Anachronist

Short answer is yes. I know swoopers who use the FlySight to log canopy data, even through the turn. I believe Walt at Redline Aerosports has some data on smaller canopies in straight and level flight. What exactly are you looking for?

Ahhh, 10-4, yeah that makes sense.

So there are some misconceptions I see in these statements. But again, refer to my training for presence or lack of validity, I certainly don't know it all. I am just regurgitating what I was taught. Tightening leg straps to prevent shock sounds like a bad idea, generally speaking you don't want to restrict blood flow unless you are stopping bleeding. Shock (due to a loss of oxygenation) is a life saving physiological response that shunts blood to vital organs. The idea of "preventing shock" is because you don't want the person's condition to deteriorate to the point where it happens, but when it does, it can be life saving, it just means they are in deep doodoo. It is more an indication of the person's condition, not a "thing" that can be specifically prevented. If that makes sense. i.e. if you could "prevent shock" when it is necessary, then you would be doing harm, the "prevention" is keeping the overall condition from getting to that point. As far as hanging in a harness THIS is a good read. It is generically referred to as "suspension trauma," I've also heard "harness syndrome" and falls into the broader category of "compartment syndrome." If you find yourself hanging in a harness and otherwise uninjured, do as much as you can to change your position, flex your legs to move blood around, and try and take the load off your legstraps as much as possible. 30 min seems to be when the danger starts. Granted skydiving harnesses seem to distribute the load much better than climbing or safety harnesses, so I would posit the time required to cause medical problems would be greater. But that also depends, are you 18 or 80, how good is your circulation anyway? Other than that, get to the ground as quickly as possible and call 911 if the person is expected to be hanging for any length of time, which you probably should have done anyway. My memory is fuzzy on this one but I think that unloading the harness is sufficient to cause problems related to suspension trauma, straps usually aren't tight enough to appreciably restrict blood flow when you are just sitting or reclined. Rapid transport is the best course of action after getting down, if it is going to be a really long transport then you don't want to make things worse by continuing to restrict blood flow with tight leg straps. If it is that bad and there isn't a heli involved, well sometimes you just get boned. One thing good to take away from the reading is not to lay down completely flat after being suspended. Rather, reclined at about 30 degrees. Reclined at 30 degrees is pretty much good for everything, for the lay-responder I would say "when in doubt, recline at 30 degrees." This is not considering CPR and stuff like that.

For what it is worth, here is my training about tourniquets, last updated in 2009 and in an EMT only class, so we didn't talk about the surgical application. Because not a lot of experimentation gets done, for obvious reasons, training varies depending on how the available information is interpreted and what other means (training, equipment, etc) are available to treat a problem. There is no 100% consensus in emergency medicine because not enough sound data exists. This problem was mentioned in the course, basically "this is the best info we have to go on." The same reason CPR procedures keep changing, new data=new method=new data, it is a continuous cycle. And why layperson CPR and EMT CPR aren't the same. The military is keen on it because it requires little training and is an absolute stop to bleeding that doesn't require constant attention, e.g. if someone's leg is blown off you can put a tourniquet on it and then proceeded to fight or transport them under less than ideal conditions and not have to worry about maintaining pressure. Not appropriate or necessary for most civilian situations. Bottom line, use only to stop immediately life threatening bleeding that cannot otherwise be stopped with direct pressure. So the two scenarios that come up are amputation or severe laceration of an arm or leg. The on-again off-again method is not advised for two reasons, first, if the bleeding is life threatening then you don't want to allow that to begin again to try and save a limb. The second is not only because of the tourniquet but because of clotting associated with the injury, you want to prevent an embolus, releasing the tourniquet increases the probability of one occurring. The critical time quoted was 3 hours. After that time you begin having a much higher probability of losing the limb because of ischemia and thrombus, which also makes removing the tourniquet (which eventually has to happen) more dangerous. We were told, you really only ever do it if losing the limb is an acceptable outcome, it is a last ditch effort to preserve life. Our standard of practice was if a tourniquet goes on, only a physician can remove it, just like a cervical collar. Never used one, never saw one used, I can only convey what I was taught. I'm also not an MD so I can't comment on the validity of the principals I was taught, and can only accept them at face value. My training was in Georgia at Valdosta Technical College in 2009 as part of a 1 year EMT-I course to include NREMT testing. Personally, I would only ever use one if it was pretty obvious that I would bleed out before getting to a medical facility and accept that the limb would be lost.

