landmissle

My wife, two friends, and I all started skydiving back in the year 2000. We all did AFF together and did a packing course at the end. We were all taught PRO packing and everyone at our dropzone (that I noticed) PRO packed. I had heard of flat packing, but never actually saw anyone do it until we took a skydiving vacation in Perris Valley. That was around 2004. I did see a few psycho pack jobs and even tried it myself. I didn't actually jump it though. Saw a fair amount of what I would call "trash packing". Line check, grab nose and in sweeping motion, swing out and then bring between legs, check that the lines were in the middle, then toss it to the ground, flatten it out, S fold it, get it in the bag, stow the lines, put in the container and call it a day. Any suggestions that they might have cut some corners was met with the reply, "It wants to open, don't sweat it.". Full transparency: I'm pretty anal about my pack jobs and can't help but be meticulous in my process. On my best days it takes me 30 minutes to pack. Sad thing is my openings (on heading, lack of line twists, soft....) is probably no better then the people I critique as being trash packers. If I take any shortcuts though, I freak out. Related to that. I just recently picked up a spring scale and started measuring the pull force of the stows of the D-bag. Not good.......great, something else to obsess about. I'll start a thread on that soon.....

I've been out of the sport for 10 years and am starting to prepare for my comeback...So, I call my local dropzone to purchase some new larger size rubber bands. I have a few left, but they are 10 plus years old and breaking a lot more frequently then I recall on my practice packing. Figured it's probably time to freshen them up. So guy in the rig shop says they don't have any rubber bands in stock to sell and, "besides, everyone has pretty much gone to semi-stowless d-bags. So we just give away the rubber bands." I'm assuming they are "just giving away" rubber bands because the semi-stowless d-bags use half the bands. Besides feeling like a luddite and being behind the times, I have a few questions regarding these new fangled semi-stowless d-bags; 1) Are they really that popular and pretty much replaced the traditional (fully stowed?) d-bags? 2) I was always told that part of a good, soft opening deployment, was the methodical in sequence release of the lines from the stows. Stows too loose could contribute to a hard opening. Is having half the stows of any consequence for semi-stowless bags? Are they more likely to have hard openings? 3) Besides aiding in the speed of packing (fewer stows to deal with) are there any other advantages for using semi-stowless d-bags? Thanks for any info folks!

Proper Ram-Air Orientation

Hi Wendy, Great to hear. My wife and I used to do skydiving vacations down at Perris. Great place! Our home DZ was Skyance up near Davis. Yes, it's too far for typical weekend jumping, but if we get back into this, we will definitely make at least a yearly pilgrimage. California Skydive is only 30 minutes away so this will likely become our new home DZ unless the experience doesn't go well. I don't see why it would but I haven't actually jumped there; only talked to staff about returning to the sport requirements. Really getting excited about jumping again. Thanks for the info. Sorry to hear about Joe and his untimely demise.

I've been out of skydiving for about 11 years. Back during my jumping days of 2000 to 2010 Free-Flying was coming on strong, but RW was still a significant discipline. I would say that there was a 50/50 split in participation between the two. At least in the dropzones I frequented in California. For me personally it was a 65/35 with the emphasis on RW and a lot of 4-ways. Loved it. Based on my conversation with a few folks at Skydive California (Tracy, CA) they are still seeing RW and do organized loads. So there must be enough interest in RW if that's being done. I hope to return to the sport shortly after the COVID cools down (actually my wife and I) and I'm curios on what is going on out at the dropzones. Is RW still alive or are only the dinosaurs of skydiving still doing it?

Just looking at pictures online, it appears that the lower part of the unit housing may rotate; the part closest to your skin if wrist mounted. I base this on the groves seen along the edge. This Dropzone thread seems to infer as much; You're right, I'm not seeing much online in the sense of user manuals for this altimeter. Maybe you can call the place you purchased it from for instructions or advice?

Not something to be concerned about necessarily. These types of altimeters need to be calibrated. What's important is to set it to zero at the location you plan to land. Usually there's some bezel that can be rotated to set the altitude. When you are in the vicinity of the landing area, rotate it clockwise or counter clockwise till the needle is set to zero. When you get on the plane and begin the climb to altitude, you should see the needle move in accordance to your altitude. To build your confidence, if you live near a mountainous area, you can compare it's rough accuracy with your home location. For example let say you live in a town with an altitude of 200 ft above sea level. While at home, set it to 200 ft (barely a nudge). The drive to a mountain location or town up in the hills where the elevation is know, say 4000 ft. If the altimeter moves accordingly, you can be reasonably assured it's working. With GPS you can probably find more precise locations to compare, but the concept is the same. Getting back to your landing location, even if you don't know the exact elevation, that's fine. Set it to zero. Once you get to altitude and on jump run, if the altimeter reads 10,000 ft, well that's what you need to focus on. You have 10,000 feet of travel before you reach the ground. Doesn't matter if you're really at 12,000 feet (assuming your landing zone is at 2000 feet, 10,000 feet of measured altitude plus 2000 feet equals 12,000), you still have a relative altitude of 10,000 feet and 10,000 of travel before meeting mother Earth. Hope this helps.

