Thijs

Are there any of you fellow jumpers who are also playing chess on www.gameknot.com? It is a really nice site to play chess with other people, without having to be online all the time. If you want to challenge me (and get your rating up fast): my username is 'thijsdeschepper' Would be nice to play against other skydivers

Buy two rigs, and let someone pack for you while you jump

-Stay away from the hospital -Work on my sitfly -Focus on canopy control -Improve my tracking -Help in the organizing of some events at our dz.

Belgium...the country were you cannot throw watermellons, bowlingballs, televisions or cats out of the plane only people I heared someone talk at our dz that some guy once threw a chicken out of the plane, and it survived!

He got a printed version of it, size 20x27cm

Picture I took this summer. http://users.belgacom.net/gc320415/desktop.jpg

So you finally got laid?

Friday: Sunshine Saturday: Rain Sunday: Rain Monday: Sunshine Yeah, I love Belgium...

Hmm, you are giving me ideas... Anyone ever took a diving board with him in a plane with a rear exit door? Should get some cool exits...

Well, I was also considering starting to smoke weed. That should get me a lot higher

Hi John, Thanks for your reply. It is not a professional diving board we have at our pool (well, both the 3meter diving boards are professional boards but the 1 meter diving board ain't), so I guess it definitely is a factor. I basically take a few steps, and then I jump toward the end of the divingboard from about 1 meter (or a bit less) from the end of the divingboard. I used this technique for trampoline jumping, but I'm starting to have my doubts if it also works for diving. Is it better to go first to the complete end of the divingboard, and then take a last jump upward? I mostly do front somersault (single, 1 and half) in tucked or pike, sometimes trying to put a twist in it. Unfortunately there is no diving club at my pool, despite the fact that we have a diving tower (10 meters) there.

I have a question for the diving people here. I think that I do not gain enough altitude when I jump on the divingboard. Is there something I can do to gain more altitude while jumping? Or what is the best technique to jump upward? Or are there certain trainings (outside diving) that can help me to gain more altitude? Thanks

RW: 4500, 3500, 2000 FF: 5000 (or 5500), 3500, 2000 I put the first signal always at break altitude, second at deploy altitude. Flatline is at 2000.

Snake by Audio Bullys

-Male -Muscled -Not educated -Tattoo's -Drug usage (alcohol, smoke, and other) And some other things I guess If I'm not mistaking there has already been a thread about this.

What would you advice yo do? I would put the shirt in my pants, and then put the rig on. Would that be good? By the way: one jumper at our dropzone just took an old rw suit and removed the lower parts of the arms and legs. That works aswell I think

When I started jumping, I didn't have any interest in ever swooping or realy flying a high performance canopy. However, not so long ago, an experienced swooper at our dropzone came to me for help with a problem concerning the mechanics and dynamics of swooping (I'm a student in engineering). While working and thinking about the problem it kinda got me interested in doing swooping myself some day. Talking to him and working on that problem (currently still working on it) kinda showed to me that swooping is more science then just 'pulling down a front riser and releasing it at the rigth time'. I'm still far away from swooping myself, but maybe some day...

Yes indeed, and we have a field that is equaly large on the opposite side of the runway It is just that everyone wants to land in the space between the hangar, the cirkel, runway and street.

Jump around nr 20, don't know anymore what jump. We fly a cessna grand caravan, so 18 people can fit in it. That jump there were quite a few AFF (3 I think) and a couple of tandems. Exitwise I had to jump before the AFF's. At that time I still pulled at 4000ft. While decending under canopy, at a certain point I saw the AFF-jumpmaster and videopeople come in for landing. We have a pretty big landing area, but everyone wants to land right in front of the hangar (and avoid having to walk a mile back). So, they all wanted to land there, and because my canopy (a 220) decends a lot slower, I decided to backoff and land a bit further from the hangar, avoiding the rest of the jumpers. I had to walk back to the hangar for some time, but better to walk then have a mid air collision. Jump 13: Second freefall from 5000ft. I waited kinda long to exit and the plane was already far from the dz. I opened at 4000ft and I saw I wasn't going to make it back to the dz, or it was going to be really close. I looked around and saw a nice landingarea not so far from me, flew to it, cirkeled around it, and landed there. Luckely two people from the dropzone came and picked me up

