angryelf

It's easy: When said pet is unhealable due to trauma, the negativity of their quality of life grossly overshadows your personal emotional attachment or they start to eat little kids. "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

I thought I looked really cool in Gatorz and a Closing Pin necklace for my first 150 jumps. Then I realized that nobody but skydivers thought it was cool. Then again-I know people with thousands of jumps that still rock one... "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

I got the window with mine for a long time with no problem. Then my cards got used at the dz (I suspect a virus), and the camera would not show up in iMovie (but showed up as an external storage device on the computer). After I reformatted the cards, they worked for a while, now only the internal memory on the camera works, and that is very hit or miss. Will get a new camera and see how it does. Thanks! -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

I have one. It's great for going to the DZ on the weekend. Holds two rigs, 2 helmets, 2-3 jump suits. I can usually one rig unpacked and one rig packed back in it if I'm being lazy. Protects the rigs very well, made very well. Only has one down side: The bag itself is very heavy. Which is bad if you are going to travel with it. "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

So stick with the CX series cameras, buy premier and it will work with Mac. Thanks! "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

My Sony CX100 is just about done... Guess that 4 years of abuse is a lot to expect from modern electronics. Anyway: I want to replace it. I use a GoPro for most of my personal skydiving videos b/c it records to MP4 format that is easy for me to drag and drop into iMovie (I'm not a super wicked smart computer guy by any stretch). Every DZ I've been to lately is set up for Sony CX cameras and run Vegas or simliar to edit. My CX USED TO allow me to plug the camera into my Mac and I could drag and drop into iMovie. Now it's a crap shoot as to if it will work or not. I've never been able to plug the cards into my computer as Sony's PMB/avchd/codex? crap doesn't play well with Mac. As a byproduct I only use the CX for paid jumps, don't ever use it for my own stuff and am getting frustrated with having a higher quality camera that cost way more, with a zoom ability that I never use b/c I am afraid I will lose really cool footage. Is there a current flash card recording, zoomable, decent quality HD consumer/camcorder on the market that will plug and play with Mac that I can use to shoot paying videos with? It needs to have decent audio, etc for Tandems and AFF customers, be compatible w hypoxic camera light, would like to pay less than $500 for it. I want an easy to use camera that I can skydive with, etc and run it on both PC (for at the DZ) and Mac (for at home). I'm about 3 sec away from buying a Hero2 and taking the easy way out for video. Thanks! -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

If you are buying the pilot new and really, really want to make it work-the ZPX version may be an answer. I have a Pilot 140 ZPX in a Mirage G3 MT (Super SMALL container) with a PDR 126/Vigil and it packs nicely. A Spectre 120 was tight in the same container, a Velo 103 was a good fit. The Pilot I have is brand new ZPX with HMA lines. It might be a different story with fat-er lines. Lastly-Tonto is right-size of reserve is an issue. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

I've jumped a few and now jump the following configuration on nearly every jump: 3 Neptunes-one on my wrist, one on my legstrap and one in my helmet. The Neptunes are easy to use, light weight and somewhat waterproof (not completely, one of mine has blank lines through the display after spending an hour or so in saltwater). I like having one on my wrist-it's instinctive to look at, I like one on my legstrap for under canopy when setting up my pattern, the one in my helmet serves as an audible. The backlight function is nice for night jumps. I like Neptune's but will be the first to admit they have their flaws. Mine are currently eating batteries like trailer park kids with candy on halloween-so there is that. I've had a couple of jumps in the past few cold weeks of jumping where only my audible was working very well (the other two died with week old batteries in them). Alti 2: Reliable (for Freefall), fairly bombproof. Big cons to me is it's weight, it's bulkiness, is uncomfortable to wear all day while changing from jumpsuit to jumpsuit, etc. Visio 2: L& B makes great stuff, their warranty is awesome. But: I still don't know how to properly turn on/off any of their products (I just push buttons in random patterns till it beeps at me and flashes), It's not waterproof and the display is super hard for me to read for whatever reason. Very complicated with crazy owners manual and super geeked out info that I really don't care to read about. Lastly-the wrist band mount rolls on my wrist which I find annoying. Altitrack: It's huge! The military one is heavy. Did I mention it's ginormous? As I said above about L&B-complicated. Maybe I'm a dumbass, but when you get a 35 pg book with it-it has way too many menus, features and operating functions for me. Solo-used this for an audible for 4 years. Great audible! Small, light, etc. see above about how I turned it on for those 4 years... For students: Stick with the big analog. NO audible. I was almost killed by a student who was jumping one (he blindly pulled when he heard it, I was following his track above and behind him videoing as a Coach-I know it was a bad place to be, but having a student dump in my face b/c he heard a beep has my mind pretty well made up about the subject). For those coming off student status: you can jump a digi, if you're worried about being able to read the face; just jump it on your wrist, you can still use the hand mount analog or vice versa. If you are going to start freeflying, etc-get an audible and put some test jumps on it with 2 way jumps or solos. They can be a huge distraction if they don't do what you want them to. Just my opinions, though. Hope you find one that works for you. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

