whatever

Hi not sure about the Vector (yet I'm posting anyway!) as I have a X6. the Suunto X6 can be set to either altimeter or barometer mode, set it to altimeter mode and it locks the barometer function, essentially assuming the baro will not change while you are ascending/descending when you are at one altitude for a length of time, switch to barometer mode and it will assume no altitude change and function strictly as a barometer the compass seems to work OK too, if you calibrate it often cheers sam (it's actually a bit more involved than that, it has: 'time', 'chrono', 'hiking', 'weather' and 'compass' modes) soon to be gone

hey Faber what he said: if you haven't found one, let me know and I'll buy one (they're like $2 here!) and either post it to you or drop it with one of your English buddies when I go to London in March later sam soon to be gone

What did the thread have wrong? To me, the video pretty much looks like it matches up to the accounts given in the thread. Hi Tom. I base my statement on these: Maxim: No static line involved, he did qualify it as a guess, though. Tom Aiello: This makes it sound like they did pretty much the same jump, whereas they changed a lot of things for the 2nd jump. Cvfd1399: This isn’t really fair, as S&M changed a lot of things for the 2nd jump, rather than just repeat and hope to get lucky again. Blair700: M was packed slider up on the 1st jump. There was only one person going TARD the 2nd time. I can’t tell for sure from the video, but it looks like S was packed slider up the 2nd time. I might be nit-picking the details and one might argue I am going on about semantics, but the thread was not resembling what I saw all that well, IMHO. see you around sam soon to be gone

damn Dave, that was quick! this thread was already getting what happened wrong so I thought if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video has to be worth a few keystrokes and touchpad hits... enjoy, everybody edited for spelling soon to be gone

QuoteAnyone have any feedback on a good body fat goal? I've never known what "good" is, and I'm wondering if I need to set a goal in that way, too.Quote just some quick and rough numbers from memory: I believe the normal range for men is 10% - 20%. and the normal range for women is about twice that. what constitutes a 'good' body fat goal depends entirely on what you are training for if you're not training for any particular kind of athletic activity, then the 10%-20% bracket seems fine if you're training for something where power-to-weight ratio is important, i.e. bicycle racing, you want as low a body fat as you can attain and be healthy, to be competitive you would typically be under 15%, most likely under 10% and at 6%-8% if you're in fairly optimum cycling shape, where body fat just slows you down if, on the other hand, power-to-weight ratio does not matter so much and other factors apply, like swimming, you want a higher body fat percentage. I do not know the numbers for competitive swimmers from memory, but it looks to be around 15%-20%, as some extra body fat doesn't slow you down in the water and it makes you float, which makes swimming easier also, if you are very lean, you will get cold quicker and the time you will last in a cold ocean if the cruise ship you're on ever sinks, before you get hypothermia, increases as the body fat percentage goes up so, it's kinda hard to say, not knowing what your priotities are, but I'd say if you want to climb out in 11 minutes instead of taking the boat, 10%-15% is a good place to be when I was racing a provincial road cycling series, I weighed 160lbs (73kg) and that was 6lbs over my optimum race weight of 154lbs (70kg) and I was at 13% body fat - very much on the high end of the spectrum for that group - I could have lost 6lbs body fat and that would have dropped my body fat percentage to 9.6%, it gets harder to lose body fat though, the less you have, as at that time I was eating pretty healthily and exercising a LOT soon to be gone

just saw this: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1436779#1436779 congratulations Tonto and Taya! South Africa has gotten itself two great new BMIs and I can thouroughly recommend either one to anyone looking to try the 'Nylon Crack'. I really had a great time flocking with these two at Eloy, thanks guys! So many great jumps, I don't know if the Phoenix Fly tracking suit and Birdman wingsuit 'hybrid' flock jump or the one with my first spinning mal was more memorable! see you guys around (and all the other birdpeople I jumped with at Eloy ) sam soon to be gone

