davelepka

Good for you, and this OK to admit given that you don't fly canopies/WL or engage in manuvers that are considered outside of what would be considered 'safe' for your experience. So if you're an ace canopy pilot with 200 jumps, that's good. However, you should still be on intermediate canopies loaded at 1.3 or less, and you should not be swooping in any way. But if you can fly an appropriate canopy cleaner and more accurately than other guys with 200 jumps, good for you.

There is no such thing as a full day of recurrent training. Keep in mind that an average AFF FJC might take 6 to 8 hours. Out of that, there are several hours dedicated to things a jumper seeking recurrent training does not need. Any part of the AFF dive flow, exit training, or dirt diving is not needed as part of the recurrent training. Given the experience of the jumper in question, they also do not need to sit in on the basic body position portions of the class. Topics like malfunctions, emergency procedures, pull priorities, canopy control and landing priorities and aircraft emergencies are all that a jumper getting current would need out of an AFF FJC. The remainder of the recurrent trianing would be specific to the jumper and the instructor making the jump. So the 'whole day' is a misnomer at best. If would be about half of the FJC, but in any event, the FJC is a great place to stick an uncurrent jumper for the topics listed above.

Is that your home DZ? See if he can send it to Square1 for an inspection. They are a reputable store/rigging loft, and if he won't send it there without payment, there's a problem with the rig/deal. I didn't know that's where you jumped. Perris is one of the largest, most wwll-known DZs on the planet. There's no excuse for a seller not willing to ship a rig to Square1. I was thinking you jumped at some no-name DZ in the middle of nowhere, where the seller wouldn't know one guy from another, but between Perris and Square1, it's a 'safe' option to ship the rig there. The upside is that you save the trouble/cost of shipping the rig to an escrow service and then to you. Also, you can try the rig on while only paying one shipping charge as well.

Contact Chuting Star gear store. They do an escrow deal where the seller ships them the rig, and they do an inspection. If it passes, you pay Chuting Star for the rig, and they send you the rig and the seller the money. I think all you pay them is the fee to inspect the gear. If a buyer is not willing to work with a 3rd party escrow service, then how will they handle things if the rig doesn't fit or pass an inspection when it gets to you after you have paid? Of course, there are the issues of who pays to ship the rig to Chuting Star, and who pays for the inspection, both in the case the rig passes, and the case that it doesn't. These are details to work out in advance. Another 'detail' is that if the reserve is packed, it will be unpacked for the purpose of an inspection. Make sure they know that it will be returned uppacked. No buyer is going to buy a rig with a sealed reserve, so it will need to be opened eventually, just make sure they understand this. Also, make sure you understand that an inspection does not include jumping the rig. If you plan to jump the rig, make sure the seller knows this and agrees beforehand. If you have a cutaway or damage a rig that you haven't paid for, who is responsible for what should be laid out ahead fo time.

Yes, it turns out that it was. Either way, I think the lesson stands. RIP, Nate Gilbert http://www.dropzone.com/fatalities/Detailed/36.shtml

I recall a guy was killed doing just that 6 or 8 years ago (I guess) down in Atlanta (or there-abouts). His name is on the tip of my tongue, but he was an accomplished swooper who grabbed a freebag, and it lead to some sort of mal that he could not (or did not) recover from. The better option for all is to fly past a freebag (or cutaway main) at a safe distance. As you pass, note your altitude and look straight down to 'spot' yourself. These two pieces of info, when combined with the wind speed/direction for the day can really help to pinpoint the location of the downed gear.

I just realized that I know you in real life. PM sent.

Click on this link - http://www.dropzone.com/classifieds/Detailed/Containers/Big_Mans_RIG_J5_Javelin_PD_218_Reserve_BONUS_STILETTO190_141843.html -you're welcome. By the way, listen to the ad and plan to never jump the Stiletto that comes with the rig. Sell it and buy something bigger and more square.

