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sweet!! That site is awesome, thanks john! I don't rent cars much so I was just using the various rental cars web sites and it was crazy how the air fare was less than the car rental! Thanks everyone for your help, it saved me some serious cash

flight gets in at 11:30 PM nov 4 so might be a little late

is renting a car the best way to get from ONT to elsinore? is there anything else -- shuttle or something? i'm flying into ONT on a friday night and need to be in vegas for work the following monday morning. renting a car fri-mon is pushing 250 bucks. renting a car to drive, turn it in right away, then renting another car to get to vegas seems like a pain in the ass. if i can get from ONT to elsinore, i could rent a car for one day to make the straight shot to vegas after sunset load on sunday. that's the best plan i can come up with. anyone have a better idea??

word!

melanie curtis and nick grillet will be in seattle nov 18-19 for a tunnel camp. i'm looking to do 30 min of belly 4-way each night. it is 2:2 coaching, and i need another person to make it a 4 way. if you're interested in either or both nights let me know.

They have released PSB-8 which supersedes PSB-7. I can't find it on their web site but they embedded it in a note in facebook: https://www.facebook.com/notes/vigil-aad/product-service-bulletin-8/301421876540881

https://www.facebook.com/groups/seattle.tunnel.fliers/ This group is a place for jumpers to network and find opportunities to fly in the new Seattle wind tunnel. This group isn't officially affiliated with iFly Seattle or any DZ. basically you can find people to share time with here. https://www.facebook.com/groups/265991880085418/ This group was made by iFly. this is a good place to go to get answers that you want ifLy to weigh in on

Interestingly I just got off the phone with my rigger, and I don't have to worry because my cutter was already replaced due to a prior recall. it's not clear to me exactly *which* recall it was. It might have been PSB-5 which recalled all cutters made in december of 2007. I'm not sure if the DOM of the AAD is in november of 07 if that means that it's not possible for the cutter to have a DOM that is a few weeks older. Which brings up an interesting question. I know that the only thing you're required to put in the reserve repack card is basically the serial number of the reserve, right? mine happened to have my AAD's serial number, but not the DOM or s/n or part number of the cutter. General question to riggers: why not just always put that relevant information into the card so that when these things come up you don't have to pop pins just to see if you're affected?

Thanks for the feedback everyone that was helpful. I'm going to call my rigger today and see if I can't bring it in ASAP just to make sure. Just because I could jump without an AAD doesn't mean I should, because why take anything off the table that can make the numbers game a little more in your favor. If it is missing it's cutter than obviously my last 175 or so jumps prove that I can jump without one but that doesn't mean I want to make it 176!

I saw the vigil recall and checked my repack card for my s/n and it says the DOM is wk 46-07, which if my retarded math skills are correct, puts me in the middle of november. i have no idea if it is the original cutter, according to my pack card it was added to my rig in 2010 and I've only owned it for about a year. their bulletin says that if it isn't on the list but was made in or before 2007 to have it inspected at next repack. i *just* got my repack on september 17th. my s/n is five away from some of the s/n on the list, so it kind of seems like mine is as close to being on the list without being on the list as you can get. i'm going to ask a few of the riggers about this when I'm at the dz this weekend but i'm curious what the masses would do if they were in my situation. should i just let it be and have it checked in six months, or should I just spring for the repack and have them check it over?

taken my rig through several times, they've never seen it. did they notice it on the scan or when they did a physical inspection?

Nope just a fun jumper. Their prices are very high. Many jumpers out here still fly to San Fran, Colorado, eloy, etc.

Are you on facebook? We have a group where people post when they have time to share, and there is contact information for coaches for both RW and FF. If you're not on there I can send you the coach's info directly

Obviously before my time but that looks like eastern Washington to me. The western part of the state is very green and gets lots of rain, the eastern part is in the rain shadow of the cascade range, so it has very few trees, lots of sage brush, and dry/sandy soil.

word.

