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I jump a XF2-139 and used to jump a Saber 1-150. I don't think there is a huge difference between standard flight. You really start to notice it when you are doing riser turns though. If you are doing front riser dives on your pilot you will probably be cool with the XF2 but I would go back to doing straight in approaches for awhile. Ya know, get used to the canopy and all. Then work back up and get comfortable with 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

You're right. But for me, just the fact that the stuff is there makes me not like the device. All of those things are not needed by 99% of the jumping population and they make me nervous. Eventually we will read about someone accidentally using student mode or tandem mode or whatever in a sport rig and getting killed by a two out accidental fire. The cypres is a "simple" device with one purpose. It doesn't have extra crap in there to do things that 99% of people don't need. You said it yourself. You have a neptune, so why does your AAD need to count jumps. I can understand if your a DZO and you are using them in DZ rigs and you want it for accounting purposes, but they should just sell a DZ version that has that crap and keep the device simple. An AAD should have 1 button that you can press to turn it on / off and thats it. Any fancy functionality is in my opinion an added complication that is not needed in a device that should really only be there for 1 reason, to prevent your death. All of the above is beside the fact that they have seemed to be proven questionably reliable as well as the fact that the company has given out some pretty lame answers to problems like "Don't let your rig sit in the heat" and "We will be releasing a version with less inconveninces" (UHH You mean misfires?) So, thats my $.04 I will leave it at that before I sound too much like I am bashing the product. edit: spelling and clarity. ~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 on the situation but yeah. If it happened on exit I would do my best to chase the person for awhile, but giving up at a reasonable altitude seems like a good idea to me. I would feel pretty shitty if it happened at 12k and I just watched them fall away from me to thier death for that long. I think my overall skill level gives me a marginal to reasonable chance at catching someone given an entire skydive. Would have to try it to find out. ~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 like your latest design. Much more simple. Not a wings, but a good example of simple is the rig I am going to get as soon as I have more money. I spend a lot of time sliding and what not. And I jump a lot. So having a mostly black rig is a nessecity if I don't want to clean it every reserve repack. ~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

One more reason to not like the vigil in my book. I don't want modes to change, nor will I ever need them to. I don't want a jump counter or freefall computer. I just want to live if I forget to/can't pull. The former being a reason to never skydive 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

You're right. That might happen when you have one person doing crap like he was. At my DZ all the tandem students are happy with thier videos because its about them and the tandem master sits in the background where they belong. If you want to show a student what is capable put a flashy leader/trailer on your videos and show them what they can aspire for, don't take risks with thier life. If someone told the passangers what the risks involved with that kind of crap are they would think twice. Good for us most wuffos are stupid and just want a carnival ride. If my TM did that crap when I made my first jump and I later found out how big of a risk he had taken I would lose all respect for him. It's not fair to the students and its not for them no matter how much you want it to be. The only reason they might think its cooler is because they are ignorant to the risk involved. That fucks it up for every other tandem master. I have seen a tandem students legs kick all the way around to be between the risers on a hard opening before and that was with tight latterals. Who knows what would have happend if they were lose? (Snapped neck? injured back? fall out?) Tandems are a representation of our sport to the outside world, it's not the time or place to take risks because that's not what we want the community and government to think of us. As for my comments on what has been said to have happened to him. No ratings sounds like a good thing to me. He has shown that he doens't have the judgement to handle students/passangers. Taking away his membership/ability to jump is a bit overboard to me. ~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 don't think it's feasable to do. You might be able to do it, but not under the conditions that would require you to do it and not in any reasonable amount of time. Most likely though, the average skydiver would just fail at doing so. ~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

0:19: Buncha tracking dives and what not, some work jumps, nothing out of the ordinary though. Typical 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

