parachutist

No. A kill line PC is one type of collapsible PC, and it is the most common type of collpasible PC. At your experience level there is a good chance that you do not have a collapsible pilot chute on your rig and so it is not surprising that you don't know what it is yet. One of these days you'll probbaly have one attached to your canopy because a collapsible PC will increase the performance of a canopy (The collapsible PC folds up after the canopy inflates... thereby reducing the drag on the canopy.). The kill line PC adds one more step to packing procedure (You must 'cock' it every time you pack... otherwise it will not work). And this is one major reason why it's good for low-time jumpers too use standard PC's instead of collapsible PC's... a standard PC is one less complication and one less possible malfunction in your skydive. If you ask a packer at your DZ, I'm sure you can get a quick hands-on introduction to a kill-line PC so you can see what it does. Chris

To me, the scary part of that incident was that it seemed his pin did not actually catch on anything. He leaned back and it seemed that the pressure of his body on the rig caused the pin to release. *pop* The jumper was convinced that he needed a new rig after this incident. Chris

in the conditions you listed above I'd say it'd be worth $950 after all haggling is through. I don't know if you'll be able to find a buyer for a 190 Stiletto very easily though. 120 would sell quickly... 190 idunno Chris

Good point. Been there, got the T-shirt Chris

If the winds are relatively calm from ground all the way up to 14k then it is all very simple... You just need to be the last person out of the plane and deploy your chute... fly it around and keep an eye on your intended landing area and alternate landing areas. If winds are higher than 20 knots at any altitude, though, it can get pretty complicated when trying to determine the best exit spot, especially when wind shear is involved. Under these windy circumstances I would recommend that you not deploy at 14k unless you have an experienced canopy flyer going out with you. Since you are flying a light wing loading, it would be very easy for you to get into a position that would not allow you to land where you intend if the winds are above 15 knots. Things to do: - Before the plane takes off, notify the pilot of your intention to deploy at 14k. Ask the pilot what the winds are doing aloft... even if you have already read the wind conditions written on a chalk board at the DZ... The pilot will likey have much more up-to-date info for you. - Wear some warm clothes and gloves. Make sure that the gloves fit well and that you can feel things such as yor handles through the gloves. Also make sure that your warm clothes do not get in the way of your handles... tuck in your shirts (it sux when a shirt tail gets blown over your handles). - Exit last. Sometimes tandem masters will try to convince you that No, they should go out last.... but they are just accustomed to freeflyers & RW types. Explain to the tandem types that since you are going to be under canopy immediately after exiting, it only makes sense that you should exit last. In addition to eliminating the possibilty of someone freefalling through your canopy, this will give you a long spot, which is good (assuming jump run is flying upwind). Chris

Ok, I'll keep that in mind. Usually such coaching is offered to me on the spot while I'm floundering around trying to learn new maneuvers in the tunnel (such as last time when I was trying to do backflips without losing altitude and I kept landing on my head on the mesh). But yes I cold see what you mean... if discussing coaching goals with someone before entering the tunnel and you have a set of goals to work on. Chris

That's interesting... I've never felt like tipping was in order & I've never felt as if it were expected. While I'm not surprised that they don't get paid a whole lot, they do get tons & tons of experience in the tunnel, which is quite valuable in my opinion. Does anyone else feel that tipping is appropriate at a tunnel? Chris

The tunnel is a good way to understand and correct the spinning. You don't need any Skydive U coaches for this because at the tunnel in Orlando there are very good body flight coaches on staff who will offer help with anything you wish to learn, at no extra charge. Just pay for the tunnel time. Chris

There is another option Reach back, grab the bridle that's trailing behind you & give it a solid yank to try and dislodge the pin, release bridle immediately after yank. If the pin came out then great & if not then pull cutaway followed by reserve. This cleared a PC in tow that I had once. I was @ 12,000 ft doing a hop & pop so I had plenty of time. The PC was trailing because the bridle was short. I had thrown out the PC and it just dragged around behind me at full extention, but since it was catching my burble it didn't have enough pressure to pull the pin. If you're low when you realize you have a PC in tow then go directly to emergency procedure. Chris

