skydivinmartin

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Posts posted by skydivinmartin

  4. I'm showing up a day late, but looking forward to it!

    Martin

    1. Purple Mike
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    5. Andreea
    6. Dan M -- no handlebars
    7. Stu
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    Quote

  5. I did tandems at a smaller Cessna dz for 2 or 3 seasons, was getting bored with it and moved on to AFF. I did like tandem better when I did less of it and mixed it up with AFF, but that was not working due to workload (i.e. not enough TIs on the dz). I also got into wingsuiting at another dz. A back injury has now ended my tandem career, and I don't really miss it. As with the stock market, diversification is key...

  7. I jumped a Viper 135 for several years. I bought it used, the previous owner put a full pocket slider on it so it may have opened a bit stiff as delivered but it was usually fine for me, line twists were rare. A good first elliptical in my opinion, front riser pressure was reasonable and the canopy can swoop well with good response through deep brakes.

  10. We discussed this at my (small Cessna) DZ just last weekend. The X games dropped FF fairly quickly, what did that do for its popularity? I think skysurfing was perceived by many as "extreme skydiving".

    - On many dropzones, it will be harder to find someone to jump with on a regular basis compared to RW or FF; for "traditional" skysurf, you basically always need cameraman, or you jump alone.

    - It may be a more difficult discipline to progress with, particularly when you get on a bigger board, requiring a commitment of a lot of jumps (and probably relatively more jumps than recreational RW and FF, although I'm sure some will disagree here) to achieve a decent level of proficiency

    - Skysurfing could be more physically demanding with the high-rev spins and flips.

    - It is a discipline that may require alteration of deployment and emergency procedures (higher pull altitude, different pull technique, conservative choice of canopy, etc) - this probably turned off many good, experienced skydivers - I know more than a few that have never tried wingsuit for the same reason, however unreasonable

    - The loss of a skysurfer of Jerry Loftis' (practically invented the discpline?) caliber probably reinforced the impression that it is a more dangerous discipline.

    Rob H., Patrick, Rozov and others made it look awesome though!

    Martin

  11. I'm not an Airborne graduate, but I did my basic and infantry training at Benning in early 1988. I recall seeing the Airborne students doing their tower drops - looked cool, wasn't in my enlistment contract. So, to a certain extent, it was not getting the opportunity to jump in the military that (eventually) got me started in skydiving. When I was at Ft. Stewart, a sergeant in my company offered to sell me skydiving gear - "two parachutes and a helmet" for $400 - no idea what the gear was, but at that price they were probably round canopies. It took me another seven years before making my first jump. From what I hear about jumping rounds "back in the old days" (cone locks, PLFs, bad knees, etc), its probably a good thing that I started on ram airs.

    Martin

  12. Unless the DZO doesn't care about how his operation is represented through the tandem videos that are sold and just wants to make the extra $$$ off of crap video. Unfortunate that some jumpers will play along with this game.

    At the DZ I jump at, there is no jump # standard; some of our video guys have 2000+ jumps, one had 600 or so when he got into the tandem rotation, but he's good. I believe the standard is 10 sec. to catch the tandem and then 18 sec. of in-frame footage, jumping from a Cessna from 10,500'.

    Is this a fairly common standard? Hope so - hosing first-timers that don't know better with crummy video seems terribly unfair.

    Martin

  13. When I was at the convention last summer, a videographer I know that had planned on shooting a lot of tandems said that business was really slow. The town of Rantoul is quite small and may not generate as much tandem traffic as Quincy did, even if the convention gets as "big" as it was in 2000. I don't know what they pay.

    Martin

  14. Interesting article Chris, even for a non-pilot - thanks.

    Just curious, but why is the Skyvan (at least the Skydive Arizona van, the only one I have jumped) SO LOUD? It seems much worse (prop noise? engines?) than any other jump plane. Casas have four blade props while the AZ van had only three blades as I recall, but other three blade turbo props I've jumped from don't seem nearly as harsh to me.

