peek

Fantastic research! Everyone should do this. You can pack any parachute with any method and it works fine if you know what you are doing. Some pack jobs are a bit more symmetrical than others.

Please do not report an AAD accidental firing using only the manufacturer's name! Please include the model number. This was an FXC what? Model 12000? Astra? Some military model? P.S. I find it interesting that AADs made by Guardian/FXC have long been refered to by their manufacturer name, but most other AADs by their model name or number. Very unfair to Guardian/FXC.

They may change this someday but for now- The WFFC is exactly 10 days, from a Friday to the following Sunday. No part of it is every in July. Therefore, if August 1st in a particular year is a Friday, that is when it starts, otherwise if August 1st is a Saturday, then it would start on the 7th.

Book Review: The Parachute and its Pilot 3rd edition by Brian Germain (I did not see the first two editions, but I can say that this edition is well done as far as the writing and printing. I just got this edition from Brian at the WFFC.) This is it folks! This is the book that nearly every skydiver needs to read. All about flying and landing ram-air parachutes, including information you need to know when you begin to learn how to to "high performance" landings. The book includes just the right number of diagrams to help you understand what the text is explaining. Brian's background in "adventure psychology" allows him to explain very well some of the things that go on inside our heads when we skydive, and how we can perform better and more safely by knowing these things. I rather like the first-person writing style, something most authors are afraid to do nowdays. (There are some pretty neat metaphors in there too.) Most importantly Brian reminds you that you can die if you miscontrol your canopy, and he does this many times thoughout the book in one form or another. I found it very interesting that Brian explains many of the things that many experienced skydivers have learned simply by their vast numbers of jumps, experimentation, and intuition. But unless you have a lot of jumps and know a lot about parachutes, you simply _must_ read this book. You can order the book at the Big Air Sportz web site at http://www.bigairsportz.com via PayPal, or get one if you see Brian in person. (He is working on getting some other distributors to make ordering by credit card possible.)

That is an absolutely great idea for someone having continual problems judging landing height. I'm just going to have to remember that one.

N/A

Off to the WFFC The van is packed, now all I need to do is finish up a few pieces of business, and then I'm gone. (Lucky me, only 3 hours away.) Like I've said in years past, please look me up in the Convention Load Organizer area and say "Hi". Or when I ride my bicycle past the dropzone.com tent say "Hey you, c'mere", or something. I can't tell what anyone looks like from these pictures so I might have posted or talked to you before and not recognize you. BS, USPA politics, or whatever!

1. To show people how much they can accomplish when they can replace their fear or nervousness with confidence. 2. To show people who may have been lead to believe that Tandem skydiving is just a joy ride where they "don't have to do anything" that Tandem skydiving can literally be "learning to skydive". 3. Because certainly no two are the same! 4. Because after occasionally finding a student that has out-performed any of my previous students as far as awareness and performance of the manuvers I have taught them, I find yet another one that does even better. (It just continues to amaze me.) 5. Having Tandem jumps subsidize my other jumps isn't too bad either I guess.

Good question, however the answer is not a precise one, and I'm sure you would get a slightly different answer from different organizers of these groups. My definition is those who are experienced with making successful small formations, perhaps at their small single C182 drop zone, and wish to make larger formations from the larger aircraft available at the WFFC. Mary Santangelo has volunteered to concentrate on the intermediate groups, as well as a few other organizers. I have done many in past years, but when the WFFC moved to Rantoul and the attendance waned, the distinction between the intermediate and advanced groups blurred with fewer skydivers signing up for a particular group. We are trying this year to make it more distinct for the benefit of the "intermediates".

Just a reminder to those of you who have never been to the World Freefall Convention or who are considering going for the first time. The Convention Load Organizers are available free of charge and can provide nearly any type of (mainly RW) load organizing you need. (Of course there are specialty loads too, light hoop jumps, streamer jumps, etc.) There are organizers for ALL experience levels, so you will be able to find people to jump with that are near your experience level if you wish. In particular, there are special sections of organizers for "novices", meaning that if you have enough jumps to get into the Convention as a skydiver, then you can jump with an organizer. Some of these great people absolutely love to jump with novice jumpers. Also this year there is going to be a section of organizers that are going to concentrate on the "intermediate" skill level. In the past we have combined intermediate and advanced, and some of the intermediates have not gotten the attention they need. And of course, as always, the "advanced" sections will be doing medium-ways and big-ways. "Something for everyone" we call it. A special note for those who are worried about safety at the Convention and what you might regard as crowded airspace. Find a Convention Load Organizer and let them help you learn about how to take care of yourself at the Convention. There are a lot of time periods when the airspace is not at all crowded, especially in the morning, so don't hesitate to come to the WFFC if you want to. And please read the "Welcome Book" (Official Guide) that you will be given at Registration. It contains safety information and articles.

