pilotdave

You must have missed the memo from 2001... airline security isn't just for airline passengers anymore. There was a little thing on the news about it back then. Dave

Don't know about alternative brands, but the canon 100 2.8 gets good reviews. How much focal length are you looking for? Dave

There are many forms of competitive skydiving that involve teams. Learn to skydive first, then figure out what event you'd like to compete in. Then find some other people that want to compete with you. Dave

There's gotta be a good story in there somewhere. How'd ya manage "at least" 6 baglocks? I assume there's more to it than bad luck or bad packing... Dave

Don't know anything about that aspect, but I have a firewire external hard drive sitting right here. I don't know why there's a difference. Dave

The instructor is an I/E with (obviously) lots of tandems. There's questionable practices of course, but I'd say it mostly shows that anybody can have a bad landing. Dave

USPA doesn't approve jump planes. They list it as a plane that is certified for flight with the door removed. Dave

AAD is advanced aerospace designs (aka the company that makes the vigil). nv/sa is how they abbreviate company in Belgium. Little google searching... Naamloze Vennootschap / Société Anonyme Dave

On a tape camera, sure. But there's no particular reason (that I know of) why a memory card camera couldn't use firewire to transfer files at high speed. I think firewire is just falling out of favor and is being replaced by USB2, USB3, eSATA, etc. I don't remember the theoretical speed difference between firewire 800 and USB2, but I don't think any of the memory cards support transfer rates that are close to those limits anyway. Dave

Pretty simply really. The operator places the nose of the canopy onto little hooks and the container goes below. It can pack up to three rigs at a time. It simply uses some gears to- Actually it's just photoshop, but not recent... made it years ago. The machine is actually some kind of industrial oven. The real answers are never any fun. Dave

Cold and snowy here too... Last two are from a 6-plane "missing man" formation that flew over the memorial service for Gary Pond. His father Nate was flying the Cessna 172 that left the formation to leave an empty slot. Dave

Z1s have never been known for their paint/finish quality. But they're nice helmets and they last a long time. My suggestion is to toss it onto concrete to get that first decent mark and then stop worrying bout it. Mine is probably 7-8 years old now and it's still in good shape. They don't scratch up THAT easily. If I needed a new helmet, I'd buy another Z1. There are plenty of nice helmets available, but everything seems to have more problems with the visors than the Z1. Dave

How's that ringsight attach? Looks pretty solid. Might want to rethink that if it has no breakaway feature. Dave

What, your DZs don't have packing machines?? People still pack manually??? We pay $5 just to have someone load our rigs into the machine! Dave

Or they could just design a device that validates its calculations and doesn't fire when data indicates an impossible scenario like a rapid descent that was not preceded by a climb. Not sure how many people have died from getting knocked out on low bailouts. Guessing none. But a few have died due to AAD fires in aircraft. You are right that a lower arming altitude has advantages. But clearly it has disadvantages too. When an AAD fails to fire due to its published activation parameters not being met, the skydiver dies. It failed to save. On the other hand, when an AAD misfires due to parameters not published being met, it may kill a skydiver (or plane load of people). I'd always prefer an AAD to fail by doing nothing when it should have instead of failing by doing something when it shouldn't have. I don't think you and I agree on that. Dave

Thanks for clearing it up for me. I support your agenda 100%. Moment of clarity is over. Dave

This is what it looked like in 2006, soon after it was retired. I had jumped it earlier that year... at the time they said it had about 50 landings left before it had to be retired. Apparently the Bush presidential library was looking to buy it. Don't know what happened to that plan. And a little more useless information... it's the skyvan in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIyxHL2Og3Y. Dave

Awesome. Now one more time, dumbed down so I have some idea what you mean, please. Use phrases I know, like "demo jump." And just say what you mean... I'm not good with poetry/insane rants. Dave

If a DZ makes climbing passes a normal occurence (as opposed to a special request), the DZ, one way or another, needs to educate all jumpers on how to exit safely. I don't know who to blame for that particular "near miss" and I don't care who was at fault in that case. In general, jumpers expect the aircraft to be configured "normally" when they exit. If a climbing pass is not the norm, the pilot must let the jumper know he'll be making a climbing pass. The jumper needs to know what to do with that knowledge. Both the pilots and the jumpers need to be educated on the dangers of climbing passes. I think THAT is USPA's point. It's a great safety day topic. It's not about blaming or setting rules, it's about education. Remember, it's a freaking safety day ad, not a recommended BSR or FAR. I fully agree that climbing passes can be done safely. The people I've seen request them most often are classic accuracy jumpers. They're mostly old and have been around a long time and know what they're doing. And they know how to save the DZ a couple bucks. But a climbing exit is NOT something a pilot should ever surprise a jumper with. That is extremely dangerous. But there's a great way to prevent accidents caused by jumpers that exit innapropriately on climbing passes. Teach them all about it at safety day. Dave

I think you guys put way too much emphasis on figuring all this stuff out instead of letting it happen naturally. A while back, I predicted that there will eventually be an ideal wingsuit wingloading for formations. Wingsuiters will buy wings appropriate to their bodies and some will wear weights. Just look at CRW... Jumpers on large formations all use the same model of canopy. It's not a coincidence, it's a requirement. Different disciplines within CRW use different types of canopies at different wingloadings. Wingsuiters will figure this stuff out over time. There will be different suits for bigway formations and distance and docked formations and whatever else. There already are a wide variety of suits of course, but everybody uses whatever they have for whatever they're doing. You guys will figure this stuff out. Don't freak out... you don't need all the answers in 2010. Dave

I think you're having a moment of clarity here... I can almost understand you. But I'm still completely missing your point. I know your opinions on certain people and certain groups within our little sport. But I haven't figured out what the heck your point is in this thread. Explain exactly what "regulations" make this sport too expensive. What rules would you do away with to lower the cost? Dave

Grand Caravan. Dave

Not sure... the picture in the ad looks pretty bad, and it says he barely missed the stabilizer. But here's another example... Looks pretty bad in the first pic, but of course she was many feet below the tail a split second later. Dave

Sure, you can use it. Make sure you format the bibliography correctly. Dave

This is a fairly accurate (to scale) series of pictures of a cutaway and reserve deployment. Dave