davelepka

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Everything posted by davelepka

  1. I was in a pretty good wrap when a buddy took out our 4-stack during a rotation. The other guy ended up cutting away, and I cleared my shit up and brought the other canopy down with me. Been there too, probably more then thrice! The best was years ago when the Velo first came out, I was demo-ing one in Deland, and also jumping one of the then-new Bridman suits. This was before everyone figured out that HP canopies and wingsuits weren't a good match, but I was dumping at 5k so I lot's of time to kick out of the twists. I think it was about 2k by the time I was flying straight. I also had a string of toggles out in freefall back when freeflying was too new for the manufacturers to have come up with the idea of freefly-friendly. Velcro riser covers, Velcro toggles, and head-down are not a good mix. Half of the time the openings would be fine except for the unstowed toggle, and the other half would end up with the loose toggle wrapped around the risers or slider or whatever. It was 'trial by fire' for rear riser landings. Fun times, but I'm smarter and more careful now (sort of).
  2. I'm in that same neighborhood. 19 years, about 5700-ish jumps, no cutaways. Probably half were done on Stiletto 107s, with the remainder mostly on various Velos, and a few hundred on larger wings when I was a newbie. I'm not saying that every opening resulted in a 'good' canopy, just that I chose to land all of them, and managed to do so without injury. It wasn't always pretty, but I always walked away in one piece.
  3. Ok, but the reserve is a 160, will you be fine with that too? I've never met anyone who looked up at their reserve and wished it was smaller. How about you round up to a PD-176, in that case? Again, your chances of finding a complete rig that has the canopies, sizes, options and harness that you need are slim. Branch out and look for components, and purchase them as they come up. Use that time to make the most out of the rental options at the DZ, and if you can get a reserve/container together, you can demo various canopies before committing to one. I'll repeat, don't rush the downsizing. Make sure you string together 5 or 10 'good' jumps on each size canopy before moving down one size at a time. By 'good' I mean where you have control over the canopy, and you can fly a solid, repeatable pattern, and flare for a soft landing.
  4. Avoid the PD190. It's an F-111 canopy, and it's not what you want. Some people will tell you that it will be 'fine', but there's a reason that 99.9% of all sport canopies made today are Z-po, and the reason is that it's much better than F-111. A 170, just off student status? Unless you weight something less than 150 lbs, and have already put a good number of successful jumps on a 190, this is not the size canopy for you. Furthermore, you never mentioned any of the reserve sizes, and that also needs to be considered. My suggestion - ditch the idea of finding a complete rig. Consult with you instructors, and come up with a good size main for your first rig, then pick the closest size reserve (rounding up), and start hunting for gear that way.
  5. Without having read the replies, I'll be brief - you are correct that it's bad advice to tell someone to 'flare the canopy all the way' without knowing how the canopy is set up. The length of the steering lines will vary depending on the condition of the lines set, the length of the risers, and the size of the jumper (and their arms). Based on that, a canopy needs to be 'set up' with regards to the length of the steering lines to fit a particular jumper and rig configuration. The proper length will have the canopy stall after 4 or 5 seconds of holding the absolute deepest toggle position the jumper can manage. Provided that has been done, a jumper should finish the flare when landing. If that has not been done, or you're on borrowed/rented gear, you should find the stall point on jump #1 with that gear, and be mindful of it when landing. In terms of 'de-tuning' the brake setting, which means setting the brake lines so long that you cannot stall the canopy, the problem there is that you're giving up some degree of flare power. If you can't get the toggles to 101% (aka stall), then you probably can't get them to 99% or 100% either, but that's what you want to do on landing. Student canopies are de-tuned because the students don't know or understand the stall scenario, and cannot be counted on not to stall on landing. Any flare power they're giving up with the de-tune is made up for by the size and low WL of a student canopy.
  6. Those statistics don't take several important factors into account. More experienced jumpers are more likely to be jumping smaller canopies that are less forgiving of errors. They're more likely to be jumping in challenging conditions or in bigger groups with more traffic. They also have (by definition) more jumps, and thus more exposure to the dangers. I would suggest that if you took two jumpers, one with 100 jumps and one with 1000 jumps, gave them the same equipment and had them do 200 jumps together, the odds would be that the lower time jumper would be more likely to make a mistake or be injured. It's (Bill) Booth's law- the safer you make skydiving, skydivers will come up with dumber shit to do to cancel out the higher level of safety. So as a jumper gains skill and experience, they jump smaller canopies in more challenging conditions to cancel out the benefit of that skill and experience.