    Martin

  16. That's really interesting, I had always assumed that the Boneheads were all carbon due to their appearance. I can't say if they hold out their products as fully composite or not.

    Martin

  18. Aaah, the Wes helmet. A guy from Z-Hills (english guy, Paul, runs the bar there too) had one up in our area a while back. Incredible helmet, the lightest I have ever come across. He said weight reduction was his #1 concern as a pro camera flyer. Apparently made out of fiberglass rather than carbon fibre like the Boneheads. The workmanship looked amazing.

    Martin

  19. I started jumping triple risers last year. I agree with Dave - loosening the chest strap (after bringing the slider down) will make the most difference in improving your swoop. I got them for the feel rather than a boost in canopy performance - I wanted to spread my hands wide while swooping to improve my balance, and without triples the friction from the guide ring made that uncomfortable. But at the time, I wasn't opening up the chest strap. Note that almost none of the guys competing in pro swoop these days use triples.

    Martin

  20. I did a reserve repack on this type of rig last summer. It looked like a G3, but the owner told me it was a late-model G2 with G3 features - tuck tabs, etc. Nice rig, more or less a G3 as I recall. Can't remember if it had secondary riser covers or not.

    Martin

  21. Agreed. The skysurf sequence is very brief, and like most/all Hollywood jumping, lame-o-rama. But it's decent entertainment - the base jump out of the Vette is incredible.

    Martin

  22. ...thanks for a moment of your time. :D[:/]:P

    This is kind of skydiving related!

    Anyone know of a music dealer that carries more limited or independent releases? I am trying to get a copy of a CD (released in 1999), "Sonny Bones" (Joe Jennings used a few tracks on "Good Stuff"), but no luck. None of the big U.S. music distributors have it. There are some copies on Amazon.com, but I live in Canada and Amazon won't ship CDs to us.(???!!!!!) Of course, our miserable Canadian version, Amazon.ca doesn't have it.

    I know a couple of firms in the U.S. that deal in more limited releases/specific genres such as Artist Shop - anyone out there know of someone I could try?

    Many thanks,

    Martin

  23. I always thought that the Centaurus was a purpose-built accuracy container. I have seen smaller containers and NAA has run an advert with a four way team jumping their container, but don't they all have a low chest strap? Great for accuracy, but you may or may not be comfortable with that if you are doing RW or freeflying. Make sure you like the feel of the harness, even if it fits well.

    Quality wise I have heard mixed reviews on the container. A local accuracy guy jumped one for years (built in the early 1990s I think), it's still in great shape. But, the Canadian forces had some too and one of their riggers told me the rigs were junk and were falling apart.

    Martin

  24. I would have to agree. Not to call down all recruiters, but when I was in back in the late 1980s, there was a bit of a scandal about recruiters being on a quota system - some will tell you anything. The one I dealt with was not helpful to me.

    I am not sure military rigging is a great way into skydiving - I believe they are all jump qualified, but some only work with cargo drop gear and are not necessarily stationed at Ft. Bragg or other bases with large airborne units. And I don't think there are so many military skydiving clubs that subsidize jumping. Looking back on my enlistment, I think it could be very difficult to actively jump during the first few years of your enlistment (at least) on an E1 to E4's pay without some kind of club support - we didn't have one at my duty station, even with a Ranger battalion nearby.

    You will get great, free rigger training, though. I got a civilian rigger rating supervised by Canadian military rigger, and they are great riggers - really good opportunity if you want to be a soldier.

    Definetly ask Chuck Blue or someone else with a lot of service experience!

    Martin

  25. The Alpha is a 9 cell elliptical, just like the Stiletto. Very similar flight characteristics with line twists. If you didn't care for the Stiletto, maybe stick with a Sabre 2 or Safire for skysurfing? I don't skysurf myself, but the few I've seen tend to use a more conservative canopy.

    Martin