pilotdave

If you're not gonna be 100% familiar with the area before your night jump, consider what kind of plane they'll be using, how many passes they'll make, and how they'll light the landing area. My DZ uses a 182 and makes 1 pass per group for night jumps. Everyone gets a near perfect spot. My first night jump at another dropzone used a king air with about 5 or 6 groups and 2 passes. But they had a much much bigger and better lit landing area and tons of outs. We have a pretty small landing area and very tight, VERY dark outs. Personally when I had the option of a bigger/slower canopy vs one I had been jumping all day (a demo), I chose to use the demo for a night jump. It was much faster (spectre 135, vs my PD 150), but I had been practicing the flare timing with it all day and didn't want to go back to my canopy which had a totally different flare. But that's just me. Dave

I was wondering what the BASE community might like to see changed for at least the BASE section of SkydivingMovies.com. I have a few ideas in my head, but I'm not a BASE jumper. Would a very restrictive, BASE-jumper-only section be of interest? I love watching BASE videos and I think a lot of other skydivers do too, but I'm also very sure that there are many videos out there that don't make good viewing for the public for one reason or another (very technical/educational/boring, illegal, etc). Setting up a restricted section of the site would be the easy part... restricting access to only BASE jumpers would require some thinking/help. I have some ideas of how it could be done though. Any other ideas/comments? Dave

Or where fumbling with a hook knife might have delayed a reserve pull, ending in something worse than a hard landing under an entagled/less than perfect reserve. That's the kind of thing that worries me. I was thinking about THIS video. I can't watch it right now so I'm going by memory... but what would have happened if after pulling the main, he grabbed his hook knife, tried a couple times to reach that caught line, then dropped the knife or gave up before making a cut. THEN pulled the reserve into the mess. He'd have been in the same situation, just much lower. Dave

You mighta taken my pic if you knew you'd met me. But I was too busy hunting chuck down during his break to introduce myself. Dave

Oh I do... I often touch it just before boarding, right after all my handles. But knowing where it is (and how to find it if my hand doesn't go straight to it) is not the same as repeated practice at removing it from the pocket and getting a good grip on it to use it. I find mine tricky to grab quickly on the ground. No clue how well I'd do when I NEED it. Dave

Over half my jumps have been with no hook knife. Got one as an option when I bought a new container. I can't say I really feel safer knowing I have it. I never really cared about not having one because I had no clue what I'd do with it if I did have it. I don't regularly practice grabbing mine. It's not part of any emergency procedure I've memorized or practiced. It's just there... just in case. It's little, it's light, it stays out of my way. I MIGHT really really need it some day. But for example when I did a couple wingsuit jumps a couple weekends ago, my hook knife was under the suit (on my leg strap). I didn't feel the need to find an alternate spot for it for a couple jumps. Odds are I'll never need my hook knife (unlike the odds that I'll need my reserve). But what's the disadvantage of carrying one? Dave

Hehe. I actually got a few PMs and emails. I'm still waiting to hear back from the DivX guy about compensation. Maybe a free copy of DivX Pro or something at least. So there are a few of you that shoot video for more than just the fame and big bucks. If he gets back to me with more details, I'll post em. Dave

Only 50% yankee. What'd going to school in the deep south (Maryland) do to me?? And I've never seen a bug that rolls up when you touch it. If I did see one, I sure as hell wouldn't touch it. Dave

I'm definitely no expert on the subject... but I do know that universities like to see interest in more than one area. Being a great soccer player might be more useful for getting into an engineering school than attending a special engineering highschool (assuming his SATs/math and science grades are the same). If he wants a soccer scholarship, he should probably go to the highschool with the better soccer team. Dave

Video: Part 1 Part 2 Dave

Ok, I was recently contacted by DivX Networks, the people that make the DivX codec and player. They're launching a new "action sports Bit Torrent server..." that "...will host everything from extreme unicycling to wing suits." They're looking for uncompressed high resolution video, which they will compress using DivX and host on their server, supposedly at DVD-like quality. They want to work with SkydivingMovies.com (ie host the files, which we'd link to). I'm not sure how that'd work. I'm not really all that interested. But, as long as they're creating the site, I figured it would be nice if it included some good skydiving stuff and not Real TV type clips. I have no clue how they want to get the video...I'd assume you'd have to send DVDs... maybe they can handle DV tapes... I can find out if anybody cares. I doubt they'll pay for video either. I think their purpose is to show off the DivX technology with some nice high res videos that people might actually want to watch. I don't know anything more about the type of site they'll use or anything. If anyone's interested in sharing some video, let me know (send a PM or email) and I'll get the details. I won't bother looking further into it if nobody has video to donate. Dave

A couple videos... 1958: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=78 2004: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1707 Dave

