justchrisdsp

i am asking these questions way in advance of course, i wont be back from iraq until at least august. i am going to get back on my velo till i feel current again and then start going for the jvx. i have heard they like to be loaded but i just have a mental block for going sub-100. i might have to do some test jumps or something with it to see how i feel. then there is always the possibility of jumping at around 2.3. and then gradually stepping up if i think i need more. The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

im about 235-240 out the door. i am looking for something around a 107. i know they make them anysize you want but i was wondering what sizes they have tested them at. if the engineering really holds up at all sizes or if its better at certain sizes like the velocity. The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

anyone here own or know of someone who owns a jvx in the 100+ size. they say they will make any size but i am wondering what size seems to work best. and what people actually have. The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

i was searching for that canopy that is a great step up to the velo and i found the mamba to be the choice. the riser pressure and flight is similar. it doesnt dive as much as the velo but i feel that it holds the swoop in the same manner and the plane out is about the same to me. the katana just felt a little too ground hungry and the riser pressure definately did not even compare. just my opinion The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

i have jumped all but the blade as well, in various different sizes from the 169 xfire all the way down to the 99xfire2, the kats i have jumped from the 135 down to the 107, the mambas from the 150 to the 117. of all i like the mamba the best as far as what i thought prepared me best for xbraced flight. the controls to me are remarkably similar and the flight characterisics hold true to a more high performance canopy. personal opinion but i felt i had more total flight range out of the mamba and as far as pure fun factor it was right there. i had to put an rds on my mamba 117 to get it to fly right but once i did that the thing was giving me mad distance and awesome turf surf. try them all though, everyone's flying style is different so what i like may not be what you like The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

i like the mamba at between 2.1 to 2.3, i think they get great distance at those loadings. but nobody talks about the mamba much, i think people forget that it is a great canopy in the same class as the katana and the xfire2. i think they handle better at higher wingloadings leading to much better high performance flying. plus the thinner aspect of the wing means it has less drag at those higher speed and higher wingloadings. just my opinion though The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

his event had a stupid strong head wind. Everyone was fighting hard for the scores they got. I think its a good indication of canopy performance to see some of the canopies that did well in the distance The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

i think the pilot can be an excellent canopy to learn on. the short recovery arc can be a hassle but it can also be a savior in the beginning, i know it saved me a couple of times, as far as jumping it at a low wingloading i think that is the best idea with your jump numbers and learning how to swoop, it is annoying now but the fundamentals you will be gaining will be invaluable for later, i started learning how to swoop on a pilot 188 and then moved to a crossfire 169, from there i went to the mamba 150, 132, and soon the 124, but i learned my basics on that pilot, plus i have jumped a pilot 140 and 132 and at the wingloadings those things were monster swoopers, so dont get discouraged and think it is the canopy, just remember that in the beginning of swooping it will take a little time to get it right, i can almost garauntee you that someone like aggiedave could take a canopy like that pilot 150 and get some great swoops on it simply because of technique and experience. keep learning and beeing safe The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

anybody know if and when they are going to post the results for the swoop comp online, both intermediate and pro? The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

you should have jumped he 140 pilot that you packed for me blindfolded, that thing opened better than any other canopy i have ever jumped, and did i mention you packed it blindfolded? The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

i agree about the pilot, i think its a great canopy for people in just your situation. soft, on heading openings so you dont have to worry about that, plenty of flare on the bottom end so you dont have to worry about hard landings. not to mention the color coded line attachments so you dont have to worry about packing. great canopy for all those needs. as for reserves the smart is as good as they come. great flare in the smart so even if you end up on your reserve you dont have to worry about the landings there. like was said above though, demo whatever you can and make your decisions from that. if you want to try the pilot and/or the smart, check out www.flyaerodyne.com they have a great demo program. but before you do anything get current on student gear and with instructors. skydiving isnt like riding a bike. especially since canopy design and skydiving in general have changed dramastically in the last 20 years The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

how many jumps do you have on pilots and what sizes, i jumped a 117 loaded at 2.3 just to see how the flight would be, put about 20 jumps on it, thing never even came close to stalling, and that is the type of loading that you would think would lead to an easily stalled canopy, you might have been jumping a pilot where someone had extremely shortened the brake lines or maybe you got one that was out of trim, but i have put nearly 500 jumps on various sized pilots and i have never had one radically stall on me, in fact i have only had one stall on me and that was my 188 that i took a wrap in the brakes on and held for a very long time to get it to do that, i will agree that trying to lump the sabre2 and the pilot in the same category is a bit misleading, they are 2 different canopies built by 2 different companies, but they are marketed to the same crowd, the newer jumper and the jumper that needs a predictable everyday all-around canopy. so they will always draw comparison. so i repeat what i said earlier, if i am in the market for a semi-elliptical i will go with the pilot first and foremost The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

