pilotdave

Just FYI, as of Sept 14, Square1 is permanently sold out of those winter gloves in sizes S and XS. I was told they'll be making a new version of them "within the next two months or so." The best winter gloves I've found so far are the Akando winter gloves, but in cold weather I wear a thin liner under them. I wore my pair on nearly every jump I've made since last fall. They're finally getting pretty worn out and have a couple holes. I went to order another pair and found out they don't make them anymore but still have some in stock. They replaced them with the Akando Windstopper gloves, which are supposedly much warmer and only to be used in the cold weather. I'll see about that when they arrive. BTW, the akando website sucks, but they respond to emails. The winter gloves have never made it to the order page (I ordered the all-black gloves and they emailed me to let me know those are out of stock but they can send me the winter gloves instead). And there's no information about the windstopper gloves, but you can order them. Dave

This one was close... http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=2681 Dave

Yeah, there's a lot of general information out there that applies well and links to wikipedia are a good idea. I'd like to see a lot more detail here though, and of course how it all applies to skydiving. There are endless topics to cover, and the more experience I get with camera flying, the more questions I have and the more articles I'd like to see someone else write.

I hated widescreen until I got me a 16:9 47" tv... Now the widescreen movies aren't so damn small! Dave

Videos: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=tags&tags=view&tag=rigid%20wing Dave

Not everything has to be brilliant. Start with something basic and others will work off of it. I'd like to see a good answer to "why isn't my 40 jumps enough to fly video?" I had 0 camera jumps when I wrote most of what's there. I have a little over 100 now. I'm still the wrong person to be writing anything about technique. Dave

Many people have asked for it, so I finally did some reading and got it done. http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/rss.xml I'm not an RSS user myself, so you guys (I think I can assume only males are still reading) are going to have to let me know what you think. I ran into problems linking directly to the files... apparently RSS doesn't like &s in links? So links all go to skydivingmovies.com. All it does is shows the last 10 approved uploads with their descriptions. I only tested it with My Yahoo, but it seems to work fine. Any comments? Dave

http://www.skydivingmovies.com/wiki I started it quite a while ago, but sort of lost interest. I actually got commitments from many of the top camera flyers to do some writing for it, but never followed up. My idea was to basically create a single source to answer a lot of the questions that come up here, and to basically share information to keep new camera flyers (aka me) safer and producing better quality. It's an open wiki... to edit, you just need to register an account (takes about 10 seconds). Not sure if that's the right format for this sort of thing or not. So, what do you think? Anybody think this is a good idea? Anybody want to contribute? BTW, the Gear section is most complete. Much of the rest is nothing but placeholders/outlines. Check the video cameras page for an example. Dave

Just implemented a new feature on SkydivingMovies.com: video tags. Yeah, just like youtube and every other website in the world. Also created a Tag Cloud Industrial Haze, like Flickr, SmugMug, and many others. You can see what I'm talking about at http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=tags. Basically, tags are just keywords associated with each video. Anybody that's logged in can add tags to videos (until that get's abused). As tags get added, they appear on the tag cloud, which is just an alphabetical listing of all the tags, but the font size of each tag varies with its popularity. In other words, common tags appear bigger than less common tags. Once the tags are a bit more populated, it'll give a very quick picture of the themes of the videos on the site. Another neat feature, blatantly stolen from SmugMug.com but programmed all by myself, is the Related Tags feature. When two ore more different tags tend to appear together a lot, each of them will be displayed as a related tag when you view any of the tags. So if you click on the "base" tag for example, you'll get related tags like "cliff" and "wingsuit." You can browse the videos related to each of the tags separately, or you can combine tags to see all the videos tagged with "wingsuit" and "cliff" and "base." When you're viewing a combination of tags, you'll also get the option to remove any of the tags from your current view. Anyway, I think this is going to be a useful feature. Bored at work? Start tagging! Just browse to a video, and you'll see the box to enter new tags just above the download links. You can enter multiple tags at once, just separate them with commas. Let me know if you run into any problems or have any suggestions! Dave

Try contacting Klaus: http://www.paralog.net/index.php?https://www.paralog.net/mailgw/mail_form.php?Subject=Contact%20Request. The neptune manual won't help of course and field support don't necessarily know about paralog, since it's 3rd party software. But Klaus, the guy that wrote paralog, gives excellent help himself. Dave

Yep. I think Lara was trying to be brief because this is (was?) a thread about the Viso, not the neptune, but she didn't mention the neptune mega-update that's coming out soon (next update?). I think she said there are something like 60 software changes including some very cool new features. I only know what a couple of them are, but I'm looking forward to it. Actually I need to buy a neptune... another jumper borrowed mine for a day after his protrack died. He liked it so much he decided to buy it from me, even though it wasn't for sale. Dave

