Fast

Thanks. That's good to know. That is in case I'm ever on page 16 of an August issue of Parachutist. hahah ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Like others have allready pointed out, skydiving is dangerous. In the beginging everyone is scared that something bad is going to happen and it is going to kill them. Most people are pretty nervous about screwing up and killing themselves. Most people have quite a bit of fear involved. The important thing is that the more you jump the more comfortable you get with it. For the people on here that are posting that are skydivers, they got comfortable with it faster than their fear drove them away from the sport. The risk was worth the reward. You are either going to make enough jumps to start accepting that this is dangerous and it is worth doing or your fear of the possible problems is going to keep you from getting to the point where you can accept that level of risk. For some period of time after you start jumping you become more and more willing to accept added risk. Then you see some bad shit happen or experience it first hand and survive. Then you re-evaluate how much risk you are willing to accept. It might change, it might not. Another thing is that you can't spend so much time worrying about the things that may go wrong that you forget to do all the things that you need so that things go right. If you think that is you, skydiving problably isn't a good sport to take up. If you think you can be confident in the instruction you recieved and your ability to perform as you were instructed to then you have to for forward with that confidence and just jump. Train and practice for when things go right and wrong and just "deal with it." I don't know you so I wont tell you that you shouldn't jump, but weigh the risks and decide if you have the confidence in yourself to perform as instructed. If you have it and your instructors agree that you have it and you really like skydiving, then stop worrying so much, cause you know how to handle the problems if they do occur. p.s. There really aren't good statistics on reserve total malfunctions. In all though, it is something that doesn't happen very often. Very rare. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I have some on a tape somewhere. I can look in to posting it. We have done it succesfully a few times as a 6-way and we have tried it as a 9 way. That one almost worked, need to try it again. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

My suggestion is find a camera that you are happy with and then buy a helmet that you are happy with that you can mount the camera on. Unless you have a pc1000, good luck finding one for less than a small mint. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I disagree. I teach, when I teach water training, that there are three types of water: Single direction current (river) Bidirection current (ocean waves) Stagnant (lakes) When there is a current, you have a higher risk of the canopy becoming a water sail and taking you where you don't want to go. Landing where the water breaks on ocean waves can be real bad as the water can wrap you. So I teach to remove the RSL as soon as you know you are going to land in water. But never cutaway from the canopy until your feet are wet, you have finished your flare, and done your PLF, for all the obvious reasons. Try to get out of the rig, but if you need to cutaway the main first, do so, as swimming to shore with a container can be safer and quicker than trying to get out of the rig while being dragged (or worse, the canopy stuck on a rock and you being held underwater in a whirlpool). Think about a skyhook equipped rig, with a main dragging a skydiver down the river while they try to swim to shore. The decide they cannot overcome the pressure of the canopy to swim or get out of it, so they cutaway. Suddenly they have their reserve out of the bag at full line stretch. I just took a Kayak class. I saw a picture of a plastic kayak "tacoed" around a rock. The instructor explained the pounds per square foot of a good river flow, and I realized that it could easily remove an arm if a canopy line was wrapped around a body part. Hence, unless landing in a lake, disconnect the RSL (if you can safely) before landing in water. I teach the students to do it with their teeth as it does not require letting go of toggles. Then all options remain open AFTER landing, from cutting away to removing the harness, to swimming to shore. I don't know a whole lot about kyaking or the like, but to me it would seem that if you are going to be landing in a river that has that kind of current / rapids / etc, that you are well past the point where you have time to think about and execute disconnecting your RSL (especially given that most people have never done it in the air, and why is that exactly?). I would think that using that time to losen up straps (deploy water gear if your a student) get your hands back in your toggles and make minor corrections to go into the water at an ideal place would be a better use of your time. I can see for the ocean that you might know for a significantly longer period of time that you are screwed and going to be landing in water. None the less, I guess I come back to thinking that, once you are in the water cutting away the main isn't going to do a whole lot of good because it is still going to be right there with you. I imagine it having a similar likelyhood of wraping you up even after you cut it away. You are going to have a really hard time swimming with the reserve on your back too. So, agian, it seems like your time would best be spent trying to get out of all the gear. I guess I can't see how it would hurt to cut the RSL away though, given plenty of time to deal with all the other things that I consider more important. I haven't personally been in either situation, but I am sure there are people who have. Thanks for the interesting ideas though. I like this discussion.