  7. This is a good point, and one reason I don't like the DZs who's door procedure is 'green light, open the door, and go'. It takes away the chance to really make a good scan for traffic. I much prefer opening the door a couple 1/10s before the spot, and taking your time looking for traffic before the light comes on. Checking the spot is easy. Long before the door comes open you should already know where the spot should be. Checking that it's correct only takes a second - "The spot should be over the north end of the runway, and we're right over the north end, good". Everything else should be time spent looking for traffic. Let's remember that means looking out, way out, in a big circle for approaching aircraft. An airplane doing 100 mph (slow for an airplane) will cover about 1.5 miles in 60 seconds, so that's where you need to be looking for a plane that will be in your airspace at the end of your freefall. If you want to check traffic for the whole load, you need to expand your search out to 3 or 4 miles out, as the end of an Otter load will be opening up another minute or so after you (and keeping in mind you might be 30 seconds from exit once you open the door and start your traffic scan). The main point is that anything right below you is not going to be your problem, it's the guy a couple miles out who's not listening to local frequency for the 'jumpers away' call. An additional thought is that you need to lean waaaay out of the door to see under the plane and out far enough to be effective. Anyone you see in the door who is supposedly 'checking traffic' who doesn't get mostly out of the door and look under the plane is not doing much at all.
  8. Again, realize that how much you spend, or how well you can describe what you're offering them, unless your offer makes sense financially for them, it's just not going to happen. You could be a non-jumper, and offer to learn to skydive, get a license, buy a container/reserve, and make enough jumps to be qualified to do a small demo. This would take 6 months and $10,000, but they're still not going to buy you a $2500 logo canopy so you can jump it into a company picnic with 75 people attending. Conversely, you could offer to spend nothing, and if you were a qualified demo jumper, you could get a company to buy you a logo canopy, matching rig, jumpsuit and helmet, and pay for the aircraft/pilot and your time if you could show them a contract you have to fly the American flag during the Star Spangled Banner at 15 major league baseball games. See? It's all about what they get for their money. That's all they care about. Show them that the dollars make sense with regards to the amount of exposure they're going to get, and you have a foot in the door. Even then you need to find the right executive on the right day who is willing to take a chance on something as crazy as skydiving-based advertising.
  9. The canopy is the easy part. Jumping it somewhere that it get's the right exposure to the right number of people to make it worth the company's while is the hard part. There must be 50 or 100 Red Bull logo skydiving and BASE canopies out there. The Red Bull guys jump into major sporting events, and almost every Nascar race. They're also at all the big BASE events, and they video everything and post it all online. Red Bull gets good exposure to the right number of people. How are you going to match that?
  10. The 'currency' aspect of this is not relevant. If you make 10 or 15 jumps per week for a couple weeks in a row, I would suggest that you're just as 'current' as a jumper who makes 20 or 25 jumps per week for the same amount of time. Being 'current' just requires a minimum level of activity, and once you meet that, you're 'current'. Going beyond that isn't going to make that much of a difference. As for who is the 'better' jumper, it's probably the guy with more time in the sport. He has 500 jumps, and the 3 years of experience, while the other guy has 500 jumps and one 1 year. A very respected AFF course director once made a comment to a candidate that hit this nail right on the head. While debriefing one of the ground-preps, he noted that while quizzing the 'student', all the questions has asked were the standard examples they used in training for the ground prep. The candidate asked things like, 'What will you do is you lose one instructor in freefall?' and 'What will you do at 5500' ft?'. What the course director said is that you need to propose more 'unusual situations' to really see if the student understands the lesson. Ask something that takes some understanding and deduction in order to come up with the right answer, and then you know if the student really understands. Back to your example, the jumper with 500 jumps over 3 years in the sport has spent more individual days at the DZ, met more jumpers, and been exposed to more 'unusual situations' then the guy who did the same number of jumps in 1/3 the time.
