dragon2

Not really experienced yet either, but this is what I would do: 1. You lose altitude awareness, look down and see massive ground-rush (sub 1000 feet AGL)? Go for my reserve immediately. 2. The load organizer says before boarding the airplane, "that due to zero winds, we will all land facing North", then under canopy you are going to be the first person to land the winds are now out of the south at about 7 mph? First person to land sets the direction, so if I can safely do so (not hindering others) I'd land into the wind. Else I'd stick to landing the set direction. 3. You are on a 6-way RW dive and notice one of the other skydiver's main pin has come out of the closing loop, but the deployment bag is still in the container? There is a video person on the dive. Eh wave and point to that skydiver like mad? Also trying to get the videoman out of the way for when that skydiver gets the hint and deploys. 4. You are on a 4-way RW dive and realize that the 4-way is 500 feet below the planned break-off altitude. Do you track for the same amount of altitude and pull 500 feet low?, or track less and pull on time? Depends on the separation altitude and on my main. My safire takes its sweet time opening so I really want enough margin. 5. You are climbing out after another group and you notice that a jumper in the group ahead of you, which is half-way through their climb-out, has their cutaway pillow folded under their main lift web. The aircraft is a twin otter and there are people between you and this jumper. Start yelling if I think that person will/may notice. Or one of the jumpers in between might get the hint. 6. Same scenario as the one above, except instead of the reserve pillow folded under, the jumper's BOC handle is tucked completely into the pouch. Start yelling if I think that person will/may notice. Or one of the jumpers in between might get the hint. 7. On the normal main you jump, a steering line breaks on opening? At 1,500 ft? At 1,000 ft? At 500 ft? Depends on the canopy. If I have enough height I'd cut away my safire (haven't practiced RR flaring on this canopy yet, my bad, can RR steer it just fine tho). At 1000 ft or less I'd better be careful with RR flaring, and PLF real good. 8. The first group is climbing out and you notice that a tandem Instructor, all set to exit, has forgotten to attach one of the passenger's upper harness attachment hooks? If I can reach him, grab him, else shout to get his attention. 9. In a Cessna 182 on jump run, you will be the person spotting and just before you open the door you see the jumper in the back of the airplane push their reserve pin out of the loop, firing their reserve pilot chute into the back of the airplane? Keep the door closed. If there's a JM or I etc in the plane I'd let them handle it from there, else I wouldn't let anyone jump. A 182 is so small that opening the door with anything out would be very hazardous I imagine, even if you're in the back. 10. On short final, you see another canopy coming directly at you. You neither of you do anything you will collide at about 30 ft. Perform a flat turn to the right. ciel bleu, Saskia

Hmmm sorta had the same thing happen to me... Grabbed a friend´s rig by mistake once. Hers is one size smaller but has similar colors. It had a Tri120 instead of my Spectre150. I only noticed when I went to fasten the cheststrap: ?? Now who put a hair elastic thingy on my... my... Oh. Whoops. ciel bleu, Saskia

http://www.para-teuge.nl/parasport/webcam.html My DZ has webcams. I can see they´re jumping right now. I´m at work. I haven´t jumped this whole month. Because of the bad weather. Of course it´s blue skies now. Of course there´s a bad forecast for next weekend. ciel bleu, Saskia

182 jumps for me this year. Highlights: jumping my first very own gear, my 100th, first freefly jumps, first CREW jumps, jumping at other DZ´s for the first time, jumping a demo for the first time (out of a militairy fokker 60), jumping other airplanes than our cessna 208 (fokker 60, porter, antonov, twin otter, let, cessna 182), my 200th. Seeing my sister make her tandem jump. 3 freebees, 1 free tandem and a lot of (expensive) coaching jumps. ciel bleu, Saskia

I'm not all that tall myself. I couldn't reach the slider to collapse it at first (I had regular risers). That was really annoying because I had softlinks so the slider would come down over them at some point, usually when I didn't want it to because the toggles were already released. I got new short risers for free (way nice guy) and I put those on, then I was a happy camper. Then I got a Safire, with those long brake lines. I demo'd it, it was ok, but then it was on regular risers. When I bought it and put it on my own risers, the brake lines had so much slack that steering didn't begin until I had the toggles at handles-hight. Not really ideal. So I shortened them a lot. Now I have 3 jumps with the shorter lines and I'm having trouble flaring now. Will have to dial it in (again), or maybe lengthen the lines a bit back. But I wouldn't want longer risers again, in combination with a collapsible slider. For CREW etc it doesn't make much difference, as long as the rigs kinda fits so I can reach the blocks. ciel bleu, Saskia