Former EMT-I here. Just my 2 cents. Keep it really simple. Other than recognizing misc medical problems and calling 911 there is little that can be done and you don't want to fill people's head with a lot of confusing info they will probably never use and will forget the specifics of in a month or two. Stick with direct pressure and basic tourniquet stuff (tourniquet for self use only, you can really mess someone up with that), keeping people very reclined (Semi-Fowler's position or supine) not moving people, etc. A little bit of knowledge is dangerous when you don't appreciate the nuance of what is going on. What NOT to do is more important for lay responders than what to do. e.g. it is much easier to make things worse than make them better. Be sure to explain the legal implications of doing anything not painfully obvious for would be samaritans. i.e. you use your shirt to apply direct pressure and someone gets an infection "not your fault," you put a tourniquet on someone and they lose the limb or die from an embolism, "your fault." Do anything you don't have a certificate for saying you have been trained to do (other than what is painfully obvious to everyone) and you have to take responsibility for your actions in court. Recognition of the misc medical stuff is good for everyone but boils down to recline and call 911 or transport to a medical facility. Even for EMS, aside from some pretty specific issues and using specific equipment, we rarely "save lives" we simply prolong the dying long enough so that an ER or OR can do the saving. The "do" list is short. The "do not" list is endless.

Yeah, the disparity between the knowing or "learned" and the unknowing or "unlearned" is growing and an important skill is to be able to decipher credible and meaningful information. Teaching that skill is hard because it isn't a "read this or that and you understand it" kind of thing, it is a lifelong process. I considered myself pretty smart, came from a moderate/liberal family and had lots of knowledge imparted on me. But going to a University in my late 20's and learning about real science (not the watered down and silly version taught in public schools) and especially statistics, fundamentally changed my perception of reality. Math doesn't have an opinion, it doesn't have an agenda, it simply "is," and it defines reality. Science is the only creation of humanity that recognizes that and strives to explain the world in mathematical terms. We still have a majority of people in the US that believe some sort of cosmic wizard is calling the shots because a book with anonymous authors and no empirical evidence tells them it is; that sums up the problem pretty well. For what its worth, I don't read a great deal, and even less fiction. My favorite authors are Oliver Sacks and David Foster Wallace. I don't have a PhD, and I worked blue collar jobs for 10 years before going to college; medical, entertainment, construction, and maritime. I consider myself well rounded and neither a member of the Blue Collar crowd nor the intellectual elite. I submit this for the "DZ.com required reading list," it is only about 30 pages and non-fiction. The link is to a PDF of the essay. (Read all of the footnotes, he has a odd manner of writing and they are very important.)

I sent a PM but you might as well hash all this out on the forum. Any restrictions on suits, brand or size, i.e. X3 or Aura? For whoever cares, this isn't going to work for high maintenance WS owners or customers. If your suit comes back dirty, too bad, wash it, you got paid. If it comes back with a scuff or a stain, too bad. If it is not airworthy or needs real repair, that is a problem. The issue is skydivers are scumbags and someone is going to have a WS that needs repair and try to get it done by Wicked for free by claiming it came from the renter. I would suggest that Wicked make its insurance mandatory, and if there is a "claim" you have to send the WS to Wicked to recover a total loss or let them decide how to repair it. The only way this will work is if Wicked can protect a significant or total loss and the WS owners aren't prima donnas. i.e. don't expect the WS to come back in perfect condition, the pay for the rental should be sufficient compensation for cosmetic damage, especially over time. If someone rents your WS you should expect they jump the crap out of it and they are going to send it back to you with at least a couple cosmetic souvenirs. For renters, if it is a little stinky, deal with it. If it is disgusting or needs repair, doesn't fit, etc, then there should be some sort return for the cost of shipping only within a couple days of receiving it.