The story of which you speak is about Duane Hackney. He was a Pararescueman on a Jolly Rescue mission during Vietnam. According to him (he was the only survivor) he had given his parachute to his patient as they had taken quite a bit of fire during the flight. he was in the process of donning another rig when he was blown out of the aircraft. The rig was a military round bailout, not really a skydiving rig. Duane said he pulled just above the trees (triple canopy jungle) and opened as he went into them. I am pretty certain he had his legstraps on (at the very least one), but not much else. Duane was and I think still is the most decorated Enlisted man in the Air Force. His peers all say he was a war hero who knew how to get noticed by his superiors and the media. (One told me that Duane could "ham up for and work a camera crew better than anybody"). How it really happened is really only known to Chief Hackney-but his AF Cross citation for the mission is pretty good reading: The President of the United States of America, authorized by Title 10, Section 8742, United States Code, takes pleasure in presenting the Air Force Cross to Airman Second Class Duane D. Hackney, United States Air Force, for extraordinary heroism in military operations against an opposing armed force while serving with the 37th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron, 3d Air Rescue and Recovery Group, DaNang Air Base, Vietnam, as a Paramedic (Pararescueman) on an unarmed HH-3E Rescue Helicopter near Mu Gia Pass, North Vietnam, on 6 February 1967. On that date, Airman Hackney flew two sorties in a heavily defended hostile area. On the first sortie, despite the presence of armed forces known to be hostile, entrenched in the vicinity, Airman Hackney volunteered to be lowered into the jungle to search for the survivor. He searched until the controlling Search and Rescue agency ordered an evacuation of the rescue crew. On the second sortie, Airman Hackney located the downed pilot, who was hoisted into the helicopter. As the rescue crew departed the area, intense and accurate 37-mm. flak tore into the helicopter amidships, causing extensive damage and a raging fire aboard the craft. With complete disregard for his own safety, Airman Hackney fitted his parachute to the rescued man. In this moment of impending disaster, Airman Hackney chose to place his responsibility to the survivor above his own life. The courageous Pararescueman located another parachute for himself and had just slipped his arms through the harness when a second 37-mm. round struck the crippled aircraft, sending it out of control. The force of the explosion blew Airman Hackney through the open cargo door and, though stunned, he managed to deploy the unbuckled parachute and make a successful landing. He was later recovered by a companion helicopter. Through his extraordinary heroism, superb airmanship, and aggressiveness in the face of hostile forces, Airman Hackney reflected the highest credit upon himself and the United States Air Force. Eidted to Add: He wasn't a skydiver. He was a very experienced SL Parachutist. PJ's did start jumping freefall later on, but I doubt if he had done much freefall in 1967. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Thanks for the replies! Some good things were discussed, I appreciate the constructive responses. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

That's fair. Just thought it odd. CYA is how everything must be done in this day and age... ;) "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Asking for the card to check the dates is one thing. Copying the card, specifically to "have the serial numbers" on file seems very odd to me. I'm very familiar with having my data card inspected, as a traveling jumper I've been to DZ's in 26 states and expect no less as part of the gear check. I've never had any other DZ demand to make a copy of every card in every rig I plan to jump there. As the DZO in question is also a dealer/rigger I wonder if he is using my gear's serial numbers as a tax write off or something like that. As a rigger I find it annoying to have 5 different rigs that have different mains in them every weekend having the cards copied every time I stop by. The flustered manner in which I was told that the FSDO wanted the cards on file, the tongue tied manner in which it was described to me made me suspicious. I have not talked to the FSDO yet for the reason that was brought up in the thread a post or two back. Asking the feds if they are indeed requiring this could bring unwanted attention-agreed. Was just curious if this was common anywhere else. As to copying the card as a rigger-that makes sense in a CYA sort of move. But the DZO in question is not maintaining my gear. I am. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

We just got a bunch of them at work and I am not a fan. True-it's tough: one of the altimeters that we first tested was literally used as a hockey puck, on ice for 30 minutes and is currently being jumped. (It has some wear on it, but has remained airworthy). True-the feature that allows you to know the barometric pressure of the place you turn it on is nice (especially if you give it to your DZ party to send the data back to you if taking off higher or lower than the DZ for setting AAD offsets, etc.) True-it has a lot of advantages of a digital with ease of reading of an analog. It has a lot of nice features. But: It is heavier than the old clunky MA1 military altimeters we had before. It sucks to wear on your wrist. It is HUGE. It is a pain in the ass to turn on and off. It has a back light-great, the military will make us wear em with chemlites for night any way... All of the features that a $250 Neptune or stock Altitrack that you will likely use, except it costs a lot more, is heavier and way overpriced. The only good thing about it is that it will make a great weapon for fending off skydivers who scare you when they get close in free fall... ;) Spend your money on a couple of Neptune's or Visio's instead. They also fit in your helmet, double as an audible, take up very little real estate and weigh nothing. Just my opinion, and every body has those... -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