I totally agree. looking at it now, I'm asking that everyone who votes, or have voted, in this poll, please post which way you voted and if you BASE jump or not I think this would be relevant, thanks. edited to add the obvious: I voted Yes and I do BASE jump. I still skydive too. soon to be gone

so, there's a post in bonfire (I won't link it) that is getting a LOT of attention I think it should just be deleted and any attempt to repost too, followed by a warning, then a banning if the offender/s persist. The kind of post that shows BASE objects getting dayblazed and giving details of their whereabouts should not be tolerated. Let's make our voices heard and give the moderators and HH the mandate to deal with this kind of nonsense effectively. vote yes thanks sam soon to be gone

I find this thread and idea quite interesting. I think I might want to have a try at this thing when I go to TF later this year. I'm going to follow these self-imposed rules: -24 hour duration -one rig -all jumps are packed jumps -all packjobs are done by me -I climb out everytime (earn my altitude) basically, I will be self-sufficient for this I hope to manage a 1 hour turnaround between exits, which should be do-able with my climbing rate if I can get my packjobs down to 30 minutes. of course, I would be quite happy to have some fellow jumpers along on some of these jumps maybe the town can spin some kind of cool PR off this if I do it, what do you think, Tom? cheers sam soon to be gone

Andrea (and Faber) sounds like we have the same experience of our bulletcams I have the same CCD, bought it from www.spycameras4less.com as I'm in Canada and it was cheaper I used to use 8 x 2100 mAh batteries, but now I use 10 x 2300 mAh batteries (energizer rechargeables), a thing to note, the high capacity rechargeable NiMH batteries like this do not produce 1.5 Volt, they only give 1.2 Volt and the bulletcam seems to want at least a good 12 Volt, so I went to 10 AA sized rechargeables. cheers sam soon to be gone

Hey Mike! it's not forgotten, we are quite active hackey-sackers at the turbine DZ I jump in Canada The track-hack is where it's at! (we once got a circle of about 8 people going and 'tracked' it all around manifest and some trees while hacking.) cheers sam soon to be gone

update on the videos I'm home and I've uploaded them to skydivingmovies.com here is the boat footage: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1920 (It doesn't show the clearest picture and there are blue dots, but you can see colours and also read my watch when using the backlight, which you couldn't do with the PC105, even on nightshot) here is a sunrise jump shot on the bulletcam(hope the troll doesn't mind a cameo appearance): http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1918 here is a daytime jump shot with the bulletcam: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1917 Here is a sunset jump shot with the bulletcam, mounted on my hand. Shows pretty good how going slider up at TF, geeking the camera and getting a 180 with a half twist, when exiting over the centre of the river, will likely end up with you getting wet! http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1919 I hope this has given some idea of what I was talking about. cheers sam edited to add: some have asked about my set-up, I have posted a fair amount about it in the photography and video forum if you'd like any details that you can't find there, just ask, I'm still ironing out some details more edit to add: I uploaded .wmv files, which is how I captured from the tape, as I did initially capture the sunset jump in .avi format, but that created too big a file size. This means a loss of some resolution and quality, due to the format, not the bulletcam. soon to be gone

well, aren't you going to feel silly when you get a Phoenix Fly suit eventually.... soon to be gone

Jason the bulletcam I bought has a Sony 1/3" CCD and MUCH better lowlight and IR sensitivity than my PC105. it has 480 lines resolution on the NTSC model that I have it is VERY sensitive to power supply quality and set-up, especially connectors. also, the lenses are interchangeable easily, BUT you have to focus them while changing over, there is a good range of fields-of-view available with the lenses. when set up properly the quality is as good as my PC105 during the day and siginificantly better in low light, although it is difficult to set it up nicely. like I said, I'll post video in a week or two. cheers sam soon to be gone

I can prove you wrong. give me a few days to get back to toronto and I will post movies taken with the bulletcam cheers sam soon to be gone

hi I have a 2KC FF2. I do not use it for BASE, as it offers no real protection from any impact as can easily be seen from the construction. I have the all carbon fibre model, but a friend has the cheaper fibreglass version and it looks like that is marginally stronger, but still affords little to no protection. I use a TSG bmx helmet and a 661 Full Carbon downhill MTB helmet for BASE jumps, as both of these offer significant impact protection. Just buy a bullet cam and stick it on a helmet that is good for protection, it's an easy solution that will also prevent a sore neck from camera weight and or riser strikes. Buying a FF2 strictly for BASE is a waste of money IMHO and with a lump of camera strapped to your head, quite likely less safe than jumping with no helmet. cheers sam soon to be gone

