VTmotoMike08

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Everything posted by VTmotoMike08

  1. If you buy an airline ticket from priceline, there is a box you can check to purchase accident insurance during your trip. It does not mention any aviation related exclusions and is generally reasonable priced. I have bought it a couple times, but I can't seem to remember what company it is thru.
  2. I understood quite clearly what you said, perhaps negligible does not mean what you think it does. negligible: so small or unimportant as to be not worth considering; insignificant. If I was going to take a low turn into the ground or smash into a guy who corked out of a sit, I'll take my G3 over nothing. Therefore, it is not "negligible" compared to an impact rated helmet. It provides less protection than an impact rated helmet for sure, but its better than nothing. This is not hard to understand.
  3. That's what gets me- a non-impacted rated helmet is not "negligible". If you were going to get hit in the head with a baseball bat, would you put on your G3 first, or just say "No thanks, this non-impact rated helmet provides negligible protection". It clearly still protects you, just not to the same degree. It's not worthless or for good looks only when it clearly does provide some protection. By adequate, I mean that it protects against the issues that I have a better than not chance of encountering, such as feet to the face.
  4. What exactly to do mean by warranty? I get that it is "impact rated" and that means a lot to some people but that is different than a warranty. Personally, I don't get too excited about the impact rating. All that means is that it passed a particular test. Lack of impact rating doesn't mean that other helmets are useless, it just means that it simply wasn't tested to the same standard. I've found my G3 to be quite adequate without any type of impact rating.
  5. How do you know it is premium? The G4 isn't even out yet, so no one has tried it on unless you are a sponsored athlete or test jumper. Cookie must have some incredible marketing in place for the entire skydiving community to be stoked on this helmet months before it even comes out, but maybe we should wait until we actually get our hands on it before determining that it is the best helmet ever. Don't get me wrong, I like my G3, and the pictures of the G4 look good, but that is all we have at this point- pictures and cool diagrams.
  6. I am using a fluid wings RDS (slider only) on my Crossfire3 129 (loaded at 1.7) and it works great. No issues, and it still opens beautify. I just like being able to get the slider completely out of my way.
  7. I had one in my Mirage for several years. Got a deal on it when my cypress expired. It was annoying to change the batteries so much and the display died once and I picked up a new one a rigger who had it laying around. I think chuting star still does the maintenance on them. Anyway I would have kept jumping it but I got a new rig and just got a vigil as part of the package, it was good to have something more reliable but I was tight on cash when I got the Argus and it worked well enough for a while.
  8. Is the tunnel fast enough for an average sized guy to learn freefly in? Is it a recirculating tunnel?
  9. It is somewhat rare, but if we are doing anecdotes now, then I can think of at least six people I know who have lost a canopy in a chop (myself included). Canopies are pretty expensive these days, even if it only gives a little better odds of getting it back, a cheap GPS based tracker could really be useful. And they are pretty cheap.
  10. Following. I picked up a tile tracker in a target a couple weeks ago, haven't had the motivation to start playing with it yet. Small pocket sewn into your main deployment bag would probably be the way to go. https://www.thetileapp.com/en-us/
  11. All that would do would be to tell you the most popular type of helmet and googles.
  12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL8chWFuM-s
  13. That sounds like a really great program that I wish more DZs had. Unfortunately, most are too cheap to throw an occasional free slot to experienced jumpers who would like to mentor others who actually want to improve.
  14. Probably a little bit of all of that. First, newer jumpers seem less interested in getting on more technical jumps and also more experienced jumpers seem less interested in bringing along a newer guy who might screw it up. I'm more confused as to why newer jumpers seem to be less interested in challenging skydives and more content to just flounder around in the sky. But I guess more of the "blame" lies with experienced jumpers who don't reach out to newbies. Everyone was new once and it can indeed be hard to reach out to someone much more experienced than you and ask to be on their jump that you might screw up. It just seems to be there are fewer intermediate and advanced skydivers reaching out to newbies and also fewer newbies that actually want to learn technical skills than there used to be. Classic chicken and egg problem, I'm not sure which came first.
  15. Right, its supposed to be fun, I just can't understand how that is fun after you have done it more than a handful of times. To me, it used to seem that most people enjoyed a hot, multi point 4-way or smooth big way with a couple points. Developing this level of skill was the goal for most jumpers and how they had fun. Now it seems like most people definition of fun has changed in the last couple of years and I'm trying to understand why. It seems what used to be considered an unsuccessful jump (just fly around trying to be near to some random guy and making goofy faces) is now almost what people try to do.
