RUN_FMX

I’m not a good enough canopy pilot to say anything actually helpful in terms of the different flight characteristics. But I did a few hundred jumps on a CF2 129 and about 250 so far on the CF3 109. For sure the CF3 is a bit more ground hungry and sensitive on toggles but how much of that is the 2 vs 3 and how much is the downsize. What I would say is that you could flip a coin and you’d be stoked with either canopy. I’ve found them both extremely consistent and reliable regardless of how you pack them and stand up landings are easy in all conditions. You’ll pay more for the 3 but it will also be worth more when you flick it on to the next owner. If the CF2 is a good deal I wouldn’t hesitate too much, unless you’re like me and need to have the latest :)

Myself and my good friend Brent Findlay set a new national New Zealand record this past Saturday for the most number of jumps completed in a single day by a single person. Dubbed 'The Hundred Jump Project' our goal was to get at least 101 jumps in a single day each simultaneously to beat the current NZ record of 100 which has stood unbeaten since 1999. We managed to achieve an average of one jump each every 5.5 minutes for just under 12 hours non-stop (aside from fuelling obviously), eventually ending the day on 120 jumps each so we now co-own the new record. We jumped from 2,500ft (the lowest legal altitude under our governing rules) from a Fletcher aircraft. We had just the one plane but had 3 pilots who worked on a 10-jump rotation. We had an incredible ground crew of around 50 people including packers, pilots, safety, rig-swappers, catchers, food and hydration runners etc who all also worked on a roster rotation, our first jump was at sunrise 6:35am and our last jump was around 6:15pm. We are not night rated so we were restricted to daylight hours only. We used a total of 20 rigs with quite a large range of canopies. It was really fun to land a Crossfire 3 109, then 5 minutes later land a Saffire 3 150, then 5 minutes later land a 7 cell Krakken wingsuit canopy etc, it was a real test and we had 240 great landings. I know some of you will be referencing people like Jay Stokes and thinking that 120 isnt really a big deal, but it was a big deal for NZ and certainly a big deal for us personally. We used the challenge to raise funds for our local Mental Health Foundation, so far we have raised around $10,000NZD but we expect that number to climb as the NZ media continues to show a lot of interest. We both had one cutaway each which is pretty unlucky really. Both spinning linetwists which put us on our backs, pretty obvious you arent going to fix that from that altitude. Mine was at jump 55 and Brents was at jump 93. Both cutaways were textbook, kept both handles, landed exactly on target, swapped rigs and kept going. One of the coolest stats is that I got to do my 800th and 900th jump on the same day, which not many people can say. Anyway I just thought some of you might be interested in some of those stats. It was a super fun day and Im really proud of what we achieved. Heres a quick story from one of the news channels here in NZ, one of many to report on the event. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/124237213/friends-push-through-parachute-fails-and-fatigue-to-set-new-skydive-record

Just offering my personal experience hoping it might help you to move past it. I have what the doctors call 'hyperscoliokyphosis' which is a fancy word for saying that my spine is f*cked 7 ways from sunday. The curvature is extreme and the doctors have warned me it will likely put me in a wheelchair around age 60 (Im 30 now). The problem with the condition is that there is actually nothing you can do about it when it gets that bad. Your flexibility etc is not the problem, if you have severe scoliosis then your vertabrae have actually morphed from a rectangle shape to basically a wedge shape. In other words this curve is now part of your skeleton, all the stretching and yoga in the world wont fix it. I've spent the last 15 years working with every doctor, surgeon, GP, physio, specialist, personal trainer, witch doctor, massuese and yoga teacher that I could get my hands on and the end consensus is overwhelmingly 'aside from spinal fusion surgery theres nothing you can do so just deal with it'. The good news is it wont effect your skydiving career. I only have 600 jumps so I'm not exactly an expert but I can belly fly up or down to any formation no problem. Instructors etc at my dz are always commenting that I seem to be flying a little flat, but I'm always where i need to be....I think you'll just develop your own weird little style to fly around the scoliosis. I promise all of your concerns around this will be gone after 100 jumps. Just stick with it. The only real problem it causes for me is the pain in the lumbar spine (where the beginning of the 'hump' meets my lower spine) after a day of jumping, because thats where most of the pressure goes. X-ray is of me standing 'straight'. *edit to add* I didnt mean to make it sound like stretching etc wont help, it certainly will and you should most definitely be doing it (I workout 6 days a week to keep on top of my spinal issues), I'm just saying you cant change the shape of your bones once its this bad

Sorry to drag up the past, but I just came across some really old emails from 2010 from the beginning of my skydiving career when I paid Gary Lucas (his Sydney-based gear store was called Karnage Krew) $5,000 for a rig that I never received, which really slowed down my jumping for a while. I remember a few threads got started on here and it turns out a whole group of us got ripped off at the same time, to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, and then he and his gear store disappeared off the face of the planet. Purely out of curiosity - did anybody ever run in to him again? Anybody get their money back? Or did his body turn up in a ditch in Mexico?