Jump 33 last saturday. Excercices in the air went very good, but the landing was, well, far from very good. There was zero wind that day. I was going to try to land a bit accurate, close to the cirkel in the grass. I had done this on the 4 previous jumps two week earlier and it went pretty well. Big difference was that there was a lot more wind that day. I come in for landing and at a certain point I realise it is going to be difficult to hit the target in a safe way (I found I was too low to do more stearing toward the target). I decide to continu flying in the direction we were supposed to land in. Some time later I start to realise that I might overshoot the landing area. At that time I also hear our plane on the runway or taxiway or in the air comming back. At about 200ft I'm starting to get realy concerned about overshooting the landing area and because our plane was on the runway I didn't want to cross it. I decided to start flaring, hoping that this would slow me down enough. (This is a picture of the landing area of our dropzone http://users.skynet.be/pcvmoorsele/moorsele_dropzone.jpg I was flying toward the bottom of the picture). After couple of seconds I realise that the flare will stop me from flying over the landing area. I continue flaring, and performed a PLF on landing. Rolled in the grass and walked away without a scratch (and a bit dirty rig). Lesson learned: be more concerned about landing the parachute in the first place and be less concerned about hitting a target. Altough I had just better landed without trying to hit the target there were some smart things I did (I think anyway ) -Decided to stop trying to get to the target when I saw it was going to be difficult to hit it in a safe way. -Not crossing the runway at low altitude when you hear/see a plane nearby -Not doing any low turns -Once begin flaring, continuing flare untill you are on the ground -Performing a plf when necessary. Other lesson learned: this was my first PLF that was a 'neccesary one'. It might be good idea to do once and a while a plf, even if it is not really neccesary, so you know you are capable of doing one when it is really neccesary. People will laugh with this, but it might safe my femur some day...

Jump 1: Landed WAY to close to the hangar of the dropzone, luckly everything went well with a nice butslide Jump 3: downwind landing. Overshot the place where I wanted to land. Fell over on landing and hit a concrete fence. Result was a weekend at the hospital instead of a weekend at the dropzone. Jump 5: Backsommersault with a static line. Not on purpose, but yeah, not very safe. Jump 10: Another downwind landing (I checked the winddirection just before we got in the plane, but it changed while climbing to altitude). The smart thing I did on that jump was not to try to land on my feet, because that would have been double femur. Made one hell of a move to keep my bones intact, to bad no one filmed it. Jump 12 (First freefall after 11 staticline jumps): Jumped of unstable, went on my back and pulled the cord. Nothing came out, so I threw away the cord to grab my handels (and I was still on my back). All the sudden I see the main-canopy deploying between my legs, lucky no entanglement. Jump 21 and 25: Tracking parallel to the line of dropping. Not smart. Nothing happend but it was definatly not smart. Jump 22: trying double backflip at 6000ft. Didn't work out well, think I went stable again at 4500ft (pulling at 4000ft). Scared me a lot (because at first I didn't get stable again) so I don't do any complex things anymore 2000ft before pulltime. Jump 26: Clouds from 13000ft until 5000ft due to a sudden weather change. Zero visiblity. Looking back I should have stayed in the plane, couldn't do anything on that jump and had an extra packjob to do. On multiple jumps not waving off before pulling I'm lucky and happy to be here...

Well, 'proef helling' in english is 'test angle' Guess babel fish doesn't know much about skydiving terms

Don't think there is a word in dutch for it. Everyone uses pilot chute...

This is how I think it works (no first hand experience, just thinking about airflow). If you go handheld, your pilot chute is completely open when you throw it in the airstream. Because it is already open when you throw it away, it can catch a lot of air, and start to function right away. When you throw a stowed pilot chute in the air, it is kind of packed, and airstream is needed to open the pilotchute to let it function. What seems to me that can happen on a hesitation is that the pilot chute moves toward the back of the jumper (when the bridle is fully extended), and is not enough opened yet. Because you are falling slow, and your body is already creating a burble, the airstream the pilot chute catches when it is behind you is quiet small, and maybe not enough to open it fully and let it work. I think this is why longer bridles when introduced to base, to make sure the pilot chute is more out of the jumpers burble (look at the fatality at BD in 87). Ofcourse the problem becomes a lot bigger when the bridle itself is not fully extended yet (see Jaap's problem). Hesitations can be fixed by letting more airstream reach the pilot chute (for example by rotating your body). I could be completely wrong, so please don't shoot me if I am... Thijs

pm 'pope' he'll know it