You forgot to mention all the interesting looks you are going to get doing that ciel bleu, Saskia

When I was looking for (2nd hand) gear I found only 3 rigs that were comfortable (and affordable). One was a too-small javelin (120 ft main) with hip rings and all in all way cool but alas, one was a plain black (I like black) vector 2 with velcro all around and the other was a multi-colored atom classic (no velcro). I could've had the vector2 modified but I got the atom instead. Had some work done on that one as well; had a crw-flap-thingy sewn on to secure the reserve flap better for head-up FF and for CREW, and had the walrus teeth replaced after a while because they needed to be. I now have a velco-free rig which is great for FF'ing. I really like the no-velcro-maintenance part. My rig gets accepted for FF at other DZ's. However, I still have to look after all the tucktabs and walrus teeth and stuff of course. No velcro doesn't mean maintenance free... ciel bleu, Saskia

Well well, more dutch girls :) Hey Caren....... Seen the SportParachutist? Did you scan those pics with that canoscan? I got the PrimeFilm 1800 AFL a couple of months ago, mainly because I could afford it. I'm not really happy about it. It does a better job then my regular old flatbed scanner (duh) but I expected more. I can scan positives or negatives for web use, and I use it for that sometimes. But I really wanted scans that are good enough for printing. They're not. Somehow the focus isn't really right on, or it just blows things up too much. I've gotten better prints of my old 2.1 megapixel camera... Still looking for something (much) better. ciel bleu, Saskia

I just had it done last wednesday, still can't quite believe it. Cost me (or rather, my insurance company) EUR 5000, which is about USD 5000. I should be back in the sky just after Christmas. Got scared a couple of months back when my fullface blew open and I had to squint to keep my soft lenses in. They stuck to my eyes so I didn't loose them but they stayed stuck so landing was interesting (I have astigmatism in both eyes). That and the fact I knew my insurance wouldn't cover the whole amount anymore next year made me decide. I'm very very happy with it. I too keep thinking to remove my contacts, force of habit.... I did manage to faint when they cut the flap on my first eye tho, which is quite a feat if you're already laying down..... I'm a wimp. I really really didn't like the fact that you can mostly see what they're doing to your eye..... But still, very happy with it so far, very glad I did it. Just all the eyedrops are kind of a bother right now. They cause a little bit of blurring/halos, but I had way worse halos before so there's really an improvement. But, all in all, I still am very pleased with it. Woke up the morning after with a big smile

That sorta is what I'm doing.... I pull high allot (12000 ft if I can) and fool around with my canopy. Either all alone, or following a CREW formation or sometimes doing CREW myself. Learned a lot from that. Not sure if it improved my landings but it sure improved my confidence, which did help improve my landings. I got an awful lot of canopy time, for a mostly-freeflyer, and I love it. Even my instructor thinks I'm nuts: You can fly all you want from a h&p from 5000 as well! It's cold! Heh heh not that cold, and I should know since I'm a wimp. I just make sure only my nose sticks out of all the fleece ! I can sure recommend a couple of CREW jumps to get to know your canopy, and improve your flying skills. Also it's plain fun (and not as scary as a lot of people seem to think ). Also the world looks completely different from 12000 ft. You can get blown away/fly away fairly easily if you're having too much fun to pay attention to your heading . Never happened to me tho of course! ciel bleu, Saskia

QuoteMy, very personal, feeling about the Silhouette sizing chart is they were rather conservative. Quote My personal feeling is that PD is conservative, period. Either that, or I am suddenly an expert to be able to fly a (zp) PD Lightning 143, and I WANT/am looking to fly a zp 126 now...! According to PD's sizing chart I should stick with a Lightning 218!!! They've got to be kidding, right..? We're talking square zp 7-cells here..... I think PD is way more conservative than say PdF or Icarus etc. Maybe all american manufacturers are? Because of the threat of lawsuits or something?? ciel bleu, Saskia

Hey, another dutch guy here....... cool. Squeak, I bought a spectre 150 for my first main, wich gave me a wingload of 1:1. I had 75 jumps at the time, had downsized like a good girl, and even tho my canopy did scare me a little bit the first 10 jumps, I knew I could handle the thing. My problem was between my ears. I just downsized, at 220-something jumps, to a wingload of 1,2:1. More then enough for me now. Wouldn't want to have had this canopy much earlier, let alone just off student status. But that's me. You already asked your instructors, the rest is entirely up to you. Like Johan said, YOU are the one flying it, and having to land it. If you are afraid of your canopy, where's the fun. Also, size doesn't say everything, you can load say a spectre more than a silhouette which is half zp half F111. My 150 lbs gave me an 'intermediate' wingload on the spectre, but would have been 'advanced' on the same size silhouette. If you do buy a smaller canopy, my advise is to get a zp. ciel bleu, Saskia

