hookit

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Everything posted by hookit

  1. What a great poem. Thanks for sharing. I had the pleasure of jumping with Chris several times during his visits to Spaceland. My sincerest condolences to Chris' family and his many friends. Blue Skies Forever... -Trey
  2. hookit

    BEER!!!

    The Wednesday night gathering for skydivers used to be Big Ass Beer night at the Outback Pub. It went pretty strong through last summer but faded through the winter with only the occasional gathering. Who authorized the change in location?
  3. I've had a couple of dreams about skydiving both of which involved a mal of some sort. In one of them I chopped my main but when I went to pull the reserve ripcord the cable just kept coming and coming and coming....it was like one of those scarves that magicians pull from their pocket which seems to never end. In both dreams I hit the ground with no parachute open yet walked away. I wonder why it is that it's such a recurring theme in all of our dreams to have a mal, hit the ground, and yet survive.
  4. hookit

    AFF Cutaway

    [Darth Vader Hiss]Impressive....Most Impressive![/Darth Vader Hiss]
  5. I hear you. I'm tired of being a newbie too. Maybe I'll start my own PW thread.
  6. hookit

    AFF Cutaway

    He's asking if the RSL (Reserve Static Line) deployed your reserve or if you beat the RSL to it by pulling your reserve ripcord before it had a chance. I think it's highly unlikely you were able to beat the RSL to the punch. Did you manage to hang on to your handles or did you toss them? Congrats on handling the situation well! Blues, Trey
  7. Good question...I've often wondered the same...usually only in the technical forums though. I'm at 425 jumps and about 30 posts I believe. I usually make it a point not to post unless I can actually contribute something to the thread which hasn't yet been covered or if I have a question. -Trey
  8. Wow...great feedback, everyone. Thanks especially to Dan and Chris. I really enjoy reading the feedback from the industry 'insiders'. Blue Skies, Soft Landings and Long Safe Swoops! -Trey
  9. I believe he's referring to the fact that Spacely's Sprockets made use of carbon nanotube technology.
  10. hookit