A DZ I frequent makes copies of the packing data cards and keeps them on file. This kind of irritates me, for several reasons. When I asked the DZO why he required this the response was "the FSDO mandated that I have all the information for rigs being jumped on file". I have not been able to reach the local FSDO concerning this, just wondering if anyone else has run into this before? -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

PD R 160 fired by AAD at 750 ft. Was flying a Katana 135 at the time. Reserve became "dominant" canopy almost as soon as it inflated. The main settled to the right hand side, brakes were released, it flew like a kite, had very little pressure on risers. As I had to land in 10mph winds, I wanted to land into the wind, I needed to do a 180 deg turn and was pretty sure I would down plane the main if I did such an agressive move. Was also concerned about the size difference of the canopies, so I cut away the main (learning point here-I was jumping a bungie/ball/rubber band on my reserve flap to stow the slider. This had to be manually cleared once the 3 rings released, something to think about-I now jump a removeable slider...) Once I had the 3 rings cleared, slider stow off the Reserve flap I held the fully inflated main by the risers in my right hand. It was suprisingly "light" and very easy to hold for approx 1-2 sec. The main left cleanly, unstowed my reserve brakes, did a braked 180 deg turn and landed safely into the wind. If the AAD had fired 1 sec later (I was reaching to bury a front riser when it happened)-things might have been different.... -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Think another mouse needs to be bagged, tagged (with a small beeper/chemlite/tracker/etc) and tossed to see if it really would survive. Seems like most of us seem to think that it would. Hell-we could even start taping the mouse in the bag to the bottom of wind drift indicators (streamers). Who knows, he might like it. I've seen dogs that were jumped, got to be pretty big fans of riding on planes/helos, jumping, etc. I read the editorial in Parachutist that sparked this whole thing. Very whiney, very silly. If we go down the path of that being too much-somebody better call the pumpkin police to make sure pumpkins aren't being tortured at DZ's across America every Halloween. Come on... -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

I have the Ballistic and the Bump. I've never seen the Jump helmet. The harness on the Jump is the same as the Bump/Ballistic except it's designed to go under the chin whereas the original cups the point of the chin (from what I can see on the internets). All that being said, I jump both helmets at work, have done tandems in them, etc. I don't think they make a good skydiving helmet and I certainly wouldn't ever wear one on a BASE jump. Reasons: The helmets I have are on the heavy side (The ballistic is obviously heavy and I'm not really comparing that one), the helmets don't provide as much protection (as Scott pointed out) as skydiving helmets do, the helmet is not as stable (it will rock around on your head). (I actually cut the head clamp harness out of my Ballistic and installed a standard chin strap in it, if you wear that thing for more than 30 min with NVG's on it will rip the hair out of the back of your head)... Lastly-it's a helmet based on a really popular military helmet that looks "cool" to some folks. I know a lot of military guys are carting their Ops Cores to the DZ and jumping them, I suppose thats why the company is marketing this new variant. All that being said-the $32 Protec continues to provide the same amount of protection for a lot less. The Gath gives even more, has a sweet visor and costs half what the Ops Core does. Mine has a Skysystems Quick Quad on it + two Gopro mounts. I can jump a still camera, front and rear facing video cameras on my $100 Gath with ease (Have done so on skydives, terminal and slider down BASE jumps). If your goal is to have a Go Pro camera helmet-other options exist that are cheaper. If you really want to do video-get a helmet for that. I put a full Flat Top Pro on if I'm serious about video/stills. It works better. For enders: I would make fun of my work buddies for making civilian skydives in Ops Core helmets at the DZ on the weekend. It looks silly and there are a lot of options that are more comfortable, lighter and readily available. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