Just spitballing for tunnels out there. Not much can be done about the net (dacron instead of wire maybe?) but has there ever been discussion of having pads on the walls, removable or otherwise? The plexiglass is pretty much there for observers and some gym wall type pad that could be put up and taken down might be worthwhile? Or is it just not enough of an issue / then people would be too comfortable and start smashing into the pads? Also curious about why they all use uncoated wire, I would posit most breakage comes from friction rather than load, and even if load causes the break, friction probably severely weakened the wire. Or has coated wire been used and the coating just got sloughed off pretty quickly?

When a barrel was 140 I paid 5 bucks a gallon in So Cal. SO. Now it's 35 ish.Why am I paying over 2.50 ish a gallon. Markets are rigged. Feds keep printing fiat money. Donno. Ask Bernake or Yellen fuckin thieves or we can go back to 1913. Or even further. Fixed costs my friend, the gas doesn't magically appear at the station. Transportation, refinement, inspections, equipment, insurance, payroll, maintenance, etc. If a barrel of oil was free it would still cost money to get it to your car/truck/plane.

Yeah it is a different time. Apparently the reason Lodi has $15 jumps is because they bought long term fixed price fuel leases (is "lease" the right word?) in the 1980s during the fuel price collapse, so they are still paying 1980s prices for Jet A. I heard recently the DoD was thinking about switching (or maybe did?) from JP-8 to Jet A-1 which would save tens of millions of dollars a year. A couple cents a gallon adds up when you burn a few billion dollars worth a year

Also worth mentioning, I've heard, and cannot confirm (before my time and not disclosed to me by first-hand sources), but many DZs and aircraft operating today were paid for thanks to illegal activities in the 80s and 90s. So we also probably owe the existence of many of the planes we jump and establishment of several DZs to those activities. If it was all paid for with "honest money" there would be fewer turbines to jump from and DZs to jump at. The prevalence of jumping and low price of jump tickets in the US is a bit of a lucky break. Also worth considering is a Caravan is about $750,000 - 1mil. For the amount of money earned on such a huge investment, it is really a poor business model (owning or leasing the plane). There is little money in aviation for most operators in most sectors compared to the investment in equipment. For example, commercial airlines operate on a 2 to 3% profit margin.

About $2 per gallon in central FL (+ or - 20 cents depending on the day or location). As for jump prices going down, no. Gas stations use their fuel prices as marketing (the owners really only make money from inside sales) so they sell gas at the bare minimum the market can sustain. Price goes up the further the fuel has to travel and in cities because taxes are higher, land costs more, and everything in cities is more expensive. The following was explained to me by a medium size DZO with a Caravan as it's primary jump plane, plenty of fun jumpers and tandems. Feel free to correct me. For medium to small DZs running turbines, fun jumpers are a luxury afforded by the presence of tandems. If tandems disappeared, so would virtually all of the factory DZ's or those without a large and consistent fun jumper or military population. For numbers sake, at the time of explanation, 7 was the break even for the Caravan. If 7 went up the DZ made $0. For every jumper after that $24. So a full load (12) of fun jumpers would only bring them $120. (Actually less because the time to altitude increases because of the weight and thus more fuel is burned, which is about a gallon a minute, which happens to be about the climb time each person adds.) Talking about a Caravan operating at sea level here and Jet A at about $5 a gallon. So on a full load of fun jumpers each one is only giving the DZ a profit of about $7. If it is hot or the plane isn't running efficiently, time and fuel burn rise more. Also, the DZO quoted less profit per jumper, he said $4-5, perhaps other costs I'm not aware of or just Jet A at the time, the $7 figure comes from rough math in my head. Not included in the "break even" was the hangar fee, electric, paying people, maintenance on everything but the plane, and all the other expenses of running a DZ. A few grand a month. Not to mention bad weather when they make little or no money but fixed costs remain the same. Also, two passes on jump run (including hop and pops if they reduce the climb), having to wait for jumpers or other planes on the ground, it all adds up to less money for the DZ. So jimmying with jump prices a dollar or two because of fuel prices isn't worth the time for anyone, especially for fun jumpers if they went up when fuel gets more expensive or it is really hot on the weekend. Not to mention the competition isn't as high, there aren't 10 DZs in a single small town like there are gas stations. So the business lost to a DZ because another one 2 hours away has $1 cheaper jumps would be non-existent. Jump prices have been very stable for several years despite everything else getting more expensive. So, quit your bit**in and be grateful because the only reason most of us have a DZ to jump at is because tandems pay for it to be there.

