davelepka

True, but the guy who replied is trying to funnel business to DZs that don't participate in business practices that are detrimental to the sport. The owener of CSC also owns Proskidving, which is a website that attempts to attract people searching for a local (to them) DZ in order to make a jump. Then Proskydiving will sell them a jump, and refer them to the nearest DZ that 'participates' with Proskydiving. Of course, they take a cut of the action, something on the order of 20%, if I recall correctly. The issue is that DZs are 'forced' to deal with Proskydiving, or operate under the threat that their local competition will, and thus lose all the business that Proskydiving can draw. Doug, the owner, claims that he is providing a service by handling the advertising and administration of the business for the DZ. Meanwhile, if Proskydiving didn't exist, the DZs would have an easier time advertising as they would only have to compete with their local competition. As to the 'adminstration', if he charged a reasonable rate, like a couple % of the deal, I would understand, but for 20-ish%, even the lowest volume DZ could have their own online merchant account for far less than that. In the end, the guy is a shark feeding on other DZs profits. He runs a DZ in the Chicagoland area, and makes money providing actual jumps there. Meanwhile, he's also trying to get in on the action of DZs all across the country where he does nothing but intercept internet users who are already searching for a place to make a skydive. He's not drawing new business, just grabbing people who are already looking to make a jump. Without Proskydiving, they would have found a local DZ, dealt directly with them, and the DZ doing the actual work would have recieved 100% of the profits. It's bullshit, and I wouldn't fault anyone for calling him out on the bullshit. If you can jump at CSC or SDC, I would vote SDC all day long. Top notch DZ, and the exact oppostie of CSC. In fact, back in the day, when Roger Nelson founded SDC and starting having huge success and doing 100+ tandems in a day (which was a real milestone), he used to hold seminars for DZOs to show them how to market their DZs and achieve the same sort of success. Roger knew that if a guy in Cleveland was doing 100 tandems in a day, it didn't hurt his business in SDC, and was good for the sport. He helped the sport to grow, while Doug (CSC) is helping his bank account to grow on the backs of DZOs who aren't competing for his local Chicago business in anyway.

Find the stabilzer to start. It's the 'side' of the canopy, and there's usually some sort of label over there with the name of the canopy. If you're holding the canopy correctly to flake the cells, the stabilizer should be laying against your legs. So if you know you're starting at the 'beginning', you can follow the top edge of the canopy (which is now facing down because you have the canopy over your shoulder) and just follow that seam along until you get to the other stabilizer. Remember that a cell has two 'sections', and that you want to count the 'middle' section of the cell. So start at the stabilzer, with that being the outside of cell #1 and follow the leading edge until you come to a seam. The first seam you come to will be the center rib of cell #1, so count it. Now keep going, and the next seam you come to will be the wall between cell #1 and #2, and you don't count that. Keep going to the next seam, which will be the center rib of cell #2, so count that. Keep going, and you'll end up with 7. It does. Talk to your rigger (or any rigger) and they can provide you with a 'safe' marker to label the attachment points. Those are the little white square tabs that the lines actually attach to at the canopy, and they are just big enough for a mark. Again, it can be done, just ask a qualifed professional for help to make sure you don't harm the canopy or mis-label the lines (how confusing would that be?).

Cancel your order immediately. I doubt they have done much more than put it in line for production, so before they do any work or cut any goods, cancel the order. You should be able to get 99% (if not 100%) of your money back. I gotta ask, between filling out the order form and getting measured, it never occured to you to ask how long it would take? When I order a pizza I want to know when it will be ready, and this seems like a bigger deal than a pizza.

Based on your profile, I'm guessing you weight about 155-160lbs. Are you saying you wear 40+ pounds of lead and then swoop a sub-100 sq ft canopy? That's what the OP is talking about. Better than 25% of his body weight in lead, and then swooping a small, HP canopy. If you have to weight-up to be in the base of a 100 way, and your WL remains below 2.0 and you do the standard, big-way straight-in landing, I see no problem with that. What the OP is suggesting is another story, especially when he admits that he doesn't want to be on anything smaller than an 84, but he wants to load up a canopy as if it was smaller than an 84. I don't see the logic or wisdom in that.

