apoil

Not like that at all. He was talking about skydiving. Tunnelflying is a unique discipline. Homey on the bottom there is STANDING on the ground! It's not even close to the same thing.

I had one of the earliest Nitrons (a 120) from precision and the slider was TINY. My openings didn't suffer but someone with a 150 said they were getting very hard openings and precision sent them a larger slider. The Nitro and Blade have quite a large slider with a very bulky kill line system that I hate. I actually had mine modified to resemble a PD.

I didn't think so either, but I wear gatorz with my contacts all the time now. It may depend on how closely the conform to your face. I use daily lenses, and on occassion I lose one, but it isn't an expensive loss. I also have a pair of wiley's with prescription lenses. That wasn't cheap, but they are also nice.

I got 800 jumps on my first Nitron lineset. I got 800 out of my Blade lineset which uses the thinner 160kg. Contrary to rumor, these lines most certainly do show visible wear. I take good care of my kit, nearly always packed indoors on carpeting. My results are possibly beyond what can be expected. Both times my lines were very visibly worn when I changed them out. The control lines on these canopies are a MUCH heavier weight. Aside from a control line, the direct line configuration also means that a broken line is only a single line, rather than two lines in the case of cascades.

Headdown is one discipline. Sit is one discipline. Freeflying encompasses all disciplines. Without getting too new-agey - freeflying is ultimately flying any and every body position conceivable, with complete control. To the true freeflyer there is no such thing as an "unstable" body position. If you can fly head down, but you cannot fly RW, then you aren't done learning, and vice versa. In fact none of us are done learning. Freefly is about exploring what we can do in the air.

-What altitude did you exit? 13500 -(What plane did you use?) Otter - How long was the formation held? At least 10 seconds. No level issues. Everyone solidly in their slot. It was the second attempt at a 12 way. The first one very nearly built. - How many jumps had the flyer with the lowest jumpcount? Lowest may have been 4-500. I'm not 100% certain. Definitely some in the 7-800 range. - Is there a video available, too? There was video on the dive.

Yes. not sure your experience level, but the manufacturer recommends a MINIMUM wing loading on the Blade of 2.0 If that's not where you're at, then consider the Nitro, perhaps the best 9cell elliptical on the market. In many ways safer than non-ellipticals due to it's superior slow flight characteristics and incredible flare power.

The quality is not the same. It may be close, or good enough, but firewire is a pure digital transfer and therefore 100% lossless. S-video requires a Digital-to-Analog conversion to send, and then an Analog-to-Digital conversion to record.

Read it again. I wasn't cutting him down at all. I specifically said he's NOT stupid, and NOT illiterate, probably just careless and hasty. And that can easily give the impression that he brings the same lack of care to his skydiving.

Completely disagree with you here. What there is to lose is that britain is known for having a lockstep militaristic approach to rules and regulations in the sport, and it discourages people from ever jumping there. That and the weather. In response to a problem, often just a perceived one, the BPA responds with heavy regulation that doesn't always effectively address the issue. The ff1 and ff2 system is a classic example. It sets up all these rules (not merely guidelines) about who can and cannot freefly with whom, but doesn't actually promote learning or safety to that great an extent. And despite the regulations regarding gear checks, people have still died because of gear problems that should have been checked. So ultimately, it becomes nothing more than a hassle. Looking out for other people's gear is a good thing. But the guy that did this was stirring the pot unnecessarily, and in fact dangerously because he knowingly boarded the plane without his chest strap on. If someone intentionally tries to sneak weapons past the TSA to show how lacking security is, they will go to jail because they have broken the law. Same with this guy. He should be grounded for intentionally and flagrantly violating BSR's.

The fact that your spelling and punctuation is attrocious doesn't help you get your message across. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you are neither stupid nor illiterate. What your message says about you is that you are thinking and typing about as fast as you can, and don't want to be slowed down enough to watch your formatting. This is consistent with what you got criticized for doing in the sport. Slow down. And by the way, an apostrophe doesn't mean "look out! here comes an s"

As far as pack volume, the Blade and Nitro are going to be nearly identical. Same basic construction with subtle, yet highly effective changes in the shaping distinguish the Blade, at least from what I can see, and I'm not an expert in canopy construction. Nevertheless, I've been packing my Blade 98 comfortably into a Javelin RSK.5 which is designed more or less for a stilleto107. In dry weather I have to squeeze it into the bag, but with some humidity it slips in comfortably. In the same container, for a short time I packed a Nitron120. Precision's version uses slick ZP, so a nitron120 is going to have less pack volume than a german built Nitro. I struggled to get the container closed each time.

