TVPB

Comp? Money? Skydiving? Oh, you mean the organisers.... Competition is where you go faster, higher, stronger, better. When you want to outdo your latest escapade or exploit, , , , , you are competing!!!! With yourself of course. When you compete against others you learn more and get better faster. Smashing through 3 canopies in 4 seconds and then catching the next guy who slams an almighty dock on you. Who can do the most somersaults from 480 feet. Who is the most technically proficient a aerials as measure by his/her peers. All good. Freestylin and solo is great too. If you there for the experience and the lifestyle . . . . . It's all good. If you don't like competition, that is your choice. If I do like competition, that is my choice. Neither of us are wrong. And maybe neither of us are right. As long as I'm having fun, that's all the matters at that point in time. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Touche! yes, no, yes, yes, yes. r.e. swooping - I agree, can be scary. I tried some the other day. Went too far too soon. I am getting back on my Learners and starting again. I am also giving myself much more time than I originally allowed. If there is one sport where you really need to be current and VERY careful, this is one of them (Aside from BASE of course . r.e the mr bill in the photo, we repeated that jump later with rope attached, abseil, swing, and then "cutaway". Chase rope, connect, down plane and parabatics around the rope. . . . . . . There is lots to do. It's all good. p.s CRW is shit hot. You should try the competitive stuff. It is a cut above the fun stuff. But it does take time and commitment. Have Fun

May I suggest some creativity??? How about swoop landings in weird locations (under bridges, on city beaches, past the McDonalds drive through whilst ordering, etc.) How about novelty locations (on top of buildings, your backyard, during events and demo's). Hard core competitive skydiving. Fast and furious. PARABATICS?????? CANOPY FREESTYLE? Canopy obstacle courses, etc. Yeah, CRW is a shit load of fun. Rotations is like dodgem cars. Sequential takes a lot of flying skill. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

What is negative temperature????? Ha ha he haw... Still, I'd take some negative temp for some positive altitude. Make sure the rig has no snow inside!!!!! Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Check out the low pull at waterfall in 96/97 vid on BE r.e. low pulls and water depth. It was pretty much a vertical entry from approx 850ft height. I would question 3m. Lets just say lines are 8 ft. Body from feet to risers are about 5 ft - that is 13 ft. Most entires will dissipate vertical distance travelled through water a/c body position / forward speed (horizontal velocity vector components), so they wont use the full 13. I do however remember on a few jumps taking a number of seconds to reach the surface after stopping descent. Another reference would be the Douggs tracking vid from Smellveggen. You should be able to get some half decent time / distance data on that. p.s. the other EASY way to check this is get a data logger and go for a leap out of a balloon / heli / plane / one of those motorised things!!!! p.s.s - I can't track for shit - falling bag of shit technique is what I believe some people call it. That is why I made the ws all those years ago. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

As per Wendy's post - sounds a little bit like what you would do on a BASE exit!!!!!! You know what I mean calvin19... As you get more experience, you should feel what the canopy is doing without looking at it. On BASE openings, I amp up my peripheral vision. That way I know where the rock is. It is the same thing for CRW as Wendy said. The only difference is that the rock (ie. other jumper) is mobile, so it is that little bit harder to maintain awareness of them. They are a little less likely to hit you, but when they hit, the impact can be worse a/c speed. That is why CRW is one of my prerequisites for BASE. The other reason is that it is just plain fun. Glad you made it out alive. Some CRW Info Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

RIP & Condolences. - - - - - - - - - #108 Sean R, BASE 621, February 10, 2007 Building Jump (Dam) Spain Object Strike Sean was a long time and well known British BASE jumper and not much is know at this point except early reports are saying Sean hit the dam at some point during the jump. While dams have been popular BASE objects for a long time Sean has become the first BASE jumping fatality to occur from one. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

No worries, no offense taken. Your constructive feedback has been taken on board. I really appreciate it.

I'll say it for you pope. laird, your philosphies on skill development (and the relevance and usefulness of transferable skills in other parachuting related activities) shows a total lack of understanding of the sport you are commenting on. I would not recommend skydiving for you. edit to remove personal attacks ~TA Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

And what percentage of BASE jumpers learn those skills? Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Lets look at some parallels: 1 - talk 2 - hold hands 3 - kiss 4 - make . . . . love 5 - get real weird Can you do this out of order? Yes. But I bet if you try 3 first, you'll have a 180 hand strike most times!!!!! 1 - crawl 2 - walk 3 - ride with training wheels 4 - ride normal 5 - race Can you do this out of order? Yes. But I bet if you try 5 first, you'll have a 180 barrier strike most times!!!!! 1 - walk 2 - snow plow 3 - beginner slopes 4 - inter slopes 5 - advanced slopes 6 - extreme skiiing Can you do this out of order? Yes. But I bet if you try 6 first, you'll have a 180 rock strike most times!!!!! 1 - aff / sl / tandem 2 - canopy control course - BASE prerequisites 3 - fjc 4 - continued mentoring / coaching / instruction from qualified person 5 - ... lots of things 6 - sick mofo aerials on bad ass jump site Can you do this out of order? Yes. But I bet if you try 6 first, you'll have an object strike most times!!!!! In the end, you are an adult. If you care about what you should be doing first, then I care, If you don't, then I still share your sentiments. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

