pilotdave

Let's recap using last year's nationals as an example. PD wind blades in the landing area: OK Bud Light signs and cypres wind blades: Good to go! President of Aerodyne handing out free t-shirts: BZZZZZZ! He didn't pay his advertising bill! Send him home! I can understand rules like this if the non-official advertising gets out of hand. If people were putting up windblades all over the facility, or hanging signs that look "approved." But that's just not what happens, is it? I wonder how much it would cost to hand out free t-shirts at spaceland's nationals? Edit: Just to be clear, these are examples only... I have no clue whether or not PD and Aerodyne were official sponsors. Dave

I think this is one of those important items that should be noted in a DZ's bid to host nationals. I'd hope that USPA wouldn't choose a DZ that would do something like that. I think it's complete BS. Seems to be just an attempt to force team sponsors to become official event sponsors. I didn't see anything wrong with the way teams advertised their sponsors at last year's nationals (the only one I've been to). It was obvious which advertisements were "official." Hope this sort of thing doesn't become the norm... Dave

From yesterday... Last 2 were supposed to be a high hop n' pop at sunset for some pretty pictures. But a high overcast made it especially dark. Bumped the camera to ISO 3200, which looks awful. But I managed to get some that are alright, if you ignore the noise. Never got city lights in the background like that before. Dave

Both of em are sleeping. HA! I crack myself up. Dave

Not in my experience. I've done a few jumps from ~21,000 and found that most people's altimeters stop at about 18,000 (as advertised). My previous altimeter stopped at 17,000. Dave

Works fine for me! Seriously though, I won't be making it publicly accessible from here. The site needs some serious professional hosting. My cable internet couldn't even come close to handling it. Last time I switched hosts, I had to upload all the files. It took about a week. And the upload slowed waaaay down in the middle. I called the cable company to find out what was wrong. Turned out they thought I was running a server and throttled back my connection. I explained that the upload was a one time thing and was almost done and they turned my speed back up. The site has grown a LOT since then. Dave

22 hours into backing up the server and we're 47% finished. Seems like I'm not doing this the fastest way possible. Dave

I thought I probably had something, but I realized that I've been to Deland probably 5 times and never jumped an Otter there. I've jumped the skyvan, porter, and even the 182, but never an otter. I sure was surprised when I showed up in January a couple years ago and the 182 taxied up. Dave

I never look forward to winter jumping, but it is fun! I used to think 40 was too cold. Then 30. Now I pretty much just jump and don't worry too much about the temperature. Plenty of jumping in the 20s last winter. But SC? Come on, they barely even have winter. Come visit CT when the snow falls! More pics: http://www.skydivingstills.com/keyword/snow. Dave

It works! We're online! Well... I am anyway. And some images won't load. But close enough! I'm currently backing up all the site files, all the videos, and the database. We'll be back... Edit: I think the backup is going to take all night and this thing is literally louder than my air conditioner. I can stand right next to the AC, across the room from the server, and I still hear the server right over it. Dave

If you've got GPS, what do you need a good pilot for? Dave

Not a jump pilot so I can't answer your questions, but our DZ has a bubble window on our 182 and it seems to work quite well. The pilots seem to make good use of it. They can actually look down without banking way over and making everyone sick. Don't know what depth it is... maybe you can tell from the pics. Don't know of any problems with it other than it tends to collect dust on the inside and dirt on the bottom of the outside. Dave

Something like this... Dave

Before you buy anything, talk to instructors at your DZ about your choices, if you haven't already. Make sure the seller will let you try the canopy before you agree to buy it. There definitely are differences between 7-cells and 9-cells and more importantly between different models of canopies. You might love one 7-cell and hate another. Or you might hate 7-cell canopies altogether. You won't know what you like or dislike until you try at least a couple. Make sure you're buying smart... don't get screwed. Read the advice on here about buying used equipment and talk about your choices and prices with someone you trust. Dave

We had a jumper with a brand new Wings that had the friction adapter installed incorrectly. I can't describe exactly what was wrong with it, but some webbing didn't run through it correctly... it was manufactured wrong. Luckily it was caught before he jumped it and sent back to get fixed. I doubt you're having that issue since I think this one would have come loose on every jump, but it's probably worth having a rigger inspect it very carefully and compare it to another rig with the same hardware. It was a subtle difference that I know I would have never spotted myself. Dave

