listo

A man among men, a true skydiver, a friend, a laugh. Chip was everything to a lot of people, mostly he was our dearly loved and adored friend and father. Chip was one of my first instructors and more importantly he was a mentor and best of all he was a true friend. A lot of years have passed since Sir Chip Steel and I first met, but don't worry, just as many beers have passed too. In fact, he introduced me to "the case of beer rule" when something is done for the first time. As i recall, I only had a few bucks left in my pocket and it wasn't enough to buy a case, so Chip, Nelson and I went to the Rusty Horn in Walterboro and we had two beers each and he began telling stories. I knew then that he was someone that clearly unique. When I became a "tandem ho", he told me about all of the hard work involved. I never imagined that the hardest thing he would make me learn was how to say good bye. To know Chip was to know that he went from this world doing what he absolutely loved. HEAVEN IS NOW A MUCH BETTER PLACE; ENJOY YOUR NEW WINGS BROTHER To all of the people at Walterboro, Chester, Pepperell and Palatka as well as those scattered through out, I know your loss is certainly no less than my own and each of you are in my prayers to ease your pain. quote from Chip: " OK...........this skydiving stuff is over, lets get a beer, I'm thirsty" God lent us one of his angels for a breif time, now let us celebrate his life! BLUE SKIES!

uhmmmm, I guess I need to update my vote.... I can't vote again so I am posting jump cross brace injured twice over 1000 jumps and injured while performing HP landing under cross brace details in the incident thread "st. george injury" Sam Live today as tomorrow may not come

Karma man! KAAAAAAAAARRRRMMMMAAAAA! Live today as tomorrow may not come

I am not questioning your experience in any way here. but I have found that I can go further by flying to a "near stall" on rears and then "popping" the toggles for a finish out. Granted, when doing this, I am turf surfing, not doing the "pop-up" technique trying to go for all out distance. I understand why you would want to switch to toggles if you are popping up on a distance round. It gives more lift and you more than likely don't want to stall on rears when your boonkie is 20 feet from the ground either, as well, you can "feather" the toggles while gliding down after popping up. This is just my experience, I am in no way saying that my way is the best. It just seems to be working for me is all.

Drew makes a really good point. Smaller canopies have shorter lines and they also tend to have lower aspect ratios which means that they are going to react with a "snappier" feel to them. Thank you Drew for pointing that out, it isn't something I was thinking of when I put up this post. However, I was directing this to the people who have more than 100 jumps that are wanting to get some higher performing wings in which case wing loading is the more relavent issue. Drew does make a good point to think about though. Although I wouldn't put a 100 pound girl with 100 jumps under a stiletto 120, I might put her under a sabre 120. I have a friend with about 400 jumps and I swear that she can't weigh more than 105 soaking wet. If she jumps anything much larger than a 120, she really has to be careful in windy conditions, otherwise, she won't make it back. This is were wing load really comes into play.

QuoteI load my Katana 120 right at 2.0/1 and have yet to bust my A** on a landing *** does the "ghost rider" attempt count Live today as tomorrow may not come

yes, for about 1/10 of a second there is no control input on the canopy because you are letting go of the rears to take up slack on the toggles. This allows the tail to go back up momentarily and the "popping" sound you hear is the canopy snapping from one extreme to the other. This isn't going to hurt your canopy or anything, but it does happen just like you said. keep practicing different things and find what works best for you. Keep one other thing in mind as well. There are as many different ways to describe things as there are people describing them, so be careful about what you read and then go try. Someone's explanation might not give the same "picture" to you as the person describing it. Sam Live today as tomorrow may not come

copy cat good luck with it brother, have fun! Live today as tomorrow may not come

how much $$$ for straight vs. cascade. What is the life difference between the two. How much of a drag reduction do cascades provide over straight?

