mr2mk1g

There was one good article out of that by Richard Pedley who's a lawyer and skydiver, (Here). But yes, most of what was printed was absolute trite. People were quoted without permission, they were mis-quoted, comments were lifted from off of this very site, people were badgered and chased by the media, my in-box was flooded with abuse from reporters for not responding, my house mate had reporters turn up at his parents house looking for him. Shamefull. I can't help but agree though that in some cases this is down to our (as a community) reluctance to talk to the press. I feel this has to be maintained though given fact that in all communities there are going to be idiots who say the wrong thing and who say far too much. There was even an example of that too. I dont see encouraging people to talk to the press as being the solution, even if this is with in hope of avoiding the crap the press comes up with. As I said there are too many idiots out there, even in our community. Perhaps one solution would be for reporters to be directed to the local governing body (USPA/BPA etc). They could have a dedicated press office which would quickly swing into action as soon as something happens. If they were on the ball enough to give a preliminary statement the day of the incident that might be enough to satisfy the press's hunger. Yes there may be dificulties with this system, and yes I recognise that this is essentially supposed to happen already, still to no avail. I see the big problem here is delay. The "official" comment cannot come without a bit of research and vetting. Statements from official bodies have to be correct or there are recriminations. This misses the reporters deadlines and the hunt for that facts begins. Perhaps DZ's could be coached by the local governing body on press relations, so that the DZ itself can release an initial statement to the press. Still this isn't the solution as DZ's are worried about recriminations too, law suits and reputations. I think the British skydiving community learned a couple of things about incident management this summer. I think we learned that no system can really be perfect, that the reporter will always be there to corrupt the situation. But that education can solve the problems. As the story progressed reporters learned more, and reporters with actual skydiving experiance came out of the woodwork to take over. The facts and knowledge to deliver those facts are the only solution to press intrusion. How do we force the news hounds to take in that knowledge? I do not know. I know the DZ where Steve died gave reporters essentially a first jump course, and reporting improved significantly after that. But this takes time and reporters do not have time, they have deadlines. I guess we have to live with that. There is going to be some incredible crap printed in the first 48 hours of an incident. After that, as the reporters become more informed the crap retreates to leave just the rubbish which the 80IQ public wants to read. But then how different is this from any walk of life? We just notice skydiving errors beacuse were skydivers... I notice legal erros in newspapers cos Im a lawyer. Im sure politicians, football players, and any other public figure feels exactly the same about reports in their area of expertiese. The press stinks, but censorship stinks worse. I know which I pick. Sorry about the brain dump.

Just like a wing suit secures the wings to the body - how we figured it must be. Hmmm... you know you've spent too much time at the "funky modern" DZ and not enough time at the "traditional" DZ up the road when you know how a wing suit is put together but have never seen the slider from an accuracy canopy

So in this instance CF might actually be a little less noggin friendly were I ever to screw up? Hmmm. I guess I'll take a look at the demo helmet Im getting sent and make my mind up from there. I'll see if I can post a quick review too as it appears to be a helmet that no one outside of germany has ever heard of. Its very similar in design to FF2/RAWA style helmets and has some nice features.

Whats with those split sliders then? My mates an I saw that last months copy of the mag featured a load of shots of a style and accuracy comp and all the accuracy canopies had a slider that came appart down the middle (front to back). How does that work? none of us had seen it before or could figure out how they worked? The slider must connect at some point cos for style you're doing terminal but having the ability to split the slider must be useful on those big ass accuracy canopies. (note - most had tripple risers for their breaks if that makes any difference)

Just do a search for Scott Lutz. He features in a little video on skydivingmovies.com Definately worth a watch

hehehe, you're right.... maybe we'd pretend to be from the local church soc or somthing.

I keep saying the two bristol skydiving clubs should get to gether and try to twist the bristol IMAX's arm into showing it. If we can guarantee going on 100 people between us, we must surely have some kinda influence??

you're right, they dont themsleves stop the strap from sliding... but the strap is much easier to slide through the hardware when the excess is pulled away from the rest of the webbing. The keeper doesnt itself prevent the strap slipping, but it does keep the strap in the proper orientation, which is (partly) what keeps the strap from slipping.

Are you asking if it is/was throwout/spring or if we think it should be throwout/spring ?

There's a little peice of equipment out there that combats this problem (which exists on a great number of helmets). Its called an elastic band Your chest strap and leg straps have keepers on them to stop them loosening... why not put one on your helmet strap?? Does the job perfectly and it still allows you to alter the lenght if you need to with no unwanted slippage.

I've found a helmet manufacturer who makes what appears to be a really nice camera helmet. The helmet comes as standard made from glass fibre but there is an option to have it made from carbon fibre. This option costs about $100 (£60) extra. So do you think its worth the extra? What are the relative tolerances of each material and which generally holds up better? Are there weight issues to consider? Cheers

and thats one of the reasons why the video guy and the TM both have to be very experianced to be able to do their job's so well when faced with such variations between jumps.