I have a bunch of them, they are a lot of fun in my book but can be a little rough at times. My last two both had off landings. The most recent was my own fault for not paying enough attention to the wind and th eone before that was some unexpectedly strong winds at about 3k. (We had been jumping all day and had not noticed much a change at all till that night jump.) Was still fun. I landed by the taxiway lights on one, and next to some buildings on airport that I was very familiar with on the second (I have landed by them before in the day on many occasions) ~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 not the best option. I havne't had a cutaway, but I have had about 5 brake fires over the last 600 jumps. If your spinning, pull down the opposite toggle to stop the spin if you aren't in line twists its pretty easy to do. If it doesn't work then cut away, but for me, a spinning canopy is a flying one, just not flying how I want it to. I have options to fix it before getting rid of it and if I am not at my decision altitude I'm going to try and fix it. Brake fires are kinda disorientating. You open up and are spinning and when you look up have no line twists. It takes a second to figure out just what happend. The worst was opening with spinning line twists fixing it and having a brake pop when pulling my slider down and spinning me in the other direction. The best option, besides cutting away, in my opinion at least is to take enough of a wrap on the released toggle to keep the canopy at level flight and land on rears. You start complicating things and the one downside is that if you end up having a low cutaway your attached to your toggle because of the wrap, but it is doable if your carful about things from there on out. The worst that is going to happen on landing is some broken bones even with no flare. (Why do you have a cypress if you think its not survivable to land in half brakes w/o a flare?) If you cutaway and your reserve doesn't open you're much more likely to die. This is all easier for me to say though because I have landed on rears hundreds of times. But there was that first time! Even if you haven't done it before, being ready to plf and landing on rears is better than having a reserve malfunction in my book. I haven't had to cut away yet, so I don't know what I am going to do, but I have been close on some spinning line twists before, and it's bad times that much is for sure. Good job on staying alive matty! ~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

Id like to hear about that to.. What happens if you get a linetwist with these? Will they stick together? Or are they the same polarization, so they reject eachother? Being that the magnets are in the rig, not the risers, it doesn't have anything to do with the above. Honestly, I don't think I could get my riser flaps close enough to one another to even come close to touching w/o taking my head off. As for magnets in riser flaps, how does it affect the weight of the rig? Also, I am up in the air on the idea because of traveling with my rig and I am just paranoid about my camera/computer equiptment. Mostly the traveling part. How will this affect being able to carry my rig on a plane with me, now it will have a cypress and a bunch of other metal parts that show up on an x-ray machine. I don't see it being hard to explain to a person "Look they are magnets *click*" but just something to think about? ~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 sports setting is just an easy way to quick configure all the other settings on the camera and give up any control you have on it. All of the things you can get in sports mode are available in P, Av, Tv, or M. What I don't like about sports mode, at least on the rebel XT, (note: don't know about the XTi for sure) is that it forces you into medium picture size. ~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 use whatever DZ I am a "Local" at. When leaving Zhills I was told I will always be a local there, but I know thats not true. Leave a DZ for a few years and when you go back only a few people you know will still be there. I like that definition. My Home DZ happens to be all of the things mentioned. My life hasn't presented me the need or oppertunity to move somewhere else since I started skydiving. It's a change that I might have to make at some time, but I am mostly happy for now. ~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

About 1100 in 3 years and 3 months for an average of 7 a weekend for 156 weekends which is aprox. 28 per month and 338 a year. Though this year I have close to 500 so its spread out more towards the most recent months. I also don't jump much 5 months out of the year. ~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

Just a note: If you use a packing tool, please don't wear it around your neck while you jump. I have had this discussion with a few jumpers who insist on doing so. They don't seem to realize that it might go through thier neck/chin if they screw up a landing bad enough. Same can be said about Closing pin necklaces. ~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

Regarding the boled portion of the above. The plain and simple answer is: "Your wrong and you don't even have a clue as to how wrong you are and you wont have a clue till you have made a couple hundred more jumps." I have been the guy who got to deny a student on coach jumps the ability to jump his home made helmet camera. It's even less fun when you have to do it to someone in person. Don't make your instructor have a bad day because you want to jump a camera. It's not nice to do to them and your just going to get all excited and worked up for nothing. p.s. Yes I am being rude and blunt. You have no business what so ever jumping a camera. ~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