My concern with a thumb drive would be that it limits some people to viewing the video on their computer. No everyone is 'computer savvy', or has a DVD-burner in their computer, so once they get the thumb drive home, all they can do it show it on their computer. On the flip side, almost every computer has a DVD player, so a DVD will work for TVs and computers, and anyone who is computer savvy can transfer that file to any media/format they want. I think the thing to do is a offer a 'menu' of choices to the customer. Make the 'standard' packlage a DVD/CD with the video and stills, and if they want a thumb drive instead, they can upgrade for an extra $5. It takes care of your concerns regarding the costs, and my concerns regarding the functionality of a thumb drive.

Gotta ask, how do you see a difference between jumping a bigger canopy with 40lbs of lead on, and a smaller canopy with no/less lead? You realize that you stand a better chance of avoiding injury if you are not hauling around 40lbs of lead, whcih is greater than 1/4 of your body weight, right? Have you considered the idea of running, sliding, tumbling, or impacting anything while wearing 40lbs of lead? I get that some jumpers feel that a larger canopy with lead is better for certain events, and that a smaller canopy with no lead is better for others, but those jumpers are willing to jump the smaller wing with no lead. For a jumper who feels that they are not ready for the smaller wing, jumping the bigger one with an excessive (yes, it is) amount of lead seems like a very poor choice.

Were the repairs needed to make the rig airworthy? If so, the simple solution is to sell the rig and pay the rigger with the proceeds. Sure, you end up with no rig, but if the rigger had no done the repairs, you would have ended up with a rig that wasn't airworthy, which is the same thing as no rig. Truthfully, I don't think any riggers are out there 'making up' work just to stick the customer for the bill, especially one who still charges $40 for an I&R. IF you rig needed some work done to be safe, then he did what he had to do to complete an I&R. The 'R' part requires him (or her) to seal the reserve and sign the card, both of which deem the rig 'airworthy'. If the rig couldn't be deemed 'airworthy', then the 'R' couldn't be completed. Have you talked to the rigger about making some payments on the work? Maybe over the course of a couple of paychecks? I think if you explain that you didn't realize the extra work was needed, and the costs involved, and that you only have a fixed amount of money to spend on jumping, they'll be understanding and let you pay it off over a couple of paychecks or so. To address something you said upthread 'Every rig needs some kind of work....', no, they don't. Case in point, your rig is currently not in need of any work, and is signed and sealed as airworhy and ready to jump. It might not have been a cost you were expecting, but just bite the bullet and get it over with. The end result is that your equipment is squared away and ready to jump.

If they can't afford to replace the canopy, what good does a written agreement do for you? You want to spend money to sue a guy who can't afford a used canopy? How about in the case of injury? Forget about you being sued because it was your rig, but let's say the guy breaks a leg, plevis or whatever. Now the EMTs may cut the rig off of him, and if the guy doesn't have insurance, repairing your rig is going to be at the end of a very long list of bills he has to pay. Even with insurance, the loss of income is going to leave you with a cut harness and not much else. DZs and gear stores rent gear because it facilitates other business. Even then, they have other streams of revenue to offset any looses they might incur based on a 'problem' during a rental situation. As a stand-alone business proposition, it just doesn't make any sense. Post the rig in the classifieds, and just sell it outright. This time of year, used gear tends to sell quick, and you'll get cash in yout pocket with no 'ongoing' situations to worry about.

