SkyJeaux

I should be there on Sunday! I know SDAZ isn't the easiest place if you aren't one of the afore mentioned groups....but I'm happy to jump. I'm easy to find, lime green liquid sky sunglasses :)

I drive by there quite a bit. It's in full build and should be up and running during this quarter.

I just added one to mine, totally ignoring the statement on the Chuting Star Website. I found it curled up the sides of the reserve flap, since there isn't a stiffener in it at all. I ripped out the current piece of elastic in the SkyTie and spent .38 at the fabric store for a longer piece of woven elastic, sewed it in and seems to be better. Still not perfect, but we'll see once I jump it.

Follow the manufacturer sizing guidelines, period. Email or call the manufacturer if you have a question about the chart and seek their guidance. I'm sure they will be happy to answer your questions. If you're looking for validation about leveraging life saving equipment outside of OEM specifications, that's your life in your hands. Mother Earth is much harsher than any comment on this forum....

Having jumped there for the opening weekend, I'll say it was a great time. We got 13,5 in the Turbo 206 and it was a fantastic day. Will be heading back out there this Sunday. The landing area is pretty incredible and all of the stores, shops, eateries are almost in walking distance. Nashvillians ( I just made that name up ) and others in the surrounding area, come on out and give it a try. :)

And mine!

yes, I have NorthWestern Mutual. I pay $1 extra per $1000 for mine, but they took the time to ask about my license level, frequency of jumps, etc. I was impressed.

Throw me in there. - 3073f643

Cigs are so 1960's. Brownies BABY, BROWNIES!!!

Ahhhh, just subscribed. Nothing like pay day coming around....:)

I got "found" by my current Employeer via LinkedIn, so I'd say it's got some value, at least for me.

For those of us with BlackBerrys that have GPS built in, I just found a new free GPS logger that saves in KML format ( Google Earth ) locally to your BlackBerry, instead of just reporting back somewhere. Just crank it up, do your jump and then get back down and email it to yourself and load up into Google Earth. http://bb.emacf1.com/gpslogger.html Might just be a flash in the pan, use it once then it gets boring, but it could provide interesting information related to jumping.

Wife bought me a tandem as a "bucket list" thing. When my feet touched the ground again, the first thing i asked for was my credit card. :) Haven't jumped as much as I want so far, but damn it's great. My kid just turned 18 and did his first tandem, so looks like we might be "jumpin generations".

I wear Henri Lloyd Stealth Winter Gloves from Maui Pro Sailing - http://mauriprosailing.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=HENY80034C&Category_Code=HENGLO. Neoprene at the arm side, good grip and velcro. All in all, I think worth the money. And still a good sense of touch.

It's called Scott's Grip. The number is 1-800-815-2731. The guy owns a plumbing company I believe, he makes them on the side. When I got it, it was 20 bucks shipped to my door. I love it, even has a tent stake hole in it if you are packing on grass.

Damn straight, we need a DZ in Nashville. I wonder if that DZ in Kentucky is gonna get a plane for the winter so us music city people can make a short drive and go jumpin'. It really eats into jump tickets when you pay 150 just in gasoline. of course, the answer to that is ditch the marriage and live at the DZ....:)...NOT!!!!

Yeah well, now that I'm sober this morning. :) Broke off at 4.5, tracked out to 3.5 for deployment. And well, our 8 way ended up only having 4 of us. We got strung out all across the sky from that CASA. Logic and memory aren't so good after free beer and shots!