Is this Dan's interpretation of the "Let's go fly a kite" song? It's reminiscent of the RidIcarus canopy from a couple years back http://www.johnandjanine.com/october/news/icarus.shtml Chris

I've been stuffing a brand new ZP canopy into a tight Wings D-bag lately too. My solution has been large rubber bands which allow the lid of the bag to stay open a bit... the D-bag looks like it's ready to burst, and the lid of that bag will not close completely, but it all goes nicely into the container anyway. It should be easier to pack after the canopy's broken in. Chris Warnock

Well that's a good question. Idunno, Bryan's page may have gotten more traffic than expected. I did find some other pictures online, however: Norman Kent posted a gallery of his 56-way photos on his page: http://www.normankent.com/CRW%20Gallery/index.htm Chris Warnock

Like Bob said, blocks are just pieces of folded up webbing, same width as the riser... folded up into a block shape & then sewn onto the riser. Then wrap some Vet Wrap over this block and it provides a lump on your riser to reach up and grab. The Vet Wrap gives it a thick texture for good grip. Rear risers on my Xaos do not require so much pressure, but I feel like my hands are just slipping down the riser when I'm trying to pull on them, which is why I went & attached the blocks. The possible downside to blocks in a freefall rig: they add a little bulk to risers and may not fit so neatly into your rig. Mine seem to fit ok but it's personal pref. Chris

was this the guy with the pic in parachutist about the last swoop comp. he had a yellow, and black vx. later No this was about a year & half ago at Perris Chris

I too am interested to know exactly what most swoopers do with rear risers and why. I am accustomed to using Vet Wrap blocks on my risers for CRW, so I added small sections of vet wrap to the rear risers for my Xaos. I haven't enough practice yet to use them near the ground, but these blocks make for something easy to grab & it seems to be useful to me so far. Some jumpers seem to not hold their rear risers but instead just push out on them. I've tried this up high but I don't have a very good feel for it. Any comments on this method? Some good advice I have received about rear riser use near the ground: intentionally stall it with the rear risers up high many times so you can feel the characteristics of the stall. Practice stalling it during full flight and during a dive. I watched one PPPB swooper stall his canopy with the rear risers near the ground during a dive... luckily the water was there to cushion him a little bit, but he bounced off and had some major bruises from the impact. Ouch! Chris

thanks, Mike. You were a great lockup to follow in. Chris

practice, practice, practice. The more experience you have with guiding an opening canopy, the more exact your movements will be. You're flying a nearly square canopy according to your profile, and your method is quite acceptable when flying a Sabre 1 or 2, however, Highly loaded ellipticals behave very differently. Chris Warnock

It's not sufficient for you to assume a good body position and then deploy. You must guide the opening of a highly loaded elliptical canopy. Many people just delpoy and pray for a good opening... but this does not work very well. Simply holding your body position while deploying your pilot chute and then expecting an on-heading opening to be the result would be the same as: Sitting on a bicycle in your garage... sitting straight up and raising your feet, expecting that since you're sitting straight up the bike will not fall over. Neither one of these ideas will work Once the bicycle is rolling you can sit straight up and not need your feet on the ground. Similarly, once your canopy is open and flying you can fly it without worrying about unexpected dives to the right or left. But until it is fully open you must guide it: When the canopy is opening look straight ahead at the horizon and when you notice that your left side is getting a little higher than the right... "sit" more on the left side to pull it back down even with the right... continue to use this method to keep the horizon level and your canopy will open without line twists... even if it was a pretty trashy pack job. Chris Warnock

The first attempt at a 50-way was on Friday morning. The formation was completed, except for one grip: Row 7 right wing was never locked down. The guy who was flying row 7 right wing was skilled enough to hang out there unlocked for the duration of this formation, but this lack of grip voided the 50-way formation's validity for record status. A couple hours later, the next attempt went together without a problem and this set the US record. 3 more successful 50-way formations were created on Friday. Some people remained in the formation and some were moved out to make room for people who hadn't been in the big-way yet, By the end of the day 84 people had been in at least one of the 5 50-way formations. Saturday morning there was a new goal: to create a 56-way box. This one built quite smoothly on the first try and was held for about 35 seconds before it was broken down via starburst. The next goal was a 64-way diamond. The base was going together smoothly and a total of 46 people were in their slots by approx 7,500 ft AGL, at which time a break-it-down call came about because of unexpected bad weather / turbulence. We were hoping to have another shot at this 64-way on Sunday morning, but low cloud layer prevented us from going up. Maybe next year