The best thing that can be learned from an experience like this is that it should never be repeated. This is clearly a huge lack of judgement on the part of many people. As a tandem videographer I have been burned by lurkers who don't listen a few times. Mostly the ones who don't think they need to track off when the TM waves off. (That is my rule.) These days I am pretty "hard" on people who want to lurk a tandem I am videoing. People who have not proven thier skill level don't get to come with. (and I am not even a TM) ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Actually he said, "with almost 0 added safety risk" which is why people had a problem with the post. If he would have just posted saying, "here is a neat camera I found, check it out" and not added the personal commentary on it coming "with almost 0 added safety risk" then the whole thread would have been completely different. It is often the little things that we think don't matter so much that end up being important. The reason people jumped on him is because new skydivers read threads like these and it gets it in thier head that its ok to strap something like this on "with almost 0 added safety risk" and they show up at thier dz and someone there has to say no. Hell, I had to tell a person with 12 jumps that they couldn't use a camera exactly like this. He couldn't understand why not and was really pissed off at me. Needless to say, his anger prevented him from learning much from me and I didn't get to take him on any more of his coach jumps. I was even nice about it when I let him know he couldn't take the camera. So, the flaming is because he was giving bad advice. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Sure but most people reading the thread don't know that and aren't going to click on the profiles. They will read the post and take it at face value and translate it to thier DZ. Though, I still think non-instructors need to be carefull about giving students suggestions. Thanks for clarifying and many blue skies to ya!

There aren't many (any?) good reasons to disconect your RSL before a water landing. When you land in water you need to be getting out of your harness. Cutting away as you land in the water has lead to quite a few problems/injuries/deaths over the years. A good time to disconnect your RSL is after you are under a properly functioning main canopy and belive that the winds on the ground are higher than expected. That would be about the only time I would think to do it. I knew at least one person who died doing in-air rigging. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Suggestion. Refer any questions you have about what you should and should not do with the gear to your instructor at the dz. Just cause he was jumping a manta before doesn't mean he wouldn't have been jumping something with a cypress or vigil. I would suggest getting instruction on the type of AAD that is in the rig. Kill line is black huh? I have never seen that on my rig, I must be doing something wrong. Saying the little window is black could mean that the kill line is broken, it could mean lots of things. Thats why it is best to have a rig or some tools to demonstrate what you are saying before you confuse someone. There are lots of different types of gear and drudchen is making a lot of assumptions about what you are going to be using. Like I already said, please refer to your instructor. The slider might be collapsable. It doesn't have to be. Unless you jump at the same dz this person does, again, he is making an assumption. As for the "edited to add" portion. Again, it might be the case, but, don't suggest to students that they open high. They might just do that and fuck thier instructors. Please follow the training program at your dz. I am sure your instructors know what they are doing. I agree it is good to know what an impending stall feels like that, and at some point that will be learned, but not till your instructors think it is a good idea. That is my ten cents. On a completely different note. I hope you do awesome and remember to have fun. Skydiving is a whole lot of fun! I would bet that you are going to do just fine and have a great time. To the other poster, going from a 288 f111 to a 210 zp might be a big step, it all depends on the individual person. What I can tell you is that I did it and so do all the other people who learn to skydive at my dz. They get moved on over when they have the skill set to handle the faster main. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Wrong. Please go read the camera faq in the camera forum. Just to jump on the bandwagon, as the primary videographer for my dz and with that being one of my bigger focuses in skydiving, I agree that adding ANY camera poses an increase in the danger of any skydive. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Thanks, appreciate it. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

The whole AFF rating thing has been on my mind a lot lately. I have been doing pre-course work with an evaluator (Mary G) in wisconsin and it has somewhat turned skydiving into a really stressfull event. I find it hard to belive that things have gotten much easier on would be instructors. At least they haven't in my neck of the woods. I suppose we will see when I do my course, I don't doubt that Billy will be hard on us. The one thing that I don't really like is that it is a certification course. I was hopeing that there would be an emphasis on learning but I guess you just can't learn all that information fast enough. I'm confident in my abilities, but it all sure is stressfull. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

nothing wrong with the 20 mins, most of that is render time, yes? The one advantage Vegas has (IMO) over any app, is that you can run simultaneous copies of the app at once, therefore capturing in one instance, editing in another, rendering in a third. On our desktops at the office, it's not uncommon to have 5-6 instances open at once, performing various tasks. During trade events, I'll occasionally show off by opening up to 12 instances of the app. In the "real world" this doesn't work, unless you've got a quad dual core, but it's fun nonetheless.