Let me use the above to illustrate a point. I know the intent of your advice, but here's how it's (way) off the mark- One of the key points of instruction is that people tend to learn best the first time. The reason being that habits are hard to break. So when you give advice to practice any part of the jump without your instructors present, you're opening the door for that person to develop a bad habit. Furthremore, when you practice an exit without a rig on, you lose the restriction of the harness and space the rig occupies on your back. So you might get into a position in the mock-up that you could never achieve with a rig on. Instructors will practice with each student until they (both the instructors and student) are satisfied that they are doing it correctly and comfortably. Remember that every student and every instructor are different. To interject yourself into the process is making a ton of assumptions about both parties, and you just can't do that with any degree of reliability. One important lesson to learn in skydiving is that when you give advice about any aspect of the sport is that you need to be VERY sure that it is 100% correct and 100% applicatble to the situation at-hand. People will take what you say and literally make life-and-death decisions about their next jump. There's an aspect of the riggers test where if you are asked a question you don't know the answer to, the correct asnwer is 'I don't know, I'm going to refer to the manual'. Along those same lines, it's never the wrong answer in skydiving to say, 'I'm not 100% sure, you should consult an instructor or more senior jumper'.

So? Just don't go to the tunnel. Spend your tunnel money on in-air coaching, and your skills will progress too. You'll also be better at exits, tracking, and canopy piloting than your friends who learn in the tunnel because you can't practice any of that in the tunnel. There are vast areas of the country without tunnels, and tens of thousands of jumpers who have never set foot in a tunnel. You can live without it.

Not knowing your experience level, or the situation in general, I have a few comments. First off, make sure the pilot is qualified. A 'new' helo pilot might not be the best person to use as a jump pilot. It's an unusual situation, with an open cabin and rapid weight shift/change, and an addition to the workload. Not the best idea for a 'new guy', maybe if he's a commercial helo pilot, that would be a good indication of training, skill, and expereince. As for the jumping, again, not knowing your experience, being on a DZ surrounded by staff and other jumpers has it's benefits, none of which you will have jumping off-site. Things like spotting, and LZ selection. Having an extra set of eyes on your gear, or being able to get a gear check/pin check at all. Having a 'crowd' of people watching your landing and responding to you if you are injured. Ditto if you have a mal or land off, all of those jumpers on the ground will be able to get a line on where you and your gear lands, and be able to recover both much quicker. If you happen to land off and be injured, that response time is all that much more important. Again, just some generic things to think about when jumping off the DZ, or with non-jump aircraft or pilots.

Here's my advice - come up with a start date and place (The Ranch), and then work forward from there based on local events. There are 10 different ways to go from Boston to Missouri, so see what DZs have boogies or events going on while you are there, and see if you can't string a couple of them together. It's fun to visit DZs on any summer weekend, but if you can get there when they have an organizer or an extra turbine, it's even better. Get your dates together and re-visit this thread with some specific requests for who's doing what during those dates. Also, if SDC is on your list, check out the dates for Summerfest. That's a big enough boogie that you could plan your trip around it, and it would be well worth it.

You need to make it a comp, like Para-Ski or Para-Shoot. Maybe turn points in freefall or do accuracy under canopy (or both) and then do timed laps on the track. The trick is coming up with a way to assign point values to it all, and combine them for an overall score. If anything, I think it's an original idea. I can't recall hearing those two things combined in the past.

So if the most common injury to tandem passengers is broken/sprained ankles, and it comes from them planting their feet in the ground, why would you want to give them an extended opportunity to do that at a high speed? If they decide to plant their feet at any point in the swoop, it's going to be bad. If they find they can't keep their legs up (all the way and perfectly straight), it's going to be bad. Even if the TI does everything right, all these landings do is give the passenger more of an opportunity to make an even bigger mistake than before. On a straight in, or shorter swoop landing, they have far less time and opportunity to make that mistake, but even then, they manage to get their feet down at just the wrong moment. It looks cool to see such a larger canopy swooping, sure, but for the passneger, any landing under a modern tandem canopy is going to be excoting. They all have a fairly good forward speed and descent rate (as per the passengers perception) and a strong flare. Ask them after a jump, and mnay passnegers will tell you they thought they were going to crash at a high speed until the last second, and then the canopy just 'stopped', and they had a soft landing, and this is on a 350+ sq ft canopy. It's enough for them, and that should be the measure of what is 'enough'. When you want to decide what is 'enough', pay for your own jump.

