azureriders

Off topic and I apologize, but the above comment always makes me laugh. Obviously made by someone who does not have a wife who maintains a 195 bollowing average and bowls tournaments all over the south. Oh, and she jumps too

We use these for our student gear. It allows you to train standard EMPs that will work on sport gear once the student transitions, while also assuring that the idiot that freaks out and pulls the wrong handle will not deploy his reserve into the trailing mess behind him. There are a couple of complications. First is rigging and gear checks, but if you are familiar and thourough, it is not a big deal. Next is the concept of making a low altitude ball of shit the biggest ball of shit possible. It is impossible to deploy the reserve without cutting away on one of these rigs. So you wind up not teaching the concept in the FJC and tring to educate the novice once he starts buying his own gear. Then you have the matter of teaching a good gear check. These rigs have been in service at our DZ longer than I have and the DZO did not want the students to know that they could pull either handle and survive. I am very mechanical and did not like the thought of teaching a gear check with out covering how everything works, but I managed to learn how to work around this.

Now that was some funny shit. I dont know J.P. all that well at all nor do I agree with all his comments but the one Jump I made with him was enough to know better than this shit.

I've been on an Otter to 30,000 feet in August where it was -25 F. The door was closed, but it was still cold as hell in the cold spot across from the door -- my seat

We had one couple that after the FJC I put a 'BOC pouch on a belt' on them and had them do practice pulls until I was confident that they were doing it correctly. They then went home to practice before returning the following week to jump. The next week they reporting throwing the PC 400 times each. Wow I said, only to take them both up and watch them hold onto the pilot chute. Of course this was a special couple. They had 30 tandems each and no one thought they would ever go through AFF so they were taught to hold onto the rip chord, and had done so on most all of their tandems. I totally agree that proper ground training can minimize the chance of this. I also agree that Main side must leave as soon as possible. I still say that main needs to stay until he/she knows the pilot chute is not being held. Just my experience

An argus in one of our student rigs misfired at ~10,000 ft about 4 years ago. I don't know what the final word was on why, but I do know that the company was more than willing to make things right and then some to the DZO. They flew a rep out the next weekend to handle the situation. Not supporting nor bashing, just reporting.

I agree but I would like to clarify that Freefall Instructors should start tracking away as soon as the main pilot chute [Strike]is out.[/Strike] has left the hand. Be it the Instructor or the Student who is pulling, main side MUST stay until the pilot chute is released. Not much is more nerve racking than sitting on reserve side while the student is holding the PC tightly in their right hand, and main side tracking off. Been there twice, no fun either time.

Assuming a sliding door on an otter, you are not really putting much pressure at all against the door or the rail with the shoe trick. The top of the door is the area where the rail has to make it's steepest bend and therefore the rail has a lot of slack in it there. The door tends to lean to the inside and therefore leaves a crack between it and the wall. The shoe simply pushes the door back to the other side of the crack, plus just a little pressure. I could see the blanket becoming jammed between the door and wall and jaming the door, but not the shoe. When you lift the door without removing the shoe, the shoe normally just jumps out anyway. When it does not, and even after someone really yanks up on the door, you can still reach up and very easily extrat the shoe. Yes I have seen this happen. I also agree that there is a chance the shoe could jam, but highly unlikely.

Well it seems that my suggestion has already been answered through some research by others but here goes anyway. You know our big-boy rig has the same canopies in it. You could open it up and measure the slider and compare. I will be glad to do this for you next weekend if you would like, just cost you a pack job the next time you are out. I would say just wait until it is open anyway, but as of now I have no big boy on the schedule. As for talking to the riggers there. Ben has had good success with the construction of pocket sliders. As well J.C. has had equally good success with over sized sliders. I would trust the opinions of either. If your current slider is indeed undersized, I would say haveing one made the propper size out of ZP would show some considerable differences. Let me know if I can do anything else to help.

This thread is a good read but I think more to the point of the O.P., we do have a jumper who wears a belly band, nothing to do with his P.C. The gentleman started skydiving late in life and has flexibility problems. Our student gear never seemed to be an issue. When he purchased his own, he said it was more comfortable but keep ridding up in free fall. This made his hacky hard to find and even resulted in one reserve ride. Having the harness resized only proved to be a slight improvement to the situation, however the installation of a belly band eliminated it totaly. His hacky is now always right where he left it.

To the O.P. I am of the just tie it and forget it crowd, but thats just me A simplier fix is to go to a hobby shop and buy a decorative wood burning kit. The wood burner is nothing but a soldering iron with the tib already narrow and sharp, no need for filing. About the same price and you get some useless directions on how to burn some decorations into some wood.

At your experience, canopy choice, and wing loading, you are in that area that none of use are really going to be able to say for sure over the internet. Talk to your instructors. This canopy is not going to be so safe we call all say go for it, it is also not nearly so dangerous that we can all say no way. Only the ones who know you, are going to be able to give you the best answer. My internet opinion, based on the fact that you asked a knowledgable and well thought out question, and that I like safires, you should be fine. I jump a Safir 1 189. It is comparable to 170's of other names. Although I load mine MUCH heavier and would be hard to say how yours will handle, I have loaned mine to several of my students who were thinking of buying something similiar. If I knew you, and you were not stupid, I would let you jump mine. Hope that helps.

