dragon2

No. A cobalt is an appropriate canopy when you have 400ish jumps. For a 20 jump person, canopies you can consider include spectre, sabre 1, maybe a sabre 2 (is more agressive), safire 1/2, silhouette, pilot, fusion (see sabre 2), triathlon, omega, pulse, electra, super7, dragon. ciel bleu, Saskia

It's mainly for flying up the hill, on exit. ciel bleu, Saskia

Filming FS4/FS8. ciel bleu, Saskia

If the weather is turning, there's a choice between rushing the tandempassengers a bit, or not jumping at all (or maybe hours later). I am talking about tandem passengers here, not tandem students who are supposed to pull the ripcord, read an alti etc, and/or are doing tandemjumps as part of a skydiving course. Opinions may vary here, but I'm OK with rushing things a bit for passengers, especially if there's no video (I like to capture a bit of the briefing on tape). Even with video, we make it work. It's really no big deal to do the briefing inside the plane on occasion, even though not optimal. For sure no red safety flag in my book. ciel bleu, Saskia

We tried that, swimming with lead. 16 kg in a belt on a rope so you could let go of the belt. I couldn't even get back to the surface myself. JC Colclasure managed the longest, however we're not all built like him. This was before the new weight rules in swooping, and people were jumping with 30+kg (66lbs) of lead then, sometimes over deep water. ciel bleu, Saskia

I've seen a couple of javelins like that. I likes. Just wouldn't be smart to wear lead in your rig while jumping near water - you can't ditch it like you can a weightbelt. I'm not actually sure you can use it in a swoop competition, for that reason. no water training in netherlands I see :( I'm talking about the canopy piloting (swoop) rules Does your rig have a quick release? ciel bleu, Saskia

Weekend warrior. ciel bleu, Saskia

The age doesn't matter that much, aside from the number of repacks and reserve rides done on it as noted earlier. However it is a very dumb idea to buy a reserve smaller than the smallest main you're comfortable landing. I know, I did the same when I was starting out (and a lot lighter): spectre 150 @ 75 jumps @ 1.0 WL and a techno 128 reserve. Boy was I glad I only ended up on that reserve after 300ish jumps, and I still broke my nose landing it. And that reserve has more flare than a PD126R. I know smaller people have trouble finding a small rig. But hoping you have hundreds of jumps before having to use your reserve isn't smart. Anyway these days you have the option of a smaller packing reserve, which in your case if you're set on that rig I would DEFINITELY go for. So forget looking for an older cheaper PD126R and start thinking about buying a (probably new) PD Optimum 143, would be my advice to you. The $$$ of breaking something or worse doesn't come CLOSE to paying a couple more bucks for a smarter size reserve. Of course ask your rigger first if it'll fit in your rig, as you didn't mention what exact rig you're putting together. Edit: I forgot about the lead If you're planning to do RW, plan on having to wear (a lot of) lead and figure that into your canopy choices. Just for giggles, try adding 12kg/26lbl (the max I jump with) of lead to your exitweight and see what happpens to your WL. ciel bleu, Saskia

I had that happen on my first "real" cutaway on a PdF Atom. I kept pulling on the ripcord while the reserve was already open and flying Oh. OK... I was lucky to still have that ripcord upon landing ciel bleu, Saskia

More medical reasons: One of my first students did his first AFF jump and dislocated his right shoulder flaring the canopy. Without his shirt on, we could see there was a heck of a lot of "moving" going around on his back when he moved his arms. His father has the same hypermobility issue as he has, so apperantly it runs in his family. He got his money back for the rest of the jumps. Until and unless he gets surgery (not sure if that is even a possibility for him) and gets cleared by a physician, he can't jump (non-tandem) anymore. I know there's a number of experienced jumpers around with easily dislocating arms, but in a student that's reason for grounding, IMO. We also don't take pregnant women up for a tandem. I'm thinking no pregnant students, either. ciel bleu, Saskia

I've seen a couple of javelins like that. I likes. Just wouldn't be smart to wear lead in your rig while jumping near water - you can't ditch it like you can a weightbelt. I'm not actually sure you can use it in a swoop competition, for that reason. ciel bleu, Saskia

I've jumped both, at approx. your wingloading, although not many jumps on those particular sizes each. I've got a lot of jumps on safire 1 119, safire 1 135 and pilot 124 though. I'd say the safire 2 has a bit more powerful flare, has a bit more forward speed and is more responsive to toggles than the pilot. It certainly will dive more than the pilot. I like both. If I were you I'd demo the (exact same) canopy I was thinking of buying. Keep in mind the safire 1 is a size smaller than a safire 2 (and pilot), so a safire 1 149 feeling faster than a pilot 150 is to be expected. You could compare it better to the pilot 132 actually. ciel bleu, Saskia