this isn't a dig so please don't take it that way. While Rhino is quite correct in what he is saying about doing hop-n-pops, the only thing that wasn't mentioned was currency. One of the things that will help you the most is currency. Reptition is good, and the more repitition you have, the better and that comes down to currency. Having been around the sport for 10 years and actively in it for a little over 7 years now as well as having travelled across the country. The one thing that I have seen that caused the closest of calls is the person who has tons-o-jumps, hot canopy and is uncurrent. If and when you get your little hot rod canopy, always respect the fact that it wants to kill you. If you ever let it go to your head that you are a good pilot, then you are actually probably one of the most dangerous ones. *edit* Icarus or PD will not sell a x-fire or stiletto to anyone with less than 500 ramair jumps, however there seems to be a few reps out there that will. Pay attention to what the manufacturer says and not someone with a dealership. They are only trying to make money when it comes down to it. Manufacturers have guidelines for a reason. *note* Personally, having been in the sport for a long time and having the experience that I have, I wouldn't take canopy coaching from anyone with less than 1,000 HP landings. Anyone wanting to swoop can go to canopypiloting.com and they have an online coaching seminar for those who aren't able to get to a coached course. However, going to a full on coached course is the best means of learning because they will teach you how to teach yourself, regardless of your jump numbers or what you are flying. That is what those guys are for. Sam Live today as tomorrow may not come

I wasn't ref'g to types of lines being used. I should have been more clear. I was ref'g to the "Moledski mod" of the extra line from the "D's" to the "E's" Do you happen to know how many jumps they are putting on the HMA line sets before they are changing them out? Live today as tomorrow may not come

we tell people of our past "nightmares" because we don't want anyone else to have to lay in a hospital bed. Not because we are wanting to show them that you can bend the rules and get away with it. If someone is going to be hard headed, their butt better be tough. This is why we share our experiences and offer advice as to how someone should learn. You can't hold someone's hand during a hook turn, but you can take them off to the side and tell them that they aren't ready or that they need to get some coaching or what ever might be needed to help them learn. Aside from grounding someone, there is nothing you can do to prevent someone from doing what ever it is that they intend on doing anyway. Our sport regulates itself in many ways. If it comes down to Darwinism, then..... so be it. I am not saying that people should just go out and do what ever it is that they want. Coaching is a really neccessary part of learning. From what I have seen, most people that are coaching up and coming swoopers have made those "critical" mistakes and they know how to learn from those mistakes and they only want to help others who don't know about them, to KNOW about them without having to experience them. If you don't know what you are doing or THINK that you know what you are doing, you more than likely need to get professional coaching if you want to stay healthy Live today as tomorrow may not come

my personal technique is to use the rears as long as possible until the lift is lost and the canopy is about to stall, then I switch to toggles for two reasons. 1st, it gives me a little bit more lift which allows me to "carry" further, just that little bit of extra distance before I have to put my "landing gear" on the ground 2nd, it allows the canopy to slow down for nice soft landings. In a lot of the "PRO" videos, you will see people sacrificing their bodies to get that little bit of extra distance. In competitions, they are wanting to get as much as possible on the distance rounds. I guess the best way to answer the question at hand is this: It is like playing a round of golf. You look at what the wind is doing and decide if you need to add a little bit of spin this way or that to acheive the desired effect for what you are wanting to do. Swooping is the same thing. There is no set techniqe for any given jump. You just have to do what ever it is that you have to do to get things done the way you want it done. It all comes down to experience. I hope that this helps a little, as to why people do different things. Personally, I can land my canopy on rears or toggles, but if I am going for distance, I am wanting to keep it flying as long as possible before my feet touch the ground. Sam Live today as tomorrow may not come

Thank you to all who have posted and voted. I know that this is a hard poll to understand because of all of the options and considering the fact that people change canopies over time. Just to let everyone know what my experience is: currently flying a velo 120 @ 2.05 ( + or - .1, depending on how much I have eaten and whether or not I am flying camera) I add weights sometimes to 2.25 according to the winds and what I am wanting to acheive. velo 111: 200 jumps ( 2.0 ) velo 120: 100 jumps ( 2.0 - 2.25 ) using weights stiletto 120: 500 jumps ( 1.9 ) stiletto 150: 200 jumps ( don't remember my wl at that time) various student canopies: 200 jumps ( mostly skymasters of different sizes, espcially the big'uns after my biff ) *note* my wing load has changed over the years because of my personal eating habits *injured* flying a viper 120: femur, hip and back occured at jump #156, when I was just learning to swoop. I was the hard head that wouldn't listen to anyone edit: I am also a tandem instructor for those who are adding up my jump numbers vs. what I have listed to the left by my name. Sam Live today as tomorrow may not come

