Pablo.Moreno

I have been trying to improve my technique and finish off on double front. Thanks

Well, At our dropzone we have about 60 days of jumping during the whole year ( weekend DZ only, and we don't jump on a

First, I want to apologize for my bad grammar and mispelling, please bear with me

+1 You have to relax and have fun that is a must. Once you are in the relaxing and having fun stage, your learning is going to speed up by a lot. I just got back from a tunnel trip to Arizona (we had Ty Losey and Brandon Atwood from Arizona Arsenal, they were awesome). I guess the second best advice I could give you would be learn how you learn. We were in a group of eight people. Two of us discover what was the best way we learn and we both really went ahead of the rest in progression. I have to stay focus while relaxing, I have too keep doing deep breathes and going over what I have to do on my next 2 minutes. While my friend have to reset his brain from what he had to do, and when he jumped in the tunnel everything came back to him. Also, when you make a mistake, you better laugh, even thou you are in the tunnel, getting mad and frustrated over something that already happen isn't going to make it go away and if you laugh at the mistakes you are going to stay relax. --------------------------------------- I apologize in advance on my grammar and misspelling

Yeah is kind of hard to get a D liscence.

I jump with a guy that owns 2 JVX 94 wingload at 1.9/1 . Talking with Brian Germain last year he was commenting on how maybe he needs to load the canopy a little bit more to get better openings. After 480 jumps he did, more or less, last season on his JVX, he came to the conclusion that packing is the key, last season was one of his years where he did most of his jumps and he didn't have any cutaway. Since I start skydiving, 4 to 5 years ago he always had a cutaway a year or so, and last year where he jump the most he had maybe 4 close calls and most of the the rest where nice slow on heading openings. I have a few openings on my computer if anyone wants to see them. If you want a tip on how to pack the JVX, I can ninja record him and post it =P

Mark ,Dave and I will be there for sure. Last year was amazing. We where located 5 steps from the landing area so the time in between jumps was really minimum. I was doing about 10 jumps a day. When we got low clouds we start doing 2 for 1 6000' hop and pops. I know about 14 organizers are going to be there, Airspeed and Arizona Arsenal being a few of them. Cants wait

I use VISO on my chest, it works great. A friend of mine use his N3 which is great as well, since it tells you how much altitude you are losing, so on drills you know at what altitude you level off With the viso you can do the same thing by reading the altimeter when is not losing altitude. If I was going to pick another alti I would go with the N3. Besides, it is re-chargeable. To bad that they took the screw holes on the N3, they worked great on the previous versions for chest mounts. Also, we use Optimum II (as an audible). They are awesome to get to the IP at the right altitude.

Lol, indeed and one thing I can say after three months is: the world doesn't end =).

A friend and myself just order two Skytunnel suits from Ouragan, with a logo and lettering down the leg and arm. Their time was 20 days from when we order the suit. After we placed the order they ask us three times, to make sure a few of the measurements were right (You have to take about 15 different measurements on your body, since the suit it is made for you). We had to get together to make sure the measurements were correct. Also, the suit has different options for drag on upper body and lower body (and more if you wanted more drag on your legs), and for this Sara Curtis from Arizona Arsenal gave us a great guide on what to get according to our height and weight. We got the suit and they are awesome, it fits really nice and it looks really sick. After we got it, they call us to make sure we were 100% happy with the product and to see if the suit fit well. Great product and awesome costumer service. We order the suit mid December 2012.

I agree with you on the fact of him trying to stow his slider, but I think you gotta keep your cool while on the air, he can shit his pants all he wants on the ground and re-think about all the stupid things he did, but while in the air there is nothing safer than a clear calm mind, for oneself.

I think the best balance would be that each new jumper and old jumpers should LISTEN at each other and try to understand what they are being told by either. Personally I only have 535 jumps, and I jump with people with 5000 and have been around for 13 years and others with 2100 that have been around since before I was born. I am always reading, watching the right videos, going to courses and actually listen and process the information I get from those. Besides I analyze on new techniques for canopy piloting and freeflying. I am also working on getting my rigging ticket, so I try to stay up to date with service bulletins and such. At our dropzone, we all listen to each other. Sometimes we yell the big GTFO specially when someone is talking out their ass, and other times we listen to whoever is talking since they might be giving a good information can help all of us. Best example, I am used to bailing out on any kind of formation at 4500 to 5000 feet on anything bigger than a 3 way, this old timer yell at me because I left at 5k, and after explaining that I want to have enough space on my canopy that if a malfunction happen I have enough time to deal with it. After that, he understood the REASON why I was doing it and with a smile on his face he call me a pussy and we laugh and kept jumping. Another example, I was freeflying with a coach in a boogie, at about 5000 feet the coach tells me to dock, my dytter was going off and I double check, then he give me the signal again and now I was at 4500, I shake my head went into belly, track and pull. He realized I went to belly, so he did the same and he pulled on time that his cypress didn't fire. He had about a minute of canopy time =S. He changed helmets and didn't turn on the dytter. The best way to communicate is with the truth and explaining your basis behind your idea, If someone is talking to me and use the old, ¨I have over 1000 jumps and I know what I am talking about¨, I walk away.

Congratulations!!