Doug, What Bob and Wendy said above =] I feel as Bob does.. brakes make you floaty so if the base is floaty then it seems more difficult for the pin to catch the base. Unless you do as Wendy does, & take the brakes far enough to stall the canopy & sink it smoothly. I haven't learned to that with much control yet. It always feels squirrely to me when I stall my Lightning I guess I should put some practice into smooth stalls & learn that method too. For some reason warping has always seemed easy for me (after I figured out how to keep the warped canopy going straight... heh). Chris

I never did well with base-pin til some Toadsucker suggested warping the canopy. After I learned the basics of warping it seemed so simple. The warped canopy is a slow sinky target.... being slow & sinky makes it easy for just about anyone to nail this target. Chris

Good decision you made for this situation. For similar future situations I suggest this: Usually it's pretty easy to figure out which way the wind is coming from even when you have no wind indicators to look at... if you practice this basic maneuver: This is very easy to practice when you're under canopy at 2k & below. It will not always be 100% accurate of course, because sometimes wind direction can change drastically between 2k and ground level, but usually the winds will be travelling in similar direction all the way from 2k to the ground, so when you have nothing else to rely on, I'd suggest using this method. At 2,000 feet you're flying the canopy in one direction... give canopy 1/2 brakes. Hold the canopy in 1/2 brakes to slow everything down and continue to fly in the same direction. Now look down directly between your feet and see how fast you are moving forward. If you're moving at high rate of speed then you're probably heading downwind. If you're crabbing (little bit of forward speed and also sliding sideways) then the wind is coming from the side mainly. Now you should have a pretty good idea which direction the wind is coming from. So now, while still holding brakes, do a flat turn to face the direction from which you have determined the wind is coming and look down. If you were correct and you are now facing into the wind, then you will look down between your feet and see that you are either barely moving forward relative to the ground or not moving forward at all. Now you know which way the wind is coming from, and you should still be well above 1000 ft., you will be able to set up for a proper landing pattern. My expalnation was kindof rambling here so if any of it seems fuzzy let me know and I'll try to say it a bit more clearly. Chris

One thing a low-timer might not realize is that practicing flares up high is also how one learns the stall characteristics of a canopy. They need to know such things as: does the canopy give easy-to-recognize signs when it is near stall point, or does it seem to suddenly wad up into a ball of $@#! and drop you? If the latter is the case, then practicing up high gives more experience in recognizing the not-so-obvious signs. I think this is something that you & I practice by habit without thinking much of it, but I'm sure that some jumpers will not recognize the importance of knowing stall characteristics until they find themselves in a compromising situation near the ground. My eye-opening experience involved me digging out of a corner... and digging too much... so that I was about 10 feet off the ground planed-out and travelling at high speed with very little flare remaining. If I had not known that I had almost no flare remaining, there is a good chance that I would have tried to slow down more by flaring more and stalled the canopy. I'm pretty sure this would have resulted in a few broken bones. Chris

The way I have managed it successfully thus far (2.2 wing loading at 550 jumps) was by concentrating on canopy flight. I dumped right out the door, 12k, about 50% my jumps. Besides that I spent time at canopy control seminars learning everything I ever wanted to know about stalls, turbulence, riser inputs, flat turns, etc etc. I'm at about the skill level of an average 200-jump person in the RW skills area because I have little time in freefall. But in contrast I have spent more time under canopy than the average 1,500-jump person. Safely downsizing this quickly is plausible but it pretty much takes devotion to one discipline: canopy control. Chris

well.. 40 jumps from now he will be eligible to become a tandem master... if 500 jumps means that he is able to take someone else's life into his own hands, then I believe it should also mean that he is able at this point to be taught how to fly a high performance canopy. He does need some lessons drawn out on a chalkboard, + some 1:1 under-canopy instruction. Devil's advocate mode off