dragon2

A bigger point is that you are waiting a couple months before going for your AFF. WHY? ciel bleu, Saskia

Would I buy a fusion again? Yes. I really like my fusion 120. It's sort of like a sabre2 but I found it more reliable opening-wise. Packing is similar. Uh yeah, HMA is fine. You really need to pull the slider down behind your neck with these lines though, on every jump, to avoid damaging them with the flapping of the slider. + HMA will keep its trim until the end of the lineset life + the type of HMA that is on a fusion will last you a long time - HMA will break when it reaches the end of the lineset life, without any warning (I ended up with 2 broken centre cell A-lines) I think the pilot and the fusion might be the hottest selling parachutes among 100-200 jump skydivers at my DZ. There are a number of these canopies as rentals and they keep getting sold ciel bleu, Saskia

A new lineset usually makes a of a lot of difference, yes. This does depend a bit on which types of lines are on the canopy: if it's microline (thin, bright white lines) like most non-student canopies, this difference will be way more noticable than if the lines are dacron (fatter whitish lines) like on some student canopies. This is because microlines shrink quite a lot after a couple hundred jumps, and they shrink the most on the outside. This makes the parachute not fly its best as it gets further away from its optimal shape. Dacron is more shrink-proof than microline so there's less of this effect. The steering line length (and hence the flare sweet spot) is likely different as well, because steering lines are the "worst" lines when it comes to shrinking. Although on a student canopy this might not make that big of a difference as the steering lines of a student canopy may be lengthened anyway. Did you do a couple of practice flares up high? Always do that with any new-to-you canopy, which with a new lineset, this one basically IS. ciel bleu, Saskia

Hey, I take exception to that one! ciel bleu, Saskia

Try a search on here, concerning the customer service of L&B vs that of Parasport Italia. That should answer this question quite nicely... ciel bleu, Saskia

I think the argus is just as safe as any modern AAD out there. I would love to have kept mine in use. But the argus has been banned in several countries, by several manufacturers and even if not banned, some riggers will not pack a rig wih an argus in it. So, before you buy an argus, make very sure you are allowed to jump it in your rig and have a rigger willing to pack it. ciel bleu, Saskia

AFAIK you cannot put a logo on a canopy you already have; the logo needs to be put on during construction of your new canopy. ciel bleu, Saskia

I have. One of the jumpers I talked to about cameraflying last season came to show me his brand new setup. He had a bulletcam-type camera (actually a bit smaller than that) mounted on the inside of his visor. I haven't seen any footage of it, so maybe the setup didn't work so well in practice, but certainly there was at least no snag possibility there whatsoever. I thought it was original, in any case ciel bleu, Saskia

Don't the Skyrats have anything? If not, you could ask the Dutch skydiving shop The Parachute Case to ship you one, they sell the closing pin necklaces for EUR 10. They accept paypal. Heck, if you paypal ME I could send you a closing pin, just have to go buy one here. ciel bleu, Saskia

You can try selling it for cheaps here in The Netherlands. I have a swift 5 in my accuracy rig myself, and have sold a 20yr old PD-R 143 and a 20ish yr old tempo 120 last year to other jumpers. There's no life limit as such here, and if the reserve is good, it's good. Certainly for a reserve for a water rig, accuracy rig or other rig that needs to be cheap, there's a small market here for older reserves. Or you can try poutting it on ebay as a decoration canopy/car cover. That might actually net you more. ciel bleu, Saskia

I'm a videoflyer and have setup a number of these jumps before. Step one is getting a real videoflyer for your dad. Then make sure you sit next to him the plane so the videoflyer can get both of you in the video. Then have the videoflyer film you exiting right before the tandem. Sitflying with your back to the camera sucks for video, as does a diving exit. I always like if the solo jumper does one of these 2 exits: either poised and waving to the camera, or cannonballing/frontflipping out. The first one if you do it stable gets very nice pictures, the last one always gets lots of "oooohs". If you're capable of doing this safely, you can land near the videoflyer so he can film your landing too, and then wait together for your father to land. This way, you both get included, it's safe and your dad will be suitably impressed, trust me ciel bleu, Saskia

Personally I didn't like jumping a pulse over 1.4: I found the flare drastically less than at a lower WL, which gave me some trouble on a no-wind/slightly downwind day. The bigger pulses I jumped flared great. Make sure to jump the size you're after, before buying. ciel bleu, Saskia

Reality check: in Norway, I very much doubt you could make a living of being an skydiving instructor. Basically, if you want to make a job out of skydiving rather than just a hobby, you want to be multi-rated. So we're talking staticline jumpmaster, AFF instructor, tandemmaster and preferable video and even rigging as well. This wil set you back oh EUR 30.000 or so. Might be (much) more in Norway. Then, 1000+ jumps down the road, you need to get those jumps in where you're actualy getting paid. That means you need good weather year round, plus customers. That wouldn't work in most countries in Europe, you'd need to go jump in NZ or California or similar to make some money off jumping. If you want to make some money off skydiving, becoming a packer might be your best bet

The lack of a D-bag reinforcements, dacron lines, extra fabric on centre cell plus the extra rings up top makes the Lightning pack big. With or without a bag, a lightning packs up BIG. I had the illusion of putting a lightning 126 in a container that could hold a 150 or small 170sqft main. No way was that going to fit. ciel bleu, Saskia

