DougH

Don't waste your effort Ian. At 79 jumps he has long since figured it out. Judging from his responses he is long past the learning stage, and is moving on to mastery. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

Unless you fly a big ass tuna boat or a student canopy.......Then your in the fucking way! I don't mind those at all, at least I can look down and KNOW that they are going to sashay and s turn all over the place on final. I like knowing what to expect. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

Woman with the bike in her avatar that I know nothing about. Sorry Guppie. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

No one is going to coddle him in this thread because in my opinion his original additude and tone sucked. There is a difference between a gap in knowledge, and a shitty additude. If you can't deal with some tough love, and still listen to the message, then you weren't going to listen in the first place. I certainly remember the few times I made some mistakes and got my ass chewed out, and I remember the leason as well if not better than the ass chewing itself. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

Aerodyne did that at one point. I kept the old style since I never had issues, yet. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

Welcome to e-life. All you need is too much time at your job to surf the web and you to can be the shizzniz on the interweb. It isn't just this forum. When I moderated a offroading website we seemed to pick up webwheelers with too much time on their hand and no actual connection to the hobby aside from tearing up some farmers field in their mothers ford windstar when they were 16 years old. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

Maybe we should get some rather gore filled ones made up in the spirit of the blue sky black death shirts, that have a lesson attatched to them. Might get some people to get their heads out of their asses. I can think of a few subjects that could deserve tshirts. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

I am really happy with my XSi so far. The shots it has been taking have been real nice. I can't wait to see what it does with a better lense.

So, that is about 100% of the time...... If I am in the designated playground, I'm gunna spiral until my eyes pop out of my head. Come time to enter the pattern, thats when I'll straighten out and fly predictably. It's everyones own responsibility to watch for other canopies. No it isn't 100% of the time!!! If you want to fly your canopy like a half retarded monkey go do a hop and pop or a high pull. Don't be an asshole under canopy simply because you think your entitled to do so. Pointless spiraling reduces the seperation in the stack. It puts people with higher wingloadings in the unfortunate situation of getting stuck behind you. It is really not different than speeding past some one on the highway, cutting them off, and then laying on the brakes. That is just as bad of an additude as the people that think they have the right to rip a huge turn right through the middle off the landing area while the rest of their whole load is trying to land safely. The safety of other jumpers is more important that your fun. If you can't grasp this concept then maybe you should get some nice shiny new golf clubs, or at least stay the hell away from the dropzones I go to. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

Such a wuss. We have plenty of room and plenty of outs compared to some other down hill barb wire fenced LZ's that come to mind. Personally I really don't like "first one down sets the pattern". I want to know which way to expect the rest of the load to be setting up to land. If the wind is light and variable enough then there is no reason to be wind sock chasing, just pick the direction in the field and stick to it period. I know that this practices causes new jumpers to spend a long long time trying to look down in order to spot the first person down. It isn't easy for the less experinced, and there are better things they can be doing during their canopy ride then spending the entire time squinting down at the ground. If the wind is doing frequent 180* shifts on a strong wind day I don't want to be jumping. All the other knuckle heads can then try their luck and let the first guy down chase the gusts. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

Could either of you please explain what a cross connector is, and its function on a chest mounted reserve? I allways like learning "new" stuff about gear.

I have heard of students dying from landing in a spiral, but I cannot remember anyone dying from a low turn on a student canopy. On the other hand a first jump student died earlier this month from hitting an obstacle (power lines). I am not saying it cannot happen, just looking at what is the larger hazard. I would have to agree with you there. Hopefuly by the time they get there A licenses they realize that they can make small adjustments the whole time under canopy and can avoid such a situation in the first place.

Or figure out how long it ACTUALLY takes to open. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

I agree that lighter loadings give a better margin for saftey, but maybe you should tell the swoopers and highly loaded pilots on the load that if they plan on pulling a big turn then they should stick to a hop and pop. That seems like the real priority here, keeping collisions from happening with people pulling big turns into other canopies. These people haven't been dying from collisions right after opening, they are getting mowed down on final. I am pretty confident that I won't kill any one when I swoop, because I will not pull a big turn with other people sharing the pattern. Easy solution, best solution. It doesn't mean I don't get to swoop, it just means that I am resonsible about when I chose to do so, and after a turbine pass with 20 other canopies in the air is not that time. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

If the student lands in a hard bank while trying to accomplish Priority #2 then it doesn't matter that they avoided the obstacle. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

So when do we teach it and how do we make it stick. I fully agree it isn't FJC material but at what point in the progression does it become relevant and when is a student receptive to it? I think this is really important. Maybe my opinion is misguided but I think jumpers who are taught how to behave in the pattern early are also going to be safer when they grow in experince and move on to smaller canopies and or swooping. The judgement that kept me from doing bone head moves like S turns on final at 50 jumps, is the same judgement call that I use to stick to 90's in a congested pattern. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

This is easily done. I watch people land when I am manifesting, and when I am on the ground between loads. If I see any one busting the pattern I make sure they get spoken to or I speak to them. Make sure that every infraction is addressed and make sure the multiple offenders have punishments. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

This whole things screams weird scam... I deal with a lot of whacky banks, but none of them would send some one out in their night wear!!! "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

I waited about 250 video jumps. I have been getting solid stills since adding my XSi to my setup so I think the wait to add video to my skydive, and then the wait to complicate matters further was a smart choice.

I was searching again for pc's and I found this article: http://reviews.cnet.com/4321-3118_7-6623901.html?tag=prmo1 Quad core for under 600 bucks. I was originally looking at a 4500 dollar mac pro setup but I realized since I am only doing SD for the foreseeable future that I can't justify that level of expense. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

If I wasn't met with resistance to my open comment that I found this to be a serious safety problem then I wouldn't have posted this thread. I haven't had a chance yet to bring it up to any one else other than the jumper I had words with. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

This will get you killed, and possibly others. In no part of skydiving should your plan be "hope for the best". Landing into the wind is not a priority. AMEN. This point needs to be drilled into jumpers heads. I saw a good deal of windsock chasing at the Batavia boogie, at times it was downright scary. I am not picking on Frontier, because I have seen nasty landing patterns at almost every boogie that I have ever been at, it just happens to be the last boogie I went to. Maybe we need to have canopy priorities for students, not unlike pull priorities... start some injecting some sense into the skydiving community from the bottom up. Landing into the wind would be way way way down the list compared to land safely in the same direction of other traffic. If you are a licensed jumper and you don't have the sense or ability to land with traffic every single load, even when that requires you to land cross wind or down wind then you have a serious problem. If that isn't the case then either: a. you have made poor gear choice with a canopy that is too small for your ability. b. you have a significant skill difficency and you need to stay away from situations where there are multiple canopies in the air until you can improve your canopy skills. (no boogies, no small landing areas with big aircraft). "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

Billvon, that crash had a combination of both unrestrained passengers, and items correct? "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

Have there been any confirmed instances where an unrestrained helmet has contributed to fatal or major injuries during a emergency landing? Obviously not having a heavy camera setup strapped in is dangerous. It makes me every uncomfortable personally to be in an aircraft with people holding camerea helmets on take off. I don't need to send this to mythbusters to prove the danger. I would like to know if there are any accounts of past incidents that I can point people to. My opinion is that our safety is 100000x more important than some footage for the tandem dvd. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P

I honestly think that MANY coaches and instructors fail to mention, not even once, the concept of flying actively before entering the pattern in order to maximize separation. If you want to spin yourself dizzy go do a hop and pop. There is no place for that shit with a whole turbine load in there air. I think this bleeds over into high performance canopy flight. "The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P