Good (if not excellent), provided you don't load it @1.4 or more as that impedes the landings I have found. ciel bleu, Saskia

can you explain this more? I dont quite understand maybe I'm missing something. What if you want to video tandems?? Should you get good at doing tandems? When I wanted to start filming tandems, I was told to practice filming FS4 some more, until I could show 4 consequetive perfect exit-to-opening FS4 videos. Mind you, the team I was filming at the time did NOT make that very easy I learned so much from filming FS4 for 2 seasons, that from the first tandemvideo I did, the videos were both safe and sellable. This was in sharp contrast BTW to some of the freeflyers I have seen start doing tandemvideos Even if you have 1000 jumps and are awesome on your head, this does NOT automatically a good tandemvidiot make. For tandems, you want to be able to fly on your belly real good before coming anywhere near them. Filming FS4 teaches you that. ciel bleu, Saskia

My 50th jump, I had a FXC fire on opening @ 2500 feet. Skymaster 230 main, brakes unstowed, flying in front of a PD253R. Exit weight at the time was 150lbs. At 1000ft the canopies started to downplane. I chopped when the main was at a bigger than 45o angle, but less than 90 - I wasn't going to wait for it to build up speed. The main departed quickly and cleanly (even though I didn't know to undo the RSL). I landed the reserve uneventfully. I was flying very gentle, staying above the DZ. I think they eventually downplaned because I had the brakes unstowed and the main was smaller than the reserve, hence flying faster forward. ciel bleu, Saskia

Just curious to know why this is too snug? I wear mine this snug I'm not that experienced with articulated harnesses, so it is more my impression that a few are over tightened. I don't think such designs intend to have the MLW pulled inwards at the chest, but other than loading the chest strap some more -- maybe it isn't a big deal, as long as one feels secure in the harness and can still move easily. I'm not sure distorting the harness is such a good idea as fas as your cutaway and reserve handles go. I've seen mlw on rigs with chest rings distorted into fairly sharp angles when over-tightened. Maybe manufacturers or riggers can coment on how this might impact reserve procedures (forces). ciel bleu, Saskia

You're unsure whether you bought a stiletto or not?! Sure go jump a stiletto, if you want to fly a high performance canopy with the most roll action of any non-crossbraced canopy (AFAIK). The required jumpnumber over here for flying a stiletto is 400, plus you have to be current enough (at least 50 jumps in the last 12 months in this case). If that gives you any hint. ciel bleu, Saskia

AFAIK, you stand the "best" change of falling out of your harness unintentionally, if you open your canopy when in a sitting position. The 2 tandem passengers that I know of that fell out of their harnesses, both had issues with muscle tone. Making them "fold in half" and backing out butt-first out of the harness through the gap between the leg straps and the lower back strap. You can actually back out of your rig fairly easily on the ground, even with a custom fit harness. This is why freeflyers have a bungee between their legstraps, to keep the legstraps together and in the right position when flying in the sitfly position. Especially a premature opening in a sitfly position can be dangerous, so taking care of your gear to avoid having a premature opening goes a really long way here. As far as the cheststrap goes, as long as you close it correctly, it doesn't actually has to be tight to prevent you from falling out of the harness. In fact when bellyflying, provided the rig fits you reasonably well, you want the cheststrap fairly loose so you can ARCH. Really, trust in the gear. Make sure you follow safety procedures (close the chest strap, don't freefly with non-freefly friendly gear, take care of your handles in the plane and in freefall) and you won't fall out of your harness. ciel bleu, Saskia

+1 I love the pro-mouth switch too, been using it for the past couple years after biting through a number of biteswitches. Tongueswitch was also ok but I like the pro-mouth switch better. For me the blowswitch doesn't work as I smile at the tandempassenger in freefall and smiling + blowing at the same time doesn't work very well ciel bleu, Saskia

I find that hard to believe. Because I've SEEN lower jump number skydivers in the plane and in the air with a camera, and they have NO CLUE what they're missing around them. So yeah, from their perspective, they would say they have no issues whatsoever. The rest of the load however might disagree on that ciel bleu, Saskia

My first choice: Tube. 2nd: freefly pud 3rd: monkey fist 4th: hackey Why? Because the round handles can cause nasty knots in the bridle or even in the pilotchute itself. Especially when wingsuit flying. I like the grip of a tube better than the fabric of a freefly pud, so that's 2nd (for me). If you plan to wingsuit or freefly, best stay away from round handles. ciel bleu, Saskia

Meh, cold is just between your ears ciel bleu, Saskia

A hookknife in a highspeed horseshoe mal, no. Don't try and use it for "run-of-the-mil" malfunctions. It can't hurt to have one or 2 on you, just don't waste any valueable time with one during a mal. Basically, perform your EPs as trained and if that doesn't have the desired effect, or EPs aren't applicably, then a hookknife can be a life-saver. If for instance your glove or swoopcord gets stuck on your (camera) helmet, a staticliner gets "hung-up" on the airplane, you want to try and fix a line-over on your reserve, or get rid of a buddy's canopy in a CRW wrap, then yes go for a hookknife. ciel bleu, Saskia

Apparantly not ciel bleu, Saskia

Yesss.... So better not to say anything. FYI: OIS can be switched off in the menu, but it can and will still vibrate when skydiving, especially when back/sitflying. It can vibrate up to the point where you cannot even see that the person right in front of you is even a PERSON. And yes people with up to 10.000+ skydives have tried to deal with this and mostly failed (and spent a lot of money in the process). So no, a camera with OIS is not to be recommended for skydiving. You want EIS. Or, read the FAQ. ciel bleu, Saskia