jacketsdb23

FIXED!. There. We can play this game all day. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

Has the Perris pond been filled in? Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

agreed. So is this a definite plan or just being discussed? anyone know? Will swooping be banned similar to Perris? Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

I get why people compare low pulls and swooping, but I don't think they are even close when you compare the mechanisms involved. Swooping is not conservative, its not safe, and if you fuck up you can die. There is a proper progression, a proper way to do it, ways to minimize the calculated risks involved. Throwing a pilot chute into 120mph, low, leaves a lot to chance. I just don't see the correlation on that level. Swooping gets a bad rap...but unless DZ's start banning swooping completely ( and it sounds like some large DZ's are well on their way) the canopy related landing accidents will continue. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

Care to elaborate ? Because of its visible nature, there would appear to be a way to harness that spectator appeal for competitions. I get that it has limited marketability, because a six year old can't just go grab a rig and swoop a pond...but the visibility is there. Unfortunately, for a DZO running a business outside of swooping, there is very little if any return for them. Maybe I should say that swooping doesn't have potential for the sport of skydiving. Swooping has potential for swooping community. Maybe sometime in the not so distant future, swooping will have its own swoopjumper.com site and we'll get cast aside. Unfortunately, up until this year, people were not dieing during competitions...it was folks swooping during normal skydives. Only a complete ban of swooping ( a la Perris) will keep that from happening. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

It won't be long until swoop comps (at least on the West Coast) will have to be done on private property away from standard dropzones. Swooping has such potential for the sport. Need to find someone willing to embrace that. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

hmmm...guess that will take Elsinore out of the "where can we hold swoop comps in SoCal" discussion. Sad to hear. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

Then maybe we look at those who are conducting the course evaluations? Many "home grown" TI's / AFFI's at small seasonal DZ's would have problems when you start doubling the required jump numbers for instructors. While my experience with the smaller cessna seasonal dropzones was limited to my experience growing up as a kid, I'll tell you the passion and instruction quality would rival anything I've seen today. Under some of the language suggesting 1000 jumps....my father who was the rigger/TI/Static Line instructor would not have qualified with the 800 jumps he had/has. That was at a time when D-License holders could obtain the license at 200 jumps. I get it, things change...but I contend the jump numbers aren't the problem. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

Lets not lose sight of the fact that there are dropzones all over the country that are single cessna dropzones, open seasonally, that employ instructors (AFF and Tandem), that don't have 1000 jumps. When all you do is cessna jumps it can take a long time to reach 1000 jumps. The requirements have been working fine. No need to change them. Not everyone is fortunate enough to jump at multiple turbine DZ's. I'm becoming more and more concerned about the entitled "experienced" instructors who don't need to change or learn proper patterns, or listen to anyone because they "know". Look at the numbers...its not the 600 jump tandem instructor dieing or taking people out. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

I intend to hang up the velo if my wife and I are blessed enough to have kids. Mostly because I won't be current enough to jump it on a regular basis. i'll probably stop the turns ( > 90º ) when I go back to my XF2. That is until they are old enough to understand why we make the decisions and choices we do. Thats my plan...and its good enough for me. YMMV. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

The short answer is yes and no. running and sliding basically come down to the fact that your canopy is still moving forward with enough speed to warrant running or sliding. Its possible that you are moving fast enough that if you try to run it out you will fall on your face :) Without ever seeing you fly I would say that you should be able to come to a near complete stop prior to putting your feet down, even on light or no wind days with good technique. I'm not going to attempt to instruct you over the internet, but my advice would be to have someone film your landings and then have a qualified canopy coach debrief with you. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

I don't think you'll be in the majority with that statement, but I could be wrong. I went to the xf2 because of the openings. I did not like the Katana openings. But I guess thats why there are so many different parachutes. Different strokes for different folks. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

SIM says 150 sq ft is a high performance canopy. 230 jumps is not high performance canopy experience. Its more than just the fabric. Lines get shorter, performance goes up. Bad idea. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

I find it odd that you are comfortable with a reserve canopy that is smaller than your main. I assure you that when shit hits the fan and you need a reserve, the last thing you want is less fabric. I don't know about the 139 main. I fit a 119 crossfire into my MT nicely. Good luck and be safe. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