If you're thinking fuel pump, it 'should' kick in and pressureize the fuel system when you turn the key to the 'run' position, just before you twist it over to 'start'. Put the key in, move it to 'run' and see if you can hear the pump fire up. I know this is how it works on my Honda, and I would think that VW would be the same. I might be wrong, so don't take silence in the 'run' position to be the gosphel, but it's just another idea to add to the hopper.

Below is a quote from the OP, what I said was on-topic, and relevant. Tell me that aircraft MX is not largely an issue of simply trusting the DZO that it is done properly. Tell me that Lodi did not have some egregious MX issues that spanned a significant time period and number of loads flown. As fas as I know, Bill is still running his own MX shop, so you have all the same people doing the same job as before. Do you really think it's a stretch be be, let say, skeptikal, when it comes to the current state of affairs. Note that I don't come right out and say that things are 'A-OK' nor 'sup-par', as I don't know one way or the other. I just lay out the facts from not too long ago, and the fact that there is a degree of trust involved in the area of aircraft MX in this industry. If you break that trust, there is a price to pay, and part of that is going to be some lingering skeptisism. Maybe you can help me, what does corrosion on an Otter wing attachment point look like? How about with the fairing installed on the plane, what does it look like then? How about worn control cables? What do they look like with all the inspection plates in place? It's something to think about.

I wonder what part of the MX and log books are more outwardly visible than they were in the past? What is it that you can see that is different than it was before? Let's remember, that the nature of the problem was such that nobody but the MX staff and management was aware of the shortfalls, as those areas, as I mentioned above, are generally on a 'trust the DZO' basis, and not something the casual observer could tell one way or the other. If an aircraft is in such poor repair that it's obvious to the outside observer, that's a real problem. However, let's say a high pressure fuel pump has rust in the drive gears, is that going to be obvious to anyone but the A&P who inspects the pump? Nobody could tell there was a problem until the drive gears let go, and the engine quit. Ditto the wing attachment points on an Otter. They are covered with a fairing, and their condition is only known to those who remove the fairing and inspect those points. To you and I, they are hidden from view. I'm not claiming to have knowledge of the current state of affairs in the Lodi MX department. I'm citing the past performance, and calling it cause for concern. You, on the other hand, are claiming to knowledge of the situation, and I am suggesting that you might not know as much as you think. Maybe it's all good, maybe it's not. We're still left to trust the DZO, and he does have a 'marked' track record in that area.

C/18 means it has a 'C' width yoke, and an 18" main lift web. There are other factors that will influence the fit of the harness, like the length of the laterals and length of the legstraps. What you need to do is get your serial number, and the serial number from the rig your are considering, and get the detailed measurements from Sunpath so you can compare the two, beyond the yoke/MLW size.

That may be true, but part of the problem is that aircraft MX is one of the areas where you place a ton of faith in the DZO that they are doing the right thing. As discussed ad-nauseam with regards to this issue, it's impractical or almost impossible for the average jumper to actually check the logs and confirm that they are complete, legit, and up to date. Based on this, it becomes an issue of trust. One of my problems with the situation was the nature of the shortfalls. Failure to inspect the wing attachment pioints sounds like one of the dumbest things ever. It's more-or-less a 'free' inspection, in that the only cost is labor, and as I understand it, Bill has A&Ps on the payroll anyway. I get why someone doesn't do a six-figure hot section on an engine, but a simple inspection on a critical structural part is hard to understand why it was skipped. (Along those same lines, skipping a simple inspection of a fuel pump is what lead to the crash of one of Bill's King Airs up in Cananda, you think he might have learned) The timed-out contol cables is another sticking point for me, based mostly on the duration of the 'over time'. When the FAA busted him, it been over a year that he was flying on timed out cables, and I just don't see how you can excuse that. A week, two weeks, a month, maybe. Who knows, maybe there was a boogie, or the cables were on back-order, but to let that situation stand for over a year is hard to understand. So coming full circle, to the idea that aircraft MX becomes an issue ot trust in the DZO, you can see why some people might find it hard to place that trust in a guy who acted in the manner described above.