I'm down about 14k. Yeah I'm keeping score, tho it kinda scares me to think I skydove away a nice little car in 1 1/2 years That includes: SL course (8 jumps) 247 jumps (including some RW and CF coaching) 3 tandem jumps pro-track+ jump-track 2nd hand time-out altimeter pro-tec 2nd hand frap hat 2nd hand Z1 fullface with bag artwork on Z1 (now got a purple helmet with Garfield on it

1. What are you thoughts on base jumping?? (i.e. scares you to death, can't wait to do it, etc.) Scares me, maybe not to death but enough to NOT try it anytime soon. I have fun tagging along, making photo´s if I can, and that seems to lead a lot of people to believe I want to jump myself. NO WAY. 2. Does this forum affect your feeling toward you base jumping and why? (i.e. do you want to do it now from stuff you have read or not do it now) Nope. Had decided for myself I don´t want to before this forum was created, this forum hasn´t changed my mind. 3. If you do want to jump, how many jumps (just a guess) do you think you will have when you will be ready to jump and has this forum affected that number? Has it cuased the number to be higher or lower and why? I have just over 250 jumps now. I am definitely not ready. Have no idea when or if I ever will be. Or even if I want to. That has nothing to do with this forum. 4. Hypothetical- If you made a couple of jumps with a experienced jumper or attended a fjc, would you be comfortable continuing your jumping on your own, with just the information from here or Blinc? I think I would stick to jumping with one (or more) of the experienced BASE guys I know, for a loooong time. That said, I do enjoy reading this forum, like I enjoy reading about other skydive (-related) stuff. Some of my friends BASE, and I would rather trust their judgement then anything I read on the net. It´s just another source of information, but not my primary one. ciel bleu, Saskia

Hi, I personally have found this site helpful. I don´t think you can jump w/Cokin filters tho but this page has a lot of info on a lot of different filters. Also I think this subject has been around before, try a search. ciel bleu, Saskia

I've taken alot (like, 2000 with my last camera, D30, alone) pics of landings and chutes in the air using various canon eos camera's. Usually i use the P mode. I can only get a jumper in focus when i focus on the *body* of the jumper. I tend to use only the focus point in the middle (my camera's all have just 3 focus points) for this, you can fix it on most camera's so that's the only focus point it uses, but i haven't had to. Because of the body being in the middle, i have to edit my pics a bit before i post them otherwise i end up with rather a lot of sky and/or grass at the bottom of the picture... Have had a lot of comments about this, but haven't figured out any other way yet. This way the camera focusses reliably, and *keeps* doing that in AI mode, and lighting is usually ok (sometimes a problem with a jumper against a lot of blue sky). I get really out of focus pics when i aim at the lines for instance. A nice way to get the background blurry is panning along with the jumper as he swoopes past. ciel bleu, Saskia

Hey Jarno :) Myself, I learned to pack before I even made my first jump.... Kept hanging around the DZ but the weather wasn't good. So, what better time to be having a go at the manta's. Couldn't pack after I finally made my first jump tho, had the adrenaline shakes all over :) Packed my 2nd and 3rd jump that day tho, I tell you, 1001 1002 1003 eh 1004?!! Come-on!!! took on a whole new meaning... :) Way cool tho, jumping your own pack job for the first time. Got off to a good start, but, when I bought my own gear I got a brand new spectre that had to go in a tight d-bag. I kinda gave up on that one I must admit and spent a lot of money on the packers. Now, I can pack fine for myself but I find making 4 or 5 jumps a day and also zooming around the DZ with my camera (on the ground), driving the para van etc kinda is enough to do. If I pack all my jumps I usually forget/don't have or take the time to eat and stuff. So.... call me lazy... I do make a lot of pictures tho, and sometimes I trade those for packjobs :) That's like, work for work, so that doesn't make me feel so guilty..... By the way, everytime somebody, be it a staff packer or a student or a freelancer or sometimes another jumper, packs a student rig at our DZ he/she signs it off, so in the case of something wrong with the packjob you know who to blame... ciel bleu, Saskia