I've seen one which didn't become fully inflated until less than 100ft above the ground. I guess its not quite what you're asking but it could have been nasty. The guy cut away at what must have been arround 1.5k although it was hard to judge and could have been higher. The reserve came out nice and quick but only the center seemed to inflate. It just seemed to be in a permanent snivel with the stabalisers flapping arround at the sides. It slowly opened up at arround 100ft giving the jumper just enough time to let it fly for a couple of seconds and flare. Only once it was fully open did it start to have any forward drive. His decent rate was still kinda high above 100ft and if he had cut away 100ft lower he would have probably been a bit messed up on landing although I suspect he would have survived. There's also a girl on here who survived a double mal - she posted her story not long back. Most reserve mals are actually caused by entaglements with the main so may or may not count to your question. Theres a vid of one of these on skydivingmoviesl.com where the guys survives. Some reserves may be damaged on opening if you exceed the manufacturors weight limits on them and have a premature in head down.

When I did an intentional hop+pop at 13k under my old Sabre 190 the best thing I could do to stay where I wanted to be was to do radical 360's starting facing the wind and ending facing the wind. That way I used the speed built up in the turn to burn my way through the headwind a little. As soon as my forward speed had slowed again I would do another 360. This also had the advantage of getting me down lower quicker than just sitting there would have done, thus getting me into a lower wind speed environment. This is probably the best thing to do as it combines holding into the wind and getting down fast into lower wind speeds with the added benefit of increasing your canopy's forward speed for the periods when you are holding into wind allowing you to actually make a little headway during those segments of your flight. The effectivness of this method will of course decrease with a less docile canopy which takes longer to turn and builds up less speed while doing so. IMHO this would still be the best way to deal with the situation however.

I hope the forger in your story was reported to the USPA and banned for life... thats who you would never want to trust on a jump and an accident waiting to happen. He'd find it far harder to kill people on a golf course!

yeah you could got to 2kcomposites for your cutaway system... but they want £70 for theirs (admitedly installed which is the expensive bit). A better price would be to go to bonehead and pay $20 for the parts and then do it yourself. Its really easy - just copy your 3-ring system on your rig. If you have an old set of risers which are screwed then simply cut one of them up and use the rings from that and you have a cutaway system for free.

I guess this vid answers all those threds that were about a while ago: "What do you do if both chutes fail? - why you track for the boobies of course"

Skyvan is great fun, and I just love hanging off the tail. But I still have to go with the Turbolet 410 as my favorite.

One bit of advice I've red on here before was to try going up a set of stairs in order to dial your eyes into flair hight. What you do is you go up the stairs to the hight you should be flaring at and look out at your surroundings. Look at how big things are, how big people are and how far away the ground looks. Try and memorise that picture. Then when you next jump you just wait till what you see matches the picture of what you could see from the top of the stairs. When the two pictures match, you're at the right hight to flare. So flair. I've never tried it but it seems logical.

A mate told me about this music video last night and sent me a link so I thought I'd share. I am absolutely shocked and stunned. This has to be the most awsome video ever... pure genious. A group of babies do a speed style exit from some tail gate plane, link up, turn a couple of points, break off and track away with smoke before opening up.... but oh no... one of the babies has a total.... good thing that chick's there to save him Click on the little TV screen on the left hand side of the page. Its safe for work unless you're worried about the odd non-explicit shot of a bra. Enjoy: Boogie Pimps - Somebody to Love

That looks an awsome helmet!

Do you now at least accept that that was the wrong thing to do under the circumstances? If people knew you realised that they could at least feel like somebody learned something from this thread.

Thats cool. I'm not arguing either, just pointing to a current web page purporting to sell them (the link above). At a guess their page is simply real out of date. I'll ask em about it at the weekend an see if they are able to source them and if so how in the hell they can.

Practice your PLF. You should be able to drop and roll out of a bad flare without hurting yourself too much. When you next land, just assume you're gonna do a full PLF and do one, even if you could have stood it up. (if you could have, you'll know you could have and thats the important bit). I was cut free from a radio very soon in my training and I can remember a lot of crappy landings. I didn't stop PLFing until I was on my own ZP kit. I think the only real way to dial in your eyes to flare hight is to try and judge it yourself. You wont learn as well simply doing it when told. And that's why I say practice your PLF... cos you'sa gonna get it wrong. But like I said, you should be able to PLF and not even hurt yourself even when you do screw up. Hell, even if you do want to stay on the radio for the next couple of jumps, a good PLF will save you're knees there too. Good luck buddy.

I'm looking into buying a purpose built helmet for when I take up camera jumping early next year. Im leaning heavliy towards the fully enclosed, open face set ups like the Rawa and the FF2, where there is no posability of a gap between Dbox/camera mount and helmet shell. (by fully enclosed I mean the camera mount, I'm not refering to a full face helmet). Does anyone know of other helmets on the market that meet these requirements other than the two I've mentioned? Im not after a comparison per say, just attempting to broaden my horizons as to contenders for my cash. cheers