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With the recent release of Grand Theft Auto V, we've decided to take a look at some of the video games out there that offer players the ability to skydive in their gameplay. While dedicated skydiving games are few and far between and mostly awful, there are some big budget games out there that provide in game base jumping or skydiving. The introduction of these activities usually take place during missions when playing the single player campaign or story modes. Other games tend to introduce the activity only when playing multiplayer. Grand Theft Auto (Series) The GTA series is perhaps one of the most controversial video games series made to date. The game has seen protests, attempts to ban sales and mothers up in arms over the content. In a game where you run the streets killing, hijacking and beating anyone who you come across, it's easy to see why. For those who are less inclined to rob stores and toss dollars at pixelated strippers, the game also offers some great aviation related missions. Parachuting was introduced into the game with the release of GTA: San Andreas in 2004 but was then not present in the retail copy of GTA IV. Later the GTA IV expansion, "The Ballad of Gay Tony" reintroduced the parachute and fans were once again finding buildings to base jump off of. In the latest release of the game, GTA V once again offers players the ability to skydive and base jump. The parachuting gameplay is introduced in the story line when one of your characters is required to undergo aviation training (airplane, helicopter and skydiving) in order to complete one of the missions. You begin by having to land on a moving target, so essentially your first handling of the canopy is an accuracy jump. You will also then be able to make jumps with your parachute outside of that mission training, whether you're hijacking an aircraft to jump out of, or finding a building to make a base jump from. When it comes to the skydiving gameplay, you're able to track during freefall and once you open your canopy (rather hard usually too), you're then able to navigate with regular turns or sharp turns - and flare for your landings. The canopy design is somewhat disappointing with what someone on our social media page aptly called an "Air-Unlock" canopy, with both front and back of the cells being open. There is a slight delay on the canopy opening, as to be expected for realsm, but it still opens quick enough for you to get some fair low jumps in. Finding locations that are high enough to base jump off of is a challenge sometimes, but rewarding when you find that perfect exit point and maybe do some proxy tracking. While this game extends so much further than just skydiving, the gameplay of the skydiving make it one of our top recommendations. As stated before, this game is definitely not for the sensitive type. Videos of Skydiving and Base Jumping in GTA Saints Row (Series) Another game aimed at the maturer audience, Saints Row offers gamers the chance to do some couch base jumping. Skydiving and base jumping have been available in the series since Saints Row 2, but only in Saints Row The Third did the gameplay of parachuting become really fun. The 2013 release of Saints Row IV also saw the act of base jumping and skydiving being kept. The base jumping in Saints Row The Third is somewhat similar to that of GTA San Andreas, where the canopy is quick to open. In fact it becomes a little bit annoying just how quick they open, you are able to base jump off 50 foot objects with ease. The skydiving experience otherwise is quite standard, you're able to track your player before pulling and then control your canopy once it's open. Unlike GTA, where your jumps are either mission related or purely because you want to throw yourself out of a plane, or off a building or cliff side - Saints Row The Third allows you to set a target once you have jumped, and steering your canopy so that you land as close to that mark as possible will earn you reputation in the game. Saints Row IV, which was only recently released also allows for naked base jumping. If you're looking to perform dirty low jumps, buying Saints Row The Third is definitely a good option. The game is now quite old and you can pick it for quite a reasonable price. Videos of Skydiving and Base Jumping in Saints Row Battlefield 3 If you're looking for some skydiving game action without the senseless street violence or sexual content, then Battlefield 3 may be better option. While the Battlefield 3 campaign mode was entirely too short and didn't include skydiving in it, the multiplayer mode which is still played by thousands of people offers the ability to also both skydive or base jump. Unlike the previously mentioned games where you are in an open world environment and can joy ride to your exit points, Battlefield 3 is an intense military combat environment where you are taken on fire and in turn having to protect yourself when you are mobile. There are a good number of exit points in the game should you choose to base jump, depending on the map you're playing. Unlike Saints Row and GTA, Battlefield 3 is set in first person view. Personally I always find first person views much more appealing, as I find that they tend to be more immersive. There are a few large cliffs in Battlefield 3 that allow for impressive freefall times. If you have a few friends that also play the game, it is easy to arrange with them for some 3 or 4 way base jumps - or go extreme like the video below with a 64-way! With Battlefield 4 coming out in a couple months, there is still a lot up in the air about just what gameplay will be included in the new release. At this stage we will have to wait and see what they do with regards to the skydiving and basejumping in the game. Videos of Skydiving and Base Jumping in Battlefield 3 Base Jumping Base Jumping is a game developed by a small company called D3, though judging from their websites the name is in the process of being changed. The difference between this game the games listed above, is that this game is a dedicated BASE game, where all the focus is on the sport and not on the strippers or on shooting the enemy. Here you will be presented with exit points and a challenge for that exit point. It's been a while since I played this game, but I remember it being a little confusing to navigate at first with regards to the menus. However the gameplay is good fun and if one is looking solely for a dedicated base jumping game. It's definitely worth giving Base Jumping a try. The "Pro Edition" is still receiving regular updates and fixes, so the game may well be better than when I had last given it a go. You can view the development update information and more information about the game itself at the development page. It also appears the company may be working on a skydiving game similar to Base Jumping. Videos of Base Jumping Go! Sports - Skydiving The Go! Sports game series has been somewhat of a disappointment with difficult to use controls and usually extremely repetitive gameplay. Go! Sports Skydiving tends to slot in with the other Go! Sports titles, but does offer a few redeeming qualities that distance it from games in the series like Go! Ski. The game offers two general modes, there is formation skydiving where you control your model into the position to fill a formation and then there is the landing mode, which is pretty much accuracy landing. In the formation mode, while the concept doesn't seem too bad - there are several issues that cause controlling your player to be extremely frustrating at times when using the required SIXAXIS controls. The game is not unplayable by any means and can still offer the gamer some fun, but apart from the tough controls - this is the kind of game that can get old fast. The only thing that will keep a user playing is the fact that there is an online ranking system. But given the good price, it is definitely worth considering giving a go, there isn't much to lose. Videos of Skydiving in Go! Sports - Skydiving Which of the games listed above is your favourite for your bedroom skydiving experience? And if you know of any other skydiving or base jumping related games, let us know in the comments below. We'd love to give them a try.

By Bryan Burke, S&TA; at Skydive Arizona I’ve been taking notes on incidents related to the risks of horizontal freefall activity. Browsing the Incidents Forum on Dropzone.com leads to some interesting information. I went through the first six pages of the Incidents Forum to mine the following data. There are eight instances in the past year where an AAD fired after a freefall collision or related incident incapacitated a jumper, and a ninth in which the victim’s fellow jumpers pulled for him. The reference date is that of the first post, not date of accident. 1: July 31, 2013. 9-way tracing (angle flying) jump, reportedly very experienced jumpers. Collision at break-off due to back tracking blind into another jumper. AAD fired. Collision injuries followed by landing injuries, including skull fractures. 113 reserve, wing loading not stated. He jumps a Velocity 90 for a main, which suggests a fairly high experience level. If we assume a typical Velocity wing loading is 1.8, that would put the reserve wing loading at 1.6. PD recommends that expert skydivers limit wing loading on the PD113R to 1.4. 2: July 15, 2013. On a tracking dive, a jumper with 1,000 jumps was hit by one with 300, hard enough to lose awareness and probably unconscious for a few seconds. Two skydivers docked AFF-style and one opened his main for him. Fortunately the main, a Crossfire 2 119, opened without incident and the jumper recovered high enough to take control and land it safely. This was a 12-way dive according to the Youtube post, but you can never see more than ten people and they are at multiple levels. The collision occurs during the early stages of the dive, as the trackers are forming up, which gave two expert jumpers the opportunity to dock on him and pull for him. Had the collision happened lower, or had the jumper not recovered to land his parachute it could have been much worse. If he is jumping a Crossfire 2 119, he probably has a pretty small reserve, too, so an AAD deployment of the reserve might not have ended well. 3: July 10, 2013. 12-way tracking dive at a boogie results in a freefall collision that knocked out one jumper. His AAD deployed the reserve (estimated at a conservative 1.1:1 wing loading). The jumper had some teeth knocked out and fractured three vertebrae, C1, C5, and T5. His reserve was reportedly distorted by line twists or perhaps a knot or line over which might have been the result of deployment on his back. He was fortunate to land in an open field. The jumper later posted that he would recover. His profile says he has 325 jumps in two years. There is no explanation of who or what caused the collision. 4: May 27, 2013. On a 3-way RW dive, an experienced jumper with 3,000 plus jumps was laying base while two other jumpers, one with about 150 jumps and one with about 100, dove out after him. The one with 150 jumps dove too aggressively (a very common mistake when learning to dive out) and collided with the experienced jumper, hitting him in the head with his legs. The experienced jumper was knocked out and stayed that way through the freefall, the AAD activation, the reserve ride, and the landing in a tree, under a reportedly conservative wing loading. The experienced jumper died, although it is not clear if from the trauma from the collision or the landing. 5: May 20, 2013. A fairly experienced jumper, last out on a tracking dive and diving hard to the formation, hit the foot of another jumper and was knocked out. The AAD deployed the reserve as designed, which was followed by a safe, unconscious landing on a PD 160R which was loaded at 1.25. A later post by the jumper himself says it was an 18-way tracking dive. His profile says 700 jumps in six years. He apparently overtook, horizontally, a jumper who was above and ahead of him and never saw the jumper he collided with. The other jumper would not have seen him coming, either, with all of their focus ahead. 6: February 17, 2013. A skydiver was knocked out on a 10-way tracking dive. Their AAD activated but they were injured from striking a fence on landing. The injured jumper had 180 jumps and it was her first tracking dive. The injuries include a neck fracture but no paralysis. Her full-face helmet showed some damage. The reserve was lightly loaded, an Optimum 193 but no exit weight reported. 7: February 14, 2013. A skydiver with 60 jumps had a shoulder dislocated while participating in a 12-way Formation Skydiving jump. Apparently this was the result of a hard dock from another jumper docking on the injured jumper. There is very little detail, but apparently the jumper could not open a parachute and the AAD did the job. No report of landing injuries. 8: December 7, 2012. On a 17-way wingsuit jump, a participant with 250 jumps struck another participant in freefall and was knocked out. His AAD worked but he remained unconscious under canopy, crashed into an obstacle, and died from that or a combination of the landing and freefall injuries. The other jumper had unspecified back injuries. 9: October 22, 2012. On a wingsuit rodeo jump, witnesses reported that the jump tumbled unstable from exit. At some point fairly high, reportedly around 10,000 feet, the rodeo rider left. The wingsuiter never deployed a canopy. Their AAD fired but the reserve did not deploy. With no witness to the lower part of the jump it is impossible to say if the wingsuit jumper was struck by the rider, or had a stability issue such as a flat spin. Of nine incidents in ten months where a jumper was incapacitated in freefall and their AAD fired (or in one case, was deployed for by another jumper), seven out of nine involved trackers, tracing, or wingsuits. That’s 77%. Eight of nine, or 88% were definitely due to collisions. The final one is uncertain but possible, if it was also due to a collision, that brings us to 100% of the incapacitations being due to collisions. Almost all of the incidents involve some degree of inexperience. Just how much experience is required to participate in this type of jump is relative. For example, is 300 jumps enough to be on a 12-way tracking dive? Is 250 enough to be on a 17-way wingsuit dive? Is 180 enough to be on a 10-way tracking dive, with no previous tracking experience? Is 700 jumps over six years (117/year average) enough to be on an 18-way tracking dive? Is 325 jumps in two years enough to be on a 12-way tracking dive? If your jump numbers are low (say, below 500 jumps) you may have answered “yes.” The correct answer is “no.” In every case except 9 and 1, it’s pretty safe to say these dives were too big and too poorly planned for the experience levels involved. In the case of the wingsuiter with 250 jumps, for example, if he was in compliance with his national club’s policy, he could not take up wingsuiting until he had 200 jumps. Even if all 50 of his next jumps were wingsuit jumps, did he have had the experience and skill to be on a 17-way flocking dive? What if only ten or twenty of those 50 jumps were with a wing suit? Go to Youtube and search “skydive tracking dive.” Here is a glaring example of the issue: This took place at a big US drop zone with plenty of experienced skydivers. Pause this dive every couple of seconds. At various points you can see that up to fifteen (maybe more) people are on the dive, but throughout the dive you’ll see people flailing unstable, going low, unable to close on the formation, way above it… and at break-off time, it’s really down to a six-way with a couple other skydivers in the distant rear. For some reason – and here, logic completely fails me for an explanation - some people seem to think it is cool to go on a skydive on which at least half the participants lack the skill to manage the simplest goals such as approaching in control, staying in proximity with the leaders, and breaking off in a controlled fashion. Now with all those bodies scattered around the sky, many of them without the experience to have developed good air awareness, what do we expect would happen? Of course there are going to be collisions, although apparently there were none on the dive used as an example. The experienced jumpers at that drop zone, and every other one, need to change the tune. These jumps should be hard to get on, not easy. Participants should prove themselves on small dives before they go up on big ones, just as in any other freefall discipline. We don’t have a very big data set to go on, but let’s say that tracking, wingsuit, and angle dives are 10% of all skydives made. That would probably be pretty generous, my instincts would put the number at under 5%. Yet they account for about 75% of all AAD saves from incapacitation in the past year, and 50% over the past six years. (Half of all the saves due to incapacitation in freefall that show up on the CYPRES web site in the past six years occurred on tracking, angle, or wingsuit dives.) So if a subgroup making 10% of all skydives generates 50% of the AAD activations due to freefall injury, is that a problem? Tracking dives have become the most dangerous form of freefall there is. Wing suits are in second place. Tracing/atmonauti/angle dives appear to be determined to compete for the distinction. I hate to load my staff and myself up with more work, but self-policing simply isn’t working in this situation. Skydive Arizona is going to start holding the horizontal element of skydiving to much higher standards. We expect to have minimum experience levels for participation at different levels of complexity established soon, and our web site already lists our expectations. See www.skydiveaz.com, click on “Experienced” and review the safety materials. As a business, we need to protect ourselves and our customers from skydivers who don’t have the experience, training, or sense to stay out of trouble. As the variety of freefall and canopy choices expand, it appears the number of skydivers fitting that description is expanding too. Drop zone operators can’t simply turn a blind eye to the problem, especially since the poor planning combined with lack of experience and training expose all skydivers on the plane to a significant risk, not just the individual participant. Related Reading: The Horizontal Flight Problem