Just a couple of things - First, in terms of the harness failing, that's not going to happen. Even at the weight limit the DZ sets, you are well under the structural limits if the harness. The weight limit is in place for the purpose of harness fitment, and the fact that the instructors have to physically move you around to a degree, and anything beyond the weight limit becomes too much extra work for them. If the DZ will allow you to jump, you are nowhere near breaking a harness. As far as you fear goes, jumping out of a plane is supposed to be scary, more so if it's your first time. If you are not the first jumper of the day, talk to some of the passengers going up before you before they jump, and see how they feel. Scared, nervous, apprehensive, etc. Then talk to them after their jump and see if any of them regret making the jump, I'm pretty sure the answer will be 'no'. The fear is part of the deal before you make a jump, and overcoming that fear is part of the deal after the jump. It's a feeling of freedom and accomplishment to be able to do something you weren't sure you could do in the first place.

Sounds like 4-way, no? It was inevitable that it would go that way from day one of the first freefly comp. Before that it was an 'alternative' to the rigid structure of RW, and quite frankly, almost nobody was good enough to really build too much structure into the jumps anyway. Once it went 'mainstream', you were bound to pick up more of those type-A personalities who would bring the competitive mentality of RW into freefly. On the one hand, that (and VRW) has launched the skill levels into the stratosphere, which I guess is good. On the other hand, by pushing the top up to where it is, most people at anything less that all want to be at the new 'top'. I've got no time in my life for tunnel camps, record attempts or competitions, so I'm strictly a 'fun' jumper. Truth is, with freefly, you can really have 'fun' just jumping with newbie/low time freeflyers. Unlike doing RW with newbies where you sort of sit there and wait for them, you can throw a couple tansitions or whip a quick orbit while they get stable and ready for a grip (or not). It's fun for everyone, and it's an easy jump to work into a day of shooting tandem vids or whatever. You don't need a ton of dirt diving or debriefing, and if you can only make one jump with them, it's just as fun as doing the same thing all day.

I admire your restriant. I understand that shipping takes time, but calls/emails/facebook does not (for the most part). Anytime I have bought or sold anything expensive (gear, motorcycles, etc) I treat the sale like a job in that I make communication and staying on top of the deal my top priority (or as close as I can get). In any case, calls/emails are always answered same-day, regardless if I am the buyer or the seller. Even if you're a big-shot rich guy, it's not hard to imagine that to someone buying a used rig (or whatever), a $1000+ transaction is a 'big deal' and deserves the courtesy or a timely reply.

Welcome to fast parachutes. They go fast because they're loaded up, or steeply trimmed, or both. In any case, you need to use the brakes or rear risers to modulate the speed/descent rate during the canopy flight. Yes, I said it, you actually have to fly your canopy, and not just hang there like a side of beef.

Bill gave you some good tips, I'll expand on one - body position. The drag of your body has a big effect on the forward speed of the canopy, so the idea is to minimize your frontal area. If the wind is at your back, you'll want to be in 3/4 (or slightly more) brakes, so one thing you can do is to hold your hands more behind you than off to the side. Crossing your legs will help, but you can also bend at the knees so your lower legs are horizontal or even tucked up behind your thighs. Besides that, remember that when the wind is blowing you toward your target, you want to stay up as long as possible to let the wind do it's thing for as long as possible. So in that case, deep-ish brakes will do the trick, just short of a full flare. More than 3/4, less than a full flare. Minimum descent rate is what you're after. When there is no wind, or you're facing into the wind, you're looking for is forward speed and flatter glide, as opposed to min descent rate. In those cases, some rear riser or something closer to 1/2 brakes might be a better choice. In either case, reducing your own frontal area will help the net effect.

No shithead, it's a link in the chain. It shows a general disregard for regulations, as does her fighting a mal after her audible flat-lined on deployment. As does her poor execution of EPs (no arch). As does her failure to practice flare her reserve. As does the lack of attempt to PLF. If she had followed the basic instructions given to a first jump student, she probably would not have been hurt. She also would have cutaway higher, with a better body position (reducing the risk of a reserve mal), and possibly not needed the FJC PLF if she had practice flared her canopy in a meaningful way. The camera is simply another box to tick off as to what she did wrong. It's contribution is that it points to an attitude of nonchalance, not just a single simple mistake like a mis-timed flare. Learn to see the forest from the trees.