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sorry, but I respectfully disagree. I think a HD lens is not always neccesary. It only makes sense (to me at least) if you want your final product to be in HD. AFAIK, most tandem video's are still burned to DVD (SD), not to BlueRay. I still edit most of my vids in SD because of rendering time. So why spend the money? Why would you put the extra weight on your helmet? For funjumps, RW competition, debriefing students: I love the small size and low weight of my Waycool 0.3. For "serious" camerawork I use a better lens.

No, it's an open Z1 with homebuilt box. Does anybody know how to prevent this?

I emailed Hypoxic two weeks ago. The LED cable of my Hypeye had a break in it, so the LEDs would sometimes work, sometimes they wouldn't. So I asked if I could buy a new cable, hoping I wouldn't have to buy a complete new hypeye. Much to my surprise, I got a reply (within a day!), where they said they would send me a new cable for free. And today the new cable came in the mail! Just wanted to say that I'm very happy with their service. So thanks very much!

Here are two pictures taken from the plane. I was jumping a Lightning. Free-packed, so it looks kinda scary, but it opend just fine (and a lot smoother than people told me it would).

Mine is blue and yellow. Just like my main and my jumpsuit. I was very happy with it until someone asked me if i was sponsoserd by Ikea....

The location of my club, PCMN in the Netherland and also Paracentrum Ameland (one of the prettiest places to jump)

I also jump a Pilot 168. Iit has about 200 jumps, and 800 ft openings are normal, at terminal at least. Clear & pulls use up less height but more time. Most of those 800 ft are snivel. When I want it to open quicker, I grab my rear risers and yank them, this almost instantly ends the snivvel. Just make sure you pull the risers symmetrically, or you might spin it into a twist.

Well, it seems mr. Oosterveer managed to convince the Dutch Parachute Association after all. There is now an official safety bulletin on the Argus, stating that you need to ask your HC manufacturer before using an Argus. Plus you need to have at least a C-licence to use it. It is not allowed on tandem gear. http://www.parachute.nl/vb200605.html Is the test report available on-line somewhere?

uuuuhhhhmmmm....... Isn't there usually something called a stabiliser on a Cessna? Roughly situated at where the relative wind is blowing your deploying canopy?

I would like to go to that boogie

If the unit detects an unrealistic, extremely high descent rate, it might "think" that the pressure sensor is defective. Perhaps the Cypres designer decided it would be best to shut the unit down permanently in such a case and have the unit checked by the factory, where as the Vigil designers thouht it would be best to open the reserve.

It will move, but it will also turn. If it didn't it would be unstable. Airplanes rotate around their centre of gravity (at about 1/3 of the chord). The surface area (seen from the side) behind the C.O.G. is always much larger than in front of it (weathervane effect?), even for the Wright plane.

gee I should learn to type faster... 6 new replies already

Perhaps my previous post was too long, too complicated or whatever.....so I'll try again. >So if a gust from the east comes along, and you're >flying north, the canopy will turn _into_ the gust >and keep flying. Yes, this is called stability. If a canopy did the opposite it would be very annoying. >Canopy airspeed, rate of turn, rate of descent and >stability are NOT affected by the wind direction. Agreed. Wind direction or windSPEED have no effect on the wing. Accelaration however HAS some effect, as clearly explained by BillVon. In his example he used gusts of wind, i.e. an acceleration followed by an equal decelleration turning the canopy left then right (or vice versa), so the endresult would be roughly the same heading. But what if there is only an acceleration, NOT followed by an equal decceleration?? The canpopy would constantly turn in 1 direction, which is towards the direction from where the air accelerates! Unlikely scenario? My point: this is exactly the environment in which we fly our canopies: When we get closer to the ground, windspeed decreases. in other words: the air deccelarates in the downwind direction (right?) In other words: the air accelarates in the upwind direction. The canopy still turns towards the drection from where the air accelerates, which happens to always be......downwind!!

