faulknerwn

Kevin - most CRW jumps are quiet and peaceful. Just because ones you are on involve lots of screaming and terror doesn't mean they all are like that

Great post airtwardo. I completely agree.

Are these crw courses or ones like for 'team swooping' or proximity flying with other canopies. Since it never actually uses words like docking or anything else I'm not sure it is. I know I see posts on the crw dogs email list ( go to groups.google.com and subscribe to crwdogs) from people doing crw up at CPI ( can't say I know exactly where that is other than in the northeast). I know there are some folks doing crw in Virginia as well.

I voted for him because I liked the things he promoted over the Internet. I never met him in person, just online. I had NO CLUE he was as reckless and dangerous as he apparently is and he apparently swooped spectators regular in direct disregard to USPA safety regulations. He apparently was a complete hypocrite. I didn't have any idea about that when I voted for him. I agree - it really is like the head of MADD getting arrested for drunk driving - he no longer has the respect to hold the office.

Very true. I find that I like the triathlon better than the spectre and way better than the storm because it flies far more like a 'normal' 9 cell. I put 8 jumps on a storm and never stood a single one up. By the 8th jump I was merely going down to my knees :). And I had probably 6-7000 jumps on small 7-cell canopies at the time! Different canopies can flare extremely different even if theoretically similar.

It's funny though - I have had several riggers in training learn and practice on some of my ( way too many! ) racers. They go in not prejudiced because they don't know anything- and every last one of them finds them easier than regular rigs. They are so much simpler than regular rigs that it truly boggles my mind why people find them harder.

I'm only 5 feet tall and I like the slightly longer racers because most other small rigs end right where I arch which is uncomfortable. Since the racer flexes between the main and the reserve it bends where I bend and the bottom ends up at my hip.

Racers. Generally long and skinny.

The one big difference I've noticed between the Triathlon and Spectre flares is that the Spectre flare is a lot lower (especially noticeable for us short people.) My Triathlons level off mid-chest and I finish the flare from there. I put 50 jumps on a Spectre 150 and it didn't level off until my hips. It had a powerful flare but it was MUCH lower than I was used to.

We have trained several deaf jumpers as well a a hearing impaired jumper. Instead of radios, we use paddles to point the direction we want them to go. You should make sure you are very confident in understanding the canopy control before you go up just to make sure. But it wasn't an issue for them. A tandem where you work on canopy skills can be very helpful.

Its very cool stuff. And even cooler there are a bunch of skydivers working for the company :-) I love hearing the stories from the folks who helped make it happen.

How'd you fit all those great big guys IN a 182?

Mt Bonnell on the west side of town is a "hill" on the west side of town but which gives you a great view of the city... The Oasis is a really well known restaurant on Lake Travis (food is decent - not great) but the view is spectacular. Everyone there applauds the sunset over the lake its so pretty :-) The Bob Bullock Museum on UT campus is pretty cool - and it has an IMAX theatre as well. The tour of the state capitol isn't bad either.. 6th street is the bar section of town - it can be fun to people watch there at night. There are lots of good brewpubs as well if you google them. Oh and definitely visit an Amys Ice Cream while you are here - they rock!

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But aads like airbags can hurt and kill people. When airbags first came out they were designed to save a 200 pound unbelted man. Unfortunately they were killing 5'0 tall women like me in mere parking lot collisions by decapitating them. (Ack!). Needless to say that I refused to drive in a car with one until they fixed that problem. It's still allowed in many cars to be able to disable passenger side airbags because you might have to put a child there or something Everyone acts like aads are infallible. They're not. They've fired from unusual pressure changes, radio triggers, static electricity among other things. If a crwdog in a 16 way all with radios doesn't want to risk something accidentally triggering his reserve who has the right to tell him that he has to take that chance. CRWdogs don't go in with too little out - they go in because they have too much crap out and tangled up around them. Same thing with swoopers - if they don't want to take the chance of a fire which will kill them - they need to have the right to determine if they are at risk. Until the first swoopers started dying, Airtec maintained that it was impossible to set them off under canopy.

