ScottCargill

Heh Heh, Actaually we're both from Bakersfield, Ca. We jump out at One of the two DZ's in Taft. You're close though, we're not one and the same, but we live within 3 blocks of each other does that count?

Thanks, I'm definently liking that 220. And plan to keep flying it for a long while, though I had one person at the dz trying to tell me that down sizing to something closer to my weight would actually help my landings?? I'm not going to hold a LOT of faith in that bit of advise heh heh.. Thanks for the advise on deployment, My last 5 jumps have been good deployments, your comments will help a lot on the ones to come. Scott Cargill Easthillskungfu.com

You're right of course. I had altitude awareness down to 5,000 at which point I watched him opening up and realitively coming up to my altitude, (I know, Me plumeting down to his) .... I'd already started my deployment by the time I'd gotten even with him. Course after I'd opened and got to the point of "Uh OH" I was too busy to be looking at how low I was.... Scott Cargill Easthillskungfu.com

Whoa... I didn't say nor imply that I was justifiying my actions. I did reply to the comment that I shouldn't be landing on my feet. From some notion that no one other than an experianced sky diver would be able to determine when to flare their chute for a nice soft landing. Scott Cargill Easthillskungfu.com

I had plenty of horizontal seperation. I made the rookie mistake of watching him pull at 4,500 and as he came up I tried to time my release to meet him. Course that didn't work, All day yesterday we pulled at 4,500. and all 5 jumps he ended up above me a bit, Turns out that the rig I've been jumping snivel's a lot. He told me he could hear me coming every time, and the last jump of the day he was close enough and had an eyeball on me the entire time, I'd snivel'd right past him (relitively speaking). So yeah, we're far enough away to maintain safety as far as seperation is concerned, though something you said makes me ask a stupid question now, IS there a requirement for you to have a ticket before you can jump with someone? Other than a rated coach or something like that? I mean For the sake of argument, we're not trying anything so stupid as to do a poised exit hanging on to each other or anything like that, but to have him jump off the step, and me dive after him a second later?? Gotta run, Need to be two and a half hours down the road... work never ends, gotta go nuke a pipe somewhere. Scott Cargill Easthillskungfu.com

Thanks. As I looked up and saw the line twist the main hadn't deployed more than say 1/4 -1/2 its size?? Figure something like 10 twists or so, I really didn't see the line over until I'd untwisted around to the retwisted situation and got that untwisted where the main opened up to full deployment. Then I saw the drag chute was tangled in the risers, and as I looked up from there saw the line over. And yeah as a novice I've no doubt I spent a lot of time from the point of untwisting to finally spotting the line over. though I can't figure that will improve without a lot more experiance?? Thanks again. Scott Cargill Easthillskungfu.com

Uh, No. It wasn't luck, it was a combination of being a rated fixed wing pilot, and having the understanding of lift, airflow, wind speed and angle, flaring, etc etc. Out of my first 12 jumps, 10 have been perfect on my feet soft landings. Including my first jump. To be completely fair though heh heh, The other two one was a bit harder on my feet landing, and one was a butt slide. The main contributing factor to all those stand up landings was a huge main. the smallest main I'd jumped to that point was loaded at like .5 - .58 depending on which rig I used, I was using 288's for the most part. I made 5 jumps yesterday and as I had transitioned to a hand deploy a couple of weeks ago, I've been jumping a quasar 220 zero P main. 3 out of the 5 were plf'd, one was perfect on my feet, the last was a two step run out. I'm still working on getting that timing down for how much and when to flare this rig with and without wind. For the record, I'm 6' and 145lbs. I don't believe the 220 is too small for me, and I'm ALL for the saying BIGGER is better. I'm in NO hurry to downsize, the 220 is just the biggest hand deploy rig they have for students. Myself and the DZ owner discussed which rigs were availible, as I would like to learn more about the different types of mains, containers etc. having NO clue what one container has over another, which mains do what etc. So he handed me his old rig which was the 190. Still well below the 1:1 wing load for me. (.86) As for jumping with my buddy. I do realize that vertical seperation is deciving at altitude, both myself and my friend perform high risk tasks in our jobs. So saftey IS always in our minds. His fall rate is much more than mine, so we're having a problem with the vertical issue, but HORIZONTAL... We're more than happy if we can just keep ourselves within sight of each other. That jump friday we had a minimum of 500' horizontal clearance between the two of us at all times (keeping in mind that yeah distance period is hard to judge at altitude), I was above him, but kept a large distance away the entire time. We're in no hurry to do anything more than that for a long while. All that dive was for me was to give him a referance point to work from, my only goal was to keep him in sight and maintain clearance. Over all We're not overly aggressive with what we're doing. Scott Cargill Easthillskungfu.com

Yeah, He was on the step, I dove out right behind him, His fall rate was more than mine, and I never did catch him. Scott Cargill Easthillskungfu.com

Friday I made my first cut-away and first reserve ride. Along with my first off site landing, first plf. and first go find your chute now (somewhere hiding in the brush). Lot of firsts there huh? The Dive went fine, I'd been following a buddy down, trying to catch up with him, he did his thing, and pulled at 4,500. As I watched him coming up I pulled. Got a serious line twist (Student rig, F111 - 190cf), The twist untwisted just as bad the other way around, I got that undone, and found my (what do you call the drag chute you hand deploy?) all tangled up in the right side lines., to make it worse as I looked up to the chute itself, I saw a couple of lines coming over the top of the sail. So. "Oh Shoot", Reached down and cut away, Managed to be under full reserve canopy by 1,500. I've decided two things here, Panic is not an option, and I MUCH prefer the 220 I was jumping before I tried that 190 .

I don't know about trying REAL hard, but I was just out there yesterday. I talked to a couple of the guys that were involved, including the one with his smiley face in news photo. The Landing zone is a good 1/4 mile north east of where he went down, He not only had to fly forever to get to where the power lines were, but in doing so he passed a dozen spots he could have put it down inbetween. Dunno what he was thinking, but I kid you not he flew that wing a LONG ways to get to that fence line. Scott Cargill Easthillskungfu.com