If you did rupture your eardrum, you´d know. I ruptured mine on my third jump from 12.5k, and didn´t notice it while in freefall (adrenaline). When my skymaster opened i DID notice Even the slow turns I made w/the skymaster to get down fast were dizzying so I flew as straight as I could. Having tears in my eyes all the way down It felt really cold in my ear, tickled a lot and when moving my jaw I heard this sloshing sound. You bet I was sure what happened.... Pain was gone by the time I was back in the hangar. I jumped again the next day, 3 times, for fear the doctor wouldn´t let me for a while (yeah I know, real sound reasoning). It happened on a friday, I was at my doctor´s on monday and it had healed already. No problem according to the doctor, just don´t get your ear wet in the shower etc, no swimming. Since it happened I have had way less trouble w/pressure in that ear. So it sorta helped.... I did end up w/a sinus infection that week, I just hadn´t felt it that weekend yet. Eh what was it I wanted to say.. Right, I don´t think you ruptured your eardrum..... Go see a doctor if it hasn´t cleared.... ciel bleu, Saskia

55 jumps on Manta 288/Skymaster 280/Skymaster 230 8 jumps Merit 190 8 jumps Spectre 190 4 jumps Triathlon 175 117 jumps Spectre 150 (my first canopy) every now and then a CF canopy: 16 jumps Lightning 143/2 jumps Triathlon Hybrid 150 22 jumps Spectre 135 (my second canopy) 4 jumps Safire 135 (current canopy) and still jumping the CF canopies once in a while. ciel bleu, Saskia

Mindcake, I did this a couple of times: exit at 12.5k, practice sit-exit & hold for a few secs, then back to belly, wait a few secs, then pull and fly around for a looong time :) I didn´t really notice any difference in opening w/pulling at 3.5k but then I jumped a soft-opening Spectre at the time. Of course I DID notify everybody that I was opening that high. ciel bleu, Saskia

Right, forgot that. Crew guys do that too :) Quick brakes, quick release, quick pull on fronts. And down you go :) ciel bleu, Saskia

I'm about 150 out the door. On my Spectre 150 I thought at first I couldn't pull the front risers down for long because the canopy would start bucking and I would have to let go at the second or third buck. Then I followed some crew guys and I kinda HAD to use fronts a lot to stay anywhere near them, since they jump 120's & 99's and are way heavier than me. I pulled WAY harder and it instantly became much easier to keep the fronts down, no more bucking. Now I have a Spectre 135 and found the downsizing helped as well. I also have largish diving loops so I can put my whole hand in there, the smaller ones (for a couple of fingers), I can't hold for more than say a 90 degree turn. Also I jumped a Lightning 143 but couldn't reach the diving blocks, forget that, just pulling on risers is WORK :) ciel bleu, Saskia

2 things some people at my DZ told me could be the problem: My warning altitudes of 3800 and 3000 ft might be too close, I should keep at least 1000 ft in between warnings, and, maybe this problem started when they allowed for wingsuit fallrates, ie the older model might do better. Just some ideas. I do hear about this bug (?) from a lot of people, maybe we should collectively start bugging L&B about it :) ciel bleu, Saskia www.dragon2.nl

Hi, I have the same problem. Most of the time the 2nd warning sounds when i´m under canopy, and in no way is that a small/fast canopy (did it when downsizing from student gear), and also I wasn´t spiraling etc. I have the first warning at 3800 ft, my 'hey you should think about pulling', my 2nd at 3000 'didn´t you pull yet?' . Most of the time I am already under a good canopy by 3000 since I´ve been trying out new chutes. And most of the time the thing goes BEEPBEEPBEEP anyway. Also it beeps when still snivelling etc but that´s ok. My DZ shop send my pro-trackback to L&B, they send me another one within a week or so (great service!!!!!!). But, that one acts the same. So, another email. L&B confirmed this is normal, they said to set the first warning for break-off, the second for pulling. This is how the pro-track is supposed to be used. Still, I think a descent-rate thing should have been build-in, however you use the thing. This loud beep gets fairly annoying. ciel bleu, Saskia www.dragon2.nl

I found the size difference wasn't really the problem when I first jumped a non-student canopy. I used to jump manta's then skymaster 280 and 230, the 230 didn't feel any faster to me tho. Then I rented a merit 190, whew. Eh, more like, yikes!!! Took me 6 jumps to be able to land the thing properly. In the middle of the student field. The thing I had trouble with was the lines, ie they're much shorter and a merit is WAY more responsive anyway. Since I'm kinda lightweight that was the first time any canopy actually responded to me :) I could climb up the risers of the manta's/skymasters, and could lean or hang in any direction in my harness without the canopy turning an inch. The merit, by comparison, was twitchy. I think I would have liked the spectre 190 I jumped after that much better for a first regular canopy. After the spectre I jumped a Tri 175 for a couple jumps, and now I am the proud owner of a brand-new spectre 150 loaded at 1:1, and I have a lot of work (fun) to do on learning to fly and land the thing. ciel bleu, Saskia www.dragon2.nl