I couldn't figure out why there's so much confusion about the features of the new L&B products, so I did some looking. It was originally advertised as having swoop alarms... no mention of freefall alarms, but it was referred to as "the perfect visual AND audible solution for skydivers. VISO will sound warning alarms while setting up in your optimum swoop corridor even when it's mounted on the hand, ring cover, chest mount or leg mount." http://web.archive.org/web/20050216013240/http://www.l-and-b.dk/viso.html (Feb 2005). Same page now: http://www.l-and-b.dk/viso.html Maybe they couldn't get it loud enough? They added logging, which wasn't originally a feature. Dave

I don't care who is negligent or who SHOULD pay. But it's really cool when a DZ bites the bullet for things like that and doesn't charge anything, especially for students, whether or not they HAVE to. I saw a DZO give a student the melted remains of her DZ's "big boy" canopy after the student landed next to powerlines and draped the canopy over them, causing a brush fire. And she was able to laugh about it. I'm sure she COULD have charged him for it, but it sure was nice of her not to. It's probably usually less of a burden on a DZ to pay for lost/damaged equipment than it is for most students that just paid for AFF and are about to buy a rig and as many jumps as they can afford over the next year. Dave

I said "Which modern reserves don't fly, glide, or land better than any PD 7-cell that can be bought now?" I think you're agreeing with me. Edit: BTW, I was just kidding around anyway, comparing an old ass used PD 7-cell with a brand new reserve. Not comparing PD and other reserves. Dave

The idea is to flip someone over, not to pull their cutaway handle. That was an accident. Dave

Hehe yeah, yeah... Which modern reserves don't fly, glide, or land better than any PD 7-cell that can be bought now? Dave

Well, it's either not a 170 or it's not a PD 7-cell... It came in 176 and 160, but the 170 was a 9-cell. You can find some info at square1: http://www.square1.com/manufacturers/square1/p866.asp And yeah, it's an old F111 design. No market for it anymore. Edit: Also remember that what it says on square1 is OLD PD marketing... Not really applicable anymore. For example: "The PD 7-Cell is a parachute that opens, glides, and lands better than any other F-111 7-cell on the market." Other than accuracy canopies, try to find any F111 7-cell on the market now. Dave

So are you suggesting the forums here should be unmoderated or less moderated or what? What would your preference be? Dave

That's what Guy Wright teaches for beginning a track... "superman track." That's not a great example of it, but Guy can shoot away from the formation with a very flat track with his arms starting in front and then quickly brought into a normal position. I think the idea is to avoid starting the track in a steep dive, which happens to a lot of people when they bring their arms back as they turn. Works VERY well when done correctly. Arms are only out front for the first couple seconds, starting in the turn to pop up. I've found tracking with my arms in front works really well on tracking dives too. More like the mantis forward movement arm position. I can control fall rate and forward speed that way, and it leaves my hands out front to dock on the leader. Won't work on a very fast tracking dive, but most of the ones I've been on are pretty slow. Dave

Well, I mentioned that since the rules in the SIM are only minimum requirements and DZs can set higher standards. Our DZ does not allow D-license holders (that aren't coaches) to jump with students. I doubt we have any coaches that aren't D-licensed too. I think a D-license, and a time in sport requirement, should be part of any instructional rating. But that's a different story. Dave

I think you and her parents are the only people that can make the decision based on what you know of her. In the US, you can solo a glider at 14. I soloed a plane at 16, before I soloed a car. I don't think 15 is unreasonable to skydive if she has the right attitude and can handle that kind of pressure. I don't think it's crazy for SOME 15 year olds to skydive, but I don't know her. It'd be a big responsibility on you though. Do you want that? Dave

Necklaces are for girls. Dave

Varies from place to place. You can look it up at http://www.airnav.com/fuel/ Near me, it's $4.59 per gallon. That's $5.09 canadian per gallon or $1.34 canadian per liter. That's some spensive fuel ya got up there. But believable... Dave

They can jump with students (at the discretion of the DZ), but not sign off coach jumps or perform any of the other duties of a coach. Dave

I've been playing with flash streaming videos a bit lately. That's probably something that'll eventually make it's way to skydivingmovies.com when I find the easiest way to convert LOTS of videos. Then you can at least see a lower quality streaming preview and decide if you want to download the real thing or not. For now, I'll be adding this one to the European file mirror when I get a chance, which should help out. Dave