SkymonkeyONE

You just can't go wrong with a Phantom, bro. I've got a ton of suits, but my Phantom 2 is sewn up to my wingsuit rig 90 percent of the time. A P3 is a solid, no-brainer purchase. Even if you do later upsize, you should NEVER sell a Phantom. Chuck

I load my Sabre2 97 at 1.86 and yes, it's gonna dive off to one side if I don't stay square in the harness at pull time. No biggie. Do be vigilant with your line trim if you are still jumping Spectra lines though. I relined mine with 500 HMA two years ago. Chuck

Likewise, particularly under my Velo 90 work canopies. Too slow to initiate a good rate of rotation without the fronts on the 270's that I do 90% of the time and the riser pressure becomes too much to maintain on turns greater than 270 degrees so I continue the rotation with harness. Chuck

I know for a fact that Scary Perry Trowbridge blew a suit up on a high speed exit at WFFC.

This is absolute truth. Just ask the two guys I personally know of who both lived through jumps where they neglected to step through their legstraps in "old school, lace-up" suits. One was a guy at Perris and one did it at WFFC. I really love the fact that "new design", zip-on suits are so easy to rig up, but none of those designs do as good a job of holding a rig in place. Chuck

Do a search in the canopy control forum. There are like then threads on it. Just off the top of my head, I'll list three sources: -Joe Bennett at Skydive Monroe makes most of mine. He's been making them for nine years and they are great. -Rob Wardell, the rigger at Raeford Parachute Center in NC makes a "Joe Bennet style" removable. He copied one of Joe's and made one slight improvement. -"Look Ma" rigging makes an almost identical one as well. He spends almost all winter at Skydive City in Z-hills, but I believe he sells them online as well. I'm too lazy to look. I've got removable sliders on all my rigs and have been jumping them since 2003. Chuck

Sew it to the yoke of your rig.

+1!!

I stand up the great majority of my tandem landings, but there are times when that's just not an option. I tell my students that I will not know until the last possible second whether I'm going to ask them to slide or if I'm going to tell them to stand up. Often it's sort of a combination: swoop/slide on my feet for a bit then walk it off. Either way, I have them pick their feet up and in front of them "like barefoot waterskiing" and tell them that it's important that my feet touch the ground before theirs. Chuck

+1. That behavior is totally out of line. Chuck

Most "busy" dropzones do a good job of putting together a nice leader on their tandem videos which shows all the other aspects/ disciplines of skydiving. They see the leader before their actual jump footage plays. Chuck

Congrats to Chris Mott from Skydive Orange, VA and James Yaru from Skydive Arizona on their successful completion of the Phoenix Fly Coach course. Solid work. Chuck

I'm going to chime in with Jarno and Lurch here: I'm utterly flabbergasted at the amount of former freeflyers who used to blatantly scoff at us wingsuiters eight/ten years ago who now, magically, think they are experienced enough to jump straight into a HUGE wingsuit and do XRW and stuff. Never mind a sound progression in mid-range, super-agile suits where they learn to fly comfortably around others, fly on their backs as much as they do on their bellys and do acro moves. Nope; it's five jumps in a phantom (or five jumps in a GTi a decade ago at the WFFC) and straight to an Apache! Unbelievable. I've been jumping wingsuits since the very first boogie Jari showed up at 13 years ago in Louisburg, NC and I STILL jump a mid-size suit for 99% of my jumps. Ultimately, if you are not comfortable on any axis in a mid-range suit you are an idiot for thinking you are going to be able to effectively fly a tarp. My .02 cents. Chuck

When did we start talking about upper connections? I loosely connect the LOWER connectors for takeoff (on straddle-bench aircraft). And, yes, I show my students how they operate.

How is unhooking oneself from your TM more difficult than undoing a seatbelt?