It can. User can adjust that if they want. Why isn't it the 'default' mode from the factory? There are several reasons why that change hasn't been made. One of them is that 750ft has worked very well for the most part. For many years there were no reports of AAD fires without successful reserve deployments. In many of the cases that have come up recently, there has been suspicion that the real problem was overly tight reserve containters or ineffective reserve PCs (or a combination of both) that lead to reserve deployment delays. The AADs worked as they were supposed to, they fired at the intended altitude, the problem might have been with the rig. The solution in that case does not lie with the AAD. Another thought is that the min pull altitude has not changed from 2k for many years, however the average altitude loss during opening has gone way up. Canopies open slower these days, and if you still dump at 2k, you're getting closer to a 2-out as your canopy snivels you down lower then you planned. If you raise the AAd firing altitude, you slim that margin even further. I think the bottom line is this- an AAD is a back-up device, and is designed to work in as many scenarios as possible, with the over-riding design goal being to 'do no harm'. You can adjust the firing perameters all over the place, but you end up increasing the risk of an unintended AAD fire, and we all know that if that happens at the wrong time, can do quite a bit of 'harm'. AADs are fairly good these days. It's rare that they fire when they're not supposed to, and in most cases they do fire when they are supposed to. Those are good odds for a back-up device that only comes into play after the jumper has made one or more fairly serious errors in judgement.

You have the right idea with your expenses. How much do you really stand to make at the DZ once you subtract all of your legitimate expenses? Once you start to add up things like 'training jumps', equipment, travel costs (including out-of state events) and every other penny you spend on skydiving, do you really have that much of a tax liability left? Treat your DZ job (for tax purposes) like a shitty job for a shitty boss where you have an expense account. You're not going to out-of-pocket one dime for one paperclip for a shitty boss, so treat the DZ job the same way and see what's really left over. Keep a running accounting of things, and between the end of the season and tax time, find a way to spend all or most of the 'profit' that you have left. Take a trip for 'recurrency training' in December, or buy some new gear to burn up whatever you couldn't write off during the season. That said, if this is your primary source of income, or you just make so much money that you can't figure out enough BS to not clear a healthy profit, just pay the taxes on whatevers left and consider it a good year.

Back on topic, get rid of the above variation by being consistant in your pack job. In all aspects, find a 'system' that works for each part of the pack job and stick with it. How wide do you cocoon your canopy to fit the bag? How big (front to back) do you make the folds? How big are your line stows to end up with the right excess? All of these are areas where you can figure out the 'best way', and the learn to repeat that on every pack job. The consistancy will help you to pack faster and neater. Don't bother. Many years (and 1000's of jumps) ago, I started putting as many rubber bands on each of the stow points as I could fit (not on the locking stows). The idea is that when one breaks, another is right there to use immediately, with no interruption to the pack job. At the end of the day, I'll clear the broken bands and replace them with fresh ones, but during a busy jump day I don't have to stop and mess with rubber bands. Anyway, in all that time I've never had a problem with extra rubber bands on the bag, broken or not.

I'm not sure if they'll run it 24/7, the noise might be a problem at night for some of the passengers. I have a feeling that tunnel time will be included in certain ($$$$) 'packages' that include upgraded cabins and fancy dinners, etc. It might also be an 'ala carte' option to add to your cruise, but I just can't see it being a 'open door' for everyone to walk up and fly. I would also be very surprised if they went with a high power tunnel. It got to be cheaper, quieter, smaller, and use less power to limit it to belly fly speeds. It's a slick gimick, but I don't think it's going to be something jumpers will be able to 'use' for anything beyond a 'ride'.

