Dan1

wow, that's horrible....do you have a link telling more about this story?

This actually made me laugh out loud

I don't have mine right in front of me, but I think I may know what the issue is. When you hold the 2 buttons to turn it on and the screen starts flashing and it starts beeping, make sure you hold onto both buttons through this process until the normal screen comes up displaying 0 for your altitude. If you hold the 2 buttons to turn it on and as soon as the screen starts flashing and making beeping sounds you let go of the buttons then when the normal display comes up it'll only be there for a second or two. So just hold both buttons for the whole 5 seconds or so that it's starting up. Hopefully that's the issue. If not, L&B have the best customer service in the world and they'll replace yours for free.

Very nice looking!

My display messed up awhile back and I contacted L&B, they told me to send it in. About 2 weeks later they sent me a brand new Viso. They have the best customer service I've ever dealt with, just contact them and they'll help you out.

The original video was a skit on Saturday Night Live, song isn't serious, was supposed to be funny and ridiculous.

Thanks for the story, I enjoyed reading it.

I use both, analog for freefall and digital while I'm under canopy I've seen a lot of people say the bad thing about digital is that "you have to read the display and process the numbers"....but it really isn't too complicated, I have a viso, and under 1,000 feet if it says "870", it doesn't take too much brain power to figure out what altitude that is, it would take me longer looking at the needle on an analog to figure out what altitude I'm at

I bought a Silhouette for my first canopy and I love it. Only have about 30 jumps on it and I bought it brand new. Never once have I gotten frustrated packing it because it's so easy to pack. I don't have much to go on as far as comparing the flare to another canopy...but I have noticed that the flare doesn't last very long, so it took me a couple jumps to get the timing down. Anyway I'm sure more qualified and experienced people can give you better feedback than me, but just wanted to agree with the other people here that it's a great canopy. Will probably get another one when I downsize later down the road.

I'm flying a Silhouette 210 and I love it. Was told and read that it was a great beginner canopy and hadn't heard anything negative about it, so I bought one, I couldn't be happier. I bought mine new and it's extremely easy to pack since it's a hybrid canopy. So if you are going to demo a few different canopies try out the silhouette. But I also haven't really flown anything besides student canopies and my Silhouette...so you probably shouldn't listen to me since I don't know how my canopy compares to any other canopy

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with this, I doubt there's ever a point in skydiving where you "stop learning stuff"

As far as the thighs hurting, it's just on student gear. Once you get your own gear with padded legstraps it's much more comfortable. I used to get bruises on the insides of my legs from the student gear. Also cross your legs under canopy, it makes it much more comfortable and makes the harness more like a seat...just remember to uncross them and prepare to PLF before you land.

I bought all brand new gear (a lot of people will say that's dumb considering my jump numbers, but I have my own reasons for doing it) and since it costs the same amount of money to get stock colors versus custom colors, why not get what you like? It's a personal choice and it's your money. Everything I have matches and I'll probably always be that way even when I start downsizing and getting different gear later down the road. My favorite colors are neon yellow and black. So it looks good to me, plus I'm the brightest person in the sky so nobody can ever use the excuse "I didn't see you"

I'm still new at this too and don't know many people. I just moved to Tampa last week and this weekend I started jumping at my new home dz (z-hills) and out of 5 jumps only 1 was solo. Just go around and ask other people that have that "I'm-new-at-skydiving-so-I-look-kind-of-lost" look on their face and you'll find people to jump with. Just don't expect other new jumpers to come ask you if you want to jump with them, because they're thinking the same things you are. Just be pro-active about finding people to jump with, if you sit back and don't even attempt to ask other people if they want to jump, you'll probably always do solos and won't get any better at skydiving.

I bought all brand new gear and had my rigger assemble everything. He charged $50 for reserve pack, $25 for inspecting and assembling and $5 for packing the main. So $80 and I gave him $100. He let me watch the whole process and I recommend you do the same, you'll learn a lot about your gear and feel much more confident in it. Just drink a few energy drinks before and during the process...cause it's long and can get pretty boring when you're just watching, but it's worth it.

oh ok, it's all good, you just must be a really light person

Not that I have too much experience, but...you have 22 jumps and you're wanting a 160 sq ft canopy? What would your wingloading be?