Hi folks, My wife and I are thinking of returning to the sport after about a 10 year hiatus. Both of our rigs have relatively low jump numbers of about 500 and were purchased by us brand new in 2001. We last jumped in 2009 and the rigs have been stored (packed), in our house in a closet for the last 11 years. We plan to have them inspected by a rigger and serviced (batteries for AAD, reserve repack, etc..), but I'm curious if there is a real danger of the equipment (especially the canopies) deteriorating over such a lengthy time span regardless of condition when initially stored. Rephrasing the question differently, even if "properly stored" does the nylon of the canopy eventually become brittle or structurally unsound after 10, 15, 20 years? What about containers and the material that they are comprised of, including belts, elastic loops, etc? I don't believe in our case our rigs are obsolete based on technology, so from that standpoint I think they would be airworthy. For what it's worth they are; mine: Mirage G3, Cobalt 150, PD Reserve, and Vigil (new in 2009). wife: Mirage G3 PD Spectre 170, PD Reserve, and Vigil (new in 2009) Oh, I should add that we almost returned to the sport in 2018. At that time, the rigs were inspected, reserve repacked, and were deemed airworthy. I don't remember if the AAD batteries, were replaced for sure, but they would have been if the rigger indicated they needed to be. I don't see us initially jumping with the equipment as I believe (especially for me) the wing loading would be too high for our rusty skills. So our initial jumps (coached or otherwise ) will be with rental equipment and then as our currency and skills develop, we would return to our personal rigs.

Yeah, not a big fan of Facebook; mostly because of all the privacy (lack of..) issues. Still, checked out Dropzone on Facebook and even there the frequency of post is much reduced from this forum's pace in its' heyday. I agree with you Wendy, that there is not a categorization of post nn Facebook and it's just a stream where things very quickly get lost. Man, I'm bummed. There is was so much good information posted here and it was reasonably easy to find and access. Also, if you spent any time here, you got a sense of a real community. I guess the good thing, is the information contained here isn't going away and is, for now, probably relevant. Unfortunately, without timely updates, it will go stale eventually. Hey all, thanks for the input and should I return to skydiving (maybe after the COVID dies down), I'll try to post here more frequently.

Hi all, It's been a looooong while since I was out on Dropzone. I originally was posting in the 2001 to 2007 time frame. Back then it seemed like you couldn't keep a post from falling out of view unless you fed it with a comment everyday (if not more frequent...). That was really true of "General Skydiving Discussions", but it applied to several other sub-forums also. So my question is what happened to everyone? It really seems to have slowed down here. Has skydivers flocked to a different site or some other social media construct? Has skydiving become less popular? Is the slowdown on Dropzone due to COVID19 and simply less jumping is occurring with subsequently less to talk about it? Maybe we've finally reached knowledge Nervana and there really is nothing else to share?! Nah, that's not true, skydivers like to at least brag and tell stories if nothing else. So what's going on? I'm thinking of returning to skydiving after about a decade hiatus and want to know where's everyone gone? Hello anyone? <echo> <echo>....

It won't be that many years before my wife and I are ready to retire from our careers. Skydiving has been part of our lives for the last 14 years and we see no reason for that to stop once we retire in our late 50's. Actually, we expect it to increase! Assuming you could move to any city in the US which would it be and more importantly, what drop zone would you be near? Tell us why you chose the city and the drop zone. I understand this is all subjective and preference based, but it would be fun and insightful to hear your opinions. Feet up, heads down, blue skies WWOD? Landmissle

Howdy, I'm going to "third" Skydance in Davis, CA. It's my home dropzone and I have been jumping there since I've starting skydiving eight years ago. Feet up, heads down, blue skies WWOD? Landmissle

Hi all, Yowzaa!! Wow, thank you for all the replies! This has really helped my alot and given me some bearings. Just to clear a few things up; I'm not "set" on the Sony PC9. I was only saying that it's my frame of reference or standard simply because it's the only camera I've had any experience with. One person suggested the Rawa helmet, I'll check into that also. I'm not set on the 2K Composite helmets either, but they do seem very nice and up till now, are the only ones I'm aware of that have the built in enclosure. Alot of people have been recommending the Sony PC1000 if I want to buy new. I did some searching on that model, and came up with some issues regarding "3 chip problem". Someone even took a poll on how many people were having issues with it. Not really sure what this is about, although I presume it has to do with the 3CMOS chips the camera uses instead of CCD. Is this something I should look into further? Again thanks everyone for the advice so far. Feet up, heads down, blue skies WWOD? Landmissle