Yeh, I guess you did! I must admit I get concerned about fall rate rather easily.

freeflybella: Baggy suits are like training wheels for beginners. They will assist you in getting vertical - I'd suggest once you have some familiarity with vertical body positions, that you get out of baggy suits. Learn to fly your body without the help of drag. peek: Would you please qualify this with regard to fall rate? General comment to all who support not wearing suits/baggy suits/wings: I think many people assume a group of skydivers who are about the same size and weight doing these things. It works great for them, but adjusting your body position only works up to a point when people are of drastically different sizes and shapes.

"I see you do your own rigging" A while back I visited a large drop zone, and when directed to the gear check station, which was operated by the on-site gear sales and rental company, was greeted with the above statement. This person (rigger?) suggested to me that I be sure to place my seal symbol characters on the packing data card. (It did not have this notation.) Am I a shade-tree mechanic? (Warning: deliberate attempt at sacasm.)

It seems that yes, this rental gear is not a very good deal, and I don't blame you for avoiding it. With the exception of the worn Velcro, it might be a reasonable rig for _some_ uses, but at $25 I think they should be providing gear that can be used for everything. I've never understood the worn Velcro situation. Even replacing the hardest to replace areas of Velcro is not _that_ hard. It doesn't need to look perfect, but just be safe.

I'm curious as to what you mean by "as crappy as it is". I can't imagine a dz renting gear that is dangerous or anything, but quite possibly they might have rental gear that is not freefly-friendly. I must agree that $25 per jump seems like a lot even for rather new gear. Maybe the DZ has a history of many students being rough on the gear and this is really what it takes to provide it?

Bill Von metioned in another forum that at his DZ they have an older rig/reserve than they loan to people once they are off student status to help them save money, (and presumably a number of other things I can envision, like being able to try out some mid size canopies before they rush to buy their "final" rig that needs to fit the (probably smaller) canopy size.) How many of you know of other drop zones that do this? I can see a number of DZO's not going for it due to rental money loss, liability, etc.

[NeedToJump]: This may be true if everyone on the jump is wearing one of Tony's sit suits but I have found everyone wearing a sit suit to fall incredibly slow. Peek: I would think so too. That's why my original question included "and on to other types of fast fall rate flying". "Learning to sit fly" might mean something different to people now. I'm thinking to some degree it now means learning a sit position in preparation for turning over head down and falling at basically the same speed in both positions.

Dave: One point you [Gary] may be missing, ..., is that they are not designed to control the fall rate like an RW suit would, they are designed to facilitate an upright position.... Gary: Dave, I am _astounded_ by this comment. When Tony Uragallo designed his company's line of sit suits, the size of the wings were most definitely chosen to give the jumper a "standard fall rate" (if desired), at least among wearers of their suits! And it works very well, just like when Garry Carter developed the "standard fall rate" (RW) Flight Suit. I looked through my old documentation to try to find one of the order forms from back then. I think I recall seeing something specifically mentioned about wing size and fall rate, but I can't find it. Have you possibly not seen a wide variety of suits designed for a wide variety of jumpers? I have seen many. The wing sizes are proportional to the jumpers body size/weight. Edited to add: If you have, and you have not observed the proportional wing sizes to effectively manage the fall rate, it is probably because this is (granted) more difficult to do at the higher fall rates. In other words, I believe you if you say that you have not seen it work well. To me the Air Time Designs SitSuit "standard fall rate" just seems to work so well.

My question was actually much more basic than that. What I meant was "If it is so important to teach someone to sit fly without a sit suit, then why isn't it equally important to teach someone to fly face-to-earth without an RW suit?" Or asked another way, "If we insist that someone learn to sit fly wearing a sweatshirt and shorts (temperature permitting), why wouldn't we insist that they learn the basics of face-to-earth flying (up to the point where the really need grippers) in a sweatshirt and pants or jeans?" As fas as I can tell, the arguement about "learning to fly one's body" can apply to both. I wasn't even at the point of discussing booties yet. Oh, my, that is another topic altogether and I hope this thread doesn't get hijacked by that discussion. It seems that a number of people treat sit flying differently and insist on those that they teach not wear a sit suit. I'm trying to figure out why.

