jont

Having a drink with a non-jumping friend tonight, and inevitably the conversation came round to skydiving. He asked "If a completely untrained person put on a rig, went up to 12k and jumped out the door, what would be their chance of surviving?" I thought about it, and started listing all the stuff that would probably go wrong - no idea which handles to pull, not able to find handle if you did know, likelihood of spinning to the point of blackout. Then, even assuming deployment was achievable, the great likelihood of not being stable and belly to earth, therefore extreme hard opening, entanglement, mal, who know what else. And if all of that was avoided, there's still the small issue of flying a canopy into a clear area and landing it, with no training or talkdown. I surmised the chances were not good. I suggested maybe a 10% likelihood of survival, considerably less of remaining unhurt. What do others think?

Thanks dave, good suggestion. Would you advise getting a gopping one that makes me look like Tomo's camera bitch? jon t

I always wave before I pull. Always struck me as an extra bit of safety, even if no-one is above me. Bit like signalling before a turn on an empty road - just in case I've not seen someone. Perhaps a late diver who I didn't notice not making it to the formation. Perhaps an aweseome tracker from the next group. So even if I'm above a 4-way who were last out of the plane, I wave off from habit. This weekend I was asked to film my first 13 way, largest formation to date. An infinitely more experienced cameraman decided to come on the same lift, to film as outside camera. I asked him what the plan would be at break off - he told me to do what I would normally do, pull in place as soon as the first person left the formation, and he would look after himself. As the formation built, I was steep above them, and he was filming upwards from underneath them. At the end of the dive, as they turned to track, I could see him clearly almost directly below me. I waved and pulled while he continued filming me - don't know what he did after that because I lost sight of him on deployment. On the ground, he took me to one side and told me I shouldn't have bothered waving because I was top camera and there was no one above me to wave to. I think his point was that by taking the extra time to wave, I was eating up altitude and giving him fewer options. That just made me wonder - do other cameraflyers wave before they pull? jont

Was filming an 8-way last weekend that went into a funnel. Just as they were starting to regroup, I saw something red flash by me. Turns out one of the team lost his hook knife. Looking at the video in stop-frame later, you can see it appear near his armpit, and pass fairly close to two others coming down to him (he was low man on the funnel at the time) before passing about 15/20 foot away from me and out of the top of the frame. Good thing I wasn't steeper on the formation at the time! Started me thinking. How much would that have hurt or done damage if it had hit me or one of the others? Particularly if it had hit me in the face - while the rest of the team were all wearing full-face, I was of course in open-face camera helmet. Anyone any experience of this, or any other debris hitting them? jont p.s. sorry for cross-post, but I posted this in general forum before realising it would be better here

Was filming an 8-way last weekend that went into a funnel. Just as they were starting to regroup, I saw something red flash by me. Turns out one of the team lost his hook knife. Looking at the video in stop-frame later, you can see it appear near his armpit, and pass fairly close to two others coming down to him (he was low man on the funnel at the time) before passing about 15/20 foot away from me and out of the top of the frame. Good thing I wasn't steeper on the formation at the time! Started me thinking. How much would that have hurt or done damage if it had hit me or one of the others? Particularly if it had hit me in the face - while the rest of the team were all wearing full-face, I was of course in open-face camera helmet. Anyone any experience of this, or any other debris hitting them? jont p.s. sorry for cross-post, but jsut realised this could go in camera forum too

Last weekend I test jumped a demo canopy from my local friendly DZ shop at Hinton (thanks Maddy). Saturday morning, I hooked the shiny new green Aerodyne Pilot up to my rig, and manifested for a fun 2-way. Pulled, loved the opening, flew it around for a bit, and landed sweetly. Very nice. Jump number 2, filming a 4-way team. I repack, slip on my camera helmet, and away we go. The 4-way track off, I dump, and when I look up I am stunned - the canopy is the wrong colour! It was definitely green when I jumped it the first time, now I'm looking at some pale blue thing. What the hell is going on?? I look down to check - have I picked up someone else's rig? Nope. Anyway, think about it, I could never have got through flighline without noticing that. So how on earth did that blue object get over my head? For a microsecond my hands creep towards my handles. But I can't cut away just coz it's the wrong colour - that's plain stupid. It's flying OK, there's nothing wrong with it, but it's the WRONG COLOUR! By now my brain is in confused meltdown. For about 10 or 15 seconds I'm completely dumfounded, looking around for an answer. And then it clicks. Doh! First jump was in a fullface. Now I'm in my open face camera helmet - with amber tinted goggles on!! I'm still blushing.... Jon T