hudsonderek

I love to see people share my hatred for this inane organization. As a pilot I've had to take the TSA test several times, and am confounded by its absurdness. you can completely fail the test and still print out a certificate claiming you are now "threat aware" or some stupid shit like that. It's almost killed general aviation in some areas (the college park airport in Maryland comes to mind), cost the tax payers millions, and for all this our security hasn't gone up. I passed through security with a metal pen in my pocket (I forgot I had it there). I'm pretty though sure some crooked dipshits in Washington are lining their pockets, ohh how I love democracy.

I don't like your tone of voice supergirl, I think you need to calm down

ohh, and supergirl, can't you just face the fact that an Asian baby is smarter than you, I see some jealousy here;)

lets just face it, china is taking over the world, pretty soon we'll all be Chinese ;) did anyone see those pissed of monks the other day and how china is suppressing them? isn't it sort of the nature of a monk to be suppressed anyways? and aren't they supposed to always be calm and at peace?

company X is a flight school, while company Y is flying for a DZ. don't let you're jumping bias get in the way of your opinion ;)

I started jumping a full face at around 40 jumps. I love it, but when jumping in colder temperatures it tends to get steam and frost on the lens. when it's not cold out, I take the visor off and wear goggles under it (I like to feel the air). I jump a Z1 so if it does fog up, I just pop the visor up. never had it fog up in free fall, just during the parachute ride. I had a bad landing one time where, if I didn't have my full face, my chin and side of my face would have gotten some dirt and rocks embedded in it. that's why i'll take the full face with visor off, over an open face Anyday. I had a moped accident once and road rash on your face doesn't feel good. go with the full face, it's a good move

A. I like this guy, I do think he charged me more than the going rate, but really don't care because he's a friend and I'm glad to pay that. B. it's not that I feel ripped off, it's that I'm concerned with the safety of the rig. I wanted the opinion of other riggers with experience that had helpful things to say, not the opinions of people who have nothing to contribute to the main topic of this forum. C. because he packed it it's human nature to be biased about his own work. most people don't want to readily admit they've done something wrong. D. also human nature is to want validation from others. many people here said approach him, which I did, and luckily he agreed to repack it. I don't like confrontation and left to my own devices would have probably just had someone else repack it, spent another $50 plus gas and time to get to the other rigger (two hours one way for me) just to avoid potentially upsetting the guy who packed it first. due to this forum I got the notion that it's not that upsetting to have someone bring a rig back and ask them ot repack it if you're not happy with it. E. thank you to all the people with intelligent positive input to this topic. to the others: I guess it's the nature of the forums to get a bunch of irrelevant babble from people with nothing to say.

so getting the opinion of people more knowledgeable about such matters before I approach my rigger is classless? I should probably make less informed decision in the future and remain classy.

I had a brisk opening on a sabre1 190, it was mostly due to not rolling the tail enough. I went to Icarus canopies after that and cry with joy every time my canopy opens, no matter how poorly I pack it.

I dont swoop, nor will i try to till i have thousands of jumps. yeah, fucking right, that's what I said, until about jump 50

I hope the wrinkles come out:( I talked with him (the guy who packed it) today and he agreed to repack it without hesitation. Hopefully he does a better job the second time around.

try not to mention low jump numbers and higher wing loadings in the same sentence on the forums. If you are a new jumper, you WILL get flamed no matter how good you are at flying your canopy.

I'm more concerned about he safety aspect than the money. the thing I partially think is "he incorrectly installed the D ring?! what else might be going on that I can't see? I'm fine with the wrinkles, I've had them before, I can tell from the pictures, but then again I have the rig here as well, that it looks like too much of the canopy was stuffed to the bottom. If it was your first time packing this rig, wouldn't you want to do it over and over until you got it right? yeah, you'd lose money on your first pack job, but at least you'd know what's going on for your others. it took him about two hours to pack this thing, that's connecting the canopy to the container, clearing the lines, and then packing it. I knew a guy that had a rigging business and packed a few reserves a day and still it took him two hours to pack a rig. look at the picture again, can you see the secondary main riser flap cover, on the left hand side of the rig it makes a wavy curve, not straight. and the bottom it's pretty clear to see that there's lose material on the left side and it's tighter on the right. I'll see if he wants to repack this thing, but I think I might end up with the same thing again. Personally, if I packed this and it didn't look right, I'd redo it until it did.. but then again, I repack my main if it doesn't look neat in the D bag.

