pilotdave

Just curious... why a D70s over a canon rebel xt? I know almost nothing about them, but noticed the D70s is a bit bigger, heavier, and 2 megapixels lower in resolution. And more expensive. What's the advantage (or did you just come across a good deal)? Dave

Is the rain your fault?! Damn you! Eh, I got to sleep late today. Almost summer, plenty of jumping to come. And my new camera helmet is one state away according to the package tracking, so I'm in a good mood. Dave

Unless you mainly want a video camera, just get a still camera. I don't think any of the minidv video cameras take really decent stills. You either get a video camera that can also take just ok pictures, or you get a still camera that can take just ok video. Buy a video camera for jumping when you're ready to use it for that, since new ones come out all the time and the price drops on the older ones. I will say I've been impressed with the stills that the PC1000 can take... pretty low resolution by still camera standards, but not as bad as I was expecting. Makes for a pretty big/heavy/expensive low res still camera though, and it's uncomfortable to hold (in my opinion). Also lacks a lot of the basic features you'll find on pretty much any still camera. Love my casio exilim for stills. Not SLR quality, but fine for normal use and small enough to fit in my jumpsuit pocket for getting pics in the plane. Dave

Normally c:\windows\fonts Dave

Yep: "With VT 406, CFB Shearwater, NS, in 1982. Still with this unit when it crashed on 4 August 1991 at air show in Schenectady, New York. Aircraft approached landing from a high hover, and apparently entered ring vortex state during descent, resulting in sudden and large increase in sink rate close to the ground. Originally classified as Category B (repairable), but re-classified as Category A on 21 August 1991. To Aircraft Maintenance Development Unit at CFB Trenton on 25 August 1991." http://www.ody.ca/~bwalker/CAF_Sea_King_detailed_list.htm Dave

I think you might have just invented something. Tongue Ring Pops! Dave

No, that's just you and it's weird! I don't care for skydiving videos. Dave

Costyn uploaded a divx version to skydivingmovies.com too... link stays the same. Dave

Hehe... see 2 posts up from yours...

There has to be a cool story there...

I forgot to mention the garmin mount. The cigarette lighter charger cable is built into the mount, so you're pretty much stuck using that one (though the batteries apparently last ~8 hours or so if you can't plug in). The nice part is when you remove it from the mount, the wire stays put. Really convenient when you put it in your glove compartment or something to hide it away. It can either mount to your windshield or to a pad that can be stuck to your dashboard, which is what I use. That puts it a lot closer to me. Windshields are so sloped nowadays, so you have to have it pretty high on the windshield to be reachable/readable. Hard to find a good spot that keeps it out of the way. The screen doesn't do too well in really bright light... When I really need to see the screen for something, I have had to pull it off the mount (can be done with one hand) and take a close look. It's not really too bad... I can almost always see enough, but sometimes making out a route number on the map or something like that can be tough.

How about its a stupid school project and he needs some data to look at? ~670 jumps, no cutaways. Dave

I have the garmin c330, which is almost the same but doesn't give street names in the audible directions and a few other little differences. I love it. I chose it over the tomtom because of reviews on amazon.com and some other sites. I thing the tomtom 700 has bluetooth and can act as a speakerphone/caller id, right? That's a very cool feature. But as far as quality of directions goes, the garmin got better reviews. One map update and a couple software updates have come out since I bought mine. The new maps are out of date by at least a year or more, so finding businesses that are new or have moved within a couple years doesn't work well. I've even had to drive on some streets that don't exist in it. But any problems are rare. It for the most part gets me where I need to go and gives decent directions. Maybe not the best way of going that a local could tell you, but it'll get you from point A to point B (and with the latest software update, it can let you stop at point C along the way). BTW, I bought one for my parents and even they can use it, so it's REALLY easy to use. Lacks some of the fancy features that most people don't need, which can be annoying, but for getting to somewhere, it works great. I personally think the maps kinda suck, especially when you're navigating to somewhere. It sort of grays out everything off your route so it's easier to see your route, but that makes it hard to see whats nearby. Its actually really hard to figure out what town you're driving in... or even what state. The maps don't prioritize what information should be shown at different zoom levels very well. For example, it's pretty common for the map not to show a single street name or route number but show the name of some random stream 2 miles off your route. Can't compare it directly with any other models, but I can say I really like the Garmin. Also aquires satellites fast and calculates routes really quickly. Dave