QuoteIs the one extra minute of free fall really that different and worth THAT much money? What is the whole experience like? *** I have done several any where from 26 - 30 grand as a videographer for HaloJumper.com. If they are going up and dont need me, I sit on the ground rather than paying to do it again. I also love night jumps, but when Kevin (owner of HaloJumper.com) put on Night Halos at our DZ, I did not find the need to pay the money to put the two things together even though I enjoy both. If I had never done one, yes I would pay the money for the one time thing and would recommend it to you or anyone else interested.

Taurus

I witnessed a few, from minor injuries to a couple of fatalites. Some I barely knew, others were dear friends. I have always pressed on and got back on the plane, all while trying to respect the victims and learn from their mistakes. The one that bothered me the most was a fatal acident of a fantastic lady who I had only met a few days prior. The difference with this one was that I was on the jump with her, looking across the formation at her. I was still back in the air the next morning. The incident had been a 34-way sunset formation. It is your responsibility to learn from other's mistakes, and your inevitability to deal with the fact that death is a real part of our sport.

I have nearly 1000 AFF-I jumps and one of my hardest jumps yet as an Instructor was an A license recurrency jump that was passed off by one of our coaches because she did not feel good about it. If the coach had accepted this jump it is very likely the guy would not have made it. I could not agree more that recurrency jumps should be taken seriously

lol, yeah it is still faded hot pink. The wife jumped it for a while with out too much of an issue, but man the guys give me shit when I would strap it on for a jump.

As already quoted from S.I.M. section 5-2: I just wanted to point out that the above bold print includes a USPA Coach, who will normally work very cheap. Now S.I.M. section 5-2-A states: So even though you only have your accuracy jumps left, you will need to jump with an Instructor when you get back. Depending on the DZ, this may be a full priced AFF jump, or somehthing a bit cheaper. Good Luck and get back in the air as soon as you can.

I had an old fadded rig that I was thinking of dying, called the manufacturer for their advice and was quickly informed that if they ever saw such a thing they would instantly ground the rig and render it unusable. I bet you would get similiar results from the other manufacturers as well.

Our local college SLU, is known as Slow Learners University

We have gear and Instructors to take you at your current weight. HOWEVER, your skydiving experience is going to be much better and your progression faster if you loose as much as possible and get in as good of shape as you can. That will also make it easier to find a place closer to you I am sure. Joe, www.GoldCoastSkydivers.com

I have had two cut-aways in one day jumping sport gear. Two different rigs, same packer, same plane, same day, two different Drop Zones. What are the odds? Just had my first Tandem cut-away Sunday.

I normally use turns as a radio check. Always do atleast two as I have had one (and witnessed another) with a malfunctioned radio who just happened to turn when asked to do so. A second check lessens the odds of this. If there was any issue and now the radio check is lower I do not need the student to turn. Perhaps they are already in the pattern, I will use a flare as a check, or kicking legs. We have two frequencies and rarely more than two students up at a time. If there are three one will normally be a higher level student and only need instruction if he is doing something stupid. In this case I would radio check each by name. Both students on the same frequency are instructed that all commands are meant for x (lower level student) and only for y if following his name (upper level student). Seems to work pretty well. We also use paddels as a radio back up system. Works great.

I use type 8 risers and never pull down my slider. I find my rear risers to be more effective at making a canopy open sooner, more effective at bringing down the slider, and for sure no less effective at turning than my toggles. The risers are also easier to get a hold to with out looking, as in while clearing air space. As others have said the risers are not going to malfunction like the brakes could. You said if you had a brake hang up that you would still be pulling down on the riser with the toggle, true but think that through: When you reach up quickly to unstow your toggles you are pulling both of them down, or so I would assume as the turn you would be trying to make would be extremely sluggish with the opposite brakes stowed. Lets say you are making an avoidance turn to the right, grab both toggles and the right one jams. Well the left one released, so you are already in a right turn while still pulling the right riser down by the toggle...that might work out for you. Now the other way, you are still making an avoidance turn to the right but the left toggle jams. Now at best you are holding the right toggle to your knee hoping that this unexpected brake turn gets you the hell out of the way. I teach and believe that everyone should be comfortable and reactionary on thier rear risers. However, even though you asked for it, I am not inclined to tell you over the internet that you are being unsafe. I do believe that you should adjust your practice though.

ATSAUBREY, whose story has already been mentioned here, trained with Gold Coast before my time of instructing there. He is the only Big Boy, out of many 250#+ students who have came to Gold Coast, who completed the training and continued on to be an accomplished skydiver. Since I have been doing AFF with Gold Coast I have taken four Big Boys. Two of them were 285# and two were 330# which is about the limit of the gear we have. None of the four of these guys returned for a second jump and it was obvious that the physical strain of the jump was overwhelming for all of them. I am not going to nay say as I am a firm believer that most things are possible if you push hard enough. I will say it is nowhere near practical. You have said that money is not an option and for all I know you are very wealthy so no, I do not use the word practical in a monetary way. In skydiving, and many other life events, there is what we call a risk vs. reward factor. While this may be what you desire more than anything, the risk vs. reward factor is going to make it impractical for any Instructor, DZ, gear manufacture, or pilot to put you in the air. My recommendation to you, from an instructor with some experience with larger than normal skydivers, loose 100# or find another sport. No matter how “big boned” you are, I am betting that at 420# with some fat you CAN loose 90-100# much easier and practically than the route you are on now. We have all seen impractical shit happen before.