    weekend humor

    Here's a joke to kick off everyone's weekend! The Right Age For Cussing A 6-year-old and a 4-year-old are upstairs in their bedroom. "You know what" says the 6-year-old. "I think it's about time we start cussing." The 4-year-old nods his head in approval. The 6-year-old continues. "When we go downstairs for breakfast I'm gonna say "hell" and you say "ass" "OK!" The 4 year old agrees with enthusiasm. When their mother walks into the kitchen and asks the 6-year-old what he wants for breakfast, he replies, "Aw hell, Mom, I guess I'll have some Cheerios." WHACK! He flies out of his chair, tumbles across the kitchen floor, gets up, and runs upstairs crying his eyes out, with his mother in hot pursuit, slapping his rear every step. The mom locks him in his room & shouts "You can just stay there till I let you out!" She then comes back downstairs, looks at the 4-year-old, and asks with a stern voice, "And what do YOU want for breakfast young man?" "I don't know," he blubbers, "But you can bet your fat ass it won't be Cheerios."
  11. Oh shit. Here we go again! Quick, everyone run for cover before Quade sees this!
  12. I've heard the theory before that cross-braced canopies need to be loaded highly in order to fly well but I don't buy into that. Just because the extra efficiency of a cross-braced canopy allows it to be flown at a higher wing-loading than a non cross-braced doesn't necessarily mean that you only benefit from that efficiency if you fly the canopy at a high wing-loading. Take a look at the benefits of a cross-braced canopy: The cross-bracing allows for a more rigid wing with a smoother topskin. My understanding is that this allows the canopy to generate more lift at a given airspeed than the same canopy without the cross-bracing would have. That effect should be consistent regardless of the wing-loading. I believe the main drawback to having a 170 sq. ft. cross-braced canopy would be the increase in pack volume. Also I would guess that it would seem like a real boat as compared to a non cross-braced canopy of the same size because of it's extra efficiency allowing for more lift. It would probably fly more like a 190 or maybe even a 210? As far as cross-braced canopies being more ground hungry than non-cross braced I think they have that stigma mainly because they tend to be flown at higher wingloadings and I think any canopy flown at a high enough wing-loading is going to be ground hungry. I've had the opportunity on two occasions to fly a Samurai 105 for several jumps followed immediately by a Xaos 104 (wing loading about 1.8). Interestingly the Sam felt a little twitchier and more ground hungry to me whereas the Xaos felt a bit more solid and seemed to fly a little bigger (I'm guessing that was due to it being a more efficient wing?). I was also amazed at the low-end flare of the Xaos. As a side note, I bought the Xaos because I was getting better surfs on it and the openings were slower and more consistent than the Sam. That's my $.02. It's just my opinion and I definitely could be wrong. I'm curious to hear feedback from some of the industry folks as well. -Trey
  13. Damn that was funny! Unfortunately, Derek, you're not allowed to be funny in this forum. I believe that's only allowed in 'Skydiving Talk Back'!
  14. Yes, just like a normal toggle flare, a rear riser flare is less prone to stall with a higher airspeed than with a lower airspeed. Your steering lines attach only to the trailing edge of the canopy. Therefore when you flare using the toggles only the tail of the canopy comes down thus providing increased lift and drag. (For all the technical nazi's out there I realize it's more complicated than this and that it actually changes the AOA thereby increasing...etc, etc...I'm trying to keep it fairly simple. ) The rear risers are attached to both your C and D linesets therefore when you pull them down you're pulling the entire back half of the canopy down. Since you're affecting so much more of the canopy you don't have to pull the risers down nearly as far as you would the toggles in order to generate the same amount of lift....and, since you're not 'cupping' the tail of the canopy downward by pulling on the steering lines, there's less drag. If it still doesn't make sense the best way to learn what's going on is to watch the tail of someone's canopy as they're flaring (with toggles AND with risers if possible). One big difference between the two (toggle flare vs. rear riser flare) is the way the canopy stalls. I've found that when you stall a canopy using rear risers it's a more sudden and violent stall than it is when you stall one using toggles. It also seems to me that I have more 'feel' for when the canopy is going to stall when using toggles than I do when using rear risers however this could very well be due to the fact that I have tons more experience using the toggles and I'm simply more accustomed to receiving and interpreting feedback through the brake lines/toggles tham I am the risers. I believe one reason people tend to stall the canopy when trying to learn to flare using rear risers is because of the muscle memory they've acquired over hundreds or thousands of jumps using toggles. When you flare using toggles, depending on the length of your steering lines, you typically bring your hands down to about shoulder level and then contine down to arms' length which is about hip level. However, when flaring with rear risers, your hands stay much higher...about head level maybe down to shoulder level before transitioning from risers to toggles to finish the flare. One thing that puzzles me is that it seems (from some of the posts both here and in other threads) that some people are trying to learn to rear-riser flare for the first time during a swoop. When I decided to try and learn it I waited for a fairly windy day (about 15mph...so my forward ground speed wouldn't be terribly high if I screwed up and biffed in) and then I just flew the canopy straight in and flattened out the glide using rear risers. I didn't transition to toggles (wanted to keep it simple for the first try) and just had to slide out the last bit of forward movement on my feet. From there it's simply a matter of gradually increasing landing speeds while perfecting the rear-riser technique. Granted I was on a Vengeance 120 loaded at 1.5 and not a Velocity 80 loaded > 2.0. I would think that someone flying a highly loaded canopy would either want to borrow a larger canopy to practice a few rear-riser landings or would learn over water! And they definitely (hopefully!) would not try to learn by using the rear risers to get around the corner (as I believe Chuck put it) during a hook. Chuck, and any other super-swoopers out there who use rear-risers, I'm curious to know how you learned to flare using rear risers. Blues, Trey