That doesn't sound right. It may be slightly larger in pack volume to a stiletto 97 or crossfire 99, due to the different fabric, but it's still a 9 cell. There's no way it will have a comparable volume to a cross braced. My blade 98 goes comfortably into a Javelin RSK.5 I'd hesitate to even attempt putting a velo 96 in there.

My favorite is the animated one "Cindy, Flip, Slim and the Cube" "I wanna trow down da flowah.. den take backpacks, weed-eatah, de phat daffy and mind meld all obah dis joint!"

Skiing? I think you need to check your numbers again. Also you talk about "people dying in far greater numbers" - I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are talking percentages and not just raw numbers but still it's hard to compare. Do you look at per person actively participating in the sport Or per day of participation? or per hour of participation? These can skew the numbers greatly. I believe there is a far greater likelihood of being injured while skiing. SCUBA diving is usually not considered radically dangerous, but people die doing it all the time and in a day of participation you are exposed to danger for a much greater time than in skydiving.

Maybe I'm misreading this. You don't stow your toggles to make your canopy inflate faster. you stow your toggles so that you don't open in full flight - which is dangerous if there's any kind of problem like a malfunction or an imminent collision. It also HURTS because it's a faster opening. I see no reason half brakes would allow for faster reinflation.

This is just not true at all. Atmonauti flying is an interesting body position that requires some aspects of head down and some aspects of tracking and some aspects that are unique to it. But if you are at a 45 degree angle, and FALLING, then some wind is hitting you on the surface that is exposed to the earth.

Sport setting doesn't work with autofocus though. Autofocus is bery bad for skydiving video because the focus can get lost on things like clouds, or condensation on the lens. Best is to autofocus on the ground. Pick something about as far away as it will be in freefall. Then switch to manual focus to lock it there. Tape on the focus ring will prevent it changing. Only then should you switch it over to the sports shutter setting.

Don't try to back track on the hill. It's better to exit in a lazy sit position - backflying the relative wind. Turn on to your heading and then gradually extend. This makes it easier for everyone else on the dive. If you all start tracking up the hill, it starts to get very confusing. By sinking out, you put everyone into the power position of slightly above you, and then they will have something to work with when you hit the gas.

I really wish you'd stop saying this.. In my experience, quite the opposite is true. I only attempt atmonauti with seriously competent head down slot flyers. Consider this: the world meet in france included an atmonauti 2way point. Dock, simultaneous 360, re Dock. And every team, including champions alchemy reported that it was extremely difficult.

I can't say I agree with this at all. Those who developed atmonauti flight developed it after being proficient head down fliers. Lots of beginning head down fliers have forward or backward motions that they have to correct. It's only once we learn a basically neutral, straight down position, that we can start refining our intentional forward and backward motion. Atmonauti, is an extreme forward motion - we only attempt those dives with highly capable head down fliers (those capable of flying slots in vrw formations). It flirts with the range of body positions between head down and tracking. Without a strong foundation in those basic modes of flight - I don't see atmonauti as an easier way to begin learning.

In New Jersey, yeah. But the guys who invented it, being french or maybe italian, the latin base would come into play. The "proper" pronunciation would be At Mo Now Tee But since it's an intentional corruption of "astronaut" you can just pronounce it like that and probably get away with it.

must control typing... must not make offensive remark....

No... Blade as in Blade canopy made by High Performance Research in Germany. I've got 400 jumps on a Blade 98 at 2.1 and I'm really enjoying it. The only real issue is that it has a fairly short recovery arc. On the other hand, it recovers so quickly and with so much flair that it's almost impossible to be too low. Still, it's hard for me to hook it as low as I need to, and that height seems to vary with wind and temperature conditions.

Brings up a question.. I thought that this was the meet where each country only enters one team as opposed to the world cup where any number of teams can compete.. So how come there are three French Freefly teams? Two of them currently holding second and third place. Does France get some benefit by being the host country? Can only one of their teams be official with all others having "guest" ie "non medal" status?