As with everything, for what are you going to used it for?. Do you want a digital logbook altimeter as well? Do you want canopy altitude warnings ?. Are you going to be changing setting often that profiles options would be more convenient?. Figured out whats the reason of buying one. If it only purpose is give you freefall altitude awareness, go for the cheapest one. If you want a logbook/beeps on freefall and canopy go with Neptune. (I would recommend the Neptune III it has some good features). Want different setting and canopy warning as well, go with the OptimaII, (The Optima II has some nice ergonomics features). Also, as many people here know, LnB has the best costumer service I have seen on the industry so far.

I don't think it is safe to load a Saber 2 more than 1.6. Well at least that's its PD WL limit on the canopy. I flew a pilot at 1.9 WL and I stalled it a few times on landing, it was right at the end but the fact I was flying it way past it's envelope had a lot to do with that. Also, 200 jumps and WL it at 1.5 is too much. At that stage, I was getting into swooping and I was flying a saber2 170 at 1.2 and it help me to build my skill just fine.

A few shots of my buddy/canopy coach Mark

Also, something that was explained for everyone at canopy course with Brian Germain. To do a quick toggle turn with out losing altitude in case of an emergency you have to get used to turn with your harness while you are using your toggles. Then again as a few people mentioned it already, practice this up high and if you have a digital altimeter you can double check on your turns to see how much altitude you are losing and it would help you to improve your technique once you are not losing any. A straight harness/toggle turn would be a lot faster, effective and safer than a flat turn when you must avoid someone coming straight to you.

I was talking with some people from Arizona Arsenal, and they said they like a lot the Ouragan suits ( I know they are their sponsors). My suit is in order and getting made as we type. Brandon Atwood their camera man was telling me that he still has his first suit after 500 skydives and 1 hr at least every week in the wind tunnel. Also, it would depend on what are your plans, vertical for what I read, but are you planing doing some tunnel time on the future as well? also what kind of weather you jump in and if it has the option to get some more weather resistant material, how do you normally land, if it has the option for extra resistance on the knees and butt ( I land on my butt a lot when swooping ). So ask yourself what are you going to need for the suit and who would give you the best option on what you are looking for. It is a pain in the ass to do the search and is easy to just ask people opinions on the internet, specially when everyone loves what they have (including me)

Another point that I have been thinking for a while, How many deaths per skydive statistic is from the old times and now days. Bryan Burke mention locals in Skydive Arizona are 1/346.667 to die in a skydive, and locals 1/67.829 Now that's a lot of skydives. Back in the days how many skydives actually occur in a year and what would be the probability of likely to die during a skydive. Maybe we are actually a lot more safer than we where back in the day, even with this high performance canopy. Also, I know Icarus has a lot of information on canopy training on their website, free of charge to anyone who has access to internet. Any DZO or jumper could print them off and bring them to the DZ.

And people where getting mad about Icarus not releasing Petra to the public just yet. It is funny to see people beating down on Icarus just for one problem on one specific canopy, I would wait to see what they have to say first. I have seen a lot of videos of different canopy's going to shit after hitting some turbulence. In a few of the videos, you could see people landing while planes were taking off. I wonder if that has anything to do with it as well.

So, as many people on this and many other threats have agreed, it is not the canopy, it is the pilot. Now at our DZ before the student jumps from a F111 280 Manta they get a "Sport canopy endorsement" that it is mandatory to anyone who is getting their 'A' license here is the link. http://www.cspa.ca/en/cwc/cops/qaq-cop/117-sport-canopy After that, there is another "B canopy endorsement" which is the novice doing all the talking (with the coach correcting on wrong info) and also increase the complexity of the theory information.

That is closest that I have heard on this forums on what we do at our DZ. It was myself who wanted to get into swooping. There was only one instructor at our DZ that jump a xbraced and was doing 450 ( He does in the range of 300-560 jumps a year). So I approached this instructor saying¨ I want to learn how to swoop¨. Since then we have taken a few canopy courses together, also we video almost every landing ( we take turns every jumps and whoever land first video the other person and the other way around) We also have swoop gates, and now we are making a second set of swoop gates (just to make the angle of the video optimal and the video person can still practice on swoop gates). He started coaching me by doing drills, and going thru many different scenarios on what could go wrong to the point where he mention I should increase my turn, I should start using rears, get a fully elliptical swooping canopy, etc etc) To be honest I was lucky that this instructor was there every weekend, but in my particular case it worked great. ------------------------------ I apologize for my grammar mistakes in advance

I haven't updated my profile in 2 years, I have 530 ish jumps and my last 300 or so have been HP landings and with in the last 6 months. I started on a WL of 1.2 on a saber 2, and after I got a pass from my canopy coach now I am on a Xfire2 139. I have had a few closed calls, where my training kicked in and saved myself (with my canopy coach).

I guess we should also restricted the speed on every vehicle so it cant go any faster than ... 40km/hr? Education is the answer to your questions, but you are always going to have people that don't want to be educated. Also, I just finished reading the Bryan Burke article and I think if you go and read it you might realized what the actual data and the reasons of why people are actually dying under a good canopy. most of them isn't because the canopy collapse, or went into a mal, or all the other reason you mention. Here is the link http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=128510

I didn't read of anyone mentioning harness turns on a biplane. You would be steering both canopys at the same time. It might be a bad idea, if the wingloading are to far from each other. but I didn't read on the report anything about doing harness turns.