  15. I have noticed the same trend to which you're referring however, of the 5 folks I saw biff in, only 2 were chics...and the person with the ugliest biff (on that load) was a guy... -Trey
  16. This past weekend at Spaceland we had a 40-way attempt. (They may have ended up with only 36....whatever.) It's truly an awesome sight to see and hear 40 canopies opening at nearly the same time and then to see those same 40 canopies all land in the same landing area! Talk about traffic! Anyway, on one of the loads the winds died completely and AT LEAST 5 of the 40 jumpers failed to stand up their landings (that's over 10%!). It appeared to me that the main biff-contributor was a failure to finish the flare completely (followed shortly thereafter by an inability to run out the landing). The jumper with the least amount of experience on the load had over 400 jumps and I would guess that the average number of jumps per jumper was somewhere over 1000. Now certainly the fact that they're landing with about 39 other canopies has to be distracting (to say the least) so it's understandable that not every landing was picture perfect. I'm not, by any means, trying to rip on these guys' canopy skills. Rather, it struck me that, regardless of how much experience we may have, we can always improve on even the most basic aspects of canopy flight. (I'm pretty sure some would argue that the flare is anything but 'basic' but you get my point.) I believe I had around 200 jumps when it dawned on me (probably with a thud as I failed to stand up a landing ) that I wasn't consistently finishing my flare completely. Now on each landing I try and focus on (among other things) squeezing each and every last bit of lift out of the canopy. Anyway, for what it's worth, that's my interesting observation from the weekend. Thanks for listening. Blue Skies and Soft Landings, Trey
  17. During Summerfest last summer at Skydive Chicago I noticed a female AFF instructor jumping what appeared to be just what you're describing. The bulk of the camera appeared to be belly-mounted while the lens was very small and was mounted on top of the helmet. It looked to be connected by a small cable (as opposed to using any sort of wireless system) however I didn't get a terribly close look. She may still be there or, if not, they should at least be able to provide some contact info if you're still interested. Good Luck, Trey
  18. That incident report indicates the canopy opening in a spinning mal was likely to have been caused by one brake being unstowed. Again, I'm not saying students should be on ellipticals. -Trey
  19. I believe the possibility of a canopy spinning up on opening due to poor body position isn't as great for someone who's not loading their canopy significantly. I began flying a Stiletto 150 loaded at 1.2 when I had about 100 jumps. I proceeded to put 135 jumps on it and had no small number of off heading openings but very few incidents of line twist (and no cutaways). I realize there's a significant difference between a jumper with 100 jumps and a student jumper regarding stability at pull time and I'm not saying it's a good idea to put students on ellipticals. Just that body position during opening is less critical under a canopy which is lightly loaded. Blues, Trey
  20. Please excuse my poor math skills..(I was a psych major!). Of course now I'm in IT so go figure! Is it: L = (CL*S(Rho/2)V)^2 or L = CL*S(Rho/2)(V^2) Thanks, Trey
  21. I agree with MarkM on this one. Since it only happens on opening and not during normal flight then it's quite unlikely that the canopy is out of trim. Also, if your legstraps were uneven you would notice the turn throughout the entire flight of the canopy (unless you compensated by weighting the left hip but that's something you would consciously recognize and do). I would say you probably have a habit of placing more weight on your right hip than your left during deployment. Shifting weight in the harness during opening is commonly used to control the direction of the canopy. If, during the snivel, you see the canopy begin to turn a bit one way you can shift your weight to the opposite hip a bit to bring the canopy back to center. Blues, Trey
  22. I put about 150 jumps on my Vengeance 120 which was loaded about 1.5. It does have a tendency for diving off heading openings but for me they were not the norm. It was a typical elliptical in that it tended to hunt for a heading a bit during the snivel though. I NEVER had a hard opening under it and only had line twists twice under it (not bad for 150 jumps on an elliptical!). One of the times I had line twists it flew nice and straight as I kicked out while the other time it started diving but it was nice and smooth and I had no problems kicking out of the twists again. The most interesting thing about the Vengeance IMO is the way in which it tends to 'fly big'. My 120 Vengeance seemed as easy (if not easier) to fly and more forgiving than a Samurai 135 which I had the opportunity to put about 10 jumps on. I'm not knocking the Samurai...it's a great canopy and I loved flying it. The vengeance doesn't seem (to me) to build speed as quickly as other canopies and I'm wondering if it's because the airfoil is thicker topskin to bottomskin than others and therefore generates more drag. I asked John LeBlanc about this last summer during Summerfest at SDC but things were so hectic and crazy that week that I'm unable to remember his exact response. That really bothers me! Hope this helps you out a bit. If you get a chance to fly a Vengeance I definitely recommend you try it out. Blues, Trey