pilotdave

Not that I want to get into a debate that belongs in the speakers corner, but... Yeah, that stuff never happens the other way around in Europe.

History tells us that 100% of these stories are 95% untrue. There is a 102% chance that there is more to this story and no scam has taken place. And a 130% chance that the original poster will be mocked for posting this after the facts are revealed. Dave

A couple weekends ago... Her first jump, just after turning 16. Her dad is a skydiver that got current this year after a brief ~20 year break. Dave

Yup, my first site was on geocities too. I think it was on the cape canaveral "block." Switched to another free hosting service at some point, and I still have all the site files. Dave

94? He only started teaching himself HTML in '96: http://reocities.com/yosemite/4422/me.html.

Had it happen to me. I had a conversation with my packer... well... kind of: http://www.skydivingstills.com/Skydiving/2009/Weekend-Pics-8-30-09/9467217_Z2jP4#635979657_qSsBT-A-LB. It was caused by flipping the bag when it was passed over the rig after the lines were stowed. At least I'm pretty sure. Dave

Yeah, I have an esata docking station. I just pulled the drive out, plugged it into my laptop, and copied the contents of the drive. But of course after reinstalling windows it turns out all the old contents of the drive were moved to a folder on it so the backup wasn't even necessary. I was assuming I'd have to format the drive. I'm back up and running. Just need to install every program I own. And get all my settings back to the way I like them. And remember to set up weekly recovery points so I don't have to go through this again. Dave

I'm one of his AFF instructors. My comment isn't general, and I'm not questioning or criticizing his experience. I've never jumped either canopy, so I can't answer his exact question. Dave

Nope, just a regular SATA hard drive. No weird settings at all. So I started reinstalling windows. Oddly enough it recognized a previous windows installation and will move it to a windows.old folder. I'll have access to the data but I won't be able to run the old version. Seems so odd that the computer knows its there but can't do whatever simple task must be required to boot to it. Dave

I'm not sure how it got there. I'm guessing it was a few months ago when my windows drive failed and I had to install a new drive and reinstall windows and everything else. Having done that so recently is why I'm dreading it so much. The way it happened was simple... I bought a drobo and moved an internal drive to it after backing it up. That drive was just used for storing pictures and stuff, so I really didn't expect any issues. Didn't realize it had some important system files on it. The OS drive is backed up on my laptop right now, so I won't lose any data. But there's just about no data on it anyway... just windows and all my applications. Guess I'll just go for the format and reinstall. Dave

Yep, tried that. Didn't help. I'm pretty sure it gave an error message but I can't remember off the top of my head. Dave

A couple hundred more jumps on the 149 would be a great idea. Even at low wingloading, a 129 is a high performance canopy. Learn to fly the one you have really well before you downsize. You're not ready yet. And your current canopy is NOT too big. Going smaller will not give you better landings, better accuracy, or more control. Dave

I hate to even ask on here, but I'm about to format my OS/Apps hard drive so I might as well see if there's an alternative. Long story short... boot folder on my windows 7 computer is gone (was on a hard drive that's been removed and formatted). Restarted the computer and it says disk boot failure. I can boot to the windows 7 disk. It doesn't find a windows installation to repair. Automatic repair doesn't help. I can use the command prompt. The drive with windows works fine. It's the C drive. Tried bootrec. Bootrec /scanos finds the windows installation, but /rebuildbcd fails ("element not found"). Followed advice to activate the windows partition using diskpart. Still doesn't work. Tried every other piece of advice I could find online. Formatting the drive isn't the end of the world, but I'd really rather not. Anyone have any other solutions in mind?? Dave

When I was president of a college skydiving club, we had a reporter from the school paper come out and make an AFF jump (at our expense). She wrote an article, which made the front page of the paper. And since it was AFF and not a tandem, the article was much more factual and informative. And flyers on bathroom doors in dorms works too. That's how I got started. Dave

Ha, I'm surprised you started at 2000'. I know plenty of people that have gotten out below that. I'm fine with 2000 feet and have done it a number of times... but the ground does look awfully big.

