of the Sabre2. I looked at a New Sabre2 the other day the the stiffners seem to add a small bit of rigidity to help open the nose during the opening sequence. They really are not stiff though but it seems like it might help get the air into the canopy during opening. How it would detur a dive one way or the other in the final stages of opening I am not sure. But on to my question!! I looked at the factory marks on the brak lines and at that setting it seems to be inducing a good deflection in the tail of the canopy. Have people noticed this and if so have they legenthened the line. Looks like a good 4 inches would be needed to get a little bit of slack in the brake line during full flight to help on front riser turns. If anybody has noticed this how much did you end up letting it out and was there a big difference in the full flight characteristics. Just curious

I thought that could be done except on a reserve, where a Master Rigger was needed. Because there is no TSO on a Main what would stopp someone from doing this, Manufacturer??? My understanding is that I could go and jump a bedsheet if I desired as long as the Container and Reserve was TSO'ed?? Curious about the answer here. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Ray is still in the air. Last month he shot the vid of a 8-way team I am jumping with this summer. We were down at Elsinore and I believe he jumps mostly there. He jumped with us for two days and the video he did was outstanding as were the stills. I only wish he could have made the 8-way look a little better on some of the jumps! I guess the man can only do so much. Scott C.

Having looked at both reserves my personal preference is for the Raven reserve. That is of course my $0.02 and I have two Super Raven I's for reserves. As for the Cypress call Ed Cummings, he gave me a great deal when I bought one a few years back. His number is 1-888-RIGGING Scott C.

If you fly with a loose chest strap out the door to begin with you have a chanve of it loosing up a bit BUT if you tighten it down to the point where there is a little bit of tension between the two sides the friction adaptor will do its job. I tend to have it loose on face to earth dives to make an arch feel better and sometimes it will loosen up a bit. I would never consider doing that if the strap was not folded back and sewn on the end though. I would guess that if yours is loosening up it is because your not exiting with it tight, Scott C.

I have both a Diablo (at a lower load) and a Xaos21 (at a higher load) than Rhino's reference mark of 1.7. The Diablo is extremely fast into toggle turns but slower on the front riser turns. Very fast towards the ground in any full turn though. Overall a very fun canopy to fly. It does require a conscience countersteer to stop a hard toggle turn right on the heading you want. Front riser pressure is a little higher but you mnight expect that given the less tapered leading edge. That is also a contributing factor to the slower entry into a front riser turn. The Xaos is simply an outstanding design for additional canopy flying purposes, extremely fast turns (though I have to admit the diablo seems to be close though in toggle turn times) Xaos has a much nicer/faster entry into the front riser turns. The Xaos is designed to drop and have a long recovery arch for building speed and it does that very well. The Diablo has a smaller recovery arch and though it does generate speed it is not a super surfing machine. This conversation is really like comparing apples to oranges, they are designed for two different flying styles separate from the main task of getting you to the ground. Boh are great designs and a helluva lot of fun to fly.... Scott C.

Double stow the lines, HMA is really skinny. Also make sure that the point in the breakline where the separate lines from the tail attach to the single line lower portion form a little bit of a knot like nub (bad description I know) is between stows and not on the outside portion or loop portion of the stow. With a double wraped stow the extra mass at that point, if it has to come through the tight stow could catch slightly and cause a 1/2 twist or so. Scott C.