Define this better. How many jumps does that add up to? In terms of 'dailing in', what does that mean to you, and where in that process are you? Is your profile correct and are you currently at 400 jumps? Given your current WL, 200 jumps is not going to be enough time on a canopy between downsizes. The higher your WL goes, the more difference you'll notice in downsizes, and the more time you'll spend on a canopy. Students go from .75 to .85 WL with 5 or 6 jumps on a given canopy (like a 260/240 student canopy). The differences between those canopies is slight, and doesn't require as much work to be 'ready'. Once you crest 1.5-ish in WL, and start getting into HP flight, things get more complicated, and thus it takes longer to really be 'ready'. To echo what Drew said, you need to recalibrate your idea of 'quite a bit'. For reference, when we're 'in season' up here in Ohio, I'll do twice that number per month, easy. Again, when you're pushing into higher WL and HP canopy flight, 400 total jumps and 16/month is straight-up newbie territory, and probably the bare minimum numbers needed for participation. Repetition is a huge factor in learning, and being able to build on the learning experience of one jump by the same jump immediately following is what's going to help you get the most out of your jumps. However you slice up 16 jumps over the course of the month, you're either jumping a little bit on 6 or 8 days, or jumping a lot on fewer days with more time in between trips to the DZ, and neither one of those puts you on the 'fast track' to swooping and smaller canopies. Just to put it in perspective, the one guy I knew who successfully pushed the limits of WL and swooping for his jump numbers was so gung-ho that we would arrange for the pilot and 3 other jumpers to show up at the DZ at 7am, so they could do 2 hours of hop n pops before starting a 10 to 12 hour shift on the video rotation. He wasn't satisfied with 8 to 10 video jumps, he wanted to add those 4 or 5 hop n pops to his daily total. He would do this Sat and Sun, every chance he got. I'm not suggesting that you need to be doing 20+ jumps per week to be a swooper. What I'm saying is that you need to look at the time and money you can dedicate to the sport, and adjust your activities accordingly. Just the like all the newbies/whuffos who post asking if they can be safe skydiving once a month, or only make 10 jumps per year, the answer is 'yes' as long as they remember their experience and currency when they plan out their jumps. Smaller formations (or solos), bigger canopies, lower wind limits, etc. All of these things will make it 'safe' to be an infrequent jumper. You're in the same boat with swooping and small canopies.

Just order some longer legpads, and have a local rigger install them. It's an easy job that shouldn't take more than 30 min.

First off, Poynters manual was written a looooong time ago, when there was no freeflying. In general, the seperation and closing speeds involved in smaller RW jumps is faaaar less then in freeflying. Watch the video, and see how much seperation they get right off the plane. If you could get that far away on your belly, you're probably not good enough to close the gap at anything close to a high rate of speed. In freeflying, the same lack of skill that shot the guy 100 yards away, when redirected just rockets him back toward the group. What you can do is make better choices than these guys did. With clearly very little control/experience freeflying, why make it a 3-way? Why add the additional 'risk' of an extra jumper who you may/may not be able to keep an eye on? Furthermore, their head down skills are clearly sub-par, so why fly on your head in a group setting? Or why stay on your head when you see how poorly it's going? Freeflying is a different animal, and one where you can get quite a bit out of solos. Case in point, I know a jumper with 1500+ jumps, coach, TI, fairly good freeflyer but better on his head than in a sit. He did a couple solos last week to work on some sit skills he learned in the tunnel. All by himself, he was able to tune up his skills on a solo. This jumper is 'good' in a sit, and has 100% control over himself in a sit and is more than 'safe'. However, he wanted to work on his body position so he was quicker and more stable taking grips, so he did solos. So if you're freeflying, there are other considerations. If you're doing RW, start with a 2-way, and see if you and the other guy are compatible. Is the fall rate comfortable, so you can focus on the flying and not just trying to keep up or down? Once you find a solid 'partner', keep it a 2-way until you can vet another. Don't make it a 3-way, do a dedicated jump 2-way with a new partner to see how things go. If everything is cool, then make it a 3-way because you've tested out some of the vairables. If you find fall rate or other problems with the new partner, make some changes and keep doing 2-ways with them until the jumps go well. If you think about what I've laid out above, it's not rocket science. If you wanted to be smart and methodical, and gave it some thought, you would probably come to similar conclusions. If you want to stand around the DZ and bitch that none of the experiecned jumpers want to jump with you, and then just do 'whatever' with anyone who's willing to jump with you, you get what you have in the video in the OP.