  11. You are 100% incorrect sir. Spotting applies every time. The need for corrections is fewer and further between based on the use of GPS, and the pilot's ability to very precisely put the airplane exactly where he (or she) is told, but who tells them where that is? More experienced pilots can figure that out themselves, but otherwise and during the course of the day, it's up to the jumpers to keep the pilot posted on changes in the conditions and the need for adjustments to the spot. You, as a jumper, can take an active role in this. Sit by the door and pay attention. Take into account the winds, and the make up of the load. Let's say it's an Otter, with a 10 way, 1 AFF and 2 tandems. You're talking about 4 'groups' leaving the plane, with the last two being very 'easy to please' based on their pull altitude and canopy size. In that case, there's less of a need to rush the 10 way out of the door, and less of a need to keep the group separation to the minimum dictated by the conditions. So if the light comes on 5/10ths before the DZ, and the winds call for 6 seconds between groups, the load in this example could wait until 3/10ths to begin the climbout, letting the 10 way exit closer to the DZ. The rest of the load could also give them 7 or 8 seconds separation to allow for extra space in the sky. Take that same day, and now make the load a 4 way, a 3 way, three 2 ways, and two AFF lv 1's. Now you're in a much different place. You're talking about 7 groups needing to exit on the pass, with the last two groups (AFF lv1) being slow to exit with two instructors needing to get back to the DZ. So the 4 way needs to be on the ball ready to go on the light, and rest of the load needs to have their feet leaving the door right at 6 seconds in order to make it work for everyone. Throughout all of this, you as a jumper involved in 'spotting' can take a minute after you land and pay attention to where the rest of the load opened up. How far out are those tandems or AFFs that got out last? If you were in the first group, where did you open? If not, ask someone from the first group where they opened. Were they short? Could they have been shorter? Ditto for the tandems or AFF instructors, how long were they? Could they use an adjustment on their end? Pilots are generally pretty good at what they do. GPS is darn near 100% reliable, but with that said, all they can do is react to what they're told from the jumpers who are back there 'in the trenches' watching the proceedings keeping the 'front office' posted on what's happening. Note/Disclaimer - ask at manifest how it all works at your DZ before interjecting yourself into the process. Anyone can observe, ask questions and collect data, but not just anyone should get involved in making changes that will effect everyone. Look into the system that's currently in place, and if you want to become an active part of it, ask the correct way to go about it.
  12. Are you looking to make one (or a couple) jumps from the plane, or are you looking for a 'working' aircraft for a DZ. If it's just for a couple 'novelty' jumps, just take extra care to really think though (and dirt dive) the entire process from where/how to sit, how to move around inside the plane, how to exit, what to touch/not touch, etc well before planning to actually jump from a new, unknown aircraft. Also, make sure the pilot has jump experience or speaks to an experienced jump pilot (and that he has significant time-in-type, the last thing you need is a guy with 10 hours in type 'learning' to be a jump pilot). If you're looking for a plane to work at a DZ, go find a 182. They're plentiful, sturdy, reliable, easy to repair, east to get parts for, easy to find pilots for, and can be had on the cheap these days. You could probably get one in flying/jumpable condition for under $30k in stock trim, and then add upgrades as money becomes available (engine upgrade, prop upgrade, STOL kit, etc).
  13. Hundreds of jumps? Ok, what if you have 1000's of swoops, with 100's (or even 1000's) on the same canopy at the same DZ? Does that make it less fucked up?
  14. As mentioned, lots of lights. To include the landing area and surrounding. Your sight picture is more than just you looking at one point on the ground, it's the sum total of everything you are seeing. If you only light one spot, you're eliminating all of the 'context clues' that you would normally have when flying an approach. The other key is being very familiar with the LZ and the specific approach you're going to fly. Fly the same approach on at least 6 or 8 jumps, right up until the sunset load, on the day of the night jump.
  15. There are steering toggles and flare toggles. The steering toggles are connected to less of the tail than a conventional, single toggle would be, so when steering the canopy at altitude, you're pulling on less of the tail with less effort required. For landing, you pick up the flare toggles as well, and then you're applying full tail deflection for maximum flare power. As mentioned, it's for TI comfort/fatigue. Tandems are hard physical work, and when you do them all day long, fatigue becomes an issue. Being able to get a good, full flare is key to passenger safety, and the dual toggle system helps out in that area.
  16. Why? That's the question you need to answer first, before we can really comment. What was your reasoning behind that choice? The Stiletto is a great canopy provided your goals are in line with the capabilities of the canopy.
  17. I get that, and beyond your A license training, there is some merit to that thought. However, given that the OP was intending to go to the DZ to jump (aka, learn to skydive) on a given day, the type of learning should not be the controlling factor. The A license proficiency card has in-air and ground-based items that need to be completed, and the USPA will not issue a license based on an incomplete card, regardless if the missed items are in-air, or ground-based. The USPA sees all of the items of equal importance, and so should the student. If they can make time to go to the DZ to jump on a given day, then they can also use that time to work on the ground-based learning if weather should become a factor.
  18. Not really. The OP is asking about learning to skydive, and there's more to that than just making jumps. Even if you leave out the idea of just 'hanging around' and learning through stories and general contact with other jumpers, the A license proficiency card has a host of ground-based items that need to be completed. The worst time to take care of those ground-based items is when the weather is good and the props are turning. When the weather is 'marginal', there will surely be some staff on hand in case it clears up, and before it does is a prime time to take care of some non-jumping business. I'm willing to help out students and other jumpers at the DZ with any number of things time permitting. So if the loads are turning, I'm going to have very little time. If we're on a weather hold, I have nothing but time. Add to that the learning by 'osmosis' that comes from hanging out with jumpers and taking about jumping, a trip to the DZ is a win/win when weather 'might' be a factor.