Aside from all the Sharia Law craziness for residents the treatment for visitors is also appalling; get raped, caught with trace amounts of any drug, or step outside the designated foreigner areas and you are also subject to those laws. Be warned... Some tidbits from the Wiki article (which have citations) include female tourists who report being raped being jailed for consuming alcohol and having pre-marital sex, to include one woman who had sex with her fiance (not the rapist), as well as one woman being jailed for cocaine possession because her blood tested positive due to receiving a codeine injection for back pain, and a man imprisoned because approximately 0.003 grams "smaller than a grain of sugar" of marijuana was found stuck to the bottom of his shoe in the airport. But that BASE zip-line and the RocketMen are pretty sweet...

I do hope innocent individuals aren't harmed in the fire, but as a whole, yeah, fuck Dubai. Just out of curiosity, why the hate on Dubai? I mean, there's a bunch of youtube vids out there of happy skydivers going to Dubai to jump out of buildings, planes, etc. Dubai seems like the mecha of skydiving, base jumping, and debauchery, no? +1 for fuck Dubai Yeah, it is everything terrible and disturbing about mass consumption with conspicuous wealth the US is so famed for but many times worse, built on virtual slave labor with nothing but oil money by a complete monarchy with deplorable human rights policies to include women, foreigners, and anyone who wants to say something not nice about the government. They feed off the West's materialism to build nothing but a ultra fancy resort for the extremely wealthy and have nothing to contribute to society or humanity. What happens when you give a 16 year old playboy with no conscience, a fundamental religious doctrine, and an obsession with expensive luxury items an unlimited bank account and total legal authority...? Dubai. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Dubai Every country has these problems, including the US, but Dubai bathes in them. (generally speaking, youtube videos are a terrible way to understand a culture or society, particularly when they are basically just marketing promotions)

A little closer to home, don't know how much is available online though. Daytona State and UCF

So first off, XP is amazing, they truly are the best. Also you've learned a lot, some of which I will restate. Aside from that, the best way to approach tunnel is to go through an instructor that has a relationship with them. You will almost always buy a piece of an hour 10, 15, or 20 min, and therefore get it at the hourly rate. You buy that from the instructor, not iFly, even though you might be presenting your credit card to iFly, it is because the instructor booked the time. Otherwise you are a tourist, especially at iFly Orlando. You can go through an instructor that works at the tunnel you are going to and finding the right one is important. But book with the instructor, not the front desk, unless the instructor tells you different. Basically how it works (with some variation) is a instructor will book an hour and then sell pieces to people, you all go in together for the whole hour and rotate. As for the instructors, there are some tunnel instructors that have never been on a skydive, and more that are not AFFIs. Pick an AFFI if you want to learn skydiving skills. If you plan on coming to IFly Orlando again I'd be happy to give the contact info for some AFFIs who take people there (pm me). If you go to XP then almost all of them are good, you just have to find one you like, and stick with them.

