danielcroft

Airborne is currently our only chance of competition in the US. I can say for sure that it looks like a real building now so, they are making progress. Let's hope the radio silence is just to make a bigger splash.

Makes you wonder what changed on "the eve of the trial" since there's no other evidence that would have been presented at that stage. As far as "competition leading to quality loss" I find that slightly ironic given that you're in Orlando, not to mention that, with competition, you're freely able to go to a provider of said good or service that values quality. You may pay more for it but hey, if it's worth it to you...

Not that I'd recommend it without seeing you fly but, a lot of people I know think the Xaos is a good "first x-brace". Take responsibility for the choices you make; if you want to fly a grown ass person wing, get grown ass person serious about learning it.

I jump the removable slider on my VK and my VC, the openings are fast but not unpleasant. The more detailed explanation, as I understand it, is that the slider size, including rings is fixed based on the design. Taking into account the line type and a bunch of other factors, you don't want to make the removable slider larger in area (remember, rings are included) than the drawstring as that'll impact openings and require more testing, etc. If you lay your draw string slider on top of a removable with *the rings attached* the rings for both should be lined up correctly. I think Fluid are the only canopy manufacturer making removable sliders specifically for terminal openings; I believe they don't have a draw string slider for the Helix so, the openings tend to be a little slower in my experience. I like quicker openings on high performance canopies, less time for my body position to screw everything up.

Area is smaller than the draw string slider so, openings are quicker.

How do you establish that a helmet will increase forces on your brain? What type of injuries are we talking about? Splintering carbon fibre causing lacerations?

I have one for my kiss, in my opinion it's not safe to use. I hooked it on my riser when doing a 270º. I did 1 jump with it and took it off because of that. On G3s, the Grellfab is much lower profile (and the helmet itself is a little more round, as well) so, it doesn't seem to be an issue. I've sent feedback to them telling them this. There seems to be a common misconception among skydivers that helmets don't matter. This results in helmet manufacturers designing helmets as fashion accessories (more carbon fiber, less padding, etc.) because that's what we buy. Fact is, if you have a tumble on landing, you're definitely better off with a helmet, even if it's CF and comfort foam. If you're flying your reserve that you may never have jumped in what could be a high stress, off landing, you *want* a helmet that'll protect you from a tumble. That's why I originally bought the G2 because of the D3O material in the helmet. While D3O isn't some magic material, it's a step ahead of comfort foam in our helmets. The use of CF is problematic as well due to the stiffness of the material transferring impact forces to your head. Here's a thought experiment for you: imagine running through your landing area as fast as you can and then diving head first at the ground. Do you think you're better off with a poorly designed helmet or none? Now take that and extrapolate to helmets with good foam or D3O and, some flexibility built into the shell (kiss/G3), I know I want a helmet on my head. None of that was intended to invalidate your point, just that I disagree with the premise that helmets don't do anything.

The guys at Square One aren't fans of the idea of cutting away an important piece of safety equipment in an emergency so, they're more interested in working out how to have low snag camera setups and, if anything, cutting the camera away and keeping your helmet. Obviously this means it's not an option for countries where cutaway systems are mandated at this time, unfortunately. This point has been raised. Initially I was a little skeptical on the "cut away the camera, not the helmet" idea but, honestly, it makes a lot more sense.

I don't know if there's a stills mode for the soloshot camera that you can buy but, I'd be surprised if you couldn't if you put a DSLR on it.

Yeah, shame some guru doesn't step in and say "hey, guys, that's because of X. If you do Y, it'll totally help."...

That'd be great. When the announced the new one, I was part way through the order before I decided to wait on results. One of the sales points for the upgrade is the rotation speed but, you definitely need to have the camera set back and with one of their cameras to allow zooming. Look forward to seeing what you get. I've been thinking about getting one to get outside video of myself swooping for "training" purposes so I'm going to hope it works. :-)

Why the variance? Density altitude? Why variance in comps?

Do you have a youtube/vimeo channel I can follow? I'm really interested to see what the resulting video looks like.

That's my MO as well. So good.

Looks more like at 360º than a 270º and yeah, you carve all the way to the ground which isn't a great idea. You should remember that having extra airspeed is a good thing for that so, when you're not getting the turn right, you're just compromising your ability to do the trick anyway.

Not sure that's good advertising for iFly...

The "new" (not AZ (old, old), Seattle (old) or, Montreal (old)) 14' designs all have a dead layer just above the net to varying heights. I haven't flown in Austin but, apparently that's the largest, like 3ft or something like that. iFly have been working to resolve this issue in each revision to the "new" design and, there have been several. My feeling from Dallas and Naperville was that the dead layer of air is quite noticeable but predictable in where it starts so, you just fly above that "line". In Yonkers it's difficult to tell where the dead layer starts because the transition from not good to good is indistinct. I found myself flying into the slightly softer air and not realizing in time to power up. This is certainly something you'd learn by flying in the tunnel more regularly but, it's a thing. San Diego has soft air as well but, I didn't notice as much of a dead layer, if any at all. It's definitely the best so far. For both Yonkers and San Diego, the air doesn't diffuse, however so, you can tag the turning veins without any effort at all. I'm not a fan (no pun intended) of that characteristic since it will mean people will need to actually be careful. It also means that light people will have more trouble with layouts and the like because there's no "softer" air up top. Cliff Notes™: San Diego is awesome, Yonkers is awesome but will require more tunnel specific familiarization.

I flew iFly Yonkers a couple of weeks ago (I've flown in Naperville and Dallas as well) and, iFly San Diego this past Sunday, San Diego is iFly's best new-design 14' so far.

I know someone who'd tried the first version and said it was way too slow in terms of tracking. The Solo2 is meant to be a lot faster so, maybe it'll be better but I haven't heard anyone's personal experience of this yet. I was tempted to buy one for this reason but, it's a lot of cash to throw around.

I drove by it a couple of weeks ago, building is up but doesn't look like they're super close since they don't have walls yet. Probably a few more months at least, especially since they don't have as much build-out experience as iFly. Obviously as a totally new design, they're also likely to have some build issues wrt that. Not saying they're not professional or anything like that, just making an observation.

The XF3 is meant to be the spiritual successor to the XF2 and the X is a KA competitor (allegedly). I'd think that the progression would/could be XF3 -> XF3X -> Leia. The XF3/XF3X/SF3 are all meant to be Schumann Planform wings. What I wonder is, how NZA sees people progressing from their "normal people" wings through to the JVX and JPX given that the JPX is a very different beast (longer recovery, etc). I suppose they could see SF3 -> XF3 -> JVX and SF3 -> XF3 -> XF3X -> JFX -> JPX? At that point, I suppose we're splitting hairs. The KA2 (or whatever it's going to be called) is meant to sit between the SA and the KA I think? So, there will be a more reasonable step between PD's "normal people" wings and a swooping progression. So SA2 -> KA2 -> VC -> VK rather than SA2 ------> KA -> VC . Who knows if NZA or PD are going to continue making their "old" top of the line wings or not and/or, if people will see them as part of a progression given where CP is going. The Schumann Planform is just a more efficient design and, once the main manufacturers transition their range to Schumann Planform wings, I don't see the bulk of skydivers continuing to outlay cash on "old" designs. Could be wrong though, wouldn't be the first time.

There'll likely be a new Katana out some time in 2016. I'm not sure if there's a timing but, PD did put out the "what comes next" video a while ago.

I bought the c-mode cypress for this reason.

clicky