Do they pay their share of the rent on time? Do they refrain from eating your food or invading your space/borrow things that aren't their without asking? If they pay up and don't bust your stuff, then really that's all a roommate needs to be good for. Stick out the lease if you want or find someone at the DZ who also needs housing and rent a place with them. I got a lot of surprising negativity from my old friends when I started skydiving. I didn't get why they seemed so pissed off by it, especially since I never got aggro about trying to get them to join me. There is something about seeing other people change and find happiness that is truly infuriating to some. If you're really in for the long haul, your life is going to change. Your finances are going to change, your social life is going to change, and you're not going to be the same person as you were. That's the cool thing about this sport, in my opinion. I don't hang out with a TON of people I used to spend all my time with, and I couldn't be happier. Drunk assholes who sit on their ass and talk shit. Who needs that bs? Keep jumping and don't worry about your old friends. Chances are in a few years they'll be right where you left them. Edited to add: I traded in for drunk assholes who jump their asses off and talk shit the whole time. That makes a world of difference

thanks for the feedback -- body position is definitely something I have been focusing on. My body position is actually getting pretty good at my "comfortable" speeds. My slow flying definitely needs some work. I can fly at the low speeds, but now that I've learned about good body position, I know that my low speed flying is horrible body position. the two seem to be opposites--it would be interesting to see how to maintain good body position while cutting 20 MPH off your "natural" fall-rate. I'm working with a coach who is super cool, so I'll ask them for some insight.

@jtiflyer: absolutely no disrespect intended, the term is used rather loosely in my experience, but perhaps that isn't the same everywhere, so my apologies there. i have a lot of respect for the instructors and I know they have a hard job, which is actually why I was asking if there is a common practice for nicely asking them for adjustments. it sounds like I just need to tell them before hand, or maybe try signalling the instructor so he can communicate to the guy in the booth rather than trying to signal to him directly. @LyraM45: I'm pretty close to two hours of tunnel time now. That day, however the rest of the group I was with were very new to tunnel flying, so they had the wind turned way down for them. I'm a fast faller in the sky to begin with (125-130), so when the air was 110-105 to look at how I was flying you'd think I was just as new as everyone else. I was mega de-arched and all wonky. anyway, this probably didn't need it's own thread, it's not that hard to just talk to the guy. I was just looking to see if there is a universal hand signal that I could use to say "may I please have 120".

nice! learn something new every day, thanks!

Kind of an etiquette question: if you want to fly at a particular speed, do you tell the tunnel rat before you hop in? If you want it up or down, do you just signal to the tunnel rat? I ask only because recently I was getting air about 10-15 MPH below what is essentially my minimum, so I spent 15 minutes fighting to just keep off the net. I was sharing time with sub 50 jumpers so they had the wind turned down to 100 for them. I don't want to be a dick to the tunnel peeps as I know how hard their job is, but at the same time I want to be able to actually get something out of the time I'm spending beau coup bucks on.

Thanks -- I did see that there is already a thread on this with more activity, so I would direct folks there: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4176825

I saw this video and was wondering what the general consensus is on a) how the jumpers and pilots in this video handled the situation and b) what are the best procedures to follow if you find yourself in an aircraft on jump run that stalls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jVKuFHXrHs&feature=player_detailpage#t=151s I don't know any details about this incident--I don't know when it happened, but from the intro, it appears to have been at angel skydive in south africa. I did a search on dz.com and didn't see anything in the incidents forum, however if I'm search challenged and this already has a thread, feel free to point to it. I am looking through the SIM for more details about what the emergency procedures for this situation should be, and I see in Category 4 Section A Part D II it basically says to follow the jump master's instructions, but that is geared towards students. Section 5:1:D which says Unless I'm missing something, it doesn't seem to get more specific than that, and is up to each DZ. If it is that non-specific, I'm curious what some of you think. I'm going to talk to our pilots next time I'm at the DZ to learn as much as I can about our aircraft and what they think, so I'll post their responses later if anyone is interested. Edited to link directly to relevant portion of video.

They are open. 10% off block time aug 16-19; 206 244 4359

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK2LD4ro3-c freefly base has to be up there near the top as far as intensity goes...

You know that moment when you turn away from the formation and start to track? Where you feel the lift as you flatten out and really start to haul ass? That's my zen moment. I recall that feeling when I'm feeling stressed and frustrated at work. What's yours?