Video was just uploaded: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1948 http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1949 Dave

I pay VERY close attention to the banners on skydivingmovies.com. Seriously though, I'll click on a dropzone.com banner if I think it's going to take me to a site i'm curious about... a new product, new gear store, or anything else that catches my attention. I normally use an ad blocker, but I try to always disable it for skydiving sites. BTW, on skydivingmovies.com, 100% of ad revenue goes directly to the web host to attempt to make a dent on bandwidth costs. Dave

Got back this morning from over a week in FL. Had some fun... 2 trips to the PIA symposium. Met bill booth, skymonkeyone, lara and roger from alti-2, and tons of others. Did my 2 birdman jumps at Skydive Williston. So much fun. Praying I didn't get addicted so I don't go buy a wingsuit. I think its too late though.... had too much fun to quit. Lots of tunnel time. Almost 50 mins with Joey Jones (Deland Majik), 20 with Guy Wright, 20 with Sally Hathaway (Synchronicity), and another probably 40 minutes without a coach. Still sore but I'd go back in a heartbeat. All kinds of other fun... 12 way after sunset jump, inflatable fat lady jump (video to come), and lots of other antics. Only got in 6 (very chilly) jumps because of the weather. Two trips to Deland and wasn't able to jump either time. Used most of my vacation for the year but it was worth it! Back to CT where the temp is in the single digits. I'd kill for another jump in nice warm 39 degree florida weather.

Here are some of my pics. Got lucky with some bad weather so I ended up at the symposium twice. It was awesome. If you weren't there, sucks to be you.

I read an "I learned about flying from that" article in flying magazine years ago about spin training in a very early tomahawk. The aircraft was known to have some spin recovery issues, so they decided to borrow some emergency rigs before doing the spin training. To make a long story short, they entered an unrecoverable spin, but with plenty of time to bail out. The tomahawk has two doors, but both share a common latch. Well, the latch stuck and they couldn't get the doors open. They kept fighting the spin all the way down to about 500 feet or something when suddenly, for no apparent reason, the plane recovered itself. They pulled up, turned to the airport, and made a normal landing. A mechanic had to get the doors open for them from the outside. It turned out that that plane was built before piper started putting stall strips on the wings. Stall strips are just pieces of metal that sharpen the leading edge near the wing root to cause a predictable stall, starting near the root so the ailerons stay effective deeper into the stall. They got added to that aircraft and the problem was solved. But yeah, my instructor had told me previously that we couldn't spin the tomahawk. I asked why during a flight and she said "well, we CAN, it's just not very good for the plane. wanna try??" So we went up to 7000 feet and did some spins. Dave

Spin training isn't required for the PPL. It's so much fun though... go do it with another instructor if yours won't. I did it in a Piper Tomahawk... the instructor kept having me look back to make sure nothing had broken off. The rudder would just slap against the tail like crazy through the whole spin so the instructor wouldn't do anything more than a 1-turn spin. Dave

Nope, never been in SC. Never plan to. Dave

I love straddle benches. I agree that sideways facing seats suck. Especially the last seats in the back. Your seat keeps getting smaller all through the flight. Worst part is you can't see out the windows. A casa with the ramp open makes up for that though. But that's one reason i like straddle benches more than the floor...raise ya up so you get a better view. Dave

Absolutely not. Rutan's planes never count for stuff like this. They work only by the magic of voodoo curses. Actually it makes perfect sense... compare the size of the winglets (which are really vertical tails on the wingtips, not the same as standard winglets) with the size of that nose rudder. The rudder disturbs the aircraft in yaw, but the aircraft still has yaw stability due to the vertical tails mounted well aft of the CG. (ie CG is ahead of the aerodynamic center). A perfect example of that "ground loop" in the air a standard plane flying backwards. Not usually possible, unless the plane is in a tail slide. What happens to a plane in a tail slide that gets disturbed in yaw? CG is now behind the aerodynamic center. It'll flip right over unless the pilot makes constant fine adjustments to the rudder. Unstable, but controllable to a point. As the "angle of attack" on the tail increases (sideslip angle, beta) of a plane in a tail slide, the yaw moment will increase. This is opposite what will happen when flying forward. Increase beta, yaw moment decreases (increases in the opposite direction, really). Dave

Similar to the havok or something completely different? Oh, and most importantly... HOW MUCH $$$?? Dave

Other than material (and hopefully workmanship), how does it differ from a Z1? Dave

Skydivers are no different than anyone else. Most are honest, but some will steal from other skydivers. Also got tandem students and their friends who may be tempted to grab something. But I only know of one DZ thief, and it was a skydiver. Dave

That my buddy getting pied? I didn't know they pied guys for coming out of the closet... Dave