By Bryan Burke, S&TA; at Skydive Arizona Identifying the ProblemAll of the following events took place during our spring 2013 season here at Skydive Arizona. Some have been repeated several times. Since I started to look into this subject and inquire as to what other drop zones are seeing, several similar incidents have been brought to my attention. In addition, there are several reports of serious freefall collisions that have resulted from tracking, angle, and wingsuit dives around the world. Example One Angle flying dives, also known as atmonauti or tracing dives, are recording fall rates comparable to freeflyers. They not only fall faster than true trackers, they do not cover nearly the horizontal distance that true tracking dives do. (Inexperienced trackers, especially on their backs, often have essentially the same flight characteristics, much faster down than experienced trackers and not much horizontal travel.) In one case, a group of very experienced angle fliers insisted on exiting first, saying they were trackers. They fell at freefly speeds, about 170 miles per hour. The dive was planned to go roughly 90 degrees to the line of flight, but they didn’t go very far, covering less than half the distance a real tracking dive would. This type of dive tends to include a lot of highly experienced freeflyers experimenting with new stuff, so they were jumping very fast canopies and opening between 3,000 and 3,500. A conventional belly flying group followed them out. They had a long climb-out, about 15 seconds, broke off at 4,500 feet, tracked, and deployed between 3,000 and 2,500. All of them were experienced and competent trackers in the conventional sense of the word. There was nothing unusual about the conditions. Up on the jump run, the airplane was covering ground at 150 feet per second (about 90 knots) and the horizontal distance between Group 1 and Group 2 at exit would be about 2,250 feet. Because of the longer freefall time for the second group, about 500 feet of that was lost to freefall drift in the winds aloft. This leaves their hypothetical center points at opening about 1,750 horizontal feet apart, still adequate separation for two conventional belly flying groups opening within a few seconds of each other. However, because of their fast freefall speed, followed by the climb-out time for the second group, the angle fliers deployed their parachutes nearly thirty seconds before the second group, but also 500 to 1,000 feet higher. They immediately turned towards the landing area under canopy; otherwise they would not get back, at least not with enough altitude for a big swoop. During that thirty seconds, they only dropped about 700 - 1,000 feet or so vertically, but they covered between 1,500 and 1,800 horizontal feet in that time. This does not even take into account the ground covered by tracking at break-off from either group. Canopy winds were light. In thirty seconds, a modern fast canopy in normal straight flight will do 60 feet per second horizontally. That puts them 1,800 feet back towards the DZ and line of flight. Mentally, skydivers tend to think freefall separation is an exit problem, not a canopy problem. Once they have a good canopy, they are conditioned to think about canopy traffic and their landing – not about what might be in freefall overhead, because in the past this has not been a problem since we figured out that fast fallers should follow slow fallers out in the exit sequence. So, at about 2,500 feet the two groups effectively merged into a single large mix of deploying freefallers and people already under very fast parachutes. The only reason there were no collisions was blind luck. Mind you, every one of these jumpers was experienced, current, and well trained within the existing paradigm. Example Two A very experienced jumper with a cutting edge wingsuit was logging freefalls of over three minutes and opening at about 3,500. We had three aircraft flying. Our procedure is to leave a minimum of two minutes between drops for conventional freefall loads, three with wing suits or students, and four after a load with tandems. The wingsuit jumper exited. The plane behind started a three minute clock. Although the wingsuiter opened about half a mile away from the jump run, he then made a riser turn towards the landing area and left the brakes stowed as he fiddled with his suit. A minute later, he was just under 2,500 when canopies were opening around him. Example Three Taxiing out from the loading area, the pilot called me to ask which way trackers should go. This piqued my curiosity, trackers are supposed to know this when they manifest. I told him “east” and asked if he could tell where they were in the exit order. Meanwhile I checked with the manifest to see if anyone on that load had reported they were planning to track or asked for information about which way to go. None had. A bit later the pilot replied that they would be exiting first. I got out my binoculars to watch. The three-way tracking group exited and flew straight up the line of flight, opening between the next two groups in the exit order. Naturally I noted their canopies and rounded the three up in the landing area for a discussion. Initially they were confused about what the problem was, although they did acknowledge that there were other canopies in the sky closer than they had expected. The leader of the dive had seventy jumps. It was his first tracking dive, and he was leading it on his back. He had planned to turn off jump run and fly east and was completely unaware of his failure to do so. The other two had about 150 and 200 jumps, not enough to be aware that he had failed to turn. Even if they had been, there was no plan on how to signal course corrections to the leader, and they were not close enough to do so in any case, due to the lack of experience. Two of the three, including the one with 70 jumps, had GoPros on, which no doubt distracted them from the navigation problem as they tried to video each other. It was a de-briefing nightmare as I learned more and more about how much they did not know. It was their first time at a large, busy drop zone. They had never received any coaching or advice on tracking. They had no idea about USPA’s recommendations for jumping with a camera. This episode made me realized that the manifest in-briefing that had served us well for years, with minor modifications now and then, was no longer adequate. In the past we never felt the need to screen for camera use or horizontal flying, merely informing them that if they were planning to track or wingsuit they would need to get a daily update from the safety officer. Example Four A total of twelve wingsuit jumpers landed out, the nearest almost half a mile from our normal landing area, the farthest over a mile out. After I rounded up the entire group (not one of them local jumpers) I made it plain that this was unacceptable, not just from a safety point of view, but also because many of them landed on private property or public roads, not a good thing in terms of our relations with the community. Questioning them about their flight planning, I learned some very interesting things. First, it was two groups, not one. The less experienced group was planning to take an “inside track” while the second, more experienced group was planning to fly a wider course, both of the tracks parallel to the original jump run. (This is a fairly common practice at DZs with a lot of wingsuit activity.) To make this easier, the individual who had taken charge of planning asked the pilot to turn 90 left at the end of the regular skydiver jump run. In theory the two wing suit groups would then simply exit and turn 90 left, paralleling the normal jump run back to the DZ and gaining horizontal separation from the climb-out time on jump run. Unfortunately this plan did not take into account that the winds aloft were about 30 knots out of the west, and the standard jump run was south. Thus, a left turn gave the plane a ground speed of about 130 knots, and each group took quite a while to climb out. Once in flight, they were already well down wind of the planned flight area and would have more cross-wind push the entire flight. Clearly this plan was doomed from the start, and anyone who had the slightest idea what the winds aloft were doing would know this. Winds aloft are very easy to find on line these days, or someone could have simply asked the Safety Officer what his observations were. Not one of those twelve wingsuiters questioned the incredibly bad plan the group leader had come up with, which was based on completely wrong assumptions. Even if anyone had looked down, they were already committed and had no Plan B. Example Five I picked up a wingsuit jumper who landed over a mile off the dz. (Nearly 1.5 statute miles, in fact.) The only reason I even knew about him was a bystander saw his canopy in the distance and pointed him out. I never would have seen him, his opening point was well beyond our first exit group on the normal jump run! His story? With very little experience on his new high performance suit, he was jumping a new helmet and camera set-up for the first time. He reported that he had problems with the helmet throughout the flight (shifting and vibrating) and forgot to pay attention to where he was going, flying downwind and away from the DZ the entire time. Example Six Trackers landed out, on the approach to the runway. When I inquired about the flight plan they said that when they got to the airplane, there was another tracking dive. The two groups decided to exit first and second, each going 90 degrees to the jump run in opposite directions. This put the out-landing group exiting at the extreme early end of the jump run, tracking downwind, then faced with penetrating back into the canopy winds. They had no chance to make it to the normal landing area and their opening position put them in a canopy descent to a clear area directly on the extended centerline of the runway. These are real world examples at one drop zone over the course of a mere couple of months. Along with similar problems reported from other drop zones and the incidents of actual and near-miss collisions associated with horizontal dives, it seems clear that training in these fields is completely inadequate. Before Freeflying came along in the early 90s, the skydiving environment was very simple. Everyone fell almost straight down and parachutes flew about 25 miles per hour. In the 90s, we had to figure out how to deal with a new, much faster fall rate in some groups, and canopies almost doubled in horizontal speed. In the last decade, even more variations in skydiving have popped up. These didn’t really show up much on DZO’s radar because so few people were doing them, but now they are increasingly common. Approximate Speeds of Various Forms of Skydiving Activity* Activity Vertical Speed Range Horizontal Speed Range Freefall time (13,000) FS 120 – 130 mph 0 – 20 mph** 00:60 - 65 Freefly 150 – 180 0 – 20** 00:40 – 50 Tracking 120 – 140 30 – 60*** 00:55 – 65 Angle 140 – 160 20 – 40*** 00:45 – 50 Wingsuit 40 – 70 50 – 80*** 01:30 – 3:00 *Approximations derived from videos and recording altimeters. **Random drift due to things like backsliding, one side of the formation low, etc. ***Best guess, based on distance covered in freefall time. Thus, on a single load there might be freefall times from exit at 13,000’ to opening at 3,000’ as little as :40 seconds and as much as three minutes. Horizontal speeds will range from zero to 80, with distances of up to a mile on tracking dives and flights of several miles possible for expert wingsuit jumpers. Note that these speeds will vary considerably. For example, experimenting with tracking myself and observing tracking contests, I could get well over a mile in 60 seconds and many people can out-track me by a significant margin. However, actual tracking dives are usually not done in a max track position because it doesn’t lend itself to maneuvering with others. On a calm day, a tracking dive going 90 off the line of flight usually only covers about half a mile. Identifying the RisksCollisions within Groups Within groups, tracking, wingsuit, and angle dives are showing a disproportionately high rate of collision injuries. Even the best planned dives can still involve high closing speeds as the group forms and breaks up. And, as Bill von Novak has pointed out: On a tracking dive there is no focal point; no base you can dock on or, failing that, at least keep in sight for break-off. Everyone tracks in effectively a random direction at the end of the dive and hopes for clear air. In some cases they even barrel roll just to add some more randomness to their directions. To a newbie a tracking dive sounds lower pressure than a big-way; you don't have to dock, you just have to go in a similar direction as the leader. This tends to attract lower experienced jumpers, and those jumpers often shed the jumpsuit they are used to for a freefly suit or no suit at all - resulting in new and hard to predict fall rates/forward speeds. To that I have to add the potential for huge closing speeds, sometimes due to lack of skill but often due to poor organizing. Tracking dives in particular have a history of being “loose” or “pick-up” loads. Many times I have seen people “organizing” a tracking dive by making a general announcement to give a ticket to manifest if you want to come along. There is often very little screening for experience and ability. Then, it is common to group the more experienced people close to the leader, and that person is often in a floater position on exit. Anyone who can remember learning to do larger formations knows that novice divers tend to dive too long, even if they have been forewarned about the problem. (If you dive out two or three seconds after the base, that base is way ahead of you on the acceleration curve, so they appear to be getting further away – which they are. You dive more aggressively, something you don’t have much practice at. Then, when the base hits terminal velocity, they suddenly rush up at you because you are now going much, much faster than the base. You then go low, or collide.) Now add to that the significant horizontal movement, burbles that aren’t directly above the lower jumper, multiple vertical levels, and huge blind spots since you are looking ahead, not around. The potential for collisions is incredibly obvious once you think about it, but apparently few people doing tracking dives are thinking about it. Collisions Between Groups Although these are still rarely found in the accident record, I have seen many near misses, which suggests that it is only a matter of time. This is particularly disturbing to me because in a group-to-group collision, it means someone was exposed to an extreme hazard that they had no knowledge of, expectation of, or control over. Skydiving is risky enough with the known hazards. As drop zone operators and safety professionals it is morally wrong to expose our customers to a risk where their only real control would be to look at who else is on the load, and pull off it. Landing Out Out landings have two problems, one a risk to the jumper and the other, to the drop zone itself. The record shows that out landings have a high risk of landing injuries, especially from low turns to avoid obstacles or turn into the wind. This risk is exacerbated by the fact that the drop zone staff might not even know of an injury, and if they do, the response can be complicated. The second risk is aggravating the neighbors or airport authorities. Every drop zone has at least some neighbors or authorities who are opposed to skydiving. As long as these are a small minority a DZ can usually get by. Once skydivers start dropping into neighborhoods, landing on runways, and otherwise drawing unwelcome attention, the political balance can change. A classic example of this is the tracker landing on the roof of a two-story house 1.3 miles south of the DZ at Longmont, Colorado early in July of 2013. He not only broke his leg, he damaged the roof and required a complex rescue. At the time of the incident, he had 64 jumps in over a year in the sport. The wind was blowing from the north, but he tracked south, towards a heavily developed suburban area. In his own remarks, he accepts no responsibility for the incident, blaming it entirely on the winds rather than his extremely poor planning. Changing the Paradigm What do these activities all have in common, from the standpoint of skydiving culture? There is very little expectation, or even definition, of quality. Success is defined as mere participation and survival. Near collisions, actual collisions, landing out, and other problems do not seem to be perceived as failure. The video evidence alone is proof of this attitude. Just randomly browse YouTube for tracking, wingsuit, and angle dives and you’ll see some really bad, sometimes frightening, flying. Yet the comments are almost never critical. In order to turn this around, drop zones will have to set higher standards and change the definition of acceptable. This is not the first time we’ve been down this road. I started skydiving in 1978. Sequential FS was really starting to take off, but for the typical jump group there was no reason to plan a second point. As an old friend of mine said of those days, “I remember when a good 8-way was a 4-way!” It was learn by doing, and we had a lot of accidents from the hard docks, funnels, and collisions on the way to and from the funnels. But we learned a lot, and fifteen years later, when freefly came along, RW was at a pretty advanced, safe stage of technique. Those who were around in the early days of freeflying saw history repeat itself. Freeflyers didn’t want to dirt dive, debrief, or set goals. That was for RW jumpers, and anything to do with RW wasn’t cool. It was simply “Let’s jump together and do some tricks.” Eventually, they came to realize that just led to a lot of wasted jump tickets, AAD fires, and hard knocks in freefall. Now freeflying uses exactly the same philosophy as FS: train, set goals, set standards, and most of all, plan dives appropriate to the experience and ability of the participants. Now we see a new discipline emerging. On the one hand, angle flying is somewhat like freefly, where the recruits are already fairly experienced skydivers. Tracking is often more like early RW, where there was not a lot of skill among many of the participants, and not much meaningful leadership from the ones who had managed to survive. Wingsuiting seems to be in a class by itself, a population split between regular skydivers wanting to try something new, and BASE jumpers who feel that rules are a curse. One thing most of them seem to lack is good training about the surrounding environment. Training The general lack of training, supervision, and experience in this field is part of the problem. For example, although most wingsuiters take a first flight course of some type, I have visited web sites naming instructors with as few as 300 total jumps and only 100 wingsuit jumps! Based on the quality of some wingsuit jumpers, clearly some instructors have pretty low standards as well as low skills. All of the training materials I have seen make some mention of navigating and awareness of wind conditions, yet not one of the wingsuit jumpers I have spoken to after they land out has reported that their instruction included specific details on how to plan an effective flight path. After debriefing countless wingsuit incidents including malfunctions, traffic problems with other jumpers, out landings, and so on, I have come to conclude that a USPA Wingsuit Instructor Rating is a good idea. Training should included a detailed syllabus and written and practical tests, including flight planning, before they receive a wingsuit endorsement. At present it cannot be assumed that any wingsuit jumper has adequate training. Tracking attracts people with very little experience and has even less formal training than wingsuiting. It is perceived as something anyone off student status can do, since there is no need for enough skill to dock on a formation or turn points. In fact, some tracking dives are put together with the clear expectation that some participants won’t even be able to keep up. Since tracking itself is perceived as easy, I believe this translates into a mind-set that there is nothing to worry about. Hence we see very poorly organized dives with little or no screening for ability or experience, and often no meaningful flight planning. Angle flying also requires better screening for skill. Initially this activity was mainly undertaken by highly skilled freeflyers, but now that it has been popularized on media sites a lot of less experienced jumpers want to get involved. Like tracking, these dives require a flight plan that takes into account the rest of the load, and the high descent rate. In my opinion angle flying is more akin to freeflying than to tracking, and should exit in conventional freefly order with great attention to flying 90 degrees off the line of flight but not into the same airspace that slower falling trackers may also be heading for. Standards for Experience and Participation Unlike Freeflying and Formation Skydiving, horizontal flying cannot be learned in a wind tunnel. The only way to acquire skill is to actually do it. As everyone knows from learning Formation Skydiving or Freeflying, you don’t take people with 70 jumps up on large formations with mixed experience levels and minimal planning – at least not with a reasonable expectation of safety and success. We also know that you don’t develop skills very effectively if you have no expert coaching - or at least competent leadership. This should include goals set for the skydive before you are on the way to altitude, a useful dirt dive, and then a good post-dive debriefing, ideally with a video that is useful, not a sloppy, shaky GoPro video with constantly changing reference points. After giving it extensive consideration, I’m planning to screen new arrivals much more aggressively and have minimum standards they will have to adhere to. Just as most skydiving associations feel 200 jumps is a good minimum for wingsuits and cameras, fifty is a good number for a night jump, and so on, I feel that tracking dives should not be undertaken, except as one-on-ones with an experienced coach or instructor (or approved solos after consulting with an I or STA) until 100 jumps. At that point, the jumper can go on slightly larger tracking dives led by a coach, instructor, or approved organizer. For those with more jumps just taking up tracking, I feel that regardless of experience your first ten tracking dives should be with an approved Coach, Instructor, or organizer and these individuals should have an understanding with the dz about keeping the dives small and simple, just as we would with an expert FS jumper exploring freeflying. To lead a tracking or angle flying jump, I am thinking about a minimum of five hundred jumps, including at least 25 tracking jumps (and 25 angle flying jumps for that activity, not a total of 25 combined). The minimum skill set to lead will include awareness of collision risks and how to mitigate them, the importance of staying away from the jump run, how to make a flight plan that guarantees everyone will get back, how to plan with other groups on the load to ensure adequate separation, etc. Leaders must screen all participants for skill and have a well planned dive from exit to opening. Dives for which anyone can sign up by bringing a ticket to manifest are not allowed. Leading on the back is not allowed unless paired with another skilled tracking leader as a co-pilot flying face down. Information, Screening, and Guidelines Skydive Arizona’s plan to get better information out and establish our intentions and expectations with the horizontal community is simple. Once our procedures are established, or whenever we change them, the procedures will be posted on our web site, displayed near the loading area on a multi-sided “Safety Kiosk,” and available as flyers or hand-outs at manifest. As jumpers arrive they will be asked if they have any intention of participating in horizontal jumps. If so, they will receive the hand-out and a special briefing, in addition to the usual DZ briefing. Depending on their experience level they may be limited in what they can do, or directed to our coaching department. (Although the GoPro problem is only peripheral, we’ll be adopting a similar strategy there.) Drop Zone SOPs Besides improved training, screening for skill and experience, and better coaching and organizing, drop zones can also implement standard operating procedures to mitigate some risks. Exit Order The phenomenon discussed in Example 1, above, indicates that angle flyers should never go before belly flyers. If they do, we not only have the well known problem of differential freefall drift in winds (the faster fallers drift less, the slower ones, more) but we then combine that with fast canopies having 20 or 30 seconds of flight to eliminate any remaining horizontal separation. This has already happened here, at Elsinore, and on the east coast that I know of; doubtless it has happened elsewhere. Trackers can leave just about anywhere in the order, provided the flight plan works with the overall scheme of things. If they have a slow fall rate and a fast horizontal rate, leaving first works fine, providing the leader takes a course that does not put them too far away. In practice, the pilot is always trying to get the first group off the plane at the earliest possible point from which they have a reasonable chance of getting back. This creates the best opportunity to get the entire load out on one pass. If the trackers leave first and fly 90 off the jump run, they are now further out than that “earliest possible” point. Leaving first, they must do a minimum of 45 off the line of flight, or 90 for half the jump followed by 45 for the rest, or 60 the entire time - something that gains a little ground back towards the dz while at the same time getting well clear of the jump run. Clearly, any exit position still presents the possibility of a tracking group flying up or down the jump run. The only way to mitigate this risk is to limit tracking leadership to experienced, well trained skydivers. Flight Planning I will be asking everyone in the horizontal community to take much more responsibility in flight planning. As I see it, the proper planning procedure has several steps. Get a clear understanding of the overall DZ geography. If, for example, going to the right of the line of flight will put you over the ocean while going left will put you over a safe, open field, left might be the best choice if winds allow. Get current wind conditions, exit to surface. Find out if there are any other special concerns, such as a second plane dropping military or CF jumpers in an airspace box adjacent to the normal jump run. Plan an opening point from which everyone can safely get back to the DZ. From that point, reverse engineer the freefall portion taking into account never flying under or over the jump run and avoiding other horizontal groups on the plane. In the event that winds, geography, other DZ activity, or some other issue makes it unlikely that all points of the flight plan will be successful, cancel the dive until conditions are more favorable.On every dive we will hold the flight leader responsible for devising such a plan and executing it properly. Any safety infractions or out landings will result in grounding until they can prove they understand the situation better and have devised a strategy to prevent a repeat. Per Load Limits Depending on whether or not the DZ and jump run offer the option of flying to both sides of the line of flight, it is possible to get up to four horizontal groups out of a plane safely. If the airspace is limited to just one side of the jump run, three seems to be about the limit. I’m more concerned with keeping everyone safe than with pleasing everyone if significant risks are involved, so we will start limiting the number of horizontal jumps on any given load. On this subject of pleasing customers, the situation is analogous to the HP landing problem. If the risk is to the participant only, then a little extra risk might be considered acceptable. However, when other skydivers have no control over the risk, it is completely unfair to expose them to it. Just as HP landings don’t belong in the normal traffic pattern, horizontal flight that might endanger other groups on the load is not acceptable. Minimum and Maximum Opening Altitudes I am not a great believer in relying on vertical separation, since a stuck pilot chute, premature deployment, or spinning malfunction can erase it in seconds. However, there is no reason not to add it to the arsenal. Some drop zones are mandating a minimum 4,000 foot deployment altitude for wingsuits and a maximum 3,000 for trackers and angle flyers. I haven’t made a decision on this yet, but it makes sense in some situations. Enforcement After the alarming close calls in our last season, and looking back on the canopy discipline problem that plagued the sport for years (and still does, in places) Skydive AZ recognizes that modifying behavior requires both positive guidance and, when necessary, some penalties. We’ll be asking horizontal flyers who create safety problems to stand down from their activity until they can demonstrate a better understanding of our concerns.

Bartholomew wins Canopy Piloting Triple Crown, Hernandez earns European Canopy Piloting Championship & Windmiller sets new Speed World Record at the 7th FAI World Cup of Canopy Piloting They say there’s no rest for the weary and the pros at the FAI 7th World Cup in Canopy Piloting & 3rd European Championships were ready for battle as the competition got underway Wednesday. The World Cup in Kolomna, Russia is the third major Canopy Piloting championship in the past two months and while some began the competition with an eye on sweeping the three events, others arrived ready for redemption. 7th FAI World Cup of Canopy Piloting: This leg of the competition season has seen the same 4 competitors battling for the top spot time and again: Team Alter Ego’s Curt Bartholomew and Nick Batsch versus the PD Factory Team’s Tommy Dellibac and Pablo Hernandez. However, 76 other pros arrived in Kolomna ready to take over. Day 1 - Speed & Distance There was no playing around during Day 1 when competitors completed 6 rounds of the competition and closed the day with a new Speed World Record and a tight point spread between the top 15 competitors. US Army’s Greg Windmiller (USA), began the competition with three Speed World Records listed in his resume and would add one more to the list before the first day was halfway over. With a speed of 2.371 in the final Speed round, he became a 4th time Canopy Piloting Speed World Record Holder. The field quickly shifted to Distance, and another World Record would be challenged in the first round with Skydive Dubai’s Cornelia Mihai (UAE) setting a new Female Distance World Record after flying 138.54 meters. Curt Bartholomew (USA) flying his canopy 154.02 meters was only .07 meters short of teammate Nick Batsch’s current world record of 154.09 meters. Batsch, however, would continue to dominate the Distance rounds, ultimately besting Bartholomew and the UAE’s Billy Sharman. Day 2 - Zone Accuracy Rounds 1 & 2 The field awoke on Day 2 with expectations of an intense 3 jumps, with the scores so close that anyone in the top 15 could still podium. Bartholomew would broaden his lead over the other competitors with a 91 score (100 points) in the first round and a perfect 100 score in the 2nd round, which would be the only perfect 100 scored by any competitor throughout both completed rounds. After the second round, Bartholomew was comfortably in first by nearly 60 points, leaving Dellibac to protect his silver standing from Sharman and the rest of the top 15, who were all within striking distance should they outscore him in the last and final jump. Event organizers had planned to complete the competition on Day 2, but only about half of the field were able to complete the final round before a weather hold stopped the competition for the day. The competitors arrived the next morning ready to complete the final round, but would end up spending two days waiting on weather to clear to finish that final Zone Accuracy Round. With weather forecasts not showing a promising window, event organizers called the competition complete Saturday afternoon without the final round of Zone Accuracy. The World Cup of Canopy Piloting victory gives Bartholomew what is known as the Canopy Piloting Triple Crown - the current champion of the World Cup, World Canopy Piloting Championship and the World Games. Overall Winners: Gold: Curt Bartholomew (USA) Silver: Tommy Dellibac (USA) Bronze: Billy Sharman (UAE) Speed Medalist: Gold: Curt Bartholomew (USA) Silver: Tommy Dellibac (USA) Bronze: Billy Sharman (UAE) Distance Medalists: Gold: Nick Batsch (USA) Silver: Billy Sharman (UAE) Bronze: Curt Bartholomew (USA) Zone Accuracy Medalists: Gold: Curt Bartholomew (USA) Silver: Pablo Hernandez (ESP) Bronze: Dominic Roithmair (AUT) 3rd FAI European Canopy Piloting Championship In addition to the World Cup events, 43 competitors were also vying for the title of European CP Champion. Hernandez would lead the field following a comanding lead in Zone Accuracy, followed by Brice Bernier (FRA) and Dominic Roithmair (AUT). Overall Winners: Gold: Pablo Hernandez (ESP) Silver: Brice Bernier (FRA) Bronze: Dominic Roithmair (AUT) Distance Medalists: Gold: David Maleze (FRA) Silver: Roman Dubsky (SVK) Bronze: Johan Karlsson (SWE) Speed Medalists: Gold: Brice Bernier (FRA) Silver: Peter Kallehave (DEN) Bronze: David Maleze (FRA) National and World Records Several new World and National records were set throughout the competition, showing the continued push in the discipline as competitors are going further, faster and harder. World Records: Speed: - Greg Windmiller (USA): 2.371 seconds Distance - Female: - Cornelia Mihai (UAE): 138.54 meters National Records: Speed: - Netherlands National Speed Record: Erwin Baatenburg de Jong: 2.505 seconds - Sweden National Speed Record: Johan Karlsson: 2.503 seconds - Norway National Speed Record: Barton Hardie: 2.686 seconds Distance: - United States of America National Distance Record - Female Jessica Edgeington: 136.49 meters - Netherlands National Distance Record: Erwin Baatenburg de Jong: 130.95 meters - Sweden National Distance Record: Johan Karlsson: 131.36 meters - Norway National Distance Record: Barton Hardie: 130.24 meters One more international Canopy Piloting event is scheduled for 2013, the 4th Dubai International Parachuting Championship from November 27 to December 10.

Get ready for the Garmin VIRB, the latest new action camera to be revealed. While Garmin are well known for their GPS navigation devices, the company also boasts a variety of other technology devices, many of which revolve around maritime activity. In recent years Garmin has released several marine radio communication devices, as well as dabbling in the production of camera technology. However, Garmin has decided to take a step in a new direction - joining companies such as GoPro, Sony, Contour and JVC in the production of POV action cameras. It's a brave step by Garmin, but if they manage to effectively integrate the device with their other products, there may well be room for them in the GoPro dominated market. Garmin VIRB DesignUpon first sight the device is quite good looking with an appealing display screen on the top of the camera, and a large power button on the side of the device. For those who helmet mount their action cams, this small change from what other cameras typically offer can really make things easier, allowing you to feel whether or not the device has been turned on or off. The build of the device looks almost like a hybrid between the Contour and the Drift HD action cams. The main concern when looking at the VIRB design, is the convex lens, which seems to extend a fair degree out from the camera. While the Sony AS15 has a similar design, there is no getting around the fact that the exposure of the lens would in turn pose a risk of damage, especially in sports where you'd expect the camera to take a knock. Garmin do show an image of the VIRB with lens covering housing attached, but it remains unclear whether this extra housing is the underwater housing, which is an extra option. The device will be made available in either black or white. Technical DetailsThe VIRB is as expected, a high definition recording device that will allow video recording in 1080p quality, with a 16 megapixel CMOS processor and allow for up to three hours of filming from a full charge. Data is recorded onto a MicroSD card, with a recommendation of Class 10 - as to be expected with HD recording. The device will also sport a 2000mAh rechargeable Lithium-ion battery. Out of the box the VIRB is waterproof for 30 minutes to a depth of 1 meter, while the purchase of a scuba diving housing device will extend that depth to 50 meters. The display screen is 1.4" large and while remaining on, uses very little battery life. The "WideVü" lens is comprised of 9-element glass and offers the user three modes of recording: Wide, Medium and Narrow. Built in lens distortion correction and stabilization enhances video quality. True 1080p HD Recording 16 Megapixel CMOS Processor 1.4" Chroma Display 2000mAh Lithium-ion Battery ANT+ Wireless Connectivity VIRB Desktop Software Waterproofing Wi-fi Connectivity (Elite) Device PairingIt is clear that from the start Garmin would have to provide a form of functionality that separates them from other action camera manufacturers on the market, and this is where device paring comes into play. Using ANT+, the VIRB will be able to connect with other Garmin devices such as watches, remotes and cycling computers. While Garmin hasn't revealed exactly what one can achieve with the pairing of their devices with the VIRB, it certainly opens up a new avenue that most of the other action cameras lack. Options and PricingThere will be two VIRB options available, the basic VIRB device which will retail for $299.99 and then the VIRB Elite which will set you back $399.99. The differences between the two devices lie mainly in the functionality available. The VIRB Elite will offer wifi connectivity, allowing you to connect the device to your iPhone or Android smartphone. In my opinion the main selling point for the Elite is the ability to track your elevation, speed and other variables. This data will then be able to be overlayed on your video. While certainly limited to a small group of people, when in "Ski Mode" the device will also be able to detect whether or not one is on a chairlift and in turn pause recording for that period. With the VIRB scheduled for a September release, there isn't enough video footage to really make a claim as to the camera's quality. Though it's expected that the camera will rank up along with the other action cams out there, and it's certainly worth keeping an eye on. In the mean time, for a preview of the device's recording quality, you can view the official advertising video for the Garmin VIRB below.

Roger Nelson: If you're a skydiver, chances are you've heard the name. If you're not a skydiver, chances are you've watched one of the few movies that were inspired by this man. While the tales of Roger's life have been passed around to keen ears, mostly between jumpers, as a kind of folk lore, the words that have been spoken have often been words bound in mystery. The lines between truth and exaggeration, as with most stories passed through word of mouth, can get a little blurry at times. However there is no doubting the colorful nature of Roger Warren Nelson's life. Skydiving Career Roger began skydiving in 1971 at a dropzone in Hinckley, Illinois. He was always a bit of a rebel and never quite fitted in with the then aesthetic standard that prevailed within the skydiving community at that time. In the beginning of the 70s recreational skydiving was still in its early days, with many of the then participants coming from military backgrounds, and both Roger and his brother Carl stood out from the crowd. It's said that the term 'Freak Brothers' which was given to both Roger and Carl stemmed from their less than ordinary presence at the dropzone. As skydivers, Roger and Carl were pioneers. They both laid the groundwork for what is known today as Freeflying. At the time, skydives were done belly down, in a standard practice, but the 'Freak Brothers' threw a spanner in the works when they started what was then known as 'freak flying'. Freak flying was the Nelson brother's own unconventional freefall style, which was described by Roger in 1978 as any body position that saw the flyer's stomach facing up and their back down, towards earth. So while Olav Zipser is recognized as the father of freeflying, the 'Freak Brothers' were already laying the groundwork for unconventional freefall positions years before. In the mid 1970s the brothers started a "zine" called the Freak Brother Flyer, which ran from 1973 until 1976. Freak Brothers became more than just a term for him and his brother Carl, after a while Freak Brothers became an organization and a community with thousands of followers around the world. The Freak Brothers Convention was later organized with the help of Jeanie (Roger's wife) and Carl. These boogies were some of the largest around at the time and drew in over 600 passionate skydivers. In 1979 the Freak Brothers suffered the loss of Carl, who died in a skydiving accident. From 1986 to 1989, Roger ran the Illinois dropzone "Skydive Sandwich". Later in 1993, he went on to found Skydive Chicago, which is now recognized as one of the world's leading dropzones. Roger spent much of the 80s partaking in world records, while spending much of the 90s organizing them. Between the years 1999 and 2002, he won 2 silver and 2 gold medals as Captain of the Skydive Chicago STL 10, in the 10-way speed event. The Other Side of Roger Nelson What separates Roger's story from the average accomplished skydiver's, is the other side of his life. While Roger was a well loved individual with much support, particularly in the skydiving community, during the 1980s, he was dealing in some rather shady operations, to put it lightly. Roger used aircrafts to smuggle drugs into the United States, while also working as an informant for the US government. After he was arrested in 1986 on charges that included racketeering, conspiracy to distribute drugs and currency violations, his life would become a enveloped in court dates and uncertainty. He pleaded guilty and in 1987 was sentenced to 10 years behind bars, but was released after serving half of his prison sentence. After his arrest, Roger called out the DEA on not acting to tips he had provided them, that would have helped capture Carlos Lehder, who at the time was considered one of the largest cartel leaders in the world. Despite the information Roger provided to the DEA with regards to being an informant, the DEA would later shrug it off, saying that Roger had not played any significant role in slowing down the influx of drugs into the United States. In 2003 Roger was killed in a canopy collision incident. There was more to Roger than just criminal controversy and skydiving, he was also a family man. His eldest of two children, Melissa recalls in a recent piece of writing, how her and her father wouldn't always see eye to eye, but in his death, has come to realize the leadership he instilled in her. She continued to say how her father had taught her to stand on her own feet, and create her own legacy as opposed to living in her family's. Sugar Alpha This is all but just a fraction of Roger's life and the reality is that it's hard to summarize such an eventful life. Roger and Melissa have authored the newly released book entitled "Sugar Alpha: The Life and Times of Senor Huevos Grandes". A description of the book offers some insight in what to expect: "Skydiving and drug smuggling pioneer Roger Nelson lives life out of the box. Fueled by a love for adrenaline and adventure, Roger goes after everything he wants with gusto. But now Roger is ready to retire from smuggling. With a parachute center to run and a family to raise, Roger knows it is time to stop the cat-and-mouse games he has been playing with the authorities for years. He and his longtime partner, Hanoi, plan one final run to Belize, where they intend to fill their Douglas DC-3 with enough cannabis to set them up for life. But then Hanoi dies in a plane crash in an attempt to make some "legitimate bucks" flying fish in Alaska while they wait for the growing season to end. Left without a partner or plane, Roger remains determined to return to his family for good. To do so, he decides to stay true to himself and follow through with his retirement run. Roger must rely on a colorful cast of characters and the most unlikely airplane for a gig ever-Sugar Alpha, the legendary DC-3 with the secret fuel tanks and not-so-secret paint job-to help him complete the most daring run in the history of smuggling." With extremely positive early reviews, this book is a must for any skydiver, though you definitely don't have to be one to enjoy it. Get your copy from Amazon.com

This article first appeared in Parachutist magazine, and has been republished with consent of the author. Not surprisingly, most doctors say no - don't jump while you're pregnant. Doctors are conservative, and few will recommend that their patients engage in a high-risk sport. They do not want to call an activity safe and then get blamed if something goes wrong. But many pregnant women have jumped during pregnancy with no ill effects to either themselves or their babies. So is it safe? Skydiving is a risky sport, and an accident involving an expectant mother would be doubly tragic. But presumably, we jumpers are old pros at weighing the risks of our sport against the benefits, and most of us long ago decided that the fun outweighs the danger. We wouldn't be jumping if we expected to die or to get hurt. USPA does not give medical advice, and it is definitely not recommending that pregnant women skydive. Every pregnancy is different, and each woman has to decide for herself whether she wants to continue jumping for part or all of the nine months. If your doctor tells you that your pregnancy is high-risk and that you should avoid your usual activities, you probably shouldn't jump. If you simply feel uncomfortable taking the risks inherent in skydiving, you should ground yourself. The fact is, however, that women are jumping while pregnant and will continue to do so. Not surprisingly, there has been little or no research on jumping during pregnancy, and medical professionals hesitate to make any blanket statements about the practice. But medical advice, as well as advice from other skydivers who have jumped while pregnant, can help you decide whether to continue jumping during pregnancy, and if you do, help you do it safely. Know Your Limits These days, doctors tell women with low-risk pregnancies that they can continue all their normal activities as long as they feel good enough, with the caveat that they should avoid sports that contain a risk of falls and should not exercise to the point of exhaustion. "The Harvard Guide to Women's Health" says, "Pregnancy is usually not a good time to take up skiing or skydiving, but women who were already engaged in athletics can usually continue to enjoy them during pregnancy." Women who have just started jumping should probably take a break from the sport. Most women who have continued to jump during pregnancy were very experienced and very current. Many of them also say they were in good physical condition. Drs. William and Martha Sears in "The Pregnancy Book" counsel pregnant women to know their limits and to stop their activities immediately if they feel dizzy or short of breath, have a bad headache or hard heart-pounding or experience contractions, bleeding or pain. Pregnant women should also go easy on their joints. Relaxing and other hormones loosen joints during pregnancy, making them less stable and prone to injury if overstressed. The pelvis, lower back and knees are especially vulnerable. Skydivers should take particular care in packing and at pull time so as not to jolt their loosened joints. A pregnant skydiver should pay attention to how she feels at all times. Fatigue is normal, and you should rest as much as you need. First-trimester nausea is a fact of life for some women, and calling it morning sickness is inaccurate, many women feel sick all the time. Being under canopy may only make you feel worse. Doctors don't allow pregnant women to take ibuprofen (Advil and Motrin) or any of the other effective analgesics, because they can cause difficulties with labor and harm the fetus. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is OK, but bear in mind that if you sprain an ankle or worse, you won't be able to do much for the pain. Obstetricians usually advise pregnant women to give up contact sports. As we all know, skydiving is sometimes more of a contact sport than we intend for it to be. Women who have jumped while pregnant often recommend that you be very careful about who you jump with, avoiding anyone whose freefall abilities might be suspect. Washington-state load organizer Art Bori points out that exit position can be important for two reasons: A pregnant woman may have difficulty maneuvering into position, and some positions are more dangerous than others. He always asks pregnant jumpers about their exit preferences. He tries to keep pregnant women out of the base so that they won't be in serious funnels. Chance of Miscarriage Can a hard opening cause a miscarriage? Dr. Scott Chew, a Colorado emergency physician and skydiver, says that no one has studied the effect of hard openings on pregnancy. Most hard openings are less traumatic than many automobile accidents, and during opening, jumpers are in a different body position than car passengers, with no belt passing over the uterus. He doesn't think a hard opening is very likely to precipitate a sudden miscarriage. He has never heard of a miscarriage occurring during skydiving, bungee jumping or rock climbing, all sports that use similar gear. According to Chew, women should also consider the possibility of a bad landing, although the baby is quite well protected in the uterine environment. Usually the jumper would get hurt first. Emergency room doctors make a practice of treating a pregnant woman before turning their attention to the fetus, because if the mother survives, the baby likely will as well. Dr. Stanley Filip, associate clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University Medical Center, says that because the rapid deceleration in skydiving can be analogous to a moderate-speed auto accident or a fall while skiing (both are known to cause miscarriages), he recommends against skydiving while pregnant. On the other hand, the Sears say that miscarriages usually result from chromosomal abnormalities in the fetus, infections, hormonal deficiencies, immune-system abnormalities and environmental toxin such as drugs or cigarette smoke. Sex, safe exercises, heavy lifting, usual work and play, stress or emotional upsets or minor falls or accidents rarely cause them. Registered nurse Marian Blackwell comments that the most important consideration is probably how the woman and her mate feel about the issue. Any woman who fears that jumping might cause her to miscarry should not jump. If a woman or the prospective father will likely blame a miscarriage on the woman’s skydiving, she is probably better off sitting out for a few months. Blackwell points out that it’s very difficult to have a miscarriage intentionally, and if a woman loses a baby while jumping, she probably would have anyway. Still, there is always a risk, and she advises that both parents need to accept this if the mother keeps jumping. Hypoxia What about hypoxia? Dr. Filip says that the obstetricians commonly advise woman that it’s safe to fly on commercial airlines that are pressurized during flight, but unpressurized flight above 5,000 to 7,000 feet may not provide enough oxygen to some fetuses. According to Sears, “While a short time spent in an unpressurized cabin at about 7, 000 feet is unlikely to harm your baby (baby's oxygen level in the womb is already lower than mother's), it can reduce the oxygen in your blood, causing you to feel light headed and impair your thinking and ability to move.” Chew points out that women must consider the chance of hypoxia, claiming that it's unknown whether it causes a problem for pregnant jumpers. He says, however, that the fetus is accustomed to an atmosphere less rich in oxygen than the mother needs and thus feels hypoxia less than an adult would. He adds that jump planes spend relatively little time at high altitudes, not really long enough to hurt the jumper or her baby. USPA defines high altitude as 20,000 feet up to 40,000 feet MSL and intermediate altitude as 15,000 feet to 20,000 feet MSL. USPA considers anything below 15,000 feet MSL low altitude. Routine low-altitude jumps, the sort sport jumpers commonly practice, do not generally present a risk of hypoxia. USPA does not require the use of supplemental oxygen for low-altitude jumps but has made no recommendations specific to pregnant women. (The FAA requires oxygen when required aircraft crew members are above 12,500 feet for more than 30 minutes and at all times above 14,000 feet MSL.) Most women who have jumped during pregnancy say they did not have any trouble with hypoxia. Paula Philbrook, who participated in last year's 246-way world record while pregnant, used supplemental oxygen on the attempts. She used an oximeter to measure her oxygen saturation and found that at 13,500 feet with oxygen, her saturation level always stayed at 98 to 100 percent. Without oxygen, her saturation stayed in the mid-90s which her respiratory therapist found acceptable. According to the therapist, as long as her oxygen saturation stayed above 90 percent, she remained in the safety zone. She used oxygen starting at 10,000 feet for jumps on which she went above 15,000 feet. She found herself short of breath at 21,000 feet when the oxygen went off in preparation for exit but always felt fine as soon as she got into freefall. Long-time style and accuracy competitor Nancy LaRiviere says a doctor advised her to use supplemental oxygen if she went above 5,000 feet. She rented an oxygen bottle from a local medical supply house, used a cannula (a tube used to breathe the oxygen) from 3,000 feet to altitude, shut off the flow on jump run and left the bottle strapped in the plane. She sat at the back of the plane on all loads to make this convenient. Some skydivers and doctors worry that a jumper could get an air embolism, an air bubble in the blood - a danger associated with pressure changes and one risk of scuba diving. Chew points out that the pressure differences involved in skydiving are not nearly as great as in scuba diving a jumper has to go to 17,000 feet to get to half atmosphere. So although a potential risk lurks, it does so less than in deep diving. All skydivers and air travelers should refrain from air travel for 24 hours after scuba diving. Weather Considerations Heat poses an added danger, especially in the first trimester. The Mayo Clinic “Complete Book of Pregnancy” says that says that if the mother’s internal temperature exceeds 104 degrees, the chance the fetus will have neural tube defects increases. The Sears recommend that an expectant mother eat and drink regularly while exercising to prevent dehydration and hypoglycemia. Pregnant women, particularly those further along, should be careful about flying in bad weather. Dr. Filip says that turbulent weather can sometimes stimulate pre-term labor and rupture of the fetal membranes, causing the amniotic fluid to leak. High winds and turbulence also present the standard difficulties with landing. Many pregnant jumpers advise staying on the ground on windy days. Gearing Up Women who jump while pregnant inevitably have to make some adjustments to their skydiving gear. Some of them change their canopies for larger mains or mains which open more softly than their original gear. Others continue to use the same gear until they quit. Either way, the jumper should feel comfortable with her gear and be able to land it well. Larger gear may feel unwieldy but often lands more softly. A pregnant woman will quickly outgrow her normal jumpsuit. Whatever a skydiver decides to wear, she needs to ensure that she can still find all her handles. Size can also make it difficult to get in and out of airplanes. After a certain point, you may no longer fit into a little Cessna 182. Getting up and down off the floor will challenge you, so airplanes without benches become less than ideal. You'll really learn to appreciate tailgates and planes with seats. How long can a woman keep jumping while she is pregnant? Women have jumped into their fifth, sixth and seventh months. Some jumpers go by the folk wisdom "jump until you show." Others stop based on the time of year. If you’re five months pregnant in July with sweltering heat, that might be the time you call it quits. When you decide that you're no longer operating at 100 percent, stay on the ground until you fee! back up to speed. Postpartum Many women have found that skydiving after they give birth requires more adjustment than jumping while expecting. LaRiviere says she had to change her jumpsuit only after the baby was born and she was nursing him. Nursing also required some changes to her harness. What to do with the baby during jumping time poses a bigger problem. LaRiviere's husband acted as primary caregiver during her training camps, and she hired a niece to watch the baby while she competed in the nationals. If your baby doesn't sleep through the night, chances are you don’t either. You may not want to put yourself in freefall in such an addled state. If both husband and wife jump, they may want to take turns going to the drop zone. Often, couples jump less than they did before becoming parents. Also, even a minor injury would probably cause tremendous inconvenience with a small baby, so conservative is better. Starting Them Young Skydiving during pregnancy is definitely possible, though it gives the jumper a lot to think about. As Chew points out, skydiving carries the risk of injury and death, and pregnant jumpers have additional considerations, including some not addressed here. All potential jumpers need to make that decision for themselves with the available information and in consultation with their own families and physicians. Pregnant skydiving adds a new wrinkle to the sport. For example, how do you count a pregnant skydiver participating in the 246-way world record? Does she make it a 247-way? Either way, these kids will have cool stories to recount when they're older. How many kindergartners get to tell their classmates they already have 20 minutes of freefall? About the Author Amy Hackney Blackwell is an attorney and freelance writer in Greenville South Carolina. She has been skydiving since 1995.

Marketing execs love to throw around industry jargon to make themselves sound like marketing experts. Terms like ROI, target demographic, disposable income, call to action and spiral binders with graphs and charts showing positive gains look and sound legit. Don’t believe the hype. All this ‘marketing-speak’ sounds good, but the majority of marketing execs who work for broadcast, TV and print don’t understand the skydiving industry and mistakenly apply successful campaigns used for other industries to our own. Before buying in to a marketing plan, understand three major reasons why mass media ads don’t give a return: 1. A Tough Call to Action. Strong marketing plans offer a call to action prompting an individual to respond to an ad. Few ads challenge people to do something that may result in one‘s death. Though death is an unlikely result, it weighs heavily for Joe Public to actually commit to calling a DZ and making a booking. 2. Recruitment. Think about it, how many people come to a DZ alone? It happens, but it’s the exception to the rule. Students usually recruit a friend to share in the fear, anticipation and excitement of the experience. Not only does one need to spend time considering whether they should jump, but then need to recruit a friend, which takes time. 3. Disposable Income. How many of us have an extra few hundred dollars lying around? Many mass media ads for activities are more affordable than your average price for a tandem skydive. Combine the obstacles of having to consider making a jump, recruiting a friend and saving money and you’ll find that a lengthy amount of time has gone by before the phone begins to ring. Some will argue that advertising creates brand awareness and this is true, but there will only be a small percentage who see and hear an ad that follow through all of the steps to make it to your DZ. Bottom line: a poor return on investment. Most DZO’s have been happy to break even on their mass media campaigns after they’ve launched. The Affordable and Effective ApproachThe most effective kind of marketing harnesses the exhilaration of your current customers. Firstly, give these guests a reason to come back to make a second jump. No longer does this need to be a ‘once in a lifetime experience.’ These guests will recruit their full-retail paying friends to experience life’s greatest adventure. Secondly, equip your guests with a means to advertise your DZ utilizing social media by sharing videos, photos and check-ins. Top Five Marketing Basics Every DZ Should be ImplementingOnline Reservations. If you’re a DZO who says that you don’t want to miss on the personal interaction with guests while making a booking, then this is the first marketing change to be made. If someone desires to spend money with your company at two o’clock in the morning, let them! Don’t force your potential customers to spend money with you on your terms. Social Media. The biggest corporations in the world are actively engaging with people through social media. If you are putting a couple posts out here and there then you’re missing a huge opportunity that the business world has come to embrace. Creating a social media plan is necessary, should be organized and well structured. This is a legitimate and inexpensive way to market the business. Video E-mails. Embrace your customer’s enthusiasm by using a service to e-mail guests their videos. Be sure the DZ’s branding, phone number and website is included because these videos will be shared everywhere. This is an example of getting your customers to market for you. Database Collection. Updating your DZ database is a critical piece to the marketing pie. Collecting e-mail addresses will allow for broadcasting your marketing message to a clientele that knows how great you are. A professionally designed newsletter offering specials during the holidays will reap rewards to the bottom line. Surveys. How do you know your strengths and weaknesses? Allow your customers to tell you by seeking their feedback. This should never be done at the DZ ten minutes after your guests have jumped. An online survey should be sent 24 hours after a jump allowing for anonymity and comfort to provide honest insight about the experience. In order to have a finger on the pulse of the operation and understand the weakest areas of the customer experience, surveys are invaluable. Finally, the best marketing is word of mouth. Examine every interaction your guests experience with the operation from the website, cleanliness of bathrooms, presentation of the instructor, cleanliness of jumpsuits etc. and be sure to amaze your customers. Having a plane with instructors who can safely execute skydives is not enough. The details that surround the experience is just as important as the skydive to ensure your customers aren’t just happy, but thrilled with the experience.

Adam Martin and David Winland are here to tell you that skydiving saved their lives: from self-destructive tendencies, depression, drugs, and possibly even the emotional quicksand of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They call it “Action Therapy”, and it’s the working title of a grassroots documentary they are creating on an iconic summer road trip to as many dropzones as possible before their money runs out. Their mission is to highlight the sport’s everyday stories of beauty and personal meaning: no high-profile stunts here, just tales of transformation. These two friends, who met through skydiving, have different but equally harrowing stories. Three and a half months after his father committed suicide, Martin decided to go skydiving. His family assumed that the grieving son had a death wish. On the contrary, the idea of taking a previously unimaginable risk was a way of pulling himself out of a self-destructive spiral. Winland, on the other hand, speaks freely about surviving childhood abuse: “Everyone has dysfunction in their families and lives, but mine was really bad. I had cigarette burns on me. There were some terrible people. Instead of getting counseling, I bottled it up and started using drugs and fighting. I’d go out and just raise hell.” Martin, 30 years old, and Winland, 38, both largely credit skydiving with their recovery. Winland, a single dad, says he was burned out and worried about his ability to sustain relationships: “When my daughter was born, that just kind of got better. But I still had that really severe issue of, I didn’t communicate well and I didn’t trust anyone. I love my daughter and she was the focus on my life, but I was still angry. Once I started jumping, I was just able to let everything go. I’m a single dad. I have custody of my daughter. I don’t know if I would have been able to do that if I was the same person I was before jumping. I got custody right as I started in the sport, and it has helped. That’s why we have the name Action Therapy. Both of us have been helped so much just by exiting that plane.” The duo hopes that sharing real stories will reach people in a dark place. “I hope someone watches our documentary and says, that kid was going through a shitty time in his life, and he did something to pull himself out. So if it helps someone get out of a bad time, whether through skydiving, or something else – go do it,” says Martin. He goes on, “My father was a medic in Vietnam, and there’s no doubt in my mind he had PTSD. But he was raised on a Montana ranch where men kept their feelings bottled up, so we never really talked about it. Maybe this could have saved my dad. Maybe if my dad had something like skydiving, he wouldn’t be gone right now.” In addition to Martin’s father’s service, Martin and Winland were deeply inspired by a meeting with Todd Love, the triple-amputee wounded warrior who has refused to let his circumstances prevent him from skydiving (as well as wrestling alligators, going white-water kayaking, and completing the challenging Spartan Race). Along the way, they hope to raise awareness and funds for the Wounded Warrior Foundation. These two newer jumpers (Martin has 230 jumps and Winland 296) have the easy banter of friends who have spent too much time in a car together already. They are an odd couple: a tattoo artist who hates golf (Winland) and a golf pro (Martin), now living and working together towards a shared dream. “Skydiving is a great equalizer, a crazy group of people,” says Martin. They can almost finish each other’s sentences, and the words of encouragement flow easily. When Martin talks about his father (“I can’t bring him back – I have to move forward in the right way”), Winland chimes in: “He’s so proud of you and your accomplishments!” And when talking about how skydiving has helped ease his fatigue with the world of golf, Martin adds, “I know it’s helped David with his tattooing, too.” The philosophy is simple: no matter how heavy the burden, skydiving will lift it. “It’s not the adrenaline rush every time,” says Martin, “It’s just fun and it puts a smile on my face, so I keep doing it.” Winland adds, “I was always quick to pull my roots up. The people I’ve met jumping feel like home.” If you want to get some Action Therapy, share your story, or just give this enthusiastic two-man team a high-five, you can find them at Skydive Chicago’s Summerfest boogie or on the last stop of their tour, the Lost Prairie boogie in Montana. Keep up with them online at the Action Therapy Facebook page. They have already visited: Skydive Arizona, Skydive San Diego, Tsunami Skydivers (Oceanside), Skydive Perris, Skydive Elsinore, Monterey Bay, Bay Area Skydiving in Byron, Skydance Skydiving in Davis, Sacramento, Lodi, and Oregon.

Hornet

Built solely for canopy piloting competition, the Peregrine pushes the limits of what is possible in canopy flight. It is an ultra-high performance canopy, designed for top-tier competitive canopy pilots. Utilizing the Schuemann wing planform technology, new materials, and enhanced aerodynamics, PD created a wing that continues to dominate the podium.

Thanks to social media, word of mouth marketing has become the most powerful marketing tool in the industry. This approach to marketing is exciting for some and a nightmare for others because the message cannot be controlled. Word of mouth spreads like wildfire by a few keystrokes of an individual who either loves or hates your service. For a business to thrive in today's tech savvy world, an owner must view opening the doors each morning as a theatre company on opening night…you're putting on a show. Each day businesses are putting on a performance for each customer who are armed with amazing technology to tell the world about the performance. It's time to start dancing! Perhaps no image is more synonymous within skydiving as the famous 'infidel' tattoo that went viral on social media bringing attention to a drop zone that no business owner would desire. Through the Eyes of the ConsumerImagine if you were invited to be a secret shopper. Your assignment would be to take a date to the nicest, most expensive restaurant in town. This restaurant would only be visited on the most special of occasions because of its high price point. Excitedly, you accept the offer and look forward to enjoying a quality meal in a romantic setting with that special someone in your life. In consideration of your assignment, what would it take to rate the restaurant a perfect five stars? One would think that the rating centers around the meal, but with more thought there are several interactions that take place before the food reaches the table. Consider these eleven judgement points that lead up to the presentation of the food: Website - In preparation for your meal, you elect to review the menu online. This is the first interaction with the restaurant. What image and feeling does the site convey? Hopefully it's positive as you send the link to your date to show where you're going... we want her to be impressed! Directions - How easy or difficult is it to locate the restaurant? There's nothing more frustrating than getting lost! Parking - Is parking readily available or are you circling the restaurant trying to find any opening? Greeting - What is the greeting like when you arrive? For the price point and experience, we hope it's positive and warm! Cleanliness - What is the appearance of the restaurant? This will set a tone. Hopefully, the soles of your shoes aren't picking up tons of dirt because the floor hasn't been swept in days. Wait Time - How long does it take to be seated especially as you have a reservation? If you've made arrangements ahead of time, the wait should be minimal. Interaction - What is the interaction like with your server? The gratuity will be high after the cost of this meal…we hope it's good! Beverages - Having placed an order for drinks, how long does it take for them to arrive? If this is a first date, you may need that beverage to arrive sooner than later to ease the awkward silence! Bathrooms - While awaiting drinks, you visit the bathroom. No one likes a dirty bathroom...anywhere. Food Order - How long does it take for the server to take your order for food? Do you like to wave at a server when it's time to place the order? Food - How long does it take for the food to arrive since you made the order? "Maybe the lamb is being flown in from New Zealand?" Once the food has arrived there are more interactions with the server, an offer for dessert and the bill. If the food was perfect, and the eleven interactions prior to the meal were average, would you award the restaurant five stars? Though all of the interactions leading to the meal are all small details, when added together become significant. To receive a true five star review, no detail is too small. Above: excessive waiting is a major issue at DZ's around the world which only lessens a customer's experience. Between the price point and high expectations, this will not win any five star reviews. As other businesses have had to adapt, so must our industry. As in the secret shopper example above, replace the meal with the skydive. We must strive for five stars and examine every interaction a customer has with our DZ's to ensure it's never average, but always exceeds expectation. Our customers are not just our tandem or AFF students, but fun jumpers and the staff that work for us as well. The key to harnessing word of mouth marketing is to allow service and professionalism to be as important as the skydive itself. No detail too small when offering the single greatest experience life has to offer.

DATE: May 23, 2013 SERVICE BULLETIN# SPSB009 SUBJECT: SUPPLIER/VENDOR RECALL OF PS70104 HOUSINGS (METAL FLEX HOSING INC) STATUS: MANDATORY INSPECTION AND REPLACEMENT OF RECALLED HOUSINGS SERVICE BULLETIN: MANDATORY INSPECTION (COMPLIANCE WITH METAL FLEX HOSING MATERIAL RECALL) IDENTIFICATION: ALL JA101 XX HARNESS CONTAINER ASSEMBLIES (JAVELIN ODYSSEY) WITH METAL FLEX HOUSING BATCH #33234 A AND 33227, .375ID PS70104 HOUSINGS. SEE SERIAL NUMBER LIST BELOW. 38159 38891 38901 38912 38959 38973 38987 38997 39027 39037 39047 39061 39165 38231 38892 38902 38913 38960 38975 38988 38999 39028 39038 39048 39063 39419 38453 38893 38903 38923 38961 38976 38989 39013 39029 39039 39049 39064 39499 38523 38894 38904 38924 38963 38978 38990 39014 39030 39040 39050 39066 39527 38589 38895 38905 38925 38964 38979 38991 39021 39031 39041 39051 39070 38753 38896 38906 38943 38967 38980 38992 39022 39032 39042 39054 39076 38799 38897 38907 38945 38968 38982 38993 39023 39033 39043 39055 39083 38800 38898 38908 38946 38970 38984 38994 39024 39034 39044 39056 39087 38860 38899 38909 38947 38971 38985 38995 39025 39035 39045 39058 39089 38890 38900 38910 38953 38972 38986 38996 39026 39036 39046 39060 39118 BACKGROUND: Metal Flex Hosing (supplier of flexible metal housings) has recalled 195 total PS70104 .375” ID SS housings due to the ability of the coil to separate. 155 of these housings were received by Sun Path Products, Inc., 124 of which were installed in harness container assemblies, 27 pulled from inventory prior to use and 4 damaged/discarded. (Note: this is not a failure mode. Separating of the coil does not impede normal operation or function of the system)  Who can inspect: Anyone can inspect this area. See photos below. What to inspect: All JA101 XX harness container systems listed in table above. Inspect Reserve Ripcord housing. PROCEDURE: If the serial number is listed in the above table, inspect the available exposed reserve ripcord housing. Locate the lower end of the housing, which is clamped to the Main Lift Web, just above the reserve ripcord pocket. Inspect the exposed length of housing from the clamp upwards; ensure that the coil has not separated/unraveled. Be sure to inspect the section that is routed through the chest strap. Inspection Results: A. HOUSING FOUND TO BE INTACT (GOOD): The rig may continue to be jumped with periodic monitoring until the next repack cycle or earlier elective replacement. However this housing must be replaced at the next repack cycle. See http://www.sunpath.com/support/HousingReplacement.pdf for instructions for your rigger to complete the replacement of the housing. B. HOUSING FOUND TO BE SEPERATED/UNRAVELLED (BAD): The housing must be replaced before the next jump by a certificated senior or master parachute rigger (or foreign equal) or the manufacturer. See http://www.sunpath.com/support/HousingReplacement.pdf for instructions for your rigger to complete the replacement of the housing or instructions to send your system back to the manufacturer. Resolution:A: Housing is intact and will be monitored and replaced at the inspection/repack cycle. 1. NOTE ON PACKING DATA CARD, SPSB009 COMPLETED 2. AT TIME OF REPLACEMENT, FILL OUT WEB FORM AND SUBMIT at http://www.sunpath.com/MetalFlexRecall.html and add “–Replaced“ after SPSB009 COMPLETED from step 1 above. 3. NO FURTHER ACTION REQUIRED B. HOUSINGS ARE SEPERATED/UNRAVELLED: 1. GO TO http://www.sunpath.com/support/HousingReplacement.pdf FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS ON REPLACEMENT OF THE SUBJECT HOUSINGS. 2. AT TIME OF REPLACEMENT, FILL OUT WEB FORM AND SUBMIT at http://www.sunpath.com/MetalFlexRecall.html ;NOTE ON PACKING DATA CARD AND RIGGER LOG BOOK, SPSB009 COMPLETED REPLACED. 3. NO FURTHER ACTION REQUIRED. COMPLIANCE DATE: INSPECTION BEFORE NEXT JUMP (BY ANYONE) AND MANDITORY HOUSING REPLACEMENT AT NEXT REPACK CYCLE BY FAA SENIOR OR MASTER PARACHUTE RIGGER OR FOREIGN EQUAL. AUTHORITY: DAVID L. SINGER Sun Path Products, Inc. Director of Engineering 404 West Edinborough Ave Raeford NC 28376 USA Telephone: 910 875 9002 FAX: 910 875 9272 DISTRIBUTION: 1. All Sun Path Products Dealers 2. PIA Technical Committee 3. PIA Rigging Committee 4. National Aero Clubs, Parachuting Section 5. All Parachuting publications 6. Military Parachute Organizations 7. FAA MIDO SAVANNA 8. FAA FISDO, GREENSBORO, NC 9. FAA ACO, ATLANTA, GA 10. DGAC, FRANCE 

Note: This article refers to skydiving and regulations in the United States. Refer to your country's civil aviation regulations for how to do this safely and legally in your country. Disclaimer: The interpretations of the regulations referenced in this article are that of the authors. Abbreviations and acronyms: FAA: Federal Aviation Administration CFR: Code of Federal Regulations (new designation) FAR: Federal Aviation Regulations (old designation, still often used.) FSDO: Flight Standards District Office Important web pages and documents:FAA web site: www.faa.gov FAR 105, Parachute Operations. Can be found in Section 9 of the USPA Skydiver's Information Manual (SIM) Advisory Circular AC-105-2C, Sport Parachute Jumping. Can be found in Section 9 of the USPA Skydiver's Information Manual (SIM) FAA Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM) Why we need this informationIt seems like every skydiver eventually wants to skydive into an area or event that is not at a regular dropzone or skydiving center at an airport. And no wonder, because it is fun, exciting, and a challenge, plus the scenery is sometimes much better. Imagine jumping at your family reunion into a huge field out on your uncle's farm in the country, and bringing along some of your skydiving buddies. You can't get much better than that. But it does take a bit of preparation to do jumps like this safely and legally. Unfortunately, nearly every time a skydiver asks about how to go about jumping somewhere other than their normal dropzone, they will get a number of answers that are incorrect or incomplete. Why the confusion? Well, one reason is because the regulations associated with parachute jumping, FAR 105, changed in 2001. Many of us who have been skydiving a long time tend to remember the wording of FAR 105 before this change. Jumping into the various type of airspaceFor a detailed explanation of the airspace in the U.S, you can refer to official FAA airspace documents. There are also many tutorials on airspace, as pilots must learn about airspace classifications when learning to fly. Related Section: FAR 105.25, Parachute operations in designated airspace (a) No person may conduct a parachute operation, and no pilot in command of an aircraft may allow a parachute operation to be conducted from that aircraft— (1) Over or within a restricted area or prohibited area unless the controlling agency of the area concerned has authorized that parachute operation; (2) Within or into a Class A, B, C, D airspace area without, or in violation of the requirements of, an air traffic control authorization issued under this section; (3) Except as provided in paragraph (c) and (d) of this section, within or into Class E or G airspace area unless the air traffic control facility having jurisdiction over the airspace at the first intended exit altitude is notified of the parachute operation no earlier than 24 hours before or no later than 1 hour before the parachute operation begins. Paragraph 1 refers to two special types of airspace. It is unlikely that you will ever want or need to jump into that airspace unless you are with the military or with an exhibition skydiving team. It includes airspace around government and military buildings and installations. Paragraph 2 refers to airspace into which you must get authorization to jump. It includes controlled airspace up to, and above altitudes of Flight Level 180 (18,000 feet MSL) and above, airports with operating control towers and/or radar approach control. It is possible that you might want to jump into such areas and airports. Paragraph 3 refers to airspace that is the most likely type of airspace that you will encounter in rural areas or away from larger cities. "Giving notification of the parachute jump to Air Traffic Control" is the key information in this paragraph. Advance "notification" to Air Traffic Control is not required when jumping at a location in Class A, B, C, or D Airspace because an advance “authorization” is required from the respective controlling agency. The requirements for communication with Air Traffic Control during the jump are specified in FAR 105.13, Radio equipment and use requirements. NOTAMsA Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) is defined as "time-critical aeronautical information, which is of either a temporary nature or not sufficiently known in advance to permit publication on aeronautical charts or in other operational publications." NOTAMs are filed (by phone or online) with an FAA "Flight Service Station". A Flight Service Station is an FAA briefing facility that provides information and services to pilots, for example, providing information related to flight planning. If a parachute jump is planned at a location where jumping is not normally done, filing a NOTAM for this activity will increase the safety of flight in the vicinity, because pilots that look up the NOTAMS during their flight planning will know about the planned jumping. NOTAMS for parachute jumping are not normally required, but are a good idea, especially if you will be making a number of jumps on a particular day. Filing a NOTAM (with a Flight Service Station) is not sufficient for "giving notification" as described in FAR 105.25 paragraph 3. Notification needs to be made with the Air Traffic Control facility of jurisdiction, in most cases an Approach Control Facility or an Air Traffic Control Center. Although the phone numbers for these facilities can be found in various locations they can usually be obtained by contacting the Flight Service Station (FSS) at 800-WX-BRIEF (800-992-7433). Here is where the confusion lies The following is from the 1997 version of FAR 105. Sec. 105.23, Jumps in or into other airspace (a) No person may make a parachute jump, and no pilot in command of an aircraft may allow a parachute jump to be made from that aircraft, in or into airspace unless the nearest FAA air traffic control facility or FAA flight service station was notified of that jump at least 1 hour before the jump is to be made, but not more than 24 hours before the jumping is to be completed, and the notice contained the information prescribed in Sec. 105.25(a). Notice that "notification" is required, but that back then this notification could have been given to the nearest Air Traffic Control facility or to a Flight Service Station. Most of the time the notification was given to Flight Service, because pilots were used to contacting Flight Service while planning flights, and because contacting flight service by phone required only remembering a single nationwide phone number. Contacting the "nearest" air traffic control facility or the facility with "jurisdiction" required more research. It is likely that back then, when notification was given to Flight Service about a parachute jump, that Flight Service personnel simply referred to the "notification" as a NOTAM, thereby perpetuating the misconception that a NOTAM was being filed, or even that it was required. Jumping at another airport (where skydiving is not normally done)Related regulation: FAR 105.23, Parachute operations over or onto airports (b) For airports without an operating control tower, prior approval has been obtained from the management of the airport to conduct parachute operations over or on that airport. There are additional requirements for jumping at an airport with a control tower, but paragraph (b) is the important part for when you want to make a jump at a small airport. You must have the approval of airport management. The FAA changed it from “manager” to “management” at some point in the past, presumably, to require permission from the Airport Board, City Authority, etc, to preclude a single “Manager” from giving permission where a larger body actually has control. Certainly, most private airports would only have a “manager” but proceed with caution when receiving approval from an “airport manager” at a public airport. For a number of reasons it would be much better to have written approval from the actual airport management. Advance "notification" to Air Traffic Control is not required when jumping at an airport in Class A, B, C, or D Airspace because an advance “authorization” is required from the respective controlling agency. The requirements for communication with Air Traffic Control during the jump are specified in FAR 105.13, Radio equipment and use requirements. Demo (Exhibition) JumpsRelated regulation: FAR 105.21, Parachute operations over or into a congested area or an open-air assembly of persons (a) No person may conduct a parachute operation, and no pilot in command of an aircraft may allow a parachute operation to be conducted from that aircraft, over or into a congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or an open-air assembly of persons unless a certificate of authorization for that parachute operation has been issued under this section. What constitutes a "congested area" or an "open-air assembly"? Well, now we are getting into the interpretation of the regulations. Parts of Advisory Circular AC-105 were written specifically to cover these questions, but there is still a bit of interpretation to do, and the FAA may interpret a particular landing area differently that you might. If you are jumping into an event like an air show, much of this documentation may already have been taken care of by the organizers, who may have simply added "skydivers" to the show's performers, but you would of course need to check with the organizers to be sure. The FAA will usually require that a "Certificate of Waiver or Authorization" (COA) be obtained for most exhibition jumps of this type, which will require that a FAA Form 7711-2, "Application for Certificate of Waiver or Authorization", be submitted. This application may need to be submitted in advance of the planned parachute jump(s), because the FAA has ten days in which to respond to the request. The Certification of Waiver or Authorization that you receive in response to your request will specify the conditions and limitations of the jump. These conditions may include the requirements that you give notification to Air Traffic Control of the jump and/or file a NOTAM. Either or both may be specified. Note: the completed, original COA is usually required to be on board the aircraft at the time of jump operations. The requirements for communication with Air Traffic Control during the jump will exist as usual, plus, Air Traffic Control radio frequencies and other procedures may be specified in detail in the COA. Note: This section of this article is not intended as a tutorial on organizing exhibition jumps, but is included mainly to compare the regulations associated with exhibition jumps with those of jumping into other areas. The best source of information about exhibition jumps would be a jumper that has organized exhibition jumps in your particular FAA region and has worked with that region's FSDO. The USPA Skydivers Information Manual (SIM) also contains a section "Exhibition Jumping and Rating". Jumping at the family reunionSo the bottom line question becomes, “How do I legally jump into my family reunion on my uncle's farm out in the country?” First of all, make sure that everyone jumping into the area is qualified and skilled enough to safely do so. If you are a USPA member, please realize that you must still follow the BSR’s whether you are jumping at a USPA Group Member DZ, a non-Group Member DZ, or into your uncle’s farm. The BSR’s apply to each individual member regardless of where they make the jump, for example, the landing area requirements. Make sure it is really “out in the country” (Class E or G airspace.) A pilot will help you determine that if you do not know how to read aviation maps. If it is close to a town you will need to determine whether it is really an “uncongested “ area, and this includes both the landing area on the farm, and the place you will be exiting. This means not over a subdivision and not over a school. The FAA will always err on the conservative side when determining if an area is congested, so you will want to be conservative too. Advisory Circular AC-105 includes guidance on this. It is suggested that you not contact your local FSDO. Simply providing the required "notification" should be sufficient, assuming that the airspace is Class E or G. Provide notification as required by FAR 105.25. This notification will usually be to a “Center” or Approach Control facility. As the facility may not be one that routinely receives such notification, it may be helpful to have a copy of FAR 105.25 in hand so that you can read it to the individual if they are not familiar with it. Always be polite but remember that you are giving a notification, not asking for permission. Make sure the pilot knows to communicate as required by FAR 105.13. Look for other air traffic as usual while spotting. Jump and have fun!

Short of going to the moon, skydiving is the greatest adventure life has to offer. Everyday lives are changed & comfort zones blown wide open! Skydiving is therapy and a respite from the grind of life. Having a bad day? Make a jump and see if it's as bad when you land. An Activity or an Experience?So, what are DZ's offering? Many DZs sell the experience while others sell an activity. We have all seen these things: Instructors who look as if they just got out of bed, ripped or dirty jumpsuits, staff arriving late, foul language within earshot of students, sexual innuendo or inappropriate jokes about death, the list goes on. We've witnessed it, yet we're not surprised by it. The expression "It's skydiving" is the blanket phrase that's thrown over this behavior. Let it be made clear, It's NOT skydiving, it's a mentality. The mentality derives from the origins of our sport when DZ's were built on an individual's passion to continue to jump post military service versus the creation of a DZ with a viable business plan. The introduction of tandem skydiving created a sustainable business model which has allowed for major skydiving centers like Chicagoland Skydiving Center, Skydive Spaceland, Skydive Carolina and Skydive Elsinore to thrive. The reality is the sport is still extremely young relative to other sports and we are still finding our way into the mainstream. To get there we must break the mentality that excuses poor service. Skydiving has evolved from barnstorming DZ's to multi-million dollar facilities Breaking the ChainThe majority of DZ decision makers hire by plugging in an individual's experience level into the position while forgetting a more important consideration: a passionate personality. If greater significance was placed on one's personality first and years in the sport second, there will be a major shift in the business of skydiving. Having an instructional staff that is passionate about pleasing the customer will benefit the DZ with additional business- GUARANTEED. I'm not suggesting safety be compromised by hiring less experienced instructors. I'm suggesting that DZO's be more selective in the people they hire by weighing personality as heavily as experience. Customers want to have a relationship with a person not with an organization. Personal touch is what takes a company from good to great. Happy customers will create a word of mouth marketing campaign more valuable than any mass media expenditure from a DZ. Great customer service is a DZ's greatest marketing plan. All of us are consumers. If we spend more than US$300 for a service (tandem plus video and stills) what would the expectation be for the kind of service we should receive? Add the variable of a high risk activity and we'd like to feel that we are being well taken care of. Negative attitudes cannot coincide with the business side of the sport. Our sport is too good, too fun, too pure, too life changing to be anything other than the greatest experience in the world with the greatest people.

Australia is getting a Wind Tunnel! Finally! With almost 40 Indoor Skydiving facilities around the world, for some reason it has taken several attempts over the last 10 years to build a state of the art tunnel in Australia. It came down to a group of courageous guys to spend the last 3 years finding a site, finding the right equipment, getting the best team together, and figuring out an innovative way of raising the funds (listing on the ASX) to make it all happen. Danny Hogan and Wayne Jones, both ex SASR servicemen, have done what many people thought was impossible. Indoor Skydive Australia Group (ISAG) successfully listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (IDZ) in January and started construction of a 16.4ft SkyVenture tunnel in February. One of the world’s largest and most technically advanced, the location is part of the Penrith Panthers facility, Western Sydney. It will operate under the global franchise brand of iFLY as iFly DownUnder, which brings unrivalled experience and technology from manufacturing 24 tunnels around the world. Launch is scheduled for first quarter 2014, You can keep track of the progress on Facebook/iflydownunder or by registering at iflyDownunder.com.au. What does this mean for Australian Skydiving?Australia – you go there to see kangaroos, koalas, crocodiles, pristine beaches or that big red rock in the middle of the dessert! It’s known for great walking, diving, surfing and now we can add flying to the list of tick boxes. The tunnel will revolutionize skydiving in Australia and turn novice skydivers into awesome skydivers. It will slow down the ‘attrition’ rate of skydivers leaving and introduce new people to the sport. It will become the catalyst for a sporting Evolution in Australia that has never been seen before. It will create an entirely new sport of BodyFlight in its own right and introduce skydiving to those who can’t yet fly - from 3 and up. In summary – it’s a good thing for skydivers, skydive operators and every Australian who has always wanted to fly. There are already some amazing Australian skydiving boogies on the map; The Equinox Boogie in Queensland attracts flyers from all over the world, some who come back year after year. Funny Farm is an invitational boogie in the outback which sees international coaches load organising some of Australia’s hottest flyers and the Full Moon Boogie in Victoria is now making a name for itself with Mike Carpenter (Volare) and Mike ‘Friday’ Friedman (Arizona Drive) organising at the event in recent years. In addition to the big name coaches, Australia truly does have some of the best scenery around. From unspoilt coastlines with clear blue oceans to forests, gorges and red earth. Combine these with the welcoming Aussie spirit and a wind tunnel and Australia is shaping up to be a great all round skydiving destination. So next time you plan a trip down under, make sure you bring your jumpsuit as well as your thongs! Many of the iFLY Downunder team are active skydivers and the centre will be built with skydivers in mind. There will be a skydiver’s lounge if you need to take a break and relax between sessions as well as the usual debriefing video stations and team rooms. Located in Penrith, a suburb in Western Sydney there’s plenty to do around the tunnel, whether you enjoy wakeboarding or white water rafting, need a hotel for the night, a good feed or a day relaxing in the nearby Blue Mountains national park. The team are striving to create a positive learning environment, where all abilities are welcome and where flyers come to meet like-minded skydivers. We also need to mention the level playing field that will be created when Australian teams can finally train in an Australian tunnel. The Australian VFS team ‘The Addicted’ completed 11 hours of intensive training with Steve and Sara Curtis (Arizonal Arsenal) and Mike ‘Friday’ Friedman (Arizona Drive) in order to learn the new open VFS dive pool. Team member Lucas Georgiou stated that “a tunnel camp was really the only way we could get up to date with the recent changes”. 8-way team ‘Velocita’ also trained in a 16ft tunnel before the Dubai Mondial, that’s 8 people who now won’t have to pay for expensive airfares abroad to team train. You can expect to see Australia raising its standard in prestigious skydiving competitions around the globe from 2014. It’s not just for the top teams that will raise their game using the tunnel. You only need to look at the numbers of new rookie teams taking part to see what influence the tunnel has. In the UK, which currently supports 3 wind tunnels and a fourth one on the way, the numbers of teams competing in the British Nationals has increased each year. 2012 saw a record 54 teams competing in the 4-way alone, bear in mind most of the skydiving season is spent waiting for the clouds to clear! iFLY Downunder will hold regular skydiver events, competitions and tunnel camps for everyone from new tunnel flyers to those wanting to work on VFS, 8-way or the new ‘Dynamic’ discipline emerging from Europe. Prices, operating hours and additional information will be released later this year. Anyone wishing to host a tunnel camp should contact holly@indoorskydiveaustralia.com.au for more information and if you hold a current IBA tunnel instructors rating and are interested in moving to Australia please email your CV to admin@indoorskydiveaustralia.com.au. www.iFlyDownunder.com.au Construction Corner The Ground Breaking ceremony took place on 4rd March 2013. Raybal Constructions are working intimately with Indoor Skydive Australia Group and SkyVenture. Early bulk excavation completed and contiguous piling is now well underway with a total of 300 cubic metres of concrete to be poured. The facility footprint covers 655m² with an overall area of 2160m². Fabrication of SkyVenture components is now into its third month. For the latest progress follow us on Facebook/iFLYdownunder or register at iFlyDownunder.com.au

Each year the boundaries of skydiving are expanded, giving way to new avenues of progress and to endless possibilities. The year 2012 was a big year for the sport, with a number of records being set. But aside from the records, there are also groups or individuals who slowly push the standards up with a display of skill. Other times we're inspired more by the surroundings and the cinematography of the video. We take a look at some of the most inspiring skydiving related videos from 2012. 1. Felix Baumgartner jumps from the edge of space One doesn't really have to say anything about this video, I'm sure everyone reading this knows all about it already, but for those that don't; on the 14th October 2012, millions of people around the world were fixed to live streaming of a world record attempt by Felix Baumgartner to set the highest ever skydive. The final confirmed exit height was 128 100 feet, allowing Felix to reach speeds of 833 mph during his freefall. Whether you love him or hate, one cannot deny the magnitude of this jump. 2. Gary Connery lands a wingsuit without a parachute This jump had a lot of media hype, not as much as the previous video - but the idea of skydiving without a parachute was obviously a subject that brought a lot of attention. The idea has been something that Jeb Corlois had been talking about for years prior, though his idea for landing was and still is quite different. Some argue that Gary Connery's jump was less landing without a parachute, and more just crashing into a pile of boxes. Though the technicalities of the jump aside, there is something liberating about the idea of being able to exit a plane without a rig on. Over the coming years, we will not doubt see further attempts to perform the act of landing without a parachute, and this first step - was definitely a jump worth the attention. 3. Vertical Skydiving World Record While this video was technically uploaded in early 2013, the footage is from 2012 and comprises of a record setting 138 person vertical skydiving record. The video was created as a marketing strategy by GoPro for the Hero action camera - and regardless of your POV camera preference, it's hard to argue that they didn't put together an absolutely amazing video. While only lasting just over a minute, it's a pretty awesome minute of viewing. 4. Skydive Dubai - Part 2 This video was a follow up to an extremely popular video that Skydive Dubai released originally in 2011, the original video has over 11 million views on youtube, and if you're looking to attract potential clients, what better way to do it than using viral networking to show just what an amazing place to jump Dubai is. While the footage may not show all too much groundbreaking skydiving, you can't help but want to head there immediately and get on a plane when you look at the view. If the point of a video is to get you up in the air, this video accomplishes that flawlessly. The best way to describe it, is fun! 5. Soul Flyers tear up wind tunnel Something for all the tunnel rats out there. Soul Flyers always manage to get one amped with any video they're in and this wind tunnel video is no different. There's some absolutely amazing flying in this video and for anyone who hasn't stepped inside a tunnel yet, it may well get them wanting to. The cinematography is also extremely good for a discipline that's notoriously difficult to get good footage of. Which of these videos inspired you the most. Let us know, or share your favorite skydiving videos of 2012 in the comments section below.

Douglas Spotted Eagle caught up with Bill from Rigging Innovations during the 2013 PIA symposium and chatted a little bit about the new CPX accuracy rig. DSE: We're going to talk a little about one of the new accuracy rigs that Rigging Innovations has just come out with. So we're going to talk a bit with Bill. You are a world champion in style and accuracy and some 4-way and a few other things? Bill: A little 8-way when I was on the Knights and some accuracy. It was a long time ago, but I can still claim it I guess. DSE: A world champion is always a champion. Tell me a little about the new CPX rig? Bill: Yeah, the CPX is a new accuracy rig and unfortunately all the years of accuracy containers, you know they're a lot bigger - we've got bigger canopies. So normally you just sort of accepted that you would have a big, uncomfortable rig on your back. So what Sandy did, what Rigging Innovations did, was design something with the newest technology and the newest bells and whistles on an accuracy rig. I went to the world cup in Dubai a year ago and I said that just because you're jumping accuracy doesn't mean you need to wear an uncomfortable rig. It's hard, I don't know if you've ever gone to a world meeting and gone tent to tent, it's kind of hard. You go in there and you try to show your product, and at first I tried to talk to people - they don't want to listen to me. They're on a break, these accuracy jumpers want to take their naps; they're older like me. So Firefly said to shut my mouth and put the rig on them, so I put the rig on them and they'd call everybody over in the tent and they'd feel it, and it's a comfortable rig. And the things we've got on the rig, the bio-yoke is more effective than on the Curv because the size of the rig. When you put the big rig on it has even more feel than the smaller rig. It takes the rig and distributes the weight with the bio-yoke, so you have that heavier rig more comfortable, and it fits you. If you put it on, usually the bigger rig sloshes around but not this, we've even got people doing style with them because it stays so tight on the body. You've got the bio-yoke, the curve that fits the lower part of your back and then the rest of the things that we have on the newer rigs. There are grips on the handles so you get a good grip, even when wet. We've got non-slip on the stainless, as you know a lot of the rigs now days have a slippage problem. With the way Sandy has designed this, it doesn't slip at all, and accuracy jumpers usually want their rigs tight and not to slip, because everything we do in accuracy is related to your canopy and how it feels. If you get any bit of movement, it'll affect your competition. On the back we have some new things, the pilot chute has a little protector flap. When you're in smaller aeroplanes, you'll often find that it gets bumped around and slides out. All it is, is a small little flap that goes over the pilot chute and holds it in place and keeps it from coming out, so it's always in the same place and ready for you to pull. It's just a little thing, but it makes it awful nice. Next, on the backflap - again sometimes you get caught in a small plane, and I know that one time in the 70s I exited the aeroplane and went into a dive and my main opened, because I had bumped my flap and it had came up. Now this rig's backflap has magnets in so even if you knock it out, it'll go right back. Riggers will also appreciate that a lot of the time plastic breaks, but you can see that there is no plastic in here, which also helps aesthetically, as the rig is then flatter. Then there are some standard features, the tab if you want to have your collapsing pilot chute you can using the magnet. The suspension points for accuracy rigs are a little different to most other disciplines in that we don't want to be suspended back, but rather facing straight down. The designer has been doing these rigs for more than 20 years, so he has all the old technology but has also added the new technology to the CPX. DSE: I'm going to interrupt you for just a second there... One of the things we've noticed during these interviews over the years is that a lot of the audience are brand new skydivers who are trying to do that sponge thing, you know - soak it all up. Explain what accuracy is for the newer people. Bill: Good question. When I did started skydiving you did accuracy which still wasn't as popular as a style event, and then you had the long haired guys who were doing RW, we don't even call it RW anymore! So when we started accuracy, you're trying to land on a target. Now days we land on a tuffet, which was designed from the stuntment and stuntwomen who would need something soft and safe to land on. When I started jumping, the dead center measured 10cm and they measured out to 10 meters, now they measure electronically with the dead center being 2cm which is measured outwards to 16cm. You have shoes that are shaved down to a point so when you come down, you try and put your heel on that dead center and it's then electronically scored. You do 10 rounds of accuracy and then your total after those 10 rounds is how the winner is decided. DSE: And you're basically just doing those as hop and pops don't you? Bill: Yes sir, we get out at 2500 feet, open our parachute immediately and then setup your pattern. Most accuracy events now days are done as a team accuracy event which is usually done with 4 or 5 man teams. You get out at 3600 to 4000 feet and then set your stack out and land as a team, they will then take the score of the team and add them together for your score. DSE: I ask about the altitude because someone said earlier, "How do you get 10 jumps in when you go up to 13 000 feet". DSE: I interrupted you earlier, is there anything else on the rig you wanted to show us? Bill: Bill That's all the details about the new rig really. I guess you could say that we've taken an old uncomfortable rig and made a modern comfortable one instead.

After a hyped release and what looked on paper to be an outstanding action camera, the GoPro Hero 3 has come under all kinds of scrutiny since its release late last year. While there appears to be a large number of users who are happy with their purchase, there is also a fair sized pool of users who are not happy with their product. A page on the Gethypoxic website dedicated to listing each of the GoPro Hero 3's issues, as well as potential workarounds has seen comments from a vast amount of users who feel as though their purchase of the Hero 3 was a mistake, many of whom recommend that those with GoPro Hero 2s avoid the upgrade to the Hero 3, citing that the GoPro Hero 2 offers a more stable and in turn, better user experience. One user who claims to have more than 20 years of software experience, suggests that the Hero 3 was rushed out too quickly in order to meet seasonal demands. He goes on to cite the need for an 'out of the box' update requirement. The IssuesOne of the more noted problems with the GoPro Hero 3, is the lack of continuous exposure adjustment when using the 'Photo Every Second' mode, which takes a still photo every second. The Hero 3 Black will set the exposure when it is turned on and fail to then adjust to allow for still images to be properly exposed, should one move from a dark to a light environment. Instead the exposure is locked to the automatic exposure setting based on the lighting when the camera is first turned on. Of course this means that skydivers, who will be exiting into much lighter conditions, will almost always end up with washed out images. This renders the 'Photo Every Second' mode virtually useless to skydivers. One would have to start the camera once one had already exited, a less than desirable action to have to do. The GoPro Hero 3 has also been known to turn off at unexpected times, often during connection to a television display or when using the USB cable to download. The cause for these shutdowns are not known, but there is the assumption that it may be related to an overheating problem. There have been many accounts of cameras freezing or locking up during filming. Several other small and more isolated issues also exist with the GoPro Hero 3 range. A number of other issues were present at the time of the camera's release, though updates released by GoPro since then have managed to fix many of them. Is it all a bit late though? With the current action camera market seemingly exploding, steps such as releasing a camera before sufficient testing can prove dangerous. One thing that has to go to GoPro is that they are generally quite quick to release updates to fix certain issues. We are however surprised that the exposure issue, which proves to render an entire feature useless for a certain market - has not yet been fixed. Good NewsThe good news for GoPro fans or those with the Hero 3 that are still encountering the exposure lock issue, is that GoPro have responded to the bug, which as it turns out - isn't a bug at all. A forum user posted the following response from GoPro regarding this issue: "Sorry about the problems with exposure locking in the two shortest time lapse intervals. Would you believe that was intended as a feature and it's not a bug? My understanding is that some folks in the skydiving community asked for it, but since then we've heard lots of complaints from other skydivers, so we've asked the engineering folks to make it an option you can turn on or off. For now be aware that in the two shortest time lapse modes, 0.5 and 1.0 seconds, the exposure will latch on to the values encountered at the first frame. For time lapse intervals of 2.0 seconds and longer each frame will be imaged using auto exposure. Remember that if auto-exposure results in flickering you can improve and smooth out the assembled video by invoking the De-flicker filter from the Advanced Settings menu of our free Cineform Studio software. Keep an eye on the forums and check in to the firmware update page every few weeks for when the update hits. Thank you so much for your feedback." GOPRO HERO 3 Black Firmware revision 02.37While the above quote seemed to suggest that there would be a fix for the exposure lock in the latest firmware upgrade, it seems that the new GoPro Hero 3 Black upgrade did not contain a fix to the problem. Rumours are now that the adjustment of the exposure lock issue will happen with the next update. The fact that GoPro are aware of this issue and seemingly aiming to solve it, it is a fair assumption that it won't be long before they release a new upgrade that will take care of this. As for now though, there's a lot of frustrated skydivers who were hoping that this new update would solve some of their problems. While GoPro do not have the changelog available on their site yet for the new firmware update, the following changelog has been published elsewhere. HERO3: Black Edition Current firmware version: HD3.03.02.37 Wi-Fi version: 3.4.2.9 Release date: 04/03/2012 Feature Enhancements: FW version # is now visible on upon startup. Narrow FOV 1080p30/1080p60 (Protune) Narrow FOV 720p60 (Protune) Medium FOV 720p60 (Protune) Default start-up mode is now 960p48 At this point it seems to be a wait and see scenario with regards to the fixing of many of the Hero 3's bugs, but we have no doubts that GoPro are working hard to solve these issues and that sooner rather than later, we'll see these issues being addressed in coming updates. Do you own a GoPro Hero 3? Comment below and share your experience with using this camera.

The Classic comes in a range of scaled sizes, no matter what your weight, there is a Classic for you! Superior design features enables the Classic to fly faster and slower than other accuracy canopies. Its slower rate of descent allows for greater hang time over the target. The Classic has greater stability in deep brakes than other accuracy canopies and does not want to "fall off" when entering a deep sink. It also maintains the sink longer before accelerating. The Classic comes with custom colors, and a "D" ring slider as standard. Softer openings, reduced toggle pressure and quicker control response makes the Classic ideal for any skydiving discipline. Proprietary construction methods make for smaller pack volumes, up to 20% less than other accuracy canopies.

Intrudair proudly present the latest update of our entrance level all-around wingsuit. Because the original wing surface worked perfectly, there was no need to change it. The main difference is that we adapted the leading edge solution from the barracuda series. It comes with a custom developed material, and a special cut. We also added a soft performance foam, which improves the performance significantly. The shape and thickness of the booties has been improved, this way the suit gained more stability and controllability. The complete shoulder zip-system had been changed aslo, optimized for 99% of the rigs. This is an ideal and long-term choice for first wingsuit with wide range of usability, not only for beginners! With Piranha 4 you will get a small surface, super easy to control, significant performance, easy and safety pull all around suit. New Features - same leading edge cut and material as our high performance suits' - soft performance foam added - back fly option, unique stability - new bootie shape - anti-slipping vibram soles - inside pocket Recommended for Beginners, flockers, acro-flyers and FUN-Jumpers as well.