When I started demoing Velos last summer I got a demo (Standard Velo 111) from PD that had the snaps. I used them on some jumps, didn't on others. Didn't notice any difference. I wound up buying a 103, have an RDS slider for it. Snaps on slider, not on canopy. I talked to PD, they told me the snaps were developed for the Comp Velo and that they had started putting them on all the Velos now. As a rigger I suspect they started this due to the extra weight/stiffness of the RDS (cutaway cables in the lead and trail edges) slider. In my experience (30 plus jumps with the Velo 103/RDS setup) it is (somewhat) harder to control the silder in the packjob because it doesn't like to lay flat inside the canopy. I have had one hard opening out of all of them, I know it was because of lacking slider control. The easy answer is taking care in packing, the snaps don't contribute a lot in my opinion. PD knows a hell of a lot more about Velo's than I do, though-so whatever... -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Call Brandon at Badseed. He is in Vegas (4 hr drive, 3 if you're fast :P ). He's done some of these before, the result worked well when tested in europe. "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Your canopy is F111. 200 jumps is quite a few for it, or leaning towards the upper end at least. my first main was a a PD190. I think I sold it for $250. Even if it has been pampered, odds are good that the porosity of the the canopy has gotten to the point where a solid flare for landing may be iffy. Maybe you have a (lighter), newer (100 jumps) jumper who needs gear badly at your DZ, or maybe your DZ needs a model for students? If you sell on here ask $200-300 and work a deal with someone who just wants to get in the sky. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Wouldn't fret about the Vigil2. My Vigil1 did try to kill me this summer(fired@750',had a reasonable response from Vigil, it's all in another thread and I'm not getting into that here), but I honestly believe they got it right in the Vigil2. had time to work the bugs out. just remember- EVERY AAD out there adds a highly complicated electronic link in the operation of your reserve. Know how it works, know that it can and will kill or injure when it's parameters are met and it decides to activate. Most of the time- they save lives. Sometimes they don't, sometimes they short, sometimes we operate them wrong and sometimes they just suck. Understand their limitations, weigh the decision and go from there. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Bag looks nice Dude! I second the tail gate option. Let us know how it goes :) "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

exactly as theonlyski has it. Because there is a "channel" between the bottom tuck tabs for the lines to flow through in an orderly fashion you have linestretch happening fast but in sequence with the SSDbag. Where you can induce "line dump" with the bag is by putting too little volume in the bag (too small of a canopy with tiny lines), stow the lines in wads in the line stow pocket or tie your lines in knots in the pocket. If there is not enough tension (which is partly governed by bag pack volume) on the tuck tabs I believe you could induce line dump because the stow pocket would open prematurely. If your stows are wads of crap the tabs could be forced open and cause line dump. Although, if you have your stows in such tough shape to cause that you prolly have bigger problems than line dump... I have not experienced these problems, just saying it is possible in theory. edit to add: UPT recommends you make your figure 8 line stows in the stow pocket long enough to fill the sides of the pocket. Doing this ensures that you will "lock" the tabs in place and prevent the flap from opening. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

I bought a UPT semi stowless bag last year for my V347 and have jumped the following canopies in it: Katana 135-85 jumps. Massively improved my heading performance and reduced endcell closure due to the shortened linestretch time. Had one case of a tension knot (500 lb HMA) which I will hit on later... Velocity 111-7 jumps. Excellent opening characteristics. Had a chop due to body position and trying to manipulate the canopy too much during the snivel... Not the D-bags fault. Velocity 103-12 jumps. Great Openings. Pilot 132- 3 Jumps. Great Openings. Thoughts: I'm a believer in it. I had horrible openings on my Katana with a traditional bag prior to going to the SS Dbag. Some of this was learning to fly the canopy through the deployment (after downsizing from a Jedei 150). A lot of it was the bag. The traditional bag adds a lot of what I call "bobble variable" into the equation during the linestretch of the canopy. On modern, higher wingloaded canopies that are designed to open slow-this can lead to a lot of goofy heading characteristics. On a semi unrelated note: The SS Dbag principle has been working for hundreds of thousands of Reserve and BASE deployments (A tail pocket on a BASE canopy does pretty much the same thing), it is a proven system. Pros: Less opportunity for the canopy to wander off heading. Faster to stow the lines, (once you learn how). Simpler, cleaner line stretch. If you are trying to put a small canopy into a too big main container (like I currently do)-the SS Dbag adds some bulk. Line Dump will not happen if you stow the lines cleanly and secure the tuck tabs. You will have rapid line stretch, but you're pretty much safe from line dump. Cons: You have to train anyone who may pack your rig how to do so... This may have been a contributing factor to the tension knots I had on my Katana as mentioned above. Small, Soft lines have to be "figure-8'ed" carefully while stowing the lines to avoid tension knots... If you are trying to stuff a larger canopy into a small main container it adds bulk. It's expensive. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

If you are going to be using this as your "reserve" it sounds like it will be packed for long-er periods of time. I would go with the safety stow purely to remove the possibility of dry rotted bands in your reserve. My buddy had Brandon at Bad Seed build him a 3 ring system on each legstrap of his BASE rig to attach his PG/SG to for intentional cutaway to BASE canopy jumps. Last I talked to him he had 2 successful SG to BASE canopy transitions. Brandon might have some ideas, pick his brain. Regardless of what you come up with, please post pics of your MARD/final product. It sounds cool, and anything is better that that "cross fingers, sling to the side and hope it works" reserve. Just curious-would that be legal for SG use as a reserve according to the USHPA? -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."