Crosswind will make your canopy fly sideways relative to the ground, but not relative to the wind. I can't imagine any forces making the canopy turn. (again, in constant winds that is). Relative is the keyword here. It doesn't make a difference if the air is moving relative to the ground, or if the ground is moving relative to the non-moving air. So what, if the ground is moving in any direction. Why would that affect my canopy? (By the way, the ground IS moving fast, due to the earth's rotation ---- but it doesn't matter) If you are trying to fly in a straight line over the ground in a crosswind you will have to fly at an angle, depending of the speed of the wind and the airspeed of the canopy. Ofcourse slow canopies are more affected than fast ones, just as higher winds have more effect. As you get lower, the wind decreases (=it accelerates downwind when viewed from the cloud you were in a moment ago---it's the same thing) and the canopy will turn downwind. In short, when flying (even slightly) crosswind, you will have to keep steering "into the wind". Flying downwind doesn't require any extra input. And for now: Time to do some experiments

I'm not understanding why the asymetrical shape of the airfoil profile is not going to affect how the canopy is oriented in the wind with zero pilot input. What force is balancing everything back out? From what I can tell, there ar far too many variables to be able to say this is always going to happen, or this is never going to happen. The canopy doesn't 'know' it is flying crosswind or not. It is just flying in a box of air which happens to move relative to the earth. But that doesn't affect the canopy (or any airplane in general) at all. The only force between the earth and the canopy+pilot is gravity, directed perfectly vertical towards the center of the planet. So there is no horizontal force at all. Only if the speed at which your box of air is moving suddenly changes (gusts) the canopy briefly (=until it maches thes speed of the box) encounters a crosswind. At that short moment, I agree that a turn will be initiated in the way you describe. My guess is it will turn into the relative wind. (Why? Thats an a waaaay too long story...) But moments later, when the gust is over (=the wind changes again but in the opposite direction), the opposite happens so the canopy will turn back to its original heading. Now, to make things a bit complicated..... Usually, the winds are much stronger at a higher altitude. So as we descend under canopy our box of air constantly changes its velocity. Imagine the wind coming from the north and you flying towards the west. As you descend the change in windspeed causes a relative wind coming from the south!!!!! (think about that for a minute...) The canopy will turn into its relative wind, which is south, which is downwind!!!! Wow. When I started typing this I was totally convinced that canopies turning downwind by themselves was a bullshit story.... now what have I done

Wow. Aussies are sooo cool. But... I already knew that. A girl once told me she was offered a free tandemride in Australia. When the plane was at altitude she decided she didn't want to jump, but the tandemmaster threw her out of the plane anyway, without them being attached to eachother........ Then the tm then jumped after her, attached their harnesses in freefall and opened the parachute. Is this the usual way to do a tandem in Australia?

BTW, I would love a canopy that could fly for hours, but wouln't that be kind of dangerous near a dropzone? I flew into a thermal once with my Manta, and was very surprised at my altimeter moving in the wrong direction. I spiraled down because the next load was almost on jumprun. Eelco

Quote... First, the lines on a paraglider, I believe (am not sure) have very little dynamic stretch... Quote Lines stretching won't soften the opening shock. The canopy is pulling on your lines with a certain force, and if the lines would stretch an inch well.... you'll be an inch further away from your canopy (but it would still be pulling on your lines with exactly the same force).

Jump #41, my first 20 seconds delay (after static line progression) Our entire skydiving club from Holland is visiting a foreign dropzone, Moorsele in Belgium for a week. Now Belgians speak a language very similar to dutch... but they pronouce it a bit...well..weird What I didn't know at the time - Belgian procedures are a bit less tight then I am used to. Dutch way to get a staticline student out of the plane: JM: READY?! Student: YES!! JM: GO!!! Always exactly the same At 40 jumps I got a bit used to this drill. Now for the Belgian way: Me, standing on the strut of the Porter concentrating on my first 20 second delay... JM: Ok????? Me: YES!!! JM: Ok????? Me (huh? Didn't he hear me??): YEEESSSS!!!!!! JM : Ok????? Me (wondering what could be wrong): YES! JM (waits a few seconds, worried look on his face): Ok????? Me (what could be wrong? I want to jump!!): YES!! At that moment I realise that OK? in Belgian probably means GO!!! in Dutch, so I jump. Even made it back to the landing area! Afterwards I learnt that the Dutch jumpers on the load understood exactly what was going on and had a great laugh on their way to 13000 ft. My jumpmaster was still a bit confused when I spoke to him...