I am just curious what these numbers are going to turn out to be. Please be honest with your answers. I am in no way trying to say one type of canopy is better than the other, nor am I looking for info to try and "one up" anyone. Please don't let this turn into a thread that bashes anyone for experience or lack of. This is just to see who is doing what. Thanks, Sam

Wow, that is a mouthful! I am so glad that I am not a person wid uh edjumuhkashun. If I had to think about all of that I would surely pound in AGAIN. Ok, this is the second time today that I have had a gut laugh. Don't get me wrong, I am sure that you put plenty of thought into your statistical analysis. However, who is going to have time to whip out their handy dandy calculator to decide which approach is going to be the best to take. There is only one statistical factor that I am interested in... experience. I think that a major cause of swoop accidents happen because people spend too much time thinking and too little reacting. The funny thing is, you can't react to what you can't see and you can't see what you don't know. So now where do you go? Answer: You go back to your basic building blocks which comes from that little bag of tricks called E X P E R I E N C E. Thank you for your brilliant analysis though, I am now enlightened. Peace Live today as tomorrow may not come

I have heard that as well. I have also heard that they are playing around with different line trims too. I guess they are looking at it like nascar teams do, "play with this, tweak that and give 'er a little rubbin for luck" I know that cascaded HMA has issues too about longevity and that those line sets have to be changed out at rediculously low numbers, but hey, it is PD we are talking about, they can afford to do it. I wouldn't be suprised at all if that is what they are doing these days. HMA, definitely has a lot less drag. Live today as tomorrow may not come

for once, I have to say that everyone seems to be giving really good advice. I am going to tell you when you will know you are ready to move on to the next size smaller, but in no way am I suggesting to go out and try this. When you have about 400-500 jumps on your canopy where you are consistantly doing 270's, holding the fronts to your chest, after the turn, until they are pulling out, switching to rears and landing standing up while using rears, as well as not having to worry about conflicting traffic, because you already know where they are as well as where they are going to be when you are done. When you can honestly say to yourself "there is nothing more I can do with this canopy and hasn't been anything more in the last 100-200 jumps", then my friend you have maxed out your canopy, taken the slow road to radically fast swoops and more than likely you are a safe swooper. Until then, be happy that you are still alive and healthy. There is a saying in skydiving..."it is better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than in the air wishing you were on the ground". The same applies to swooping..."it is better to be swooping than in a hospital wishing you had never tried that last crazy stunt". Best of luck! Stay smart and live long. Don't worry, there will be a time one day when you look at a video of one of your swoops and think "damn, I am sure glad that I didn't try to do too much too soon". When you take the time to learn, it will mean more to you in the end. As well you will be much more respected by your piers for being smart rather than being brave. Sam Live today as tomorrow may not come

I fly a velo 120 @ 2.05 ppf. I get some rediculously smooth openings so I have no problem flying my camera with it. My swoops are really long and fast. When using rear risers, I can fly them to the point that the canopy is about to stall and then transfer to toggles and have enough lifting power to "pop" myself up 10 feet (3 meters) back into the air and come down like I was flying a 290 or something. If the winds are kicking up, I will add weights to a max wing load of 2.25 ppf for extra penetration, but the dives are noticably longer. A quick description of the openings... something like a crossfire. At first (first 10 jumps) the openings were very unconsistant. I called PD and asked what I was doing wrong. With simple instructions over the phone, it was opening on heading and smoother than a baby's backside. It doesn't seem to matter if I am doing hop-n-hooks or free flying. It always opens the same. Sub terminal openings tend to make the nose want to search a little, but 3-4 seconds of free fall seems to get enough speed to make things work like regular skydives. As for the PD guys flying specialized line sets, not so much. Jay Moledski used to use a modified line set that connected his "D" lines to his "E" lines (brake lines) but didn't do it for long. I was informed that he is now back to a regular set up. Over all opinion of a velo is ONE HELL OF A CANOPY. You can never go wrong having a PD canopy. They do more research & development than any other canopy manufacturer in the world. Best of luck to ya! Live today as tomorrow may not come