The site has been doing that for a long time. I wonder if that is something dave could fix. Someone should let him know! ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

And how much time is added with the capture and why/how is that about to go away? ... Capture time is about to go away, because of direct to stick, so rather than running a tape to your vid guy or capturing, you'll simply transfer. It's about 20% of real time. AVCHD ain't ready for primetime yet, unless you've got a BEAST of a machine. By November, it will be ready for prosumer use. Bear in mind as I said before, I've got most of the vid laid out in advance. I just need to change title names. In other words, it takes some pre-production setup. Sometimes I'll do something special (birthday overlay, etc) and those add a coupla minutes. I have a small library of graphics for birthdays, anniversaries, and leaving on a Mormon mission (those are popular reasons to jump here). But I don't have a template for those kinds of vids. With ripple enabled, you simply cut the chunks you don't want, stretch the ones you want slowed down/sped up, and everything stays relative. It's usually a total of 8 cuts/edits. I do it with a keypad, but you can do it just as fast with a mouse. ~extra crap at head of interview ~slow walkup ~cut extra crap before/after an alti shot ~cut extra crap before exit, after deploymentd ~duplicate/slomo exit/deployment Done. So, say seven mins of footage, it takes three mins to edit, that's approx 10 minutes to finished product. Takes about 4 mins to render, and deliver to student. Shorter vid takes less time. If I don't duplicate/slo-mo/color correct, even less render time, but very litte is taken off of the edit time. Using VB-based scripting, a lot is automated. I use a template builder found in "Ultimate S", which is a scripting tool/macro monster for Sony Vegas Pro. I have things pretty well set up too, but our DZ doesn't give video out the door. We mail it. I have my layouts / titles / etc done. I spend the most time putting in the music and setting volumes on the music/footages up and down. I am a adobe guy though. It takes me about 20 min from capture to burned DVD. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Pretty cool people. I am lucky enough to jump with Dan and have Christy video every week! She is awesome. beyond actually ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Cry? I am at a point where I need to guard my PC1000 with my life. A friend of mine just found one new on the internet for like $1500. I paid $960 for mine right from the store. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Depends. The way DZs work is, they give you a show time and that is a rough estimate of when they want you there to do paperwork, etc. They say half a day so you don't get mad if there is a backup and you don't get up for awhile. It could easily only take an hour or two or many more hours depending on weather / staff / planes... etc. Also, every DZ is different. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

For sure. I love jumping at sunup. Can make for some nice pictures. Sunset is a whole lot of fun too. Those are the times that I think it "looks" the coolest, but I love jumping all day, so I do that just about every weekend! ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

wow ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

I've never considered popping my flash open in freefall, not because I'm worried about hitting something, but because I'm worried the wind would tear it off. Especially with the forward speed of a wingsuit... but even with general freefall I wouldn't want that thing flapping around open. And yes, I shoot TV too. Full manual is nice for ground shots, but in the air if I want to get more than one angle in the same jump (lighting changes), TV can save my ass by adjusting my settings on the fly, to values which are the same as I would have chosen on full manual. In my experience, it wont rip it off. Going head down will close it though, so if you plan to do that you should tape it open. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

A clear example of how the world has gotten out of hand. People have lost the big picture. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

Haha, I was wondering about that too... Right? Anyways, I don't really like the sports mode. I shoot in Tv and pick my own settings. I turn the flash on by hand when I am in the plane. I don't see any good reason to tape the flash down. I have never had mine come open in hundreds of jumps. I have however, had the need to turn it on in freefall when a tandem master wasn't cooperating and had thier back to the sun. If you are doing something where you are worried about ripping the flash off your camera (it only sticks up like 3/4") then you are clearly way too close and jammed in anyways. I would be more worried about ripping the whole camera off my head. ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

You seem to look for a coat by a button.... There is 2 versions of Cameye II out there anyway: v1.4 and 1.6 ... My guess is that he is frustrated with the fact that most of the Sony models on the market don't have a LANC port. The HC96 does. Otherwise you have to step up to the HDV cameras to get the LANC. If neither of those options suit you, start looking around for a used PC330, PC350, PC1000 or one of the used HCx6 series. The HCx8 series that they sell now just sucks ~D Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me. Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka