With most skydiving helmets over $200, and the most common at $500 or more, it's a smart investment to protect your helmet when you're not using it.
Most skydiving helmet bags also have additional pockets to carry your smaller skydiving gear and helmet accessories together so you're able to keep everything in one place whether you're at the drop zone, the wind tunnel or traveling around the world.
Henry Kochen of the ChutingStar Crew took some time to show off a few of our most popular helmet bags this week to show you which helmets fit and the features of each.
Check out this video as well as a video from Mike Gruwell on the new Cookie Flight Bag, and then click the links below for additional info and ordering information.
Skydivers use one of our smoke mounts to attach the smoke to their shoe or ankle, and the smoke gives a definite "wow factor" for people on the ground whether it's used in freefall or under canopy. For several years, we've had requests for colored smoke but we could only find specialized manufacturers with complicated ignition systems and/or the smoke canisters needed larger brackets.
But we were recently turned on to a UK smoke grenade company, Enola Gaye, that now distributes in the United States. Skydivers, drop zones and demo teams had started trying two different "wire pull" smoke grenades from the company with great success.
The EG18 and EG18X smoke grenades not only come in several colors, but have a lower price than the Sport Smoke and can be used with all of our existing skydiver smoke grenade brackets. And then this year they added two larger "pro" smoke options in the CM75 The Cloud Maker and the SD75 The Fastest Cloud Maker giving skydivers the most options for smoke grenades every!
Here's a comparison of the 5 different smoke grenades (4 in multiple colors) we carry for skydiving:
Those with a sewing machine and the materials have been able to make reusable cloth face masks. ChutingStar has face masks as well as face mask alternatives available. One of our fellow skydivers and parachute riggers, Nikki Kingen, demonstrated on a recent trip to Walmart for supplies for her family how a neck gaiter can work as a face mask too!
Neck Gaiters or Headsocks have been a staple at ChutingStar for years. These multi-use fabric tubes can definitely be used as a face mask alternative. Furthermore, these can be washed and then after the need for mask subsides, these can later be used on your skydives or in the wind tunnel.
Our ChutingStar Face Mask design is manufactured by LiquidSky Sports, and are washable and reusable as well.
Besides your rig, jumpsuit, altimeters and helmet, what are your must-haves, have-to-haves and can't-leave-home-withouts that you take with you to the drop zone, wind tunnel or boogie?
We took a look into the Gear Bags of the ChutingStar Crew this week, and posted the photos of what we've found plus a list of items that each crew member declared "essential." If it's available at ChutingStar, the item is linked to where you can get it online. Otherwise, the common items listed you can find at many local retail shops.
We hope this helps you prepare better for a day, weekend or week of skydiving or flying in a tunnel this year!
Skydiving Gear Bag Essentials
Laura's gear bag (above) has the widest variety of items of all of us, but that's because she jumps mostly at boogies during her time on the ChutingStar Boogie Tour. Her list of essentials include:
Mudflap mounts may have become more popular due to Wingsuiting and Swooping, but now they are being used by all types of skydivers for an easy-to-view placement of your altimeter.
Henry Kochen of the ChutingStar Crew took some time in the video below to show the different types of mudflap altimeter mounts available, their options and how they are installed.
You can find all the mudflap altimeter mounts on ChutingStar at this link.
Marissa Barclay's unique combination of a love of creating art for other people and her late father's business knowledge has skydivers worldwide flocking to her to transform their bland helmets into flying works of art.
Marissa has only been skydiving since 2013, but like most of us, she fell in love with the sport, culture and people immediately. She painted up her first skydiving helmet with her favorite animal, a crow. In this social media world, her posts of this helmet created a buzz in the skydiving community, and she soon found out there was a full-time market for customizing skydiving gear.
Marissa's First Helmet. Photo by Javier "Buzz" Ortiz.
The Bungee/Ball Slider Keeper is a tent tie-down that can be modified to use as a slider keeper at the top of your reserve pin cover flap. The purpose of this slider keeper is to hold the slider down behind a jumper’s head after the canopy is open so that the slider doesn’t interfere with cameras, the line of sight and/or allows the risers to open up further. This is not a gadget for all skydivers. Consult with your local DZO, S&TA, instructors and peers before using the Bungee/Ball Slider Keeper. This keeper can cause a delay during a cutaway if the slider is stowed in the device.
To adjust and set your elastic strap on your Flex Z goggles, first pull the strap to your desired length. Make a double-hand overhand knot, followed by a single overhand knot.
Trim the excess with scissors and lightly melt the edges of the ends of the outer sheath of the strap to keep it from unraveling.
