pilotdave

Oh I like that beer rule. I owe soooo much, that might help make up for some of it. :-) By the way, I now own http://www.skydivingmovies.com which will forward you to the ftp server at ftp://ftp.skydivingmovies.com. 58,000 files, 315 gigs downloaded. Happy downloading. Sign the guestbook. (Or be banned for life) Upload. Don't Sue. (Or be banned for a week)

Here's mine. The background was taken by a friend of mine over our school (University of Maryland) while i was flying. The skydivers were cut out of another picture. I put it all together and "motion blurred" the background in Photoshop.

My ftp server has a new URL: ftp://ftp.skydivingmovies.com or http://www.skydivingmovies.com will forward ya there. At last count, the server has about 700 something videos, or about 4.something gigabytes. Happy Downloading. Don't Sue. Upload. Check out Craig Poxon's videos. He bought me the domain name. He is very very cool. David

I noticed it was mentioned before (thanks PhreeZone!), but I thought I'd just mention it again. My FTP Server 'o videos is online at ftp://129.2.156.19 (or http://129.2.156.19). I've got somewhere around 700 videos, or 4.5 gigabytes of them. Last week I had my 200th gigabyte downloaded. Thats over 36,000 files. If you like it, please sign the guestbook while you're there! Have fun!

I bought an Alti-3 but I think I should have gone with the FT-50. The FT-50 is a little cheaper, has a bigger face, but i think its actually a little smaller overall (thinner). The diameters are actually about the same, but the Alti has a bezel around it which covers part of the face. I find the finger loop to be way too big for my little fingers (without gloves I stick 3 fingers through, 2 with gloves, and the wrist strap ends up with FAR too much slack if i'm not wearing gloves. I actually haven't tried jumping it without gloves yet just for those reasons. Also, my rigger suggests the FT-50 over the Altimaster because it's a lot easier to service. If i want to replace the face on my alti, i have to send it back to the company. For the FT-50, the company sent the face-removal tool to my rigger so he can do it himself. Pop the old one off, stick a new one on, and its done. I don't know anything about the digital altimeters... I don't think i'd be very good at replacing batteries in freefall so I think I'll stick with a mechanical one.

Ok, this is getting out of hand. If everyone's gonna be posting all about how much fun they're having and how perfect their weekend was, I'm gonna have to find a different website to surf all day at work. I haven't jumped since May, and probably wont jump again until September. This is really getting depressing. The good news is that I heard that my container is FINALLY (after well over 2 months) on it's way to my rigger, where he'll put in my used main, new reserve, and new cypres. So, my next jump should be my first on my own equipment. I can't wait! But until then I have to survive sitting here at a desk, doing nothing. Don't ask me why I have nothing to do at work other than sit here reading this stuff... thats a whole 'nother story. But please, when posting, be sensitive to us jump-deprived people. Thanks for adding that you twisted your ankle, but maybe next time make like it ruined your whole weekend! :-)

I'm also a newbie with 30 jumps, and I jump a canopy with probably a lower loading than you (around .6), so that might make a difference. But, I've pretty much tried everything I could think of with the canopy. On my latest few jumps I started playing with the risers to see what they make the canopy do. I have had some "weird" stuff happen, but nothing dangerous. Nobody has really been able to explain it to me yet, but occasionally when I do a hard turn I'll end up swinging forward, so that i'm spiralling down with my back to the ground. When I was using rigs with a ripcord and spring loaded pilot chute, the pilot chute would sometimes end up in front of the canopy, wrapped over the nose. It's pretty wild because I never see it coming. I expect to start off slowly, and end up in a diving spiral. It realy freaked me out the first couple times but now I realize i can just let up on the toggle a little and everything is ok. A friend of mine with about 10 jumps gave himself line twists while under canopy during a hard turn. I'm not sure how he ended up doing that. It's never happened to me. I'm no expert but I think with student canopies, you can feel free to play around all you want, as long as you're plenty high. I dont think it's possible to do something so bad you'd have to cut away, but just give yourself room to just in case.

Comm, CFI, and CFII in 2 months? why not throw in ATP and lighter than air? :-) I guess it's doable if you're starting with an instrument rating and will be somewhere with good weather. I'm a summer intern at a huge aerospace company getting a preview of my future occupation, and I'm already thinking I should quit and get all my ratings. I'd rather fly all day dropping jumpers than this any day.

If it ever arrives, I'll be jumping a reflex with a PD150 (9 cell) and (raven?) 120 reserve. I saw the reflex once for about 5 minutes, then had it shipped to fliteline systems to have a smaller harness installed... that was over 2 months ago and they (or whoever bought them) haven't touched it yet. I was told I'd have it back in at most 3 weeks, including the time for my rigger to assemble it all. Anyone have a used container that'll hold those canopies and fit a 5'4" guy that they wanna sell?

My worst jump was AFF 4. My level 3 wasnt great so they had me do level 4 with 2 jumpmasters. Everything started off ok, but eventually i ended up spinning out of control. One jumpmaster grabbed back on right in front of me and, after quite a while, finally got the spin stopped and i pulled. It was a pretty amazing sight to see 3 other people (the dropzone owner came along to observe... he was just becoming an AFF jumpmaster at the time) just shoot by as i opened. I pulled around 5000 feet, and there were broken clouds at about 3000, so i couldnt see the airport. I had a radio on, but the guy on the ground couldnt see me. he just told me to keep the sun on my left side. When i got below the clouds, i found i was pointing at the airport, but the radio guy told me to aim away from it. if i was upwind of the airport, where he probably thought i was, that would have worked well. But i was downwind... way downwind. So, i ended up landing in someone's front yard at least a half mile from the dropzone. I had a great standup landing. The family that lived there didnt even know where the dropzone was. It was a pretty scary experience, but up to that point, it was the funnest skydive i had done. I knew i blew the level, but i didnt really care. Skydiving is skydiving even when things dont go perfectly. One piece of advise... try to use the same equipment every time. Try to get the same jumpsuit, helmet, altimeter, and maybe even the rig. I could never get all the same stuff every time, but i think, until you buy your own, it helps to use stuff you can get used to. I have everything except a rig right now, and that could be arriving any day now. Got my A-license a couple months ago. Once you "get" it, keeping stable in freefall wont take any thought at all. it will just kinda snap into place one of these jumps. just keep at it. David

It's not too tough. At the end of the day after making my 20th-23rd jumps, i casually asked an instructor what else I need to do to get the license. He said all I have left is the written test, and I could take it right then if i wanted to. I really didnt know what it was going to be like, so i asked if I could pass it. He said I probably could, but if i was at all familiar with the SIM I could probably pass it without studying. So I asked what would happen if I didn't pass, and he told me I couldn't take it again for a week and it just gets thrown out. I figured I had nothing to lose, so I went ahead and took it without studying. I barely passed, but I passed. most of the questions were pretty obvious. Like everyone else says, I think all of the multiple choice were all of the above. Study the specific numbers though. Minimum opening altitude, landing area size, etc. Those are not really things you can just guess. Luckily there are few enough really specific questions like that that you don't need to get them all right to pass. Overall the test is pretty easy and if you've been studying at all its nothing to worry about. Good luck! David A-38205 woohoo!

Hey, thanks for spreading the word. My server will be going down on the 21st until September. It'll hopefully be back up at the same IP address right around September 1st. A few people have said they'll take over my site for the summer but i haven't heard of any that are up yet. By the way, that's a great video! See ya, David