OK, here's the deal, my flight out of Buffalo got cancelled due to the airport being shut down by snow! Now, I'm arriving tomorrow, 25 Dec at 2:17pm, anyone that can hook me up for a ride? PLEASE? I'll be buying you dinner and beers and you'll have a friend for life, or at least for the boogie! (picture as many rodeo rides on me in my S3 as you can handle...) THANKS! sam , a.k.a. whatever edited because apparently 6 hours of driving through crazy snow has affected my brain so much I originally moved myself to 26, not 25 Dec... soon to be gone

Ha-Ha! two-plankers! that's great... I've never heard that before, shows how little time I've been in a country with a snowy winter. I didn't mean for this thread to become a 'which is better because it's more difficult'-pissing contest, I wanted to see where people's preferences lay. I snowboard and I have only ever snowboarded, as I'm from South Africa and we have no snow, I grew up playing with my bicycles and my skateboard and occasionaly a surfboard. So, take 7+ years of active skateboarding and some surfing and it was a pretty obvious choice for me when I hit Europe. Some of the people on my first snow/ski trip were first timers to skiing/boarding too. So we all took the lessons offered and this is how it went: day 1: we all fall around a lot, my skiing buddies learn to snowplow, everyone's on the bunny slopes I fall down a LOT, my ass and knees are bruised and my skiing friends are faring way better at this point. day 2: I finally get the idea with the edges and my board balance kicks in. I learn turns, and how to do the bunnyslope easy. My skiing friends do more snowplow and work on easy turns. we all ski and board together in the afternoon, I'm doing the blue runs now, they are still on the bunny slopes. day 3: my skiing friends are still working some kinds of turns. I quickly get bumped up to the intermediate class by my instructor and get my first run from the top of the mountain, coming down a red slope (second most hardest in this system) and even doing some off-piste, through the powder, between the trees. I'm having a ball and spend the afternoon with my newly met snowboard classmates while my skiing buddies are still on the bunny slopes... that is the way the rest of the week went, by the end of the week I did every run the resort had to offer and a whole bunch of off-piste runs too. my skiing friends never went harder than the blue (intermediate) runs, and that was only those with previous experience... the point is, I have great respect for skiiers, as skiing takes much more time and effort to learn, there are many more techniques to learn than in snowboarding. It's easier to stay upright and in control initially on skiis, but once a boarder gets their board balance and the feel of their edges, they progress so much faster than skiiers, just by being on the board. but for me, personally it doesn't look nearly as fun as snowboarding and I love being able to do 360s, rails, and halfpipes on my board afer only a few seasons of snowboarding, it would've taken me so long to get there skiing... I will give skiing a try one day, but for now I'm all about the snowboard! soon to be gone

Hi really? I have no idea who you got hold of, but most everyone in our crew is really friendly. As Tom says, the main guy here is not back in jumping shape yet, but there are many other locals in the area. Let me know next time you're in the area!

9.5 seconds ?? who are you kidding, he's in the U.K. and haven't jumped out of a plane since january... not only will he exit the plane and instinctively pull 3 seconds later, he'll be scared as all hell when he sees a slider again! soon to be gone

dude! powder is what snowboards were made for, why would you bother messing around on skis when you have powder? seriously, snowboard + deep powder = big fun soon to be gone

check it! : http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1400256#1400256 let's put it to a vote! soon to be gone

OK people, since this thread is rapidly degenerating into a skiing vs. snowboarding rant: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=1398950;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25; I thought I'd post this poll and see what the numbers say. soon to be gone

I haven't skydived since January and have never flown a wingsuit so I'll pass, thanks for the offer though.

I see where you're coming from with your approach and I think it makes sense. At this point I haven't done that many low freefalls and I prefer to wait for the wind conditions that will allow me to exit that A from 430ft up to 600ft. Maybe in a bunch of jumps I'll feel comfortable being open below 200ft. Good info, though, thanks! soon to be gone