Says the guy with the 80 jumps! I won't call him a twat, and I am sure Travis is a cool guy, but he is no Bill Cole nor does he measure up to any of the old timers that I have gotten to know in my short time in the sport. What does my jump numbers have to do with it? Im just saying, Travis (along with a handful of other noteables) literally revolutionized the sport of freestyle motocross the same way many names mentioned on this thread have revolutionized skydiving or BASE. I have to plead my ignorance with a lot of the names mentioned here, I got some homework to do, but to imply Travis' achievements in his field(s) dont mean as much to his sport as BC's do in his sport is just unfair.

Its a goodamned shame everytime I hear some new student/wuffo talk about watching a video of a guy skydiving without a rig to know they're not talking about this jump but about that redbull drinking biker twat. __________________________________________________ That redbull drinking biker twat has done as much for several sports as Bill Cole or anyone has done for skydiving.

I really am sorry to flog the dead horse some more. I thought I was over it but it still depresses me every time I think about how much more progressed I could be had my money not been stolen, or every time I fork out more cash to rent more student gear that doesn't fit me, or every week when the automatic payment is taken from my account to cover the loan I got to buy my first rig Anybody got any news/updates/results?

I gotta say I agree with you Yoink. I would get no pleasure from seeing Gary in a hospital bed. I wouldn't even get pleasure from seeing him in a jail cell I just want to jump out of planes. It would be really cool to do that with my own gear, seeing as how I've paid for that privilege in full. It would also be cool to have $4000 to spend on nappies and baby clothes. Whatever Gary is doing, I don't imagine he's having too much fun with my $4k. I know there's people even worse off than me, and my heart goes out to them...

Thanks for the PM's guys. Guess we just gotta keep jumping and hope Karma will take care of the rest. Hope to meet you all up there one day. Steve Www.runfmx.co.nz

I didn't make a single post in all the other 'Kkrew screwed me' threads because I guess I was still hoping that maybe, just maybe, if I kept my mouth shut Gary might just surprise me and a rig might just show up on my doorstep one day. Seeing as it's now been over 6 months, I think I can safely say I've been slightly let down

Yea, 46 jumps... Long story short, every time I jumped I just did solos for waaaay too long. Couldnt afford coach jumps. Never even looked at my A licence card. Just jumped enough (barely) to stay current. Essentially wasnt learning anything each time I jumped. Real stupid way to go about it, but I recently gave myself an attitude adjustment. Anyways, a couple weeks ago decided it was time to sort my shit out. Hooked up with some extremely talented coaches and went from having nothing signed on my A card to having the whole thing ticked off in a few jumps. Honestly ive learned more in the past 2 weeks doing coach jumps than I did with the 20 solos before that, and now ive potentially found my first rig and taking the whole thing a lot more serious. Point is, dont be lazy like me. Getting your A is not hard, put the effort in at the start and begin your learning early. Not only will you be a safer skydiver, but it will stop people from laughing at you for taking as long as me to get your licence

+ 1 NZ Skydiving school at Pudding Hill, Methven treated me equally as amazing as the crew at SAT. Both awesome crew, awesome location, unreal instructors. P.S - why the hell would you wanna be anywhere near Auckland?

Hhahahaha! And you can apply that to all aspects of your life, not just skydiving. Rove - hes here in Feb

This was a weird situation, it was a clear blue day and there was literally just this one patch of cloud north of the dz in the oppostie direction from jump run. Being second group out, mixed with wind during ff, mixed with floating with the wind for a bit under the malfunctioned canopy just put me exactly in the middle of this cloud patch once reserve opened. I was out of the cloud within a few seconds - it was a 'patch' rather than a 'layer' - could have chosen my words better above

Nice to get one out of the way fairly early on in the game. It was a coach jump just working on various freefall skills, fairly uneventful. After tracking I waved off and pulled at 4.5. Canopy snivelled for a good few seconds before violently snapping open with a harsh turn to the right, I was preparing myself to kick out of linetwists but then it stopped spinning and I realised I had a very messy lineover. Ive seen pictures and watched countless videos with lineovers but this just looked ugly, the whole left side was a tangled mess. I made the decision to not even waste time releasing toggles as I was still turning to the right .Checked alti, around 3300. Grabbed both handles, pulled right pulled left. Felt like forever until the reserve was above my head and when it did finally open i was in a thick layer of cloud and zero visibilty. Got on the rear risers before releasing toggles as I was afraid of a canopy collision in the clouds. Once free of the clouds I did my control checks. I floated for a while watching my canopy and freebag drift away in the wind to get an idea of where to find 'em - turns out everyone else in the air was doing the same thing. The reserve landing was uneventful, a nice stand up into wind landing with a bunch of people filming from the ground. I still had the cutaway pad in my hand but lost the reserve handle which im kinda annoyed at myself for. As Murphys Law would have it, the freebag landed in the thickest heaviest thorniest part of the surrounding forrest - couple hours searching and a lotta scratches later had the canopy and freebag in hand. And no, I hadnt packed it - another student had. The lineover was sitting in there waiting for someone. End result - The only thing I would change is I would have tried releasing toggles and pumping a couple of times - but it was just so messy I decided to go straight to emergency procedures. Im really happy with the way everything else turned out. Im safe, canopy and freebag found, had one handle in hand, happy.