i've had 2 pilots (188 and 140) and 2 sabres (210 and 170), all different sizes, i have to say that i liked the pilot better, but it kinda depends on where you are wanting to take your canopy flight. the reason i like the pilot is because it works really well at both extremes of flight, fast and slow, i used my 188 for filming CRW and at the same time learned how to swoop under that canopy, the short recovery arc was exactly what i needed to fine tune my skills with a canopy that would help me out in the corner a bit if i did something stupid. the openings on my pilots were way better than my sabre2s and way more on heading. i think that the pilot is a great canopy for novice jumpers and what i really love about them is that you can load them up a bit and really get some speed out of them. but even at 1.9 under my 140 i found that i had the ability to stay up forever in brakes or on the rears if i needed too, i was still able to film CRW with that one and at the same time take it for 200' on the landings. i can safely say that if i were looking for a semi-elliptical main right now i would only look one place and that would be the pilot. i think it is definately the best all-around canopy and being a poor college guy its got a great price tag as well The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

put the university of alabama at birmingham on the list of colleges represented cause i will be there, if i can only find out where palatka is. The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

would love some coaching, i want to compete in the cpc next year, would love to get some input to get better. The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

cant make it saturday but do you think there will be some good coaching out there friday, will the course be set up? and will they be allowing hop-n-pops and all. you know what i am getting at The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

thanks for the info, i will definately want to get a few practice jumps in that morning The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

so what time are we to be there thursday for the intermediate comp. just wondering what time to leave orlando The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

the 205 for the intermediate comp, does that include the jumps, i guess it doesnt matter cause im gonna pay it anyway, just wondering The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

have they gotten the online registration up and running The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

does anyone here watch formula 1 racing. this same debate has been going on in formula 1 for the last 5 or so years. little background the big team in formula 1 is ferrari, they have big bucks to shove at their race team so they always have the best toys and they always win. michael shumacher won like 5 championships in a row. noone denied that he was a good driver, what people were mad about was that the team he drove for had so much more money and development than the other teams in the circuit that noone could even come close to winning. so what did the formula 1 rules committee do? they leveled the playing field. not in the design of the cars but in some of the little details, namely the fact that you have to run the same tires through practice and the race and a few other tiny changes, shumacher still wins but now its cause he is the best driver, the great thing is that everyone else has the same chance to win and you know what happened? the driving got better, the fans got back into it, and the whole sport was renewed with a newfound excitement so what does this have to do with swooping? the pd factory pilots are the best, everyone will agree to that, but i have to admit that it makes someone like me who wants to come up in the sport of swooping a little cautious because i know that i will never be able to get to the same playing field as those guys for a very fundamental reason and that is that i will never be given the chance to fly the same wings. i will never get to compete on the same playing field. so what did swooping do. they leveled the playing field with the weight restrictions. now as far as what the pd factory team does to their factory pilots canopies, thats up to them, make no mistake guys, this is a business, and these guys are akin to a race team, they are constantly trying to win, and i cannot and will not fault them for that, i will say that i feel left out by pd by the fact that i know i can never fly what they consider their best wing, but guess what, if i want fly someone's best wing i will go for daedelus or precision or maybe even aerodyne's future stuff, as for right now i havent made the leap for the crossbraced stuff so i can jump what i think is the best non-crossbraced canopy on the market, the mamba, if aerodyne came to me and said " hey, we have this suped up mamba for you to jump and win with" i would take it in a heart beat i guess what i am trying to say here is that pd has the right to modify their canopies and give that modified canopy to whoever they want, i think it is in no way the responsibility of the swooping rules committee to tell a manufacturer what and how to manufacter a canopy. at the same time i feel that the manufacturers have a responsibility to their consumers to give the consumer the absolute best possible product for the money. oh yeah, to nick, sick distance,one day i hope to be able to do half that and i'm sorry that the thread intended to honor your accomplishment has been reduced to this The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

i couldnt quite see how to register on the site. not very computer literate here. just wondering if you can give me a heads up on how to register. The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

is the intermediate comp in sebastian open to even those of us that have not competed in a comp yet, i dont mind coming in dead last i would like to actually get in a real comp before the cpc starts next year The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

i like my saucony's, they've lasted for a little over 1000 jumps and they dont have too much traction, enough to slide out if you need, and at the same time they have enough traction for those run outs you get. plus they are like 20 bucks The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez

let me please add my praise for the mamba. if you are looking for a high performance canopy in the larger sizes then that is the one i would go with, i have had a 150 an now i have a 132 loaded at around 2:1. very good canopy, lots of flare, great swoops. demo the canopy if you get the chance, it will make you want to buy one right there. just my opinion The only bad skydive is your last! chris "sonic wookie" harwell Piedra-belluda-roja Rodriguez