This is one of the best posts I have ever read! But at the same time it's also one of the most depressing

Because I don't want to look back on my life when I'm old and wonder if I really made the most of it. Plus I'm guilty of doing a tandem and becoming hooked

I know that was addressed to a different poster ^ But I also bought a brand new canopy and I've packed it myself every single time and can usually pack just as fast as everyone else. It's just all about practice and finding a technique that really works.

I did the same thing as the poster above me. Didn't want to go through the hassle of buying used. And the way I am, I try to buy everything new. If you buy a used car, you never know exactly what the driver did to the car before you bought it. I didn't want to have to worry about that buying used gear, even if a rigger did inspect it. I also had spare money and I wanted to help stimulate the economy But everyone has their own opinion and personal preference, so buying used vs new is a decision you'll have to make on your own after weighing the pros/cons. As far as what manufacturer to purchase your container/main/reserve/AAD...once again everyone has their own opinion. Look in the gear review section, helped me decide on what I wanted. Good luck.

I wanted to add to this thread with my experience with L&B. Bought a Viso a couple months ago and the other weekend on the last jump of the day it broke after landing. Landing wasn't the greatest as it was only my 2nd time jumping my own gear and my left palm slid across the ground at some point. So my altimeter never made contact with the ground, but somehow the inside screen broke and the numbers were all distorted. Contacted L&B the next day and he said to ship it in and they'll repair any damages for free. Just got an email back from Mads today saying they shipped me a brand new one instead. I'll definitely be going back to them for future purchases. So as everyone is already aware of, their customer service is awesome!

Awesome, I'll take a look at the sticky you mentioned. I'm actually moving down to the Tampa area in a couple months, so I'll be jumping at z-hills from then on, so I'm imagining I'll be able to get top-notch coaching on whatever discipline I want coaching on

Dave, thanks for all the suggestions and advice. I've only flown this canopy 4 times now so I've had barely any experience with it. I'd like to do a hop n pop from full altitude to really start playing with my canopy, but...I don't really feel like returning to the ground as a human popsicle in this weather I guess I just need to jump it more to learn it's characteristics, so I will definitely play around and try the stuff you mentioned this weekend, thanks again!

Yes, I'm very satisfied with it's performance. I just had a kind of weird scenario play out, which is why I'm asking this question. (Story is below) I'm asking because last Saturday the winds were fairly strong and I didn't make it back to the usual landing area like most other jumpers did. I'm lightly WLing at 0.9:1, which at first I thought might be a problem on windy days, but even with the ground winds at 12+ knots and at 3,000 being at around 30 knots, I was able to penetrate into the wind easily. So before jump run, with the winds having picked up since earlier in the morning, the DZO went over an aerial photo of the airport and showed us where a good area to start our downwind leg would be, since we would have a much long downwind leg than usual. This was only my 2nd jump at this particular DZ, so I wasn't too familiar yet with picking out landmarks as to what sets up a landing pattern to land right in front of the hanger. Anyway, was under canopy a little above 3,000 and go to make my way over to where he mentioned a good idea was to setup for the downwind leg. On my way over there I noticed this was where the majority of people were starting to begin their downwind leg. So I made it over there at around 1,000 feet I notice I'm not drifting along nearly as fast as some of the other jumpers and my altitude was decreasing to the point where I knew I wasn't going to make it back to the hanger. I pulled down the rear risers a bit to maybe stretch out the length of my downwind leg but it didn't do a whole lot and at around 400 feet I just did a slow 180 to face into the wind and land. Most of the other jumpers made it back to right in front of the hangar. I was around 1/3 mile or more away. If you've ever been to Skydive Carolina, the landing area is huge, so this only put me in the middle of the landing area with a longer than usual walk back to the hanger. So I was kind of confused after this happened, which is why I'm asking this question. Most other jumpers there have a heavier wingloading than I do and smaller canopies, which added to me being confused. So going off of what has been said above, the only thing that I can think of is that maybe my perception was off and the other jumpers were beginning their downwind leg farther away and closer to the hanger then where I thought they were?