This is most unfortunate news. *sigh* Well, I guess I will be holding out on HD video for awhile then. ~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

Used rebel 300s and Rebel XTs should be pretty abundant on the market. The price on the former will drop soon as well, since the XTi got released and I am sure there are going to be people upgrading. If I didn't want a second rig I know I would be. ~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

Getting a team together is one of the best ways to get good at RW. Find a few other people at or close to your level and go for it. I agree. My first good experience with 4-way was around 150 jumps. I was at rantoul 03 and me and my buddy (around 1000 jumps) walked up to the airspeed tent around sunset. They were mostly done but Craig Girard was there and said they would put something together. So I got to go up with him, Eliana, and my buddy. We did a 5 point dive with piece turns and crank out points like you wouldn't belive. Watching them, up close, and actually being a part of the dive was like magic. I was on a 4-way team the next year. I had about 200-250 jumps, another guy had about 300-400, one girl around 100, and one person with over 1000. We learned more than you can imagine about belly flying. People just off student status seem to skip that part a lot and don't get to see the magic that a 4-way team has. When you jump so much with a small group of people you learn faster and learn about eachother. There are some great articles on this very website that talk about team building and learning. I suggest that you read through them. Don't be afraid to get on a team now. I have been trying to put another one together and my only requirements for people wanting to join is that they have an open mind, try thier best, and have fun. No where did I say they have to be top flyers, that comes with time. ~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

Thats not true. We have flown quite a few different inflatables, some better than others. If you don't want it to spin out of control you need some good "jumpmasters" and it will work. It takes some practice too. Can't comment on the porter thing, but we have taken a plethora of different inflatables out of a pac750 So how about a big inner tube? Is it more or less stable than a raft? Less and you would need one with some decent attachment points to hold onto. Any big object you should stabalize the object. Smaller stuff like ridable dolphins/sharks/inflatable dolls/etc you should stabalize the rider (and the object somewhat too, but not as much) and make the rider keep the object stable. I think the bigger stuff is more fun from the riders point of view. At least thats kinda how we did 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

A lot of time Pan'n'scan movies chop off faces in conversation. The Pan/scan version will only show one face and not the back of the head of the other. There are subtle things like that through the entire movie. You are losing quite a bit. here are two ok articles on it, though one is a little dated: http://www.rinkworks.com/movies/articles/letterbox.shtml http://www.reelclassics.com/Techtalk/panscan-article.htm ~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

Nah. We can squeeze 17 in with one jumper in the copilot's seat, though it's not pretty. Our standard loading for sixteen, with floor seating: one in copilot's seat. Five on the step behind the pilot, then two rows of five. Works pretty well. You can put more jumpers up per hour with 14 in the plane though. I wouldn't jump on a PAC with 16 in it. As it stands, 15 is more than enough to make it uncomfortable as fuck. My experience includes around 600 jumps from a PAC750 Edit: I am pretty sure this is what you mean. And having done it once or twice, it sucks. Its not fun, and the ride to altitude takes way longer. ~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

Here is a frame grab from last weekend. First load of the day, the "outside" camera flyer was the only fun jumper on the load and also is our main video guy so he decided to come along. ~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 watched it and thought it was ok I guess, but it was following up Heros this week. It was hard going from Heros(good, dramatic) to Studio 60 (funny). Seeing as I liked Heros a lot, (just into that genre) it really screwed studio 60 for me. ~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

Thats not true. We have flown quite a few different inflatables, some better than others. If you don't want it to spin out of control you need some good "jumpmasters" and it will work. It takes some practice too. Can't comment on the porter thing, but we have taken a plethora of different inflatables out of a pac750 ~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