Mad - I have a G3 MT. Not sure what has changed, but I'd be more worried about the reserve you are putting in there. The MT will fit a 126 nicely. However, the Optimum 143 requires " very skilled rigger". Do you have an AAD? Do you want a reserve that is really tight in the event that you need the services of the AAD? I'm not telling you what to do, just some things to think about besides the main. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

Alot of the competitors in CA use the meets as training for Nationals. I believe Florida is the same way. All of the Florida and California meets were scheduled such that the season would be over prior to Nationals in June. I would say a majority of the folks in CA did attend Nationals last year. Our first place winner in the Pro and Amateur group have Nationals paid for this year, so the league is basically built to lead up to Nationals. I believe the other CA organizers in SoCal (-ISM) have run modified events, that didn't follow the IPC rules. I haven't been doing this long enough to know if I like or don't like the new rules. I know there have been some changes over the past decade, and this potentially is another one. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

Re: crashes --> We're getting closer to a primetime spot on ESPN!! As an organizer of the CA league I can tell you the new rules will have a lot of impact in several areas. From a logistics standpoint, there is very little course changes that need to occur. This will speed things up. However, timing the speed course gets tricky (no camera focal point) and we don't have the super cool timing system FLCPA has. Camera will be required on several 5ft gates to confirm the competitor stays below in the distance event. We can probably get by with 1 additional camera on the 50m gate. I think the new rules significantly reduce safety margins for the power events, speed and distance. My guess is you will see more crashes. This will also require all events on the pond. Last year CA ran the distance course off of the pond because of space concerns at the end of the pond. We can likely now run the event on the pond, but the pond is only about 60 ft wide. It will be easy to skip off the pond onto dry land. I know the feedback I have received out here in CA is mostly negative. They don't like the changes. I kinda liked the carve in the speed event - as it tested another aspect of canopy flight. Overall - I think we'll have to run a few meets to make a decision good or bad. I just hope we don't get anyone hurt in the process. Marcel Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

The point is a perfectly maintained AAD's have and can fail. If your first reaction is to sue someone when that happens...please stop jumping. This is not what happened in this case, but someone here suggested suing the instructor if an AAD failed. In my opinion, anyone with this line of thinking doesn't belong in the sport. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

So if an AAD failed, you would want to sue the instructor? What part of "this is a back up device only. It can, and has failed" do you not understand? Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

Our dz uses dual patterns to separate main landing area and swooping area as quade suggested. Works well for us. Main landing area is left hand pattern, swooping area right hand pattern. (Winds light/variable, from the north, or from southwest) Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

There has been a mass Exodus of instructors and fun jumpers from Hollister to Byron. Reports of instructors not getting paid, switch to handi-cam, and overall poor operations. Seems that things are not going well over there right now. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

Its insane what is happening. I'm not sure how the Broncos do this every week. A couple times could be a fluke, but this is officially insane. Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos are must see TV. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

I think Tebow/Broncos have put the league on notice with the Vikings win...Tebow can throw. His receivers had several drops and he still completed 10 of 15. For all the stats folks out there (not necessarily in this thread) 20% of his completions were touchdowns. I'm not sure that I'd want to play the broncos in the first round of the playoffs. Before this year, all you hear from the commentators is that a running game and a defense is needed to win championships. Now, i'm not saying denver is going to win the superbowl, but what is Denver really good at right now? 150+ yards a game on the ground and a ridiculous defense. Throw in some efficient and timely throws from Tebow (who doesn't turn the ball over) and they could do some damage in the playoffs. Oh wait, where is the Tebow Fan Club thread.... Edited to Add: 6-1 as a starter this year. not bad for a 2-time National Champ, Heisman trophy winner, and arguably the best college football player ever. I would not bet against the kid, ever. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

There are a lot of inexperienced canopy pilots that probably should be on a Manta 290. But instead, they are jumping crossfires, katanas, and velo's. And by all accounts, we let them. By "we" I mean the skydiving community. Its sad really. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.

There are two types of canopies with the most fatalities......those flown by inexperienced canopy pilots.....and those flown by the most experienced canopy pilots, who in some cases, think their skill outweighs the laws of physics. Sorry - but i've seen so much crap by our "leaders" in the past month that it makes my head spin. No wonder we have canopy problems in our sport...our leaders make terrible examples. Losers make excuses, Winners make it happen God is Good Beer is Great Swoopers are crazy.