Yep. This is one reason that I reccomend no more than a 2-way until the jumpers are proficient at basic proximity control in whatever type of flying their doing. The reason being that in a 2 way, it's easy to keep track of all the other jumpers on the jump. If you can maintain eye-contact with the other guy, you can see 'everyone'. You might still have a collision (which sucks) but at least you will see them coming and can brace yourself, or position yourself to take a hit in the best way possible. As soon as the jumpers in the video left the plane, my first thought was 'where is the other guy'? As soon as you could see him in the frame, I was now wondering where the other guy was. Moving on from those hazzards, there's another one right in the beginning. When the jumper in the rear float position climbs out, he turns his rig toward the tail of the aircraft, and appears to put it right up against the rear door frame. If you drag your rig across the door frame, or make any sort of contact, it's a great way to knock open pin cover flaps and/or dislodge pins. The idea is to turn your rig toward the middle of the door. If you are facing outward (checking the spot, maybe?) and you are rear float, you want sit toward the rear of the door, and rotate to your left swinging you rig toward the center of the door. Likewise, if you are front float, you'll want to rotate to your right.

If you need your ticket, you're going to need a DPRE, so why not eliminate the middle-man (a regular rigger), and contact Dave Dewolf directly? He's in central-ish PA, and could be a one-stop shop for your needs. If you have enough cash, I'm willing to bet he can get you up to speed and put you through the practical/written tests in short order. http://www.paraloft.com/Riggers_course.htm

OK, but your rigger would still need to note the battery change on the repack card, so they would have to be present at the time of the change if you want them to sign said card. Otherwise, it looks like your batts are out of date, and nobody esle will pack your rig without intsalling new batts. How come all of your threads surround trying to go 'cheap' on gear? You realize that this is life-saving equipment, right? I'm not siggesting that everyone needs to jump a brand new $9k rig, but I think you're taking this a little too far. What do you think a rigger will charge you to swap the batts in your Cypres? Most I know would do the swap as part of the I&R and not really charge anything extra. If you really want to learn, ask to be present during your next repack, not by 'playing' with things on your own. What kind of Cypres is this anyway? If I'm not mistaken, the Cypres2 onyl requires a batt change with the 4/8 year service. If this is a Cypres 1, your bigger concern should be when the unit expires, over and above the batt concern. Look into that before you spend any further money to make sure the AAD will outlast your repack, not just the batts.

Bill Von had the right advice. Downsizing is not based on guesses, it's based on actual real-world preformance on the next size up. If you cannot display accuracy and control on the next size up in a variety of conditions, then you are not ready to downsize. I'll add one thing to the various checklists available, and that it to cross-check your skills with an instructor. Explain to them that you are thinking about downsizing, and ask them to keep an eye on you under canopy for the next 10 jumps or so (on your existing canopy). See what they have to say about your current skills. Take what they have to say, combine it with your comfort level/confidence on your current wing, and that's who you make the choice to downsize (or not), one size at a time. What's available in the classifieds is of no relation to your skills and abilites.

You could see your position relative to the shore and you left the aircraft. You were not pushed or thrown, you exited of your own accord. Likewise, you should ALWAYS be aware of the spot, and ALWAYS wear a PFD when jumping near the ocean. Did you do either of those? Did the tandem make it back? Probably because they pulled higher than you did. Why did you freefall aimlessly down to whatever altitude you did when you saw you were over water? Your canopy will glide much further than you in freefall, but you ate altitude by freefalling straight down. Distracted you with a camera? How? The guy asking you if his Gopro was on? Again, you chose to help him as opposed to making yourself aware of your situation. I routinely 'deny' the high-fives or fist bumps from other jumpers on jumprun because I am busy with my own gear checks, camera, or (ah-ha!) checking the spot. Regardless, your video clearly shows a view out of the door to include the shoreline after you helped the guy with the Gopro. If your camera saw it, so could you. I'll be VERY surprised if anyone posts in your favor on this one.

You're kidding, right? You got in the plane with two wingsuiters and another person in a camera suit. What was the plan for the group? It had to be something involving tracking or forward movement of some kind. Beyond that, you were far from 6 miles from shore, it's clearly visible in the frame at all time and it's no 6 miles off. If you didn't like the spot, why did you jump? Your own camera shows you looking out the door with the distance to shore clearly in view, yet you left the plane anyway? Who's choice was that? Who's choice was it to jump over/near water without a PFD? Who's choice was it to jump with two wingsuits while you were in a camera suit? I'd be surprised if this thread stays in this forum, or anywhere for that matter. If you want be a big boy and jump things like cameras and camera suits, take some personal responsibility for your own actions, and quit blaming everyone else for your poor decision making (and it appears poor tracking skills).