If toe-taps don't fix it, I'll bet you ANY amount of money what's causing it is your torso not being straight. Without seeing video of you, any further speculation is fruitless. Chuck AFFI (among other things)

I'm running a Phoenix Fly Coach course this Saturday/Sunday at Skydive Arizona for three locals. I've got room for one more person if anyone is interested. Start time is 0800 on Saturday. Course pricing and prerequisites are on the PF website here: http://www.phoenix-fly.com/phoenix_fly/pfc_program Interested parties should shoot me an e-mail to chuckATskymonkeyoneDOTcom immediately Chuck Blue PFC/E (among other things)

That's my question as well. 1300 miles on a bagger is a "no-big-deal" two day ride for me on my Road Glide. I would not make that trip on my rigid-frame chopper though. I can pack ALL of my shit on my bagger no problem and have ridden it cross country four times to skydiving events. I don't stop and bullshit on road trips. I eat/shit/piss, and buy water/snacks for the next leg at gas stops. Chuck

I write off the cost of all new equpment purchases and depreciate all of in anually. Equipment maintenance costs like relines and CYPRES services really add up. Never mind the cost of replacing a lost or worn-out tandem main. Chuck

I'm sure the same responses in the old thread still apply, but I'll bite......again. The ability to use your own equpment at a dropzone varies WILDLY in the USA. I'll list some of my personal experiences: -I've been asked to come and help out at a small DZ and was paid $35 for the tandem, $40 for the use of my gear, and $10 if I packed it myself. I made $800 in two days. -I've worked as an organizer at a DZ which allowed me to do part-time tandem work for them and got paid the standard rate for the jump, plus $30 for "gear use" on my rig sometimes. -I was allowed at that same dropzone to bring in and train whomever I wanted and charge whatever I wanted, so long as I payed full-price for the jump tickets and had those students sign the DZ waiver. I was not allowed to use my discounted load organizer tickets. This situation was ideal for someone wanting to make a little money on the side. That dropzone also rents tandem rigs to independant instructors wanting to do their own thing. PM me and I'll give you the name of this very-large FL dropzone. -I worked at a dropzone which allowed "outside" tandems, but charged a $50 "facility usage" fee if you were operating as a business. Conversely, this dropzone goes out of it's way to hook it's part-time staff up with cheap gear rental for "buddy hook-up" tandems for friends and relatives. -I've worked at a couple of dropzones that forbade outside instructors from showing up with their own private tandems and their own gear. They wanted to make sure they made all the money on their property. -I've worked boogies where there was a sort of loose organization of individual instructors who would show up and share the wealth (like the World Freefall Convention) which worked great. -I've worked "independant" boogies (like the Dublin Boogie) where one dropzone school's staff would show up with their gear and "outsiders" had to clear it with them if they wanted to work. When I owned my tandem rig I had two of everything that would wear out or get lost (minus the main) on hand at all times. I had two drogues, two reserve freebags/ pilot chutes. Extra drogue releases, extra main deployment bag, etc. Ultimately, I didn't use my own rig enough to quantify holding on to the thing. I only ever really used it at boogies and a little bit when I was working at Skydive City. Hope that helps, Chuck

I have never been in a "ball the airplane up" wreck, but I've been forced to emergency land (both on and off field) when we were too low to jump, but never with a tandem. I've done one emergency exit with a tandem and managed to get totally hooked up prior to getting out at five grand. I doubt very seriously that it's going change the odds of being critically injured one way or another whether or not you have individual seatbelts or are strapped to your instructor by the lowers in the event of a SERIOUS airplane crash. Maybe someone has the time to put together the stats from the various crashes we've endured in the time that tandems have been jumping. Chuck

I can't for the life of me figure out why ANYONE would consider using handcam on an AFF jump (on either side). I jump a contour roam side-mounted on all of my AFF jumps and it's 170 degree field of view gives me fantastic footage without me having to work for it at all, even when I'm doing CAT A/B "no-release" dives. Chuck

Any update on this situation? Any leads? Chuck

This varies WILDLY from dropzone to dropzone. On dropzones which have bars/ restaurants, it's never really "off" during business hours, except for tandem students yet to jump and jumpers still wishing to skydive. Some will even sell you beer at manifest while jumping is going on, but before their DZ bar opens (like Zihills).

Yep. The photos look like a Phantom with an extended wing root. Not bad. Chuck