Ok, it seems that a lot of new jumpers with low jump numbers are wanting to get smaller canopies way before they are ready. They seem to be seeing stories and pictures of Jim Slaton, Luigi Cani and guys like them jumping 39s, 40 somethings ect. Unfortunately these low timers think that there is something cool about jumping a canopy that has a smaller sqare footage number. I just wanted to put up a post that addresses wing loading. First of all, sqare footage numbers have nothing to do with how a canopy is going to perform. It is all based on wing loading. I had a "rookie" swooper the other day asking me about what his next canopy should be. I asked him what his current wing loading is on the canopy he was jumping. This person has 300+ jumps and had NO CLUE of how to calculate his wing load. He really thought that you have to be flying a sub-100 canopy to be competitive. I explained to him that I fly a velo 120 and my swoops are plenty long and fast enough to manuever any course being used for competition today. It completely blew his mind that I could fly a 120 and do that. This is when I went in depth with him about wing loading and techniques to modify flight characteristics. Not only that, I highly encouraged him to stay with his stiletto 150 @ 1.5 ppf and go to a structured canopy course with professional pilots. To the people who are relatively new to swooping: It is very important to completely understand what you are wanting to get into. It is a highly technical and unforgiving sport. Life is precious and can be smacked out of you very quickly if you don't get reliable information and training. It is NOT something that you can learn in one season. You might get decent at it, but it will take years and thousands of jumps to become proficient like the pro's. There are a lot of people out there that will encourage you to try things, be careful about who you are listening to. More than likely, if they are competition canopy pilots, there wisdom and advice are worth listening to. If you are learning from someone that is just the "local bad-@#% canopy pilot", you could very well be setting yourself up for disaster, then again, you might get lucky and attain just enough info to keep yourself alive which could lead to you actually learning something. Either way, it would be in your best interest to get to a professional canopy camp. You will learn things about wing loading, technique, dangers and most of all, you will learn how to teach yourself in a correct manner. Think of it this way, if you are building a million dollar house, wouldn't you want the foundation to be as strong as possible. If you are just starting out with swooping, regardless of how many jumps you have, you really need to get a solid foundation to work with. I hope that this post will serve as an eye opener to new and upcoming swoopers. I have been very fortunate to have great people to learn from, some of which are PRO pilots. I can tell you from experience, they don't think of themselves as celebreties when it comes to helping people learn, they will think and treat you more like a brother or sister. Best of luck! Safe, LOOOOOONG SWOOPS!

ohhhh......what the hell, I think that I am going to throw in my two cents as well. Don't you think that she is exhibiting just the type of personality that would be vengeful if she is getting a lawyer to email DZ.com for what someone said. Come on, I don't know a thing about this whole situation other than what I have read on here, but it seems pretty clear to me that this "BA" is obviously a childish whiner! There's my two cents this has to be one of the funniest things that I have heard on DZ.com. Thanks guys for a gut buster Live today as tomorrow may not come

you are sick dude frickin SICK! personally, I think that he should just go ahead and try Luigi's vx39. I am going to my wood shop right now to start making his Whiley Coyote Award Live today as tomorrow may not come

dropzone kids do have an advantage in having seen a lot more than most rookies, but like it was said earlier, just because you have seen it, doesn't mean that you can SEE IT. Human beings have NO depth perception from the air that is good enough to be able to distinguish well enough what is a good "site picture" vs. a "bad site picture". That kind of thing can only come from experience. while it is true that DZ kids will more than likely excell faster than most, it is also true that they are more likely to be in more danger because they are going to push the limits harder and faster. As I stated in my earlier post, there are plenty of camps out there designed for people to learn in a safe environment to hopefully reduce the risks of learning. Laying on the ground with your body in a million pieces is no joke and the only thing scarier than laying there broken, is wondering if you are going to die or not.... even worse if you are going to live and be crippled for the rest of your life. A 5 second moment of glory is definitely not worth a person's life or livelihood, much less their families that might have to wipe their poopie bum for the rest of their life because they can't do it for themself. I almost died once and I am paying the price for it daily. I was one of the ones that had the talent, athletic ability, awesome reflexes and everything that younger skydivers who want to swoop think that they have. The only thing I didn't have was experience and that almost cost me my life. In fact, I might have been better off dead because now I have a broken back, hip and femur and it causes me a great deal of discomfort every single day. I still swoop, but I learned a very serious lesson, THE HARD WAY. Personally, I am an advocate of the USPA setting guidelines for swoop attempts the same as they do for demonstration jumpers. That being a D license and/or 500 jumps minimum on a ram air canopy, with the swoop attempts being made on a canopy in which the swooper candidate has made at least 200 jumps, with a currency of at least 50 jumps being made in the preceding 60 days with no less than 2 jumps having been made in the preceding 7 days. LOL that post is going to get some replies I am sure! Don't get me wrong people, I am not a swoop NAZI. I just get really sickened when I hear of one of my brothers or sisters who has pounded in. In fact, tears come to my eyes because I know how much it affects not only the jumper, but their families as well. Be Safe, Be Smart and Be VIGILANT Blue Skies and loooooooooong swoops. sam Live today as tomorrow may not come