I just had my friend pack my reserve in my nearly new (around ten jumps) mirage G3 M3X (reserve tray is for about a 160 sized reserve, and main tray is sized for about a 120). My friend just got his riggers certificate so he's pretty new at it. I've posted pictures of the pack job and I like my friend and all, but it just seems like a sloppy pack job. it's lumpy in places I don't think it should be, extra tight in some parts and loose in others. the reserve is a raven dash-M 150, FYI. When he handed it to me, the reserve D handle was not in it's Velcro and dangling. I'm not trying to be mean to my friend, but I agree with Frank Lloyd wrights "form follows function" basically meaning if something looks good it works well, and vise versa, if it functions well it looks good. I'm sure the parachute will open fine, but there's this little bit of uncertainty in my mind, due to the sloppiness, that something could happen. what should I do? should I get a new pack job from a more experienced rigger? should I ask for a refund on this pack job? I don't want to insult the guy, but this thing just looks like dog do do in my opinion and I feel crappy for having spent $60 on something I don't feel comfortable jumping. any suggestions? any other riggers in Maine that have a good reputation?

I wish I didn't get drug tested for my work:(

you guys are a bunch of stoners :)

so we're in agreement wind tunnels should be cheaper:)

you should check out the classifieds on here, you should be able to find some brand new rig, that some newbie bought without knowing very much about rigs, and then found out they didn't like it for about half the price. seriously, going used for a first rig is the best way. who knows, you might spend all this money on free fly mods and find you don't like free flying, you might buy a seven cell and find you like a 9 cell more, you might buy a vigil, and find that you think cypres are better quality. I've just seen way to many rigs with less than 100 jumps with huge canopies in them, that people bought new, for sale for a fraction of what they paid. you're sore about paying gear rental, well try loosing $2000 on something you put 50 jumps on, that's even more depressing. take your time, read reviews, talk with people, don't make a rash decision, this is coming from someone that made a rash decision and two months later sold his whole set up to buy something else (well I kept the reserve, you know anyone that wants a raven dash-m 150 ;)

quick drawing

that's why I thought if you put the wind generators aft of the air exhaust then it would be fine, if you had it right a the top of the exhaust, it would build up back pressure and cause the engines to work harder, but if you put it far enough away from the exhaust tip, then any pressure build up could be released out of the side area between the exhaust tip and the wind generator, I know some wind generators function best at certain speeds and require governers as to not over speed, maybe the wind generated would be to fast. I agree running an alternator, or generator of some sort directly off of the engine which produces the air flow for the wind tunnel would be counter productive. but the airflow going out of the tunnel is pretty much being wasted.

my understanding of how wind tunnels work is pretty limited, but I was thinking, if they don't recirculate the air, and simple vent it out the top, why not throw some wind generators aft of the air exhaust and produce some electricity for lighting the place and other electric items in the building itself? better yet, why not make the wind tunnels be powered by electric engines and create some form of perpetual motion;) I know that wouldn't really work with the technology we have today. but hell we have all this good energy going to waste.

I'll be squeezing a 135 cobalt in there that I've put a few jumps on and liked a lot (well, besides the openings). So I'm going down from a 150 to a 135.

now I've got to show pics, it's lonely without canopies in it, but can you believe this thing was used? even the secondary riser covers are stiff. It's awesome because on the 3X the reserve is sized for a 160, but the main tray is sized for a 120.

I just got a used, but nearly new mirage G3 M3X. I love the quality these things are made with, the cutaway cable housing (where you fish the loop through) just looks more rugged than a lot of other containers I've seen. I feel like a small nuclear bomb could hit this thing and it would still be intact. anyone out there love this container as much as I do? they're mega comfy as well. I owned a G3 M3 before this one and besides the colors, thought it was an awesome container as well.

and I bought my canopy used and they didn't come with them, so I had to buy my own, does this mean I can keep them? pleeeeaaaase?