That's a good thought for starters. There are several different ways to do most things in skydiving, and when it comes to student training, each DZ has their own preferred methods. If you read up and 'attach yourself' to one method that your local DZ does not use, you're forced to 'relearn' that skill. Otherwise, make sure that you fully understand the material you're being taught. There's no shame in asking questions or not understanding what you're being told, it's far worse to step out of an airplane with a full understanding (in your mind) of the situation. Besides that, you can't really say one way or the other how you could be 'better' without having made a jump. Go in with the right attitude, and you've done all you can before hand. Maybe after your first jump and debrief, you can have a 'sidebar' with your instructor and ask if they have any tips on your performance as a 'student', but right now nobody knows for sure how you'll do. Who knows, you might turn out to be a model student.

The problem is when these 'brokers' start pulling business away from the local DZs, or manage to hook one local DZ, and then all the other locals are on the hook to play ball, or lose out on whatever existing customers (remember, people searching for skydiving are already looking to make a jump) the 'broker' happens to snag. It's a very fine line, and given the size of the market (and the margins) in the market, there really isn't room for 'brokers' of any kind. Skydiving isn't cheap, but neither is running a DZ, and any 'middleman' who is taking a cut of the pie needs to be generating more new business than the % they are removing, or it's a net loss for the DZ at the end of the year. The vast majority of DZs are 'local' businesses. Meaning that 99% of their business comes from people within a given geographical location. The number of people in that area, and number of DZs in the state will dictate the size of the available market, and that's how the size of a DZ is determined. There's a reason that Skydive Chicago runs multiple turbines for 8/9 months per year, and Skydive Columbus runs a 182 on the same season. So when you have a 'broker' from outside of that are come in and funnel some of that money out of the area, it's bad for business. Forget about the cost of gas, airplanes, lawsuits, etc, it's a burden that the industry does not need. If these 'brokers' did not exist, customers would still find their local DZs, and be able to deal with them directly. It's clearly an advent of search engine optimization. These 'brokers' never existed before the prevalance of the internet for marketing purposes. It used to be the DZ needed someone one the phone 24/7 to take calls from the phone book/newspapaer/word-of-mouth advertising, and where were the brokers then? Nowhere to be found because it took time, money, and effort to make those phones ring and generate sales. Now it's a faceless website that runs itself, so the parasties come out to feed. Free market or not, it sucks and is a bane on the industry.

Yep. If you've never tried it before, webbing and suspension lines don't cut easy. Good in that they're tough, but if you need to cut them to survive a mess.

Would I be right to assume that you're turing back-to-backs all day long? The one way to know for sure is to use a mock-up, or the actual plane. If you only have one 182 (or all of the 182s are turning loads all day), they have to refuel every couple of loads, and that downtime is a chance to practice a climbout if you don't have a 'realistic' mock up. Again, if you're busy, train someone (or a few people) how to do this, but gear up the potential student and actually go through a hook-up/climbout on the ground. If they can't manage that, they're not going to do any better after a 20+ minute plane ride, and with the wind in the door. Another idea, if you need more room for a passenger, consider getting a seperate pass for any fun jumpers on the plane. Put them out at 9500, and you get out at 10,500, or similar. If you want to give the fun jumpers more altitude, let them out at 10.5k, then have the pilot close the door and do a couple go-arounds while you get hooked up with the plane otherwise empty. You might have to charge a couple bucks extra for this, but the customer needs to understand that $20 extra is what it takes to make it work for them. (Don't read this to mean that you should let the fun jumpers open the door and exit with your student un hooked. Do the best hook up you can when the door is open and jumpers are exiting. However, once they are gone, you could unhook, and reposition yourself and the student, and then hook up in your preferred/easiest position)