I don't think it's crazy at all. My first canopy was a PD 9-cell. I bought it for $350. It worked fine. Opened firmly and took good timing on landing, but it was safe and got me in the air. I replaced it with a used Sabre2 when I had ~200 jumps (and a real job) and still jump that Sabre2, nearly 2000 jumps later. My DZ has a few people jumping F111 canopies. One has been passed on to new jumpers over and over. It's a PD-190 that seems to land a lot better than mine every did. And then there's the one in the attached picture. That guy paid more for the gold chain around his neck than his entire rig. And it works just fine for him. And makes everyone else thirsty for some reason. I'd recommend trying anything before you buy it. And have a rigger take a look and make sure you'll get more than 50 jumps out of it. Dave

Here's what I use: http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/ Completely free... you just have to give credit to the artist (ie. "Music: Kevin MacLeod"). It's not the greatest for tandem videos, but it gets the job done for quick videos and I have used it for tandem videos too. Plenty of choices! Sample: http://www.skydivingstills.com/Skydiving/2010/Weekend-Pics-10-30-10/14434670_HAmH5#1076128738_Gpkvz-A-LB Dave

You're right that you can find free instructional videos on just about any topic in the world. There is a lot of good skydiving stuff out there though. There used to be a great site where you could find just about any skydiving video... can't remember the name of it. But anyway there's a big difference between free instructional videos for sony vegas and free instructional videos for skydiving. Bad advice in one leads to crappy editing and bad advice in the other can lead to death. We don't need everyone posting "how to" videos for the latest trick they learned. Instruction should come from qualified people. Look to the internet for entertainment. Look to your instructors, manufacturers, coaches, etc for instruction. Dave

No idea who you're talking about, but FYI there was an organizer jumping with all skill levels all day. Sometimes you make an extremely friendly, dysfunctional-family-like, little DZ sound pretty bad. It is like a family... and you just happen to be our weird little brother we're embarrased to introduce to our friends but we have to love you anyway. Or someone's still pissed that you're not a girl. Who knows? Dave

Great weekend here! Just 7 jumps but they were fun! Dave

Didn't quite make it through either, but noticed something important. On your new rig, the reserve ripcord WILL come all the way out. It is not meant to prevent you from losing it. Make sure to always clear your cables and feel free to throw your handles. Nice job. Dave

I think most wingsuits are always flying stalled... except when going head down. Dave

That's a lot of overhanging stuff, ya got there. I wouldn't jump it just for the ringsight hardware let alone everything else hanging off. You might consider switching to a vapor wes pro... it's an inch wider than an FTP and would probably keep some of that stuff better protected. Don't have any pics of my setup handy, but it's not as flexible as the ones that have been posted. I can't jump video and flash at the same time. My still camera is on a RRS clamp that lets me shift it left or right as needed. Flash lays down next to it on Velcro, with an altimaster wrist strap holding it down. Normally flash is removed and my video camera is bolted in its spot. Same strap holds it down and the screen closed. Dave

I actually had that happen to me once, last winter. I had bought new risers and the toggles were poorly made (UPT). A rigger looked at them afterward and told me the thread tension was way too low. The tops of the toggles had a little bit of an hourglass shape, so if the toggles were inserted too far into the cat eyes (loops on the steering lines), they were hard to pull out. I got used to just setting my brakes carefully to avoid any problems. Unfortunately on this one jump I had forgotten to set them and a packer did it for me. It's not like flaring with rear risers at all. The toggles come off the risers just fine. It's just that the toggles are still through the cat eyes, so you're always in quarter brakes or more on one or both sides. I spent my whole canopy ride trying to jab my toggles down to get them out of the cat eyes. Unfortunately pretty low one of them came out and the other didn't. Had to hold one side in quarter brakes to fly straight. The canopy actually flew surprisingly well like that. Did some practice flares and then did it for real. I was ready to come crashing in but it landed just fine. After that jump, I put my old toggles back on. Nice job dealing with a tough situation. Your DZ should be checking out those toggles to find out what might be wrong with them, if anything. Dave

CPI is about to advertise $5 jumps... for jumptown members only. I was gonna open it up no non-members but forget that. Dave