3mpire

For anyone that runs into this, here is what we did to get it to work. First off, the inner assembly was a bit tough to get out because it looks like they overtightened the screw a bit when it was first put together. this caused the t-bar inside to mushroom out a bit, so it required a little hammering to get out. the holes drilled in the helmet for the standard chin strap are smaller than the screws that come with the bonehead mount. so even though they say it will fit, it will not. we had to drill out the holes so that it would all fit. that said, it's all assembled now, but be warned you'll have to do a little more work than it would first appear.

Have you installed a chin cup on your helmet?

Has anyone installed the bonehead chin cup on the Brand X FX open face helmet? I was told that it was compatible by Square1 however it looks to me like I'll have to drill out the holes to fit the larger screws. The instructions that came with the chin cup are bonehead specific so that isn't much help. Before I take a drill to this thing I wanted to see if anyone else has done this and can give me a few pointers?

snapped this hanging in a booth at the fremont fair last saturday, thought it was timely.

I have always worn gloves, but you want to make sure that the gloves will not interfere with your ability to use your toggles or access your handles. Talk to your instructors and they can tell you what you need to know -- I'm sure they'd be more than happy to look at gloves you have.

I've jumped these in -20 C and found they worked great: http://www.rei.com/product/794353/the-north-face-apex-gloves-mens I got the smallest size I could get my hands into which means I have good dexterity as there is no wiggle room. The palms are very grippy and while the material is thin, it keeps the wind out so your hands don't go numb. They're even on sale right now.

I met a guy recently who must have barely weighed 100 pounds who told me he put on a huuuuuuuge baggy suit for fun and clocked in at 83 MPH.

I've heard from fellow jumpers that HI drop zones require a B license for fun jumpers due to their regular wind conditions, but that's second hand info at best.

I would recommend buying used but make sure the make/model of canopy you buy is very common. Sometimes you can find a canopy that nobody else jumps for less money, but you're going to open yourself to risk in that riggers might not have easy access to line trim charts, manuals/documentation, etc. if nobody has ever heard of it and nobody at your DZ is jumping it, steer clear. you want something that is a known quantity and is easily repaired if you have a problem.

Saw a wingsuit BASE jump while backpacking in the mountains and decided I needed to change my perspective.

I really just went with my rigger's word and not really fully understanding what "competition" meant. when you're off student status you tend to just think that an instructor's word goes, so if they are saying "well it's more advanced than what you've been jumping" versus "there is no way in hell you should be jumping it", then it doesn't sound like such a bad idea. that is the lesson I learned--don't take just one person's word for it. I should have asked for more input instead of just going with it.

I heard that they *can* have hard openings, and that most are ok but some are "demons" that just don't cooperate. I didn't take it to mean that every one is like that, so in a way I figured I was rolling the dice. As far as opening in a track, i hurt just thinking about it. i've never heard that, and there is no way I would try. I'd track away from the group and slow waaaaaaaaaaaay down before I pitched, and i'd still get rocked. if I tried it in a track it would probably break my neck. i did a lot on packing. i'd make sure the slider was against the stoppers, i'd roll the nose, i'd make sure my line stows were neat and even. as for an elliptical canopy for a sub 100 jumper, no way.

I thought I would post a write up for the benefit of any students or newly licensed jumpers who are looking to get their own gear. i got my license last fall and spent the early part of the winter looking for my own rig. in late jan/early feb I ended up getting a rig through my local rigger. it is a 2000 mirage g3 with a smart reserve and a competition cobalt 170 main. Today i ordered a new sabre 2 170 main. those of you who have been around the block probably know where this is going, but if you don't learn from me: I bought a 2007 competition cobalt 170 that had zero jumps. in the approx 20 jumps I put on it, i had a lot of hard openings. not just brisk, but enough to do damage to the rig. first damage was from a hard opening that tore the right toggle through keeper on the right riser. not out, as in a toggle fire, but as in the keeper was torn off the riser. on the other side, the material stitched to the left riser that contains the hard housing for the cut away cable was torn 1/2 off. i got new risers and reviewed my packing technique and continued jumping the rig. last weekend at a boogie (my first) i had a hard opening on my second jump that broke the right brake line at the cascade. being at a new DZ having my first real malfunction on a canopy which I had never landed on rears, I decided to chop. Landed and all my gear (including the broken line with toggle) were all found. I jumped rental gear while the line was replaced and the reserve repacked. it was a sabre 2 170 and all my openings (on my own pack job) were great. the rigger only had enough line to replace the broken line, so he told me i should be fine for the weekend but as soon as i got back to my home DZ i should have the other one replaced. second jump on my rig after the work was done, the left brake line broke. having had just over 24 hours to think about it, i decided i was not going to chop. instead i chose to land on rear risers, which was a little intense but i wasn't hurt. the entire boogie i got to hear from my fellow jumpers how cobalts have a reputation for hard openings, how someone at my jump numbers shouldn't be on a fully elliptical canopy, etc. i listened to what they told me, and today I ordered a new sabre 2 170, and the cobalt is going back. What did I learn??? Ask questions! Not just a lot of questions, but ask a lot of questions from a lot of people. Don't rely on just a single source when trying to figure out if a canopy is right for you. Even if they're an FAA rigger, your instructor, and a senior jumper. They are only one opinion and one resource and that is not enough to make your decision. PRACTICE your EPs! It just so happened that my first chop was a week or so after safety day, where I got to practice my EPs in the harness. This was very helpful. If you've never been in a harness and your DZ has one, ASK TO USE IT. PRACTICE flying your canopy without using your toggles. The thing I learned is that my gloves, which have leather palms, make it hard to get a good squeeze on the riser during a flare. I ended up starting to turn very near the ground because one riser was sliding through my grip as I pulled down to flare. I should have wrapped my hands around the riser to use my wrist as leverage as opposed to just squeezing. Since I hadn't really thought about this, I was figuring it out on approach. Bad idea. do your homework. look for red flags when buying a used canopy. how many of them are there in general circulation? if you've never heard of it or you don't see others flying it, that might be a clue. Ask the person you're buying it from to see the owner's manual. As far as I can tell, the comp cobalt doesn't have one. Red flag. Ask to see the line trim charts. It seems to me that for the comp cobalt there are more than one of them floating around. I'm sure I'll get some flak for posting this, but I'm hoping that others will read this and won't make the same mistakes I did. In my case I was very lucky. I didn't get injured, and all it cost me was money and some stress. some people don't get to learn their lessons that easily, and for that i'm lucky. despite all that I had a great time at my first boogie and I learned a lot, and made a lot of friends in the process. If you're like me and this story sounds familiar, don't just try to work your way through it. don't think you can pack your way out of it. Get rid of a canopy if it has malfunctions or if you realize you shouldn't be flying it. I should have known better about what it means to have a fully elliptical canopy before I agreed to buy it. I had heard that cobalts can have hard openings before I agreed to buy it. That's on me, and you can't use "but they told me it would be fine" as an excuse. Once I figured out what I was actually doing, I took action to make a change. If this describes you, I really recommend you do the same. for the TL;DR crowd: don't be "cobalt guy" at your first boogie That's all I got. I'm grounded for a week until the new main comes, and I'm happy to wait. Be safe and have a great season everyone.