And what if they BASE jumper gives the same toggle input on their skydive gear that they do on their BASE gear????? Typically they are jumping higher performance and smaller canopies (not always but more often than not). I have seen the reverse many times. Where they give their BASE canopy the same input as their small elliptical skydiving canopy. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

And what does that mean for someone without any canopy experience? 3 inches of riser input, 5 of toggle, straight up / down with toggles quickly, slowly up / down with toggles, etc. What if the student tries a minor input to avoid a particluar landing and gets insufficient response, and then overamps . . . . ending up with . . . . a low turn. What if? ? ? ? Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Absolutely NOT!!!!!! Why? Everyone is reasonably familiar with site burning and potential access issues and attracting the wrong people. So we won't go into that one. But there is a sub clause in BASE ethics that goes along the lines of: "Don't name sites that people roolllyyy rooollly desparately, beggingly want to go to but have not taken the opportunity at that point in time". Why? Because whilst you are away having all this fun, taking wonderful photo's, building up heaps of freefall time, and enjoying some of the worlds most spectacular scenery, WE, the remaining mere mortals, ARE NOT!! And I suppose you gave up dinner with Tom Cruise for this too??? So, the no no's are: 1 - Site Naming. 2 - Site Bragging. Next time, you will either be tarred and feathered, OR, you will have to take me as punishment. Seriously - awesome place. Nice photo's. Well done. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

How? Why? Condolences to those left behind. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Other ideas: 1 - don't get too fat. I am sure that my opening hardness is proportional to my expanding sexy body!!!!! 2 - don't go base / pin. If you are in a >= 4 way. Get the final slot. Your opening accuracy is still very important but you can fudge it a bit more. 3 - don't jump French CRW gear. Your Lightning openings are like gentle pillows and satin sheets versus a stone cold floor...... If you get my drift!!!! 4 - roll stuff. 5 - roll other stuff. 6 - don't dump into prop blast. 7 - keep an eye on your pilots and their exit airspeed. Especially with inexperienced pilots and aircraft that have c of g problems at lower airspeed. 8 - quarter your slider properly (even spiders, etc). 9 - just deal with it and get yourself a chiro. Prepare to be a old bugger earlier in life. 10 - etc. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

FS?? F$%ing Stupid. For Softcocks. Freefall Stability False Sense of Security Formation Skydiving Flimsy Sport Fantastically Sensational Fat Sluts Funny Sayings - - - RW or FS off ITW is OK. Cool. Attached screen grab is a 4 way diamond exit off LP7 @ Kjerag. Greg, Pete, Adam, Sean. Camera Tom & Marko. 1999 Vintage I believe. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

