ljwobker

Anyone know if the larger optimums (160 and up) are available for general purchase yet?

A buddy of mine had a demo and let me put a couple of jumps on it last weekend. This one was a 170, my exit weight is about 240 (1.4 wing loading or so) My "typical" landing these days is a long but relatively shallow carving front riser of about 180degrees. I have roughly 1600 jumps, with approximately 500 each on the Sabre2 170, Sabre2 150, and Katana 150. I've also put a couple dozen jumps on an original Sabre 170, maybe 50 on spectres from 135-170, and about 20 on a Velocity 120. Now, onto the storm. 1) openings: are very very soft, similar to spectres of similar wing loading. I would recommend NOT rolling the nose, the couple of pack jobs where I did that resulted in uncomfortably long snivels. I would have zero hesitation jumping a camera or wingsuit with one of these. 2) full flight: it flies a lot like a spectre. riser pressure is relatively high -- probably a little higher than my sabre2 and MUCH higher than the katana. Our spots were good so I didn't have to do much scraping to get back, but it seems like it would cover ground pretty well, especially with a little rear riser input. Forward speed was also spectre-like -- getting back from a downwind spot might not be as easy as on something else. It's not as responsive as the sabre2 at the same wing loading, but I don't think it's supposed to be. ;-) 3) landings: YIKES -- i was expecting the standard 7-cell flare... wrong! On a straight-in, zero turn approach the flare actually picked me up about three feet off the ground. A spectre (even a brand new one) would never do that. I found the flare power to be almost what I got out of my same-sized sabre2 and far better than a spectre or triathlon. I don't think that they're at all kidding when they say it lands like a 9-cell. My summary is that this is probably a fantastic canopy for almost any skydiver -- it's NOT a swoop machine, but just about anything else is going to be really really useful. it's probably a great low-timer canopy at low wing loadings, and a very stable platform for cameras or wingsuits at higher loadings.

If anyone has a picture of a bev suit that has any of the following colors on it, would you be willing to either post or PM me? polycotton : looking for "silver" or "dark gray" spandex : looking for "silver"

Tony -- you currently have MY I-34 sitting in your shop awaiting a harness resize (the all-black one)... why don't you just throw that 160 in there "just to see how it fits" and then send it to me! --lj

I currently own a rig that has a "regular" PD143R in it. The container is an Infinity I-34. Anyone have suggestions/info on whether the corresponding "new" PD optimum would be the 160, or the 176? I'd prefer to put a 176 in there, but also don't want my rigger to hate me forever. ;)

I have personally seen one of these "brick" mains. A guy brought his rig into our DZ that had been sitting in the closet for 4 months, and the main fell out of the container and we spent 15 minutes literally peeling it apart from itself, then hanging it up and then re-rigging it. This is in no way to say that it would NOT have opened just fine with 120mph of airflow applied in the correct places, but having seen that myself, _I_ wouldn't want to jump something that had been packed stiff for that long.

On a somewhat related note, does anyone know what method Aerodyne uses? Specifically, what would be the relative difference (or lack of difference?) between a Smart-150 and a PD-143R ? --lj

Oh no. Not you. Anyone but you.

I gots two things to add here: 1) rental cars can often be VERY cheap, even for a couple weeks at a time. Check on websites like orbitz.com or hotwire.com. I think I'm paying like $220 for my two-week car rental... which is barely more than the cost of shuttles to and from (and I'll have a car!) 2) I'm landing in SAN DIEGO at about 2pm on Wednesday the 10th. If anyone would like a ride up to Perris with me around that time, send me a PM and let me know... or you can email me at @ pobox dott com blue ones!

With great sadness, I report that I was told today by multiple reliable sources that Monday (labor day, 2008) will be the last day of jump operations at CSS. I hope like all hell that in a couple of days I'll be able to report that this is all some kind of September Fools' Day gag, but that's not the vibe I'm getting... anyway... it's news.

/grins/ -- "rigger" is most definitely NOT in my skill set, the question was in the context of "is this something my local rigger can do without my dropping $200 on a new line set?" The lines on the canopy are in pretty good shape already, so I was trying to figure out if the old line set could be sufficiently modified or if a new one was required. Thanks

anyone know how difficult it would be to convert an older triathlon to the new "mod 4.0" trim settings? I know that the new settings involve moving a connection point, and that some of the lines are different lengths than the old ones, but what I don't know is if I've got an original lineset that is in good condition, can I simply move the attachments that need to be moved and re-cut the one steering line that's a different length and attach it... or is the whole thing more complicated than that and I should just shut up and get a new lineset entirely? ;-)

Possibly a dumb question, but I'm not near my rig so I can't easily look at it myself, so I'll ask... How hard is it to convert a rapide link d-bag attachment to a larkshead? I'm probably going to end up with a "1-rig, 2-canopies" setup -- to easily go back and forth from RW+swooping to wingsuit or camera flying.... and it seems like a larkshead setup would be easier to swap the D-bag back and forth. Given this, is there any reason to prefer one setup over the other? thanks...

awesome idea, but I'm actually not going to make it up there after all... just changed jobs at work so taking the vacation then "just wouldn't be prudent" ;-)

very helpful ;-P I'll make sure I get that order right. It's left handle, then right handle... right? ;-)

I'm considering heading up to chicago and trying to pick up with a 4-way intermediate team for nationals... anyone have opinions on how likely this is to happen? I'm not looking to win anything, just to compete, make some friends, drink some beer, and have fun. thoughts?

RESULTS??? ;-)

"identical" means comparing a sabre2-150 to a katana-150... a 107 to a 107, etc...

Oh you know I'm in... and I'd even help organize, but I'm the first one to put up my hand and say: "I ain't got the ooor-gan-eyze-ing skeelz to throw an 80-way together. ;-)" Anything this big is going to take a lot of dedicated people and a good long time to plan and execute... maybe start talking with Kirk and see if he's interested/willing to help? Also, CSS is the "likely" place because of the landing area, but I doubt you're going to get much support from the DZ as far as airplanes go.

anyone have first-hand experience with how these two compare as far as pack volume goes? (I'm obviously talking about identical square-footage canopies...) I'd expect the katana to be a little smaller based on the planform, but am I missing anything in how it's constructed, etc?

How many jumpers will they fly the PAC with? We're planning on bringing down our 4-way team for a day or two, but is an 8-way plus camera and a 4-way plus camera too many people for the PAC? (would be 14... unless the paraclete guys jump 2 cameras?)

Does raeford have wireless access? If so, I may just move down there for the week. ;-)

Raeford Skydiving will be hosting a 4-way scrambles meet on Saturday, Aug 19th. Registration is at 8am SHARP, you sign up with a preferred slot in mind... Once we have a full list of the jumpers we'll randomly assign teams for each round. We'll be jumping a modified version of the AA (intermediate) dive pool. Rounds are scored normally, at the end of each round all competitors get that many point. At the end of the meet the {point, tail, inside center, outside center} with the most points will be meet champions, and so on. Registration is $20 per jumper, jumps are $100/round for each team. Feel free to just show up and we'll get you on a team, or you can email me at [email protected] for more info.

Evidently Rob doesn't read the "InterNet" so much, eh? Seriously, count me in for helping out.

OuterFocker: wait till I show you the stills from some of your exits at Chester last week! At least we now know which team (cough, cough) taught you how to funnel a star... ;-) Seriously, don't get yourselves too focked up on Cocktail night... we'll miss you while we're tunneling this weekend... --LJ