Clouds can be high or low, so 12.000ft can still be below the clouds. Or clouds can be at 2.000ft so every jump will be above the clouds. A jump from just 6.000 ft means you will get 10secs freefall or less, as tandems generally open at 5.000ft. So basically, you'll just buy the canopy ride down. A freefall cameraman would be pointless in this case. So, a 6k tandemjump is not advised. I agree with the other website as 8000ft being the minimum you'd want to jump from. The camera options are pretty well explained. Handcam is a camera on the instructor's hand. This means you get a very wide angle (fisheye look) and any still photos would probably be (much) lower quality than outside stills. An outside cameraflyer will not capture your canopy ride down (except for landing), but in freefall will show more of the surroundings and generally in a more pleasing manner (less fisheye-y). An outside cameraflyer can jump with a DSLR camera, if so, the stills will be much better quality than handcam. Basically, I'd look at what equipment they are jumping. If it is small cameras for the outside flyer too (go-pro and the like), heck I'd go for handycam. If however the cameraflyer has much better equipment than the handcam, like a decent videocamera and a DSLR for stills, I'd go for outside, myself. But the outside cameraflyer needs freefall time to film, so 10.000ft or higher would be better than 8.000ft (and forget about 6.000ft). ciel bleu, Saskia

There are a huge number of skydivers with fear of height. I know I am one 2200+ jumps along the line, I still have a fear of heights and will not bungee jump, abseil, go on a climbing wall, stand on a ladder or ski down anything but the bunny hill (and even that was scary). Skydiving however, no problem whatsoever. Weird, how the mind works ciel bleu, Saskia

Well that's to be expected, as those 2 canopies are just about exactly the same size. A safire 1 is about 8% or roughly 1 size smaller than stated on the label, while a safire 2 is the size it says it is. So is a crossfire, so the crossfire was really only one size smaller than both the safires. Still good that you have a bigger reserve. I've never had that... Mostly I jump PdF atoms and they are geared towards a smaller reserve than main. Although in my accuracy rig I don't sweat that ciel bleu, Saskia

I've had cameras unintentionally overexpose for 2 reasons: 1) Using the remote or turning on the camera inside the (darkish) plane before getting out, and setting the camera to fix the exposure on a "half shutter click". This setting is what you'd normally use to re-compose a shot for groundwork, however it doesn't work so well in the air This issue also depends on how your remote is wired - will the camera keep metering and focussing when it is turned on, or wil it only start doing that when you use the remote. You can see this is happening because the reported aperture in your overexposed pictures will be too high (ie, 2.8 on a sunny day). Solution: don't set your camera this way. 2) The camera THINKS it is setting the right aperture for the picture, but the aperture in the lens gets "stuck". In this case the reported aperture of an overexposed picture will be correct, however the camera clearly used a different aperture than stated. You can see if you have this problem by switching out lenses and cameras. Does the same lens plus a different camera have the same issue? And visa versa? Solution for this problem: you probably have to buy a new lens ... ciel bleu, Saskia

I had an hour each way for 1 1/2 yrs. I knew it was a 1hr drive when I signed up, and I really had to take the job too so not much choice there. So I spent 2 hours each day listening to audio books or singing along with loud music, while complaining about the various agricultural vehicles that are on that road, making my way to this little town. Then they decided I should go work someplace else 2 days/week, in a big city. No matter how early/late I left home, it alwas took me 1 1/2 to 2 hrs each way to that location. Then they changed my work location to there 4 days/week, and after I complained about that I got fired. Now I got a new job in my home town, where I can bicycle to work in 15 minutes. Or take my car and make the same time.

This canopy isn't likely to be an AR7 though, it's probably a comp Tri if it isn't a hybrid Tri. ciel bleu, Saskia

blackberry Could be blueberry, or boysenberry. Suddenly I have a strong urge for some IHOP pancakes... It is blackberry. I know this because when I bought my very first and very new canopy, I spend ages with the online coloring programs, and I ended up buying the spectre 150 in the attached pic. I later on sold it to the guy trying to land it in the attached pic ciel bleu, Saskia

Need a *hug*? ciel bleu, Saskia

I take it the lineset is regular microline? While Dacron is preferred for CRW, CRW these days is sometimes done with microline too. However I'd have expected red center lines and preferably non-cascaded A lines too on a CRW canopy. Does it have rings up top, aside from the one on the centre cell? Does it have a reinforced nose (more tape on the edge than usual)? Does it have whitish fabric on top of the centre cell? Either of these would mark it as at least a hybrid tri, and should make you go "hmmmm" if you expected a regular freefall tri. A CRW or hybrid Tri will pack up bigger than a regular freefall tri too. I know, I bought a tri 120 of dz.com that way too, as a freefall tri. Turned out to be a hybrid tri though say that as soon as I opened the package. It came complete with CRW bridle, a bag and some seriously pink CRW risers It had the red center lines too. Can't remember if it was marked differently from freefall tri's, and can't remember if the CRW tris we used to have at our DZ are marked as such ciel bleu, Saskia

blackberry I dig the edit of the add BTW. Very good. ciel bleu, Saskia

Who's rig? You mean the elastic bands on the student gear? That's 'cause the rig can be converted to SL if needed. ciel bleu, Saskia