  19. It's all on a case-by-case basis. Factors include having all of your 'paperwork' in order, how long it's been since your last jump, how well you do on a re-currency test, and how well you perform during your re-currency jump. 13-15 jumps is not a huge number. With enough time having gone by, you could cut that number in half when it comes to actual, real, retained knowledge/skill. The worst thing you can do is walk onto the DZ with some preconceived idea of what they 'should' do with you. The better bet is to show up ready to play along with whatever they want to do with you, and just trust that they are the experts and know best how to proceed.
  20. This is a non-issue. The easiest part of a big-way is the slot flying, and that's all you can practice in the tunnel. The swoop to the formation, the approach, the break-off, and the canopy control are the real skills you need to be 'safe' on a big-way, and the tunnel will not help you with any of those. You cannot get on a big-way without a solid reference. Someone in charge has to know and trust someone who will vouch for you, and that trust doesn't come easy and isn't taken lightly. If you want a referral onto a big-way, you're going to have to earn it by proving yourself to someone.
  21. Practicing body position, or anything at home is a double-edged sword. It's helpful to build muscle-memory, but if you're practicing it wrong, you're building the wrong memories. As mentioned, you can go to the DZ and hang out, even if you can't jump. You can hang out in the packing room and offer to 'assist' the packers for free in exchange for learning to pack. You can also hang out and 'observe' instructors working with students, and pick up accurate tips that way. You'd be surprised at what you can learn just by watching an instructor work with another student. If you have any questions based on what you see, or that just pop into your head during your off time, write them down and bring your list with you when you actually get to jump. Finally, just be honest with your instructors when you do come back to jump, and ask that they put in a little extra time on the ground prep based on the length of time between jumps. Yes, they should check your logbook and know the dates, but that length of time means different things to different people, so speak up and let them know what it means to you. I disagree with the idea that you should wait until you have the money to make all the jumps at once. Jump at your own pace and enjoy the process.
  22. This is the car here= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_Carrera_GT Not quite 700hp, but also probably lighter than an R-8. It was Porsches answer to the supercar market, and they only made 1200 of them a few years back. It's one of those cars that can 'easily' kill you. It also costs a TON of money, so the odds that the owner has the cash, skill to drive it, and good judgment to know when to 'drive' it are probably pretty low. If Mr Hollywood was not behind the wheel, he was in the passenger seat, and I can't help but think that the driver might have been a little 'starstruck', and with it being the Fast and Furious guy, probably wanted to show off a little (a little too much, it seems).
  23. Just wait. Your legs are the largest bones/muscles in your body, and that's why they are good for taking the bulk of the impact anytime you have to hit something. Reference the PLF as proof of this. The 'catch' is that you feet are made up of some of the smallest bones in your body, and screwing up your feet (or a foot) can make trouble for you for the rest of your life. You count on them everyday for mobility. So what you get with thick-soled, supportive shoes is that your feet get 'beefed up' to match the rest of your lower body in terms of impact resistance. When you forego those types of shoes, you leave your feet exposed to injury for no good reason. I've done about 100 jumps barefoot, and aside from stepping on a bee one time while walking to get on a running CASA, I managed to get away with it. At the same time, I probably have an equal number of landings where either the weather, terrain, or just plain jumper error resulted in a pretty severe impact that would have certainly resulted in multiple broken bones in my feet if it wasn't for the thick-soled, supportive shoes I was wearing. Look man, it's not a matter of 'if', but 'when'. Be ready.
  24. I'm speaking from the 'best interest' of the DZ point of view. If you take that position, you can see that not having that video out there keeps the bad publicity down, and yes, let the DZ handle the situation internally. If the DZ is willing to take steps to protect itself in terms of controlling video footage, you don't think they're going to take the much more direct action of protecting itself by not allowing that type of instructor performance go unpunished? Letting a 'bad' video out is bad press, but if nothing came of the incident (like Grandma), it's more of a 'passive' damage control to keep the video under wraps. Dealing with the instructor is a 'direct' form of damage control, because if they do it again and there is an incident, it becomes MUCH harder for the DZ to take care of things internally. I would have reamed that instructor a new asshole, fired him, reported him to the USPA, the manufacturer, and did my best to make sure he didn't get work anywhere else as a TI.
  25. Every video/still I shoot is on memory cards (formerly tapes/film) that belong to the DZ. I land, hand them to an editor, and forget they exist. What they do with them is their business. I know this isn't the way it's done everywhere, but I don't know why that is. This is how the DZ can protect itself from this sort of thing getting out. Every DZs 'bread and butter' is their tandem/student program, and to leave ownership of that footage up to individual skydivers who are nothing more then wayward 'independent contractors' seems awfully short-sighted.