We had 130 at snohomish

If you're not an expert packer by the time your foot heals, you're going to be pretty mad at yourself later this summer. This is a great opportunity to spend time learning how to care for a rig and how to get good at packing. This is something that I'm still learning and getting better at, and it kinda sucks that I can't pack as fast as everyone else because it means i'll miss loads because it took me an extra five or ten minutes to bag up my canopy and close the container. everybody wants to do the fun stuff all the time--jump out of a plane. but there is a lot more to it than that. this is just your opportunity to soak all that up.

Thanks for the feedback, fellas. That is kind of surprising, but I know my rigger has the line trim information. I was just curious what the manual might have to tell me.

Does anyone have an Atair Competition Cobalt manual in PDF/soft copy? Specifically the year 2007. I have not had luck searching the interwebs. Thanks!

I did sell my 30-06, but how I really paid for it was getting a second job working as a TA at night. during the winter I would work one or two nights a week for 3 ten week classes. All the money I got from that last winter paid for getting licensed last summer, and this winter's work got me a decent rig, an hour of tunnel time, and plenty of cash socked away for a summer of jumping. it makes for long days (13+ hours when you count commuting to the day job, commuting to the night job, then getting home after) but really, what are you going to do on a tuesday night in january anyway but fart around at home? I've also been looking at everything I do in terms of jumps. Getting rid of cable tv would get me maybe six jumps a month. I've got a 5.56 that could get me maybe 25-30 jumps. Pretty much every possession could be turned into jumps when you start thinking about it!

In Washington state that is not always the case. A BASE jumper was stuck on a cliff over night this past summer, and it took 60 emergency personnel to rescue him. They tried to extricate him via helicopter, but when the proximity to the rock made that impossible, mountain rescue climbers took 4 hours to literally climb a vertical rock wall to get to him and then bring him down. He didn't get billed for any of it. Not the helicopter's fuel. Not the rescuers' time. Here is the position of Snohomish County Search and Rescue: http://www.mynorthwest.com/category/local_news_articles/20100804/Footing-the-bill-for-the-BASE-jumper-rescue/ It seems to me that if a rescue services organization run by local, state, or federal government wants to charge for services, then they should have to explicitly declare what is or is not "covered" by the tax payer before hand. Otherwise, especially in these economic times, the temptation to cherry pick opportunities to dump the burden become too great. If the person was negligent then charge them with reckless endangerment or some kind of crime. Rescue services should not be a punitive device. Rescue services are in the business of saving lives. Leave the social engineering to the legislature that makes laws.

Not everything is AFF. I did a SL progression this summer. I never did a tandem, and I didn't go up to full altitude till my 13th jump. I actually think I prefer it that way if I had to do it all over again. Earning free fall made it feel that much more exhilarating. It took me a minute to understand why a hop-and-pop would be an issue for folks until I hit your comment and realized AFF jumpers might find the idea weird at first. All paths lead to the same goal, though!

How do you handle the climb out of a bonanza--specifically the door? I recently got an opportunity to go up with a co-worker's husband who owns one of those (got a little stick time!) and from what I saw it looked like it would be really tricky to do.

Totally! Your math was pretty accurate given that the speed and dive angle was variable. I thought a rough estimate could be made with the initial data points, but i wasn't able to put anything together

Interesting article with much more technical detail: http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/11/30/350342/lone-co-pilot-panicked-after-putting-indian-737-into.html Full text below for those who don't want to click through:

Wikipedia says 485 mph

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/30/report-co-pilot-moved-seat-sent-jetliner-plumetting/[/url] check this out--co-pilot accidently puts a 737 into a 26 degree dive which lasts for 7k feet. Knowing the degree of the dive and the altitude lost, assuming an average cruising speed, how long did the dive last? I'm looking around for calculators to figure that out but I'm not a math whiz...