While surgery is always an option and a very good one for many people I'll abstain from discussing it because in reality, unless you are a physician who treats hundreds of patients a year, your opinion is irrelevant (including mine) and personal stories are statistically irrelevant. What I have seen repeated with very few exceptions, physical therapy, with and without surgery, is fundamentally important. Many of the good low impact exercises mentioned are great. Swimming, rowing, and yoga among them. You just have to find out what works best for you. Losing weight is also a consistent and tremendous help especially because the force applied to your lower back is not linear, it increases exponentially (not the actual correct mathematical term) based on the weight, i.e. if you weigh twice as much, the force on your back is actually increased more like 4x, or more, I don't remember the formula. So if you lose 10 or 20 lbs, you reduce the force on your lower back by more than 10 or 20 lbs. If this is an option for you. It also decreases the forces of opening and impacting the ground (even on your feet) by reducing both mass and velocity. Another exercise I've seen help lower back issues is leg extensions. Not the hanging kind (that uses different muscles) but the kind where you sit and extend your legs. Like this. You are doing a good job by consulting more than one physician because no one "knows it all" and much of the physician patient relationship is how well each can communicate. In my experience medicine is as much an art of communication with the patient as it is the hard science of biology. Try everything, don't scoff or dismiss anything, but find out what works best for you. And vet your surgeon, they truly are artists, no two will install hardware or perform a surgery exactly the same way. (That may be an overstatement but suffice it to say, there is quite a bit of variation). Good luck and PT hard. The old saying of "if you have your health, you have everything" also implies your health is worth sacrificing everything for. Also if you are considering getting back into the sky I would recommend looking into a Firebolt for two reasons, very soft and long snivels, and the most powerful flare of all the canopies I've jumped without question, to include the Saber2, Pilot, Pulse, Storm, Silhouette, Prime, Nav, and Solo. *I have no connection to or interest in JumpShack, just personal experience. Also, Chiro's are not medical doctors, they are more like "advanced massage therapists" and do not conform to scientific research and practice standards. They exist outside of the larger medical profession and were only allowed to call themselves "doctors" after a federal judge felt the American Medical Association was being too harsh by basically calling them quacks and witch doctors. They have only slightly improved since then (1980's if I remember correctly). I'm not saying they are without merit but their education pales in comparison to any bachelor or above education at a real university, much less a medical school. Take their advice as you would a PT or rehab therapist, to confuse them with MDs is a colossal mistake.

I'm excited to see rentals available from Squirrel! Will be a good thing for Squirrel and the WS community. Wish you the best of luck in your new endeavor, merry Christmas

No real RW experience here but if you are talking about the Cookie G2 and G3 they are essentially the same helmet. The G3's liner is a little nicer and "updated" (particularly around the mouth) and the G2 has a clear coat over the carbon fiber that flakes off which is kinda annoying. If it isn't a price thing then just go with the one still in production, if you can get a G2 dirty cheap then go with that.

+1 for the OP (only other experience was a Smart). I've ridden one and they fly and flare very nicely. If I had to downsize during a jump I'd want it to be on an OP.

Mirage doesn't include "tight fitting" canopies so you can probably horseshoe a Pulse 190 in there. But yeah, the issue is as much the reserve as it is the main. You could put a OP 160 in it but then you are still going to be downsizing at 2k ft or less, as previously mentioned. You're going to use your reserve at some point, you have to be comfortable flying it under less than ideal conditions and potentially landing off. Most folks don't (no one I know of actually) jump a reserve two sizes smaller than their main...

If you just want to downsize but aren't working toward swooping you can jump something smaller but with consistent WS friendly openings. Below 135 it starts getting questionable no matter what you jump though, at least from what I've seen. Stuff I've seen go down to 135 and be ok (with a competent pilot and appropriate experience of course) Pulse, Prime, Storm, Spectre, Pilot, and Saber2. There are people also WSing small Zulu's but I don't think that is wise and have seen a couple chops attributed to its small size and opening characteristics, also if I'm not mistaken Aerodyne also does not recommend it. If you want to swoop and WS you could swap canopies and to address your concern, only do it once per day. i.e. "this is going to be a WS day or a swoop day, not both." Swapping a canopy not under stress or trying to make a load isn't a big deal and if you also pack and inspect then you add 20min but reduce the chances of hooking up something wrong considerably. If you want to hard core swoop and WS, yeah, you should have 2 rigs. Worth mentioning but not at all officially condoned as far as I'm aware, is some folks are jumping small (~113/143 sq ft) Optimums that have a PCA as their main. Lets them WS a container that will also hold a small cross braced wing. But how one goes about getting a OP with a PCA to own I do not know. The people I've seen do it have connections in the industry or potentially added the PCA themselves (I'm quite sure PD is not ok with this ).

It's all about learning, on the + side at least you were aware enough to realize what was happening and that your reserve was deployed(ing). Don't be too hard on yourself.

the container is mirage g3. I checked the link you posted but no size there seems to fit the reserve / main combo. I haven't received the container yet. But when I do will it's size be written on it? g3 is the model not the size (which I think you already know) ask the seller what size it is or the SN and then call Mirage and ask them. I don't know where the size is written on a Mirage but yes, it should be somewhere, warning label, packing card pocket, etc. You will see combos that don't seem to match sometimes, they are "guidelines."

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