I think that it is really sad that there are people in this world who don't have the balls to say when enough is enough. Come on dude, sure there are prodigies out there, but damn. I don't think that it is even remotely funny to encourage someone with less than 300 jumps to attempt a HP landing, regardless of how good they are. One of the things that we SHOULD BE LEARNING as we progress further into our sport is HOW TO LEARN. Saying that someone will learn one way or the other is the most ignorant and irresponsible thing I have heard of in this sport, next to those guys who landed the Mr. Bill at Rantoul. Instead of saying "sure man, if you think you can do it, go for it".... why don't we encourage these wide-eyed rookies to attend a canopy camp instead. At least that is a structured environment that is designed for learning as well as teaching themself how to learn. I am not sure which was worse. Sitting on the ground looking at my left knee tickling my crotch because my femur was busted in 5 places or watching a guy in chicago amputate his leg at impact because the bone exploded out the side with such force that it cut his leg off. Either way, in my humble opinion, anyone that would encourage a rookie to just go out and try what ever, needs to hang up their gear and go bowling as far as I am concerned. There are too many places around the world that someone can get some really good advice and instruction on how to LEARN instead of telling them, sure, go ahead, try it if you dare. Nobody wants to see anyone get held back in this sport, whether it is swooping or free fall disciplines. At the same time, NOBODY needs to be telling the rookies to attempt something on their own EITHER. Swooping is no longer in the dark ages and it makes me sick to my stomach to see someone with your jump numbers encouraging a low time jumper or someone with no swoop experience to go out and try it. Please think before you get someone hurt. Live today as tomorrow may not come

uhhhhhmmmm......... is this a joke? Ok, I give, where is the punch line dude. Obviously you haven't done your research on velocities. PD reccomends that you have at least 1,000 skydives on a ram-air canopy before contemplating flying a velo. I would highly suggest that you get a stiletto 150 and fly that for about 400-500 jumps before you even THINK about a velocity. Just a tid bit of info for ya. Once upon a time, there was this dumbass (me) who wanted to be a swoop maistro. He got a viper 120 (1.8 ppf wing load) when he had 120 jumps, he now has a titanium femur and one hell of a disgusting video to prove why low time jumpers have no business under a high performance canopy, much less an extreme category canopy like the velocity. I now have 1,800+ jumps with about 1,000 of which being high performance landings. I am flying a velo 120 right now at 2.0 (put on weight after the accident). I get nerved up every time I jump. You may ask why.... the answer is simple. I HAVE A FEAR OF DIEING. Man, do like the rest of us have. Put in your time and jumps and collect the experience that will come naturally. If you have seen the broken bodies that I have from swooping attempts gone wrong you would seriously not have even posted this. I am not trying to come down hard on you, but dude, you have no business trying to fly a velo with your lack of experience. I am sure that I am not going to be the only one that jumps all over this thread. It isn't because we are wanting to make you feel stupid. It is because we really don't want to have another statistic that makes a sport that we have all worked very hard for look like a bunch of imbassils. Think about your future more, and less about trying to be "cool". Skydivers are cool enough, we don't need to try to push the boundaries to the point that we die or get maimed. Best of luck man, but please don't jump the gun on this one. Take it from someone who did, it isn't worth it. Sam Live today as tomorrow may not come