Thanks for your response. Of course this absolutely begs the question- "Why do we not do this for face-to-earth relative work?" It could be said to be true of any flying style.

"The current state of teaching/coaching sit flying and on to other types of fast fall rate flying" Long title isn't it? But that is what I am asking. This is a question for those of you who "teach" others the basics of sit flying when asked. I've seen sit flying go through a few stages. Just when it became popular a few years back and a number of people had sit suits, head down flying came along and surpassed it in popularity, then it seemed to increase in popularity again and become more intergrated into head down flying. I have also noticed a few stages (or cycles) of using sit suits, and then of not using them. For those of you that are suggesting learning sit flying without sit suits (when teaching), the question is why? After all they work quite well within the normal range of body sizes and weights (just like RW suits.) Is it an "on to other types of fast fall rate flying" thing?

ProTrack/Neptune/etc. jump downloading/graphing Is there anyone who has downloaded and graphed a number of jumps from one or more of these devices? A lot is said of reading the speed numbers that are displayed after a jump, but I'm not sure many people understand them, and certainly few would understand how they are derived, because the manufacturers are not going to tell you except in a very general way. I'm not even sure many people even know about true airspeed versus any of the other calculated airspeeds, because I don't think I have EVER heard anyone (without a technical interest in these devices) say exactly which calculation they are refering to when asked how fast they were falling on a jump. In other words, it appears that most people are treating these speeds as some magic numbers without knowing anything about them. Ref: http://www.pcprg.com/baro.htm

As I read some of the responses so far I realize that what I was thinking was more along the lines of "What about this 1000 foot entry for lightweights?". My big canopy is about the wingloading of a lightweight in many student canopies, and smaller people are the ones I have seen having more problems. Another interesting possibility I thought of in the mean time is that if the winds are strong, the amount of time needed to figure out when to turn downwind to base and perform this turn is more critical, and smaller people with shorter arms can't get a big canopy turned as fast. This could cause some of the landing short problems. Anyway, I was just interested in what the recent leaners of these skills had to say. It's the usual "How are we doing in teaching this to you?" question we need to ask once in a while.

I have seen a lot of reference to teaching (basic) canopy control and learning to land where intended by suggesting to a student where to be in altitude at particular points in the landing pattern. And in particular to "enter the pattern" at about 1000 feet. I would like to hear from a number of people that have recently learned to steer themselves in recently as to whether this techniques was described to you and whether or not it worked very well. I have been getting some feedback lately about how altitudes starting at about 1000 feet are quite a bit too high. I took my big-ass canopy that is loaded about like a student canopy and tried what many of us normally teach. Wasn't that an eye-opener! Even for a conservative pattern, way too high. I'm not suggesting anything else at the moment, but am just wondering how well what we are teaching works.

There are a number of people who think that it would be a good idea for a particular national skydiving organization to create maximum wingloading "rules" for its members based on one of several criteria, like jump numbers or canopy training classes attended. A while back I read a few comments that indicated that some enlightened people understood that there is more to a canopy being dangerous or not than mere wingloading, i.e., suspended weight to canopy size. Factors that affect the relative "danger" of a canopy may also include its basic type, e.g., medium performance, high performance, rectangular, elliptical, semi-elliptical, cross-braced, air-locked, etc., (plus nearly any combination of these designs), and also its airfoil design. I am no longer seeing such consideration. Has everyone forgotten about this aspect of canopy performance? Why are so many people thinking that a "rule" related to _wingloading alone_ will be all that helpful? In my research related to trying to find out why my friend's cross-braced canopy collapsed on a non-turbulent day during conservative canopy manuvers, I have been reminded that the manufacturers (and the highly experienced jumpers) of cross-braced canopies consider wingloadings that are too light to be more dangerous than those within a certain range. Therefore, wouldn't a "rule" related to what type of canopy one could jump at a certain experience level need to include quite a few more specifications than just wingloading? Folks, I just don't believe a simple wingloading rule is going to get it.