irishrigger

unless this is a Base jump rig, oops!

is that promise5?

sending best wishes from across the atlantic, hope she has a speedy recovery

promise5

HMM have not seen that either before, i think they left out a Tab by accident, I would send the same email to UPT and ask for clarification.

as a personal preference i would chhose the teardrop viper, in my opinion it is a skightly better quality rig Rodger

It does look to me that there is a crack in the Pin from the second photo, and that is not good. my advise do NOT take a chance and bin it, a new handle i am guessing is less than about 100 bucks including the shipping. If i had that situation i contact the owner of the rig and advise him on it and recommend a new handle. and i would also tell him i would not sign the rig off with that handle installed. Rodger

That is one of the Worst Tandem Master Performance i have seen in a long time! and what the hell is he trying to achieve with hitting the student. that is totally unacceptable in my book. First of all, it seems he intentionally front looped a couple times, that is a NO NO in my Book. on the previous video you can already see he has a lazy drogue throw . as for the exit, i think you are asking for trouble with that exit, why not sit down and that way the student is in a way better position for exit. also it can be a lot harder to recover from a situation if you are not wearing the correct clothing, remember dress for success! ok he manages to get the drogue out eventually, but can be cleary seen on the video that the side connectors are not tight enough. if the guy was concentrating more on flying his own body,instead of hitting and fighting with the passenger this would never have happend. i have lots of videos with the passanger knees down, i make a couple attempts to see if i can hook there legs, if not, just fly your own body, i always remain in control that way. i certainly would not become fixated with it like this guy did. In my opinion he Tandem master is the PROBLEM and not the student. If it was up to me i would suspend his rating, have a serious talk with him, maybe do a few retrain jumps, and if that was not acceptable to him, i pull his rating completley! This guy is an accident and statistic waiting to happen if he carries on like this, plus i doubt that the passenger enjoyed his jump and i hope he was not given a copy of the video, that could be bad for buissness. If i was the DZO i would give the passenger another free Jump with video with a proper Tandem Master. My 2 Cents Rodger

and one more piece of advise, the easiest part of doing tandems is getting your rating! you will know what to expect during that time, after you are left loose on the members of the public, you never know what can happen

a few additional exercises you can do to get ready to do tandems: 1) have a good friend eat something really disgusting and then throw up in a plastic bag. take the bag along on a jump and after you open your parachute, pour the contents on your arms, jumpsuit and splash some on your face. It's gonna happen in real life! 2) do a 2 way RW dive with a friend and just as you open your parachute - have him hit you in the chin. 3) when you land - practice crashing in and doing front flips - from when your student puts their feet down on landing instead of in front of them. 4) practice smiling alot and repeating yourself over and over and over and over on what to do when you leave the airplane and what it means to arch. 5) occasionally spray AXE body cologne up your nose to get used to the student that takes a bath in it. 6) learn 10 different foreign languages. But seriously - tandems are fun as long as you pay attention to what's going on. enjoy! Glad you were not my examiner!

Yes i believe tunnell time will help with your skill level. it is a great learing tool. however flying tunnell is not the same as doing tandems.

you have asked some very good questions, and i will try to answer them. and just to be clear these are only my opinions! it is impossible to say when any person will ever be ready for it, but there is some guidelines that should help you decide well it is certainly a good start that you have good canopy skills as landing out on a tandem could be a lot more difficult then landing out on your own gear.not saying that you land out on every jump of course. I find that you have to make a decision higher on tandems, and always take the safest option! if it means you land 5 or 6 fields away instead of 1 or 2 so be it.remember tandem opens higher so you will have to calculate the wind drift if any, which of course will affect the spot. i always have a quick look out the door before jump to make sure i am in the correct place. dont just trust the pilot and the GPS. as for RW skills, i def think that being able to turn a few points and flying your lot, on a 4 way will give you some valued skill. same as flying and docking on bigger formations(8-100). you should be able to fly your slot and be able to dock correctly and without taking a formation out on a regular basis I also learned some good flying skills shooting Video for AFF especially the 1 on 1 levels, as the student can move all over the shop and have different fall rates, to shoot a good video you have to have skills to fly, that is a good indication in my opinion! but to me the most important part is to have a good head on your shoulders and use common sense at all times. I might get slated for this but i like dull boring tandems, i do not take chances with tandems, for me everytime is get out, get stable and then deploy the drogue. i do not believe in Freeflying the tandems or doing head down. once the canopy is open get the passenger safely back to earth. at the end of the day there is a good reason why we get a tandem candidate to do 10 Training jumps during the tandem course. the evaluator will test and look for certain things on every jump. your examiner will give you the best information if you are ready and should advise you on that. Learing to do tandems will be a complete new set of skill for you at the end of the day. remember that these are my opinions! i am sure that some people might agree with me and others will disagree or have other opinions. I wish you the very best of luck with it. Rodger

I have to disagree a bit with you, just because a person has only 500 jumps, does not mean it will end in Disaster. I have trained many people who just had over the 500 jump mark. that is the required jump number here in ireland. and all of the people i trained have turned out ok, with the exception of 2. a lot of this has to do with skill level, here in ireland we mostly were belly flyers, however that trend has changed as many people prefere to do FF and HD and wingsuiting. Do i think 500 jumps is enough for tandem, yes i do, providing they are mostly belly and relative work jumps. Me personally, i would not count a wingsuit jump towards getting a tandem rating! lets take a look at this guy who started the thread. he has 370 jumps and he admits 300 of these were HD or Wingsuit jumps.is this good preparation for tandem? i agree with you, it most certainly is not. over here in ireland you have to get recommended to start tandem training and have final approval from a CCI. so the potential candidate is known to us as we are a very small group over here. As a tandem I/E i always have the option to say no to train someone. I have said that a person, who even though he had the requirements to start, i would not train him. i mean this guy had problems landing his own canopy on the DZ most of the time. he could not build a 2 way with someone. I do believe that a rule change has to come into play to sort his out. My 2 cents Rodger

I personally i respect a person viewpoint and do something that he believes in. but in my opinion,if the guy had an issue in making the record attempt, he should have protested by staying on the ground, and refusing to jump! i would have respected THAT decision and recommended him for doing so! But by doing what he did, he increased the risk of something going wrong and possibly endangering others, no wonder the jumpers involved were extremley pissed with him. and he certainly managed to upset most of the skydiving community! at the end of the day,this is our sport that we all love,and participate in and we want it do be done as safely as possible and reducing the Risk Involved. So very poor personal decision by the jumper involved, and i feel he will pay for that for a very long time in certain circles. MY 2 cents Rodger

that is way worse then the pic i had. how the hell was that not spotted? how long was that closing loop?

I remember when i did my AFF certification in Z-Hills 11 years ago, i was heading to the boarding area with my student. there was also another evaluator on the same dive with 2 candidates. everyone on that load except the 2 guys, realised that the evaluators 3 ring was not right. the evaluator made it quiet obvious that his RSL was attached to the D-Ring, i mean everyone saw it except these 2 guys. being a fellow candidate i made eye contact with one of the other guys discreetly and pointed at my 3-ring then nodded torwards the evaluator. The other candidate gave me a wink and proceeded to do another gear check, he even touched the RSL, then his partner did the very same! the 2 of them did not cop it. of course once the evaluator went on the step to board, he called a time out and fixed it himself. sometimes one cannot see the forrest because of the tree's. so lets hope that in the future people are more vigilant about gear checks.

Dont know yet, i am awaiting for the owner to get me a new reserve. once i have that we will see what the outcome is. although i doubt with the correct reserve in there that it will not be a problem anymore.