So, I've had my first reserve ride on this Sunday, the 24th. So I came up to Pepperell to jump the CASA at the New England Boogie. Boy they are nice people. Great DZ. So anyway, I did the last jump of the day on the CASA, did a high speed pass, which was great. Fun to exit at 250 knots. We did an 8 way and broke off at 4.5K. Tracked off to around 4K, waved off and deployed. And had the HARDEST opening of my short career. Slammed my face down against my chest, just about bloodied my lip. Looked up to a blown out center cell and broken lines on the right hand side and immediately started spiraling, really hard really fast it seemed. The first hand accounts from the ground said it sounded like a shotgun when my canopy opened. Starting screaming "F**K, F**K" as I grabbed my cutaway handle, looked at my reserve handle and yanked. Takes a lot of force to cut away when you are in a hard spiral. Damn. Was reaching to pull the reserve handle when the white reserve opened over my head. Most beautiful site to be seen. Dropped my cutaway handle like a dumbass and watched my trash float away into an especially lovely grove of trees. Never to be found again. Landed my reserve, grateful and pissed off all at the same time. I went back today to try to find my trash, never did locate it. So now I'm out freebag, reserve pilot chute, main d-bag, main canopy and main pilot chute and main risers. . Maybe it'll turn up, but probably not in a jumpable condition and probably not this year. I really don't recall doing anything different on my pack job. Never packed on grass before, but I don't see that having an impact. Potentially my slider could have moved, but I don't recall that either. No, the slider wasn't collapsed. I checked that. And I wasn't still tracking. Was just like any other of my 40 some odd pack jobs. My canopy had some age on it, > 1000 jumps, so perhaps that contributed to the fabric failure, but not the explosive opening. I'm posting this just to have it as a matter of record and to publicly thank the following individuals: Mike Gruwell at Chuting Star - Without his outstanding reserve packing / repacking skills, I would not be posting this now. Andy @ The Farm - Thank you for all the training and EP's we went over. When the time came, I was good to go. All my instructors and coaches @ The Farm - Thank you for making sure I knew what the hell I was doing. Good to know you can save your own ass and are more pissed off about damaging / losing gear than a potential fatal situation. I am grateful that I walked away from my event only paying for gear, not for metal in parts of my body or worse. I'm more than slightly drunk, so please excuse my run on. I just wanted to get this out here. I'm looking to get back up in the air soon, and now am in the hunt for a new 220 canopy. :) Good times. And god, do I owe BEER now. Too much!!!! BSBD

Got lost under canopy on AFF1 at The Farm. By the time my instructor found me and was radioing to me to turn around, i was 1500' and was about two farms away. Ended up landing between two parallel sets of power lines and one perpendicular barbed wire fence in a field full of waist high grass. Can we say Holy SHIT! Nothing like a tight landing space with a 260 for your FIRST SOLO LANDING with hungry power lines! Lost the damn radio in farmer brown's grass field ( not that sort of grass ) on landing and had to come back with the Instructor's radio and play some bizarre Marco Polo for an hour. Lessons: Really stare at the way the DZ looks on the map BEFORE you jump. PLF baby! Andy's FJC really does prepare you for power line avoidance. Any landing you walk away from without hurting yourself, others or farmer brown's field is a GREAT ONE. BSBD

Hell, I bought my Container, Reserve, Vigil2 from Mike. He inspected my used main before getting all my shit put together. If there's better people than Mike Gruwell out there, I haven't met them and doubt I ever will. If you don't buy from Mike, gnomes will find you and get you.... Ok, not really, but buy your stuff from Mike. Support our / your local rigger.

I jumped with stitches 1 day after I received them. At about 10,000 feet, I started bleeding thru the bandage. Once I got to the ground, the bleeding stopped. The morale of the story was that I was told later that it's not only the tightness of the stitches that keeps the wound closed initially, it's also the air pressure keeping the blood in until it clots completely. Be careful jumping with a new stitched wound, you might just leak.

3.5 Hours, plus a damn time change. Gotta Love The Farm though. Great Job Hans !!!!

I don't know if anyone has seen this, but Google Earth has a Flight Simulator built into it ( version 4.2 ). On the PC, once you are in Google Earth, hold down CTRL and ALT and hit A and it puts you in Sim mode. You can then use your current location and fly an SR22 or an F-16 ( the SR22 seems to replicate a jump run better..LOL ). You can change the pilot angle and actually watch the ground move like you were spotting from the airplane, just without the winds or the other planes, so I guess it's not like spotting, but it is pretty cool. Definitely use the help to learn all of what do with it, but I thought it was pretty damn neat to marry what is being done to document DZ's along with the ability to virtually "FLY" over them.

Well, at least some of us were outta bed Hans, thanks for putting it together today. It was great to spend Christmas Eve with my second family. Everyone have a great holiday and stay safe. I'll see all of you in OH-EIGHT!

Sounds like Fun. I'm down visiting family. Looking forward to working on jumps for my 'A'.