I have no interest in it only because I already have a visual altimeter and a logging audible. I don't personally like the idea of jumping an electronic visual without an audible as a backup. And since there are so many options for logging audibles, I guess I just don't quite get the point of this one. Maybe you can save some money with the right combination of this and a cheap audible, or of course no audible at all. What I'm really curious about though is it's failure modes. Analog altimeters have a kind of nasty failure mode of just stopping. If you're not careful and check your altimeter often, you might think you're higher than you really are. Having digital brains behind the analog face could have its advantages.... maybe it returns to 0 when it detects a failure. Or maybe it has a miserable failure mode like slowing down and indicating higher than you are, but still moving. If it fails like a regular analog, I just don't see why I'd want one, especially since I'd have to assume it'll fail more often than a standard altimeter. It'll be interesting to see how they work out. Dave

Just do a google search for DVD ripping... There's tons of info out there. Dave

I think some people missed his point. There was a competition for the new presidential helicopter and the larger, more expensive, european competitor won. The loser was Sikorsky, which has been flying the president for the last 50 years and already has the infrastructure in place needed to fill that role. The win for the EH-101 was probably politically driven, at least for the most part. It's not that the president shouldn't fly in an expensive helicopter, it's that there was a probably better (safer) helicopter, that is far cheaper to operate, that could have been selected. Dave

You make me sick! Confusing a 70,000 lb american piece of art with a 32,000 lb piece of eurocrap. A 53E could freaking lift an EH-101 off the ground! Actually I've seen a picture of that at work - a 53 carrying the remains of a crashed EH-101. The S-92, which lost the competition to carry the US president, has won the VVIP role in many other countries. Hell, the queen of england flies in an S-76. Dave

The S-92 is also already certified to higher safety standards, which the 101 now has to be redesigned and recertified to meet. The 101 also has a number of known safety issues which have to be fixed. That's more like it. They gave a number of excuses. Cabin size was a factor, but the rest of the reasons they gave didn't make much sense. Dave

Cause they're pretending that british/italian helicopter is american.

9/10, which was better than I expected to do since I didn't use a calculator and I went through it as fast as I could (as fast as I could count fingers and toes). Post the correct answers so I can figure out which one I got wrong. Wasn't one of the ones mentioned so far... Dave

To get a C you need to meet all requirements for a B including passing the exam and water training. Dave

29 mph for a student cypres, not 29 m/s. That's 13 m/s. That 140 feet in your first calculation becomes 63 feet. In the end when you do the math all out (as you did it), d = ~100 feet. Almost like that 100 foot figure wasn't so arbitrary. Dave

The original poster said he had a reserve canopy over his head in ~50 feet. That's probably absolutely true. The canopy may not have been fully open and flying, but I bet it was over his head. The skyhook drastically reduces the distance to reserve line stretch. I don't know how many feet it takes to open the reserve to the point where a person could land safely, but I think the reduction in total opening distance is only one part of the skyhook's advantage over a standard RSL. Fact is, during a cutaway, the skyhook will have your reserve over your head at probably about the time your freebag is coming out using a standard RSL. You can look up and see a reserve sooner, and you'll feel the opening shock sooner. I've heard intentional cutaways with the skyhook described as feeling more like turbulence than a cutaway. Dave

I guess runway 27L isn't as funny to most people, huh? Dave

Well, no. They both need to be required crew members, not just pilots. So unless it's a large plane, chances are you're stuck wearing parachutes unless you're solo. Dave