I think the biggest difference is the use. It is a rare skydiver who gets to a thousand jumps without having a malfunction. It is a very rare skydiver who has a legitimate AAD save. That is the big difference, My question for those who want AADs mandated - do you want to ban small canopies? That will save far far more lives than mandating AADS. Heck not just from swoop landings - but simple things like line twists are typically non-events on big student canopies but are a dangerous high speed malfunction on tiny ellipticals - which also leads to low cutaways and late reserve pulls. So rather than mandate AADS, mandate that everyone jump >200 square foot squares. That would save far more people. And heck, large slow canopies are cheaper too than cross braced canopies so rather than causing people to spend an extra $1400, you will actually be saving them money. How could anyone complain about that? ( and no I am not suggesting this - but it is no more absurd than the mandating AAD arguments)

Are you in favor of banning radical canopies? That would save more lives than mandating AADs. I don't have AADs mostly because I have multiple rigs and they are @^%#^&@ expensive! If someone wanted to donate me some I would use them. I jump Triathlons for mains loaded at 1.2-1.3 and never swoop. I think I have a better change of not dying even without an AAD than someone who has an AAD but jumps a Velocity 90 and swoops it. I do mostly tandem video for free fall jumps and CRW on my fun jumps so my odds of having a free fall collision are low. Its a risk management game.

It was definitely worth it to me when I got the health data. I found that very cool. The ancestry stuff is interesting but I haven't actually found anyone I could place on a family tree anywhere.

I bought a used cx100 on eBay a while back as a spare in case my main one dies. Hadn't used it yet, but was doing some ground video on Saturday and pulled out that camera so I didn't have to take the one off my helmet. Pulled in all the video in the computer today, without realizing that the previous owner had left a lot of video on it. Scrolled through the other video, and while there was lots of boring stuff, there was an extended segment of these guys smoking pot and snorting cocaine through dollar bills! Laugh. Really ? If you're going to do illegal stuff delete it off the camera before you sell it to a random stranger. It's like I saw on CNN today - some base jumpers got nailed for jumping the wtc because they had footage of it on their go pros In their house. At least hide that stuff somewhere - don't make it easy for the cops!!!

I have a bunch of Tris which open actually quite soft. I find my Tris open best if I do nothing to the nose but pull the slider all the way out in front. I use them for camera jumps on a regular basis and they open nice. I find if I bury the nose that I get a "snivel snivel pop" while if I don't I get a nice smooth snivel. You can get a local rigger to sew a lip on the slider. That will almost certainly fix the problem. You might also check the size of your pilot chute - a large pc on a smaller canopy can cause it to open quickly.

The girl is gonna need weights and pulleys on the front risers! She is gonna be light. Not sure whether she would be best on top or #2. She will be too slow to dock 4th..

I have a small male friend who has had to use his Smart 99 a few times. He probably weighs ~130 before gear. My smallest is a PD 113.. I have had several thousand Lightning 113 jumps tho so it seemed just about the same!

An identical sized tri to a navigator will come down steeper most likely - they come down closer to a 45 degree angle than the flatter angle of the navigator. Maybe flare a tad higher than the navigator - but that's purely ideal flares for each. You may not be having perfect flares on either at this point. The triathlon is a very easy canopy to learn to be accurate with. I own 7 or so triathlons and use them as my work canopies. They open soft and fly and land well. I can get back from long distances with them easily. They do also work well for crw. And crw rocks!!!! :)

My eyes were so bad that before Lasik I couldn't read the "big E" on the eye chart. Couldn't read an alarm clock at night without bringing it to 3 inches from my face. I lost a contact a few times back then and it made landing rather interesting.. 15 years later I wear mild distance vision goggles when skydiving and prescription sunglasses when driving. But my vision is still good enough that I could do either without the glasses. Before - no way..

I had Lasik done back in 2001. I went to a new doctor a month or so ago and mentioned that I had had Lasik. He was surprised and could only just barely tell when he went looking for it that anything had ever been done because it had healed so well. So it can heal completely.