In case anyone was curious, here's what SkydivingMovies.com looks like right now. It runs! Loud as hell. I think I could use the fan in it to cool my apartment. It runs a unix operating system with no graphical interface, so I needed a lesson in how to log into it. Actually someone talked me through hacking into it since the supplied password didn't seem to work. And it isn't quite on the network yet. That will be tomorrow's project. Course I won't be sharing the link or my cable company would shut me off in about 10 minutes. I've had a few offers and ideas as for what to do with the site. It looks like the future is bright for SkydivingMovies.com. Unfortunately nobody has offered me $1 million for it yet, but maybe these enticing pics will change someone's mind. Dave

Thanks for the info! Guess it's time for another reline. This beats the couple of hard openings I got before to let me know it was time for a reline. Not sure if I've had even a single hard or even brisk opening since it was relined in 2006 or so. Dave

Any ideas what might cause a stabilizer or end cell to hold the slider up? See attached pics... this has been happening for months now on occasion. It's not something the canopy has always done. I have probably at least 1400 jumps on this canopy. On some openings, it looks pretty much like end cell closure, but one corner of the canopy will hold the slider up. Either on it's own or with a pump of the rear risers, the canopy will pop open and the slider will come down. The canopy has been inspected by multiple riggers. There doesn't seem to be anything physically wrong with it. Have not had the trim checked... it is most likely a bit out of trim since the lines were replaced a few years ago (2nd lineset). But the lines appear to be in good shape. The slider stops on the canopy are in place. The only issue found was some stitching on the edge of the slider had come undone. A rigger thought that maybe that side of the slider was inflating a little bit and getting more drag, shoving that side into the slider stops on opening. He fixed the stitching, but the problem continues every now and then. Hard to believe it's a packing issue since it has happened with multiple packers and I've packed the canopy so many times myself. It usually seems to happen with the left front corner of the canopy/slider. But I have had it happen on the right side too. Any ideas? Again, it's been inspected (for this particular issue) by multiple very experienced riggers. It's nothing obvious. It's also not a really big deal since it has always come out and it's fairly tame while happening. But I would like to figure out what's going on. Edit: to be clear, those are four different openings on four different dates. Dave

If you think it's easy, go for it. There's plenty of interest. I've been to an Army helmet testing lab and it's just as simple as you're describing. They have drop towers, instrumented heads, weights on pendulums, and all that other stuff. Just need lots of helmets and an expert to analyze the data. Easy and cheap. Well, except for all that helmet testing and analysis. Easy and cheap to write about at least. It's easy to look at materials and guess at which one will absorb impact better. But there's a lot more to it than that. How does the helmet spread out the force? Do parts of the helmet concentrate forces? What if the helmet takes an impact right on a rivet or a hinge? Would it be better or worse than no helmet at all? Does the helmet move in relation to the head when it gets hit from certain angles? And coming up with test criteria would be a whole project. Where and how hard do you hit the helmets? There have been many threads on here asking what helmet is the safest. There's interest. People think the protec provides the best protection because it has certifications. But you can't compare a tested helmet with an untested helmet. They need to be tested to the same criteria. And I am not sure if the criteria skateboarding helmets are tested to is right for skydiving. Dave

Are you going to share your research? Unless someone ponies up the money to do real impact testing on skydiving helmets (not to mention coming up with test criteria), I doubt we'll ever really know what helmets provide better protection than others. But if we're just concerned with minor kicks to the head, I doubt it matters much. I'd take an untested full face over a protec if I want to avoid getting my nose broken by a foot or elbow. Which helmet does best for a tail strike or a hard crash landing on pavement? No way of knowing... without testing. Dave

And then he stopped jumping one. I don't know his reason, but I bet it isn't because he got a better deal on a Vortex. Dave

Don't be ridiculous. I'm sure she didn't overprice it by that much. I'M KIDDING! Dave

Some new ones... "206 trail" was shot with a 300mm lens. He was pretty far back. Of course he moved right into position right after we closed the door and I passed the lens to the pilot to store away. Hope to try that again sometime. Dave

Unless your pilot chute was wrapped around the horizontal stabilizer, don't blame yourself for that one. Dave

Depends on the pilot. All pilots do practice landing and taking off without an airspeed indicator during flight training. It's not a big deal. But for jumping, I'd definitely want a very experienced pilot. I have done it when a DZ had a clogged pitot tube in the middle of the day. One pilot wouldn't fly, but another much more experienced (in that particular plane) pilot would. When the pilot has flown the same jumprun thousands of times in the same plane, he'll be able to hear and feel if he's too fast or too slow. But I wouldn't want to be getting on a larger or more complex plane without an airspeed indicator. Dave