If your angle of attack is greater and your brake setting shallower, you will get more surge on opening. There are balances everywhere. Too deep and you will stall. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Great post. What I tried to do for ultra low altitude was: - unstow VERY symmetrically and attempt to get the brakes close to the stowed break setting as quickly and safely as possible. i.e. your brake line stow (brake setting) would be near your loop on the riser. The reason is to keep your canopy aerofoil the same. As crwper says - then you can control your toggle input gradually to the ground. DON"T DO ANYTHING DRAMATIC. It is very important that you pull the toggles down in a controlled manner. If you drop one toggle and pull the other down, you will end up hooking it in and getting busted up pretty badly. A slight oscillation may give a similar outcome. Someone I know (I can't say who it is because it may be interpreted as too egotistical) jumped from 31m (about 102 ft). The object was a span with water underneath that gradually reduced in depth leading to a sand bank. That person worked his/her altitude down from various objects (hundreds of very low jumps over several years). Then they did the 31m over water a number of times to test his/her reaction to control inputs and test the inflation and flight characteristics of the canopy. The jump was made on a Pooster 210 with weight of approximately 200 lbs. The final jump was made on a number of occasions over about 3 feet of water using modified s/l. The canopy was reasonable well inflated (although it was still oscillating a little), a slight s turn was made from the water towards the sandbank. The jumper stood up a landing in about 1 foot of water and the canopy fell dryly onto the sandbank. I have to stress that there was the minutest margin for error on these jumps. One error and you'll end up broken up. Do not do it unless you have the experience that crwper is talking about and are prepared for the consequences. The photo's attached show a s/l from 75 feet into water with a clapped out,short lined, x228 crw canopy. The other are two jumpers jumping from around 55 feet (need to check it). You'll notice that the jumper on the light coloured canopy has unstowed his/her brakes and has gained a marginal amout of altitude on the left jumper. You will also notice that on all photo's, if done over hard earth (or soft sand), there is not enough inflation and deceleration to save your arse. Don't do it over heard earth - if you want to live and walk!!!! Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Thank You for the compliments. You are far too kind. However, unfortunately I am not retired. As a part of John Howard’s Australian Industrial Relations reforms and his aged employment strategy, he wants nobody retiring until they are at least 3 feet under. Hence, that subsequently categorizes me as an unemployed jumper. Do you have any employment opportunities for me? I am looking for something relatively safe with minimal risk. I am not really into modern tech. Something old fashioned more relevant to my generation. Perhaps a s/l or pca span position somewhere with absolutely no adverse meteorological conditions, large landing areas (preferably water with boat rescue), etc. I will send you my resume if you like. I’ll try not to embellish it too much, but that might be difficult for me. I have been undertaking some journalism work with organizations like www.dz.com in order to satisfy some of the work requirements of Little Johnny. But I would dearly love something with greater job satisfaction. “Refreshing” and “perennial” are an oxymoron. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=996250;#996250 Yeah, I’m a big head swell. Sorry, can’t help myself. But aint I great!!!! Sarcasm aside, I thought I was using facts as the basis of my so called assumptions. You know: Nick’s list, dead bodies, incidents, near misses, experienced people, students, today’s jumpers, yesterday’s jumpers, etc. I am not overly concerned about the subset of jumpers that is not modern for one very good reason – THEY ARE NOT JUMPING ANYMORE. And if they are, they are a part of the group that are modern jumpers. Hence, the guy who quit 5 years ago is at “minimal” risk of hurting him/her self BASE jumping nowadays. I would like to emphasize this further by saying that it is pertinent to minimize mistakes happening on today’s and tomorrow’s jumps. Not to admonish those people from 15 years ago. Those mistakes have happened. We can’t change them, only learn from them. Jumpers 15 years ago had less opportunity to manage the risks as compared to today’s jumpers. They had less information, less people to contact regarding mentoring, less opportunity to share knowledge than today, less technology, less data, underdeveloped techniques, etc. Today’s jumpers have all the experience of yesteryear to draw upon. They have the internet, articles, publications, video’s, manufacturers, training courses, and a wide range of contacts to source their experience / knowledge / skill / and risk management strategies. But many people choose not to. This is becoming more common nowadays. The implication is yours and yours only. If you look beyond the person you are attacking, harden up, stop taking this personally, and focus on the content of what is written, you will have read the quote: “very competent people can stuff up simple things. I have done it. DW has done it. You too can do it!!!!!! “. I don’t know about you, but that statement alone quite clearly suggests that I know that I have stuffed up, and that even the great jumpers can stuff up (like DW) –> By definition, newbies have a higher probability of stuffing up. They need to take extra care. I believe the only advantage that “cronies” have is experience & time. Some of it hard earned, some of it learned from others. You are correct in that there are many capable and responsible jumpers out there today – a greater percentage in fact. The fact that we don’t have people dying every five minutes is testament to that. But whether you want to recognize it or not, we also have too many close calls that are born out of total ignorance and stupidity. If I had my laptop with me, I would attach a screen grab that show me in an act of stupidity and carelessness at KL tower a few years ago (Slim, Dwain, & Johnny Utah were on the same jump – very high calibre people – I brought the average down ). Yes. Times are changing. People will push limits. However, I will not say the above – they are your words. If you can read what is in my whacky head, you deserve a psych PhD. I will say that the only difference between silly acts of the past and silly acts of the future is that you can learn from one cheaply, and others may learn from one expensively. My hope is that people learn cheaply - - - - oh shit . . . that happens . . . then I won’t do it that way . . . . . . Risk management??? Here are some things that you have said: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1564044;#1564044 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1296148;#1296148 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1704006;#1704006 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1667497;#1667497 Personal attacks (subtle and obvious): http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2516946;#2516946 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1658464;#1658464 Info Request Quotes: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1666235;#1666235 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1665601;#1665601 Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Euphatal - not sure of exact spelling. Not sure if I am even close on spelling. Magot will fix it. p.s. there is always high velocity lead injection therapy if the first option does not work. and if you live on a farm . . . . . . . . the dog always gets it anyways. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

Just because you colonialists can't spell properly and choose to ignore the Queens English, it does not mean you can . . . . . . . . For your information, the shorthand version of Mother is Mum, not Mom!!! Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

I think they call them type of people "whuffo's". Whu ffo they hang perfectly good nylon and string together? Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

You can pinch mine if you like: http://ozcrw.tripod.com/training.htm There is a CRW tutor rating in Oz. You are correct in that most people just learn from other people. BASE is similar. If you can improve this, feel free to email me and I'll add in your bits. The Egyptians used that same program. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.

ASAP!!!! A current and qualified tutor, appropriate gear, a structured tutoring program, and . . . . !!!!!! Obviously as dod increases, the experience should match. But that is why you have structured training programs. Because you develop skills to deal with dod. dod = degree of difficulty. The person doing the tutoring must make a judgement call on the prospective student. Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.