pilotdave

Ooooh, nobody realized you know all of the others. Now that we know that, we can trust that you know what you're doing. We shouldn't have assumed that you were comparing yourself to people you've never met and know nothing about. So if you're so smart, why didn't you know a stilleto was an inappropriate canopy? You learned that here, you didn't know that before. What else do you not know? Unfortunately, you don't know what you don't know. But at least you're not ignorant. Dave

With fresh batteries (I use rechargeable AAs), the recycle time on the 580EX II is very fast, especially when the flash is putting out far less than full power. It'll flash every time in short bursts, for example (at 3 FPS on my XTi... not so sure about 6 FPS on my 50D). As the batteries lose power, the recycle time gets longer and longer. The difference can be apparent from the top end of a jump to the bottom end. But I still think I'm better off with multiple sets of AAs than the complications of a battery pack. I don't use flash for skydiving often though... just a handful of jumps with it. Dave

Nobody PLANS to do that, and yet it seems to happen pretty often. That's why low turn fatalities scare the crap out of me... I don't understand them. I have never made a low panic turn. I've never had to "stab out" of a low dive. And I'm willing to bet most people that die from "unintentional" (as USPA calls em) low turns never did it before either. If you assume they were all idiots, it might make you feel better about yourself and your chances of surviving your next jump. But you didn't know them, so try assuming that they were just like you. All of a sudden, low panic turns become a really scary thing. You're flying along, just like you have done for the last 800 jumps, and bam, you're suddenly throwing yourself at the ground for whatever reason. You never thought it would happen to you. Maybe that's exactly what each of them was thinking... Intelligence has nothing to do with our reactions under canopy when things go to crap. And a bigger canopy will go a little slower, so if you're going to turn yourself into the ground, a bigger canopy will help. A new jumper is far more likely to make a mistake like that than a more experienced one. That's why new jumpers should jump bigger canopies that fly and react more slowly. Dave

How about a PT6T Twin-Pac? http://www.pwc.ca/en/engines/pt6t That'd solve the single engine problem. Well, some of it. Not exactly the most efficient way to go. Soloy was developing a Caravan with 2 PT6s, but apparently gave up a while back due to certification issues. Dave

Yeah I thought the whole series of her landing was junk... so much sun flare the pictures. But her canopy covered the sun just enough to save that one. It did get some editing to brighten it up though... Dave

From yesterday... 1. Halloween costume jump... Zombie, Michael Myers (from the Halloween movies), a chicken, and winny the pooh. 2. Closeup of the zombie. 3. Chicken does some sitflying behind pooh. 4. Roger Ponce made his first jump of the year at our DZ... which marks 39 consecutive years of jumping there... every year the DZ has existed. 5. Landing in front of the sun. 6. That's one type of PLF... BTW, a few pics I've posted in this thread have been published in Parachutist. Actually been published 3 months in a row in Parachutist and one in Blue Skies last month. Dave

Huh? How else does anyone get practice shooting tandem videos other than paying their own slot and filming some? I think the first few should be with no camera at all... just going out with some tandems to see how they fly. But your first paid jump should definitely not be your first tandem video. Dave

Val Thal (top), Wayne Snyder. Fountain Hills, AZ. Tony Gonzales photo{{CR}}Parachutist cover Oct. 80 Sorry.

A right engine failure IS safer, but it has nothing to do with the side the jump door is on... All has to do with the direction the propellers turn. Dave

Your advice is to google "Gspot?" I'm sure that'll keep him occupied but I doubt it'll answer his question!

By request... Dave

What time you working? Some of us will be jumping in costumes that day. Well, I'll be taking pics of people jumping in costume anyway... Dave

Ok, I have located a king air cowl for you, but you're gonna have to repaint it yourself... Dave

Ahh, kodiak woulda been a good idea. I started with porters, but they are too boxy. So I went with the caravan (that one isn't using its PT6 anymore!) since I have so many pics of it. But the exhaust is actually from an Epic. Well, a microsoft flight simulator model of an Epic. Didn't even notice I wasn't working with a real photograph until after i was done.

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1783356;search_string=hard%20drive;#1783356 (found in under 1 minute by searching this forum for "hard drive") Dave

Is this about right? Dave

Well, it won't be readily available until it's an option on the rig order form and the receivers are on the dropzones, ready to go. I ALMOST got a great demonstration of it when we had a skyhook demonstration. The rig was normally equipped with the device, but since the battery in the receiver was dead, the transmitter wasn't installed. The canopy went missing. A quick call to george galloway confirmed that the receiver uses standard batteries which could have been replaced easily. Doh! We did find the canopy eventually. Our DZ was looking into these systems earlier this year after we lost a tandem main. I think that's where you'll motivate DZs to get the receiver... high value gear that they own. Then once the receiver is on the DZ, jumpers are going to be much more willing to buy into the system. But without transmitters and receivers in common use, it's not readily available and never was. Dave

I think reserve size changes things too. We had a jumper lose his main on sunday. He landed (off the DZ) before his main touched down, as far as I could tell anyway. And the main had balled up, so it wasn't coming down slowly. He had no chance to follow it. I think that if a canopy tracking product was made readily available, it would be far more popular in some parts of the world than others. At some DZs, people generally walk to their cut away mains... others have canopy eating woods surrounding them and not so many convenient outs. Dave