  16. I've been in the sport for about 12 years but took a (mostly) break for about 4 of those. When I started, most people got their license then did a couple hundred belly jumps to get to the point where they could at least reliably turn a bunch of points on a 4-way and easily swoop to their slot on a bigger (8+) way. From there, if you wanted to branch out and get into FF, swooping, wingsuits, or whatever then go for it but at least you knew the fundamentals! When I recently came back, it seems like everyone at the DZ has about 300 jumps but still can't do anything but sitfly around a loose circle (orbiting and undocked) and make faces at each other. I have nothing against freefly, I enjoy it too, but I'm kinda irked by the fact that no one wants to actually plan a jump with multiple points and to work on developing any meaningful relative work skills (on belly or vertical). And I have been to a couple dropzones, not just basing this on one. Good luck just showing up at a dropzone anymore, looking for someone organizing RW (or even VFS if you can), introducing yourself while being candid about your experience, and getting on a well planned skydive. All anyone wants to do is jump out with about 6 random people who might not have a thousand jumps combined, be goofy for 45 seconds, then weak track away and hope some guy who went low out the door and was never seen again isn't near you. It's like everyone just gets together at the 5 minute calls and someone says "what are we doing" and whoever happens to be on that load gets to be on the zoo dive What do you think? Do fewer people these days have the patience to learn the finer skills of relative work? Or is this just not considered fun anymore? Thanks for any input.
  17. So as someone who might soon sell a used container, how can I avoid being a scumbag seller? I have heard a good rule of thumb for a used canopy is new retail minus a couple hundred bucks for "walking out the door", then minus $1 per jump. So if you pay about $2000 for a new canopy, then sell it two years later with only 200 jumps on it, I would think about $1500- $1600 is a fair price, or not?? How about containers? A container can last 20 or more years and 4,000+ plus jumps if you take good care of it. A new container with all the options can be about $3000 so would I be out of line asking for $1500 for a 10 year old container with less than 1000 jumps on it and in good condition (provided it has all the options)?
  18. I will be returning to the sport after a couple years of minimal jumping and I want to get into freeflying and I know the quickest way to get there will be in the tunnel instead of the sky. I have about 950 jumps and 6- 8 hours in the tunnel, 90% of that has been belly flying. I can turn plenty of points on a 4 way jump, float and dive and quickly reach my slot on bigger ways and generally regarded as someone who can reliably fly their slot on a belly jump. I want to get to this same point in freeflying and trying to determine how much money this will cost me to do a lot of tunnel flying in a short amount of time. I will be working with a coach and flying a couple times per week until I get where I want to be. Assuming I am an average speed learner, about how many hours should I be looking to purchase? Keep in mind, I'm not trying to medal at nationals, just want to be smooth and confident on my head so I can do basic VFS and bigger ways without being that guy who screwed it up. I'm really have no idea if this is going to take me 6 hours to learn or 50 hours to learn, so I'm just trying to get a ballpark idea. About how many hours does the average flyer need to even get off the net on their head in the tunnel? Thanks for any guidance.
  19. Right, I have seen their videos but I'm specifically interested in hearing from people who have either packed several of them, or have had a reserve activated by the system. I know Mirage is not the most popular container manufacturer but the system has been out for over two years now so surely people have developed some familiarity with it. Anyone?
  20. I'm just wondering what jumpers and riggers think of this system now that it has been out for a little while? I have not heard of it killing anyone, so that's a plus. I'm considering a new Mirage, and might get this. Not sure how popular it is and how many riggers would recognize it? Of course a good rigger would read the manufacturer's literature before assembling it but I don't see instructions for it on their website, which is frustrating.
  21. Just contacted them via website but if anyone else knows more places, please keep the suggestions coming. Thanks.
  22. If so, where can I send it? It has never given me any problems and I would like to keep using it. Please spare me the lecture, I'm a grown man and I can make my choices and I accept the risk. Thanks!
  23. Understood and agreed. I bought it several years ago for cheap when the issues came out and my cypress expired. So if I'm getting about 3 or 4 years out of an AAD I paid just a couple hundred bucks for then I'm still happy with it. Of course it would have been nice if it lasted longer but I knew the risks when I bought it. I won't spend more than a couple hundred to get it working when I could get a Mars M2 for $1000. It is surprising to see the cost of at least one part of skydiving coming down. I know cypress was like $1500 a couple years ago, but it changes with the exchange rate and now I'm seeing $1320ish.