Hi all, My wife and I have our first child on the way, she's actually due within the next two to four weeks. With that said, we're looking at buying our first video camera so that we can record all the typical "first moments" and perhaps build up video evidence to be used against our daughter in the future . Both parents being skydivers, it makes sense to us that this camera should be good for skydiving too. I would like to get a little direction on what to buy. I've been lurking these forums for a little while and there is a plethera of information but it's almost too much to digest. So I'm hoping for a little direction. I'll try to give you some information to help narrow down the choices...... I'm a recreational skydiver. I don't have any reals plans to become a proffesional videographer. I want to video our skydives on a casual basis and primarily from "my point of view". These skydives are mostly small groups (2-4 individuals) doing sitflys, belly flying, and slowly increasing the numbers of heads down dives. I really like the 2K Composite helmet model FF2 because of it's built in camera enclosure and would think that building my needs around this helmet "might" be a good way to go. This helmet supports the following cameras by Sony; FitsPC6,8,9,101,103,105,107,109,120,330,350,1000 HC18,1920,21,22,30,39,40,42 I believe, most of these cameras are older models so trying to acquire information on them is proving to be a little troublesome. I don't know if this helmet is compatable with newer models. I have a friend who jumps with a Sony PC9. I've used it and am happy with it and will mentally use that as my "standard". As mentioned, I've jumped with my friends camera and helmet fifeteen or twenty times. His setup works fine. However, I'm very aware of the line snag, cut-away, and other complications and hence why I'm leaning towards the 2K Composite helmet. Also, light weight would be a consideration presuming two or more cameras are equal (they never are but I think you know what I mean) I don't mind buying used but new would always be nice. I have a soft budget in mind of about $1000 for the camera and any related components. I'm not including the price of the helmet in this equation. Certainly, at first, my primary mode of video transfer will be to a VHS player via S-video and to a computer via USB. Burning footage to a DVD would be nice as too of capturing frames for pictures would be a goal. In this area, my friends PC9 seems to do the job nicely.Future options would be nice, but, I don't want to get too concerned with features and funtionality that I may not ever use. I realize this is rather lengthy but, hopfully it will give you some grounds to help advise me. I really do appreciate any suggestions or comments. And yes, I will continue to search on my own but, a little direction would be nice. Thanks!!!!!!!! Feet up, heads down, blue skies WWOD? Landmissle

Hi Michele, Just wanted to take but a moment to express my appreciation for your warm hearted reception this past Saturday at Perris. I can't tell you how nice it was to be strangers at the dropzone and to be welcomed so quickly and with such open arms. I enjoyed reading your post about that first day and thank you for your kind words about Karen and myself. Obviously, the psycotropic medication has not worn off yet. Anyone, that can take a liking to me upon first introduction, let-alone through recollection (with no dimishment I might add.) is seriously medicated or genuinely a philanthropist that would make "Mother Teresa" seem like a hack. All kidding aside, I know more than I suspect, that the latter is indeed the case. Karen and I had an absolutely fantastic time at your home dropzone the following week. While we met and jumped with numerous people, it would have been so much better if we could have had your company again. While I did enjoy jumping with these folks (for the most part....) none provided the chemistry, albeit, somewhat cautious (alright, downright freakin' paranoid ) ambiounce (sp?) that you did. If I didn't make it clear at the boogie, let me now dispel any doubt, you will always have jump partners in Karen and I. I sincerely hope that you will again accompany us in reveling in the blue skies of Perris again next your at the same boogie. It would be our honor. The rest of the week as mentioned, went quite well with a few minor interesting events. Strangely, they all seemed to happen to me ( what was that graceful comment you were speaking of.....). The first that comes to mind is the line-twist induced death-spiral that occured on a high altitude hop n' pop. Something like 10 to 15 high speed spirals and 2000 feet of altitude lose. That was fun....gotta love those high performance ellipitical canopies. Speaking of line twist. It must have been open season on those babies, because I had no fewer than three at the boogie. I can't recall the last time I had any serious line twist before the boogie. I certainly won't forget these last ones anytime soon though. The next day I had another one that was so severe (forturnately it was flying straight and level) that by time I kicked out of it, I was absolutely out of breath. I'm talkin' wheezin' like an asmatic with the closest "puffer" 100 miles away at a "Rite-Aid" but it's 2:00 AM stuck in an out-of-gas car, kinda' out of breath. O.k., this is draggin' on longer than I expected so I'll just quickly mention the hop n' pops at 4500' where the my d-bag danced on my heels like a poor imitation of Sammy Davis Jr. and the pilot chute that decided to take the scenic route between my legs. I never new I could back flip so quickly..... So.....while a appreciate and can empathize your cautious attitude, I'm not so sure it's necessary. I mean what could possibly happen...... All jesting aside. Keep persevering, relax, and enjoy the ride. We'll see you next year if your willing to tolerate us again. Feet up, heads down, blue skies, ===Landmissle=====> Feet up, heads down, blue skies WWOD? Landmissle