Ok, but this is a website where we discuss such things. If you don't want to read about it, don't read this. We don't "do things" on here, we talk about things. People have done things like contacting USPA, which apparently stayed quiet on the matter. I just find it funny when people post that we should stop talking about something on here, or when people get mad that someone (like USPA) doesn't respond to the complaints about whatever the topic of the day is on here. This IS the place to talk, it is NOT the place to get anything accomplished. Dave

Not quite true. Once you start evals, practice time is over. You don't just declare which jumps are evals. My course did cat D evals first and moved on to Cat C after we passed. Here's some of what I think can be different between a course now and a older course... We were able to "go hot" from the 20 minute call to the climbout on a practice jump. So all that in-plane stuff got evaluated on a practice jump. For the first actual eval, we went hot in the door, so we didn't have to do all the plane stuff. The Cat C eval brought it all together and had to be complete from 20 minute call to debrief. But for the first eval, pressure was way off because we could spend the plane ride thinking about the jump and not worrying about a mock student the whole time. In the plane, evaluators were good students. The fun didn't start until exit. Not like in my coach course where my evaluator handed his goggles to someone else behind by back, turned his altimeter so it looked broken, etc. That same evaluator did AFF evals a long time ago and really messed with students bigtime. There was really none of that at the AFF course. The intensity level was lowered a bit for evals. No idea how the eval difficulty compared to other courses. But I do know they challenged us much more during practice. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I have my doubts that eval jumps were any easier than practice jumps at the old course. Finally, ground evals. Ya couldn't fail. Literally. I don't think teaching ability was evaluated in any way. It was thoroughly debriefed... a very good learning experience. But I don't think the old course would have passed so many people through, based on ground evals alone. I know that my course was not the same as other modern courses in this regard though. Dave

Well, that last one was just a counter argument. I'm not comparing spaceland to skyride anyway... I'm comparing the responses in this thread from "partner protection" supporters to typical posts made by skyride supporters in other threads. "how does this affect you personally?" "the dropzone is really nice..." "they're just trying to make a profit..." I find it especially funny to hear that first one from people vocally opposed to skyride. Dave

You have 3 PT6s and 3 206s... coincidence? I think not. Forget 6 seats... you've got 18 seats! Business case? C'mon, you know it'd be cool and you know you wanna do it! And I know a DZ that would use it! Dave

Are you kidding? Read posts by ASC jumpers... skyride has provided that DZ with wonderful facilities! That's a major excuse locals have made for skyride's practices. The jumpers at that one DZ, home of the eastern skydiving championships (or whatever their website used to say), benefit from skyride with a nice dropzone. Sound familiar?? But I think it's ridiculous to say that "partner protection" is what gave spaceland the resources to improve their facilities. That's your argument, not mine. Spaceland landed 4 partners. How many sponsors did Eloy have last year? Eloy managed to run nationals (many times) without these unnecessary rules. I'm not arguing that spaceland didn't have the right to do this. Of course they did. Next year, I very much hope that USPA ensures that SDC does NOT have this right, but maybe it's too late to change the rules for a DZ that already won the bid. What I'm saying is this doesn't benefit skydivers. Allowing manufacturers to roam around giving away free t-shirts does. Don't you people like free t-shirts and pullup cords? Our gear costs too much as it is... we don't need DZs making it more expensive for manufacturers to give away free stuff or even just information. It's not the end of the world... nobody is suggesting that it is. But like a lot of other things, including skyride, some of us see this as something that isn't good for the sport, in some tiny little way that might not even have a huge affect on anybody. Does that mean we shouldn't discuss it on a skydiving website? Dave

Well, I was going off memory from last year. I looked up the results... a man would have gotten 2nd place last year, but 1st and 3rd would have gone to women (if they were combined). I can't say I follow every acc competition all year to see how the competitors compare, but last year Cheryl had 1 cent after 10 rounds and would have kicked everyone's butt. Top man (2nd place overall) had 4 cents over 11 rounds. Obviously this year a man would have won. There would have been a jump off between a man and woman for 2nd place. I was obviously kidding that men wouldn't ever medal if they were combined. But I think it's pretty clear that men and women are pretty even. I'd like to see them combined, so they can all actually compete against each other. Husbands vs. wives, boyfriends vs. girlfriends, etc. But the men are wussing out... Dave

Exactly why different DZs have different rules for these situations. Most northeast DZs choose a landing direction before boarding. Some pick a direction for everyone, some leave it up to each load. But I'm not sure if any (bigger) DZs just leave it as a free for all. We don't usually have major wind shifts over short periods. When it happens, you end up with a load landing crosswind or downwind. People fall down... makes for good pictures. I understand that might not work out as well at perris. Here though, it sure beats canopies flying in every direction. We also don't have endless room to land, so there's no option of just going somewhere else if you want to land into the wind. It is pretty comical at one really busy DZ which operates multiple otters. On a no wind day, each load picks a landing direction. And sometimes multiple loads are landing together. And it's a fairly small landing area. Fun stuff!