pilotdave

UMBC's club is separate, and last I heard it was basically inactive. UMCP's club was started in '98 and a couple UMBC guys have jumped with us a bit. We do jump at Delmarva. Dave http://www.umd.edu/studentorg/cpsc (My other site)

Lewis, I would but you know I where Duke's colors, not ours

I'll be there, but I dunno about a big(ish) way. I'd love to do some smaller jumps though. Maybe i'll see some of you there (if yer lucky...).

Hmm.. I was probably just restarting the server when ya tried. Try again, should be working fine now. Sorry about that. See ya, Dave

Adrenaline Rush Challenge, The learning channel. 4 people have to make an AFF jump while wearing heart rate monitors. Whoever's heart rate rises the least from resting wins that challenge. Pretty cool. I recorded it and have it up on my server. tlc-challenge.mpg (97 megs) and tlc-challenge2.mpg (60 megs). Sorry about the file size.... I'll try to shrink em down later. http://www.skydivingmovies.com Dave

How blind? What was your prescription? Last time i asked about it my eye doctor said they couldnt go up to my prescription yet but they're getting better every year. Some day I'll do it... Dave

Have ya tried http://www.skydivingmovies.com?

What about me Tom? I wouldnt lie about your cross dressing self, would I?

New on my skydiving videos ftp server... chat with me and anyone else! Just open the file !chat.html. You've got the option of chatting directly with me (one on one) or entering the "public" chatroom where you can talk to anyone else that's in there. Open up the chatroom when you open my site and you can chat with each other while you watch videos. Come say hi: http://www.skydivingmovies.com. See ya, Dave

I saw it when I was home but didnt get a chance to tape it. I wish I got that channel here. Very good show. Dave

This sounds like a perfect opportunity to announce my new pricing structure. Now that you're hooked, access to the server will just cost $5 per minute. I accept visa, masterc..... just kidding. Thanks for the support! I'll probably be at freezefest at cross keys (i'm the one having all sorts of trouble packing an extremely easy to pack F111 canopy...), so anyone that wants to buy me jump tickets will have the opportunity (just kidding...at least half kidding...).

My skydiving movies FTP server is back up. http://www.skydivingmovies.com. Happy downloading! Dave

The padding is soft enough that the ear pieces aren't a problem. It's just the lenses bumping into the visor that causes problems for some people. Since the size of the helmet is only determined by the lining and all the shells and visors are the same, I'm guessing people with smaller heads probably have an easier time with glasses because of the extra space in it. I wear a medium and can put it on or take it off with my glasses on my face with no problem. I still haven't actually jumped it yet though to put this into practice. I'll probably be trying it for the first time at Freeze Fest at x-keys. I'll learn if it fogs up in the cold REAL quick too! Dave

I think everyone should have at least as many jumps as posts! I better start jumping more... my posts are catching up I think. Which will come first for me? Enthusiast level or B license?

I had to repeat level 4. On my first try, I was spinning and spinning and spinning. Not very fast, but out of control. Eventually the JM docked on me straight ahead of me and we got the spin stopped and I pulled. I ended up landing WAY off the airport in someone's front yard. That was because of some low clouds that came through... I couldnt see the airport and the guy with the radio couldnt see me... till it was too late. After all that though I could still honestly say it was the funnest jump I had done yet. Even when things don't go perfect, its still skydiving and its still fun. Don't take it too seriously and worry so much about passing each level on your first try. Just go with it, have fun, and you'll be more relaxed. Relaxation is one of the keys to learning to skydive, so it'll really help. If you were able to relax and enjoy your tandems, you shouldn't have any trouble with AFF. After all, you've already jumped out of a plane without wearing a chute. What's more extreme than that? Dave

Sounds like a video on my server. It'll be back up by saturday night. That one's in the /from tv/german tv/ folder. Don't remember the exact filename at the moment. A guy in a wingsuit gets dragged behind a B-25 (he crawled out where the tail gun would normally be). the cable went back and forth tearing into the skin of the plane until the harware holding the cable to the plane snaps. No good footage of him getting, ummm, schwacked. It's pretty funny... once the cable breaks he's forced to land wherever he happened to be. The end of the video is the camera crew driving up to some random house where he's sitting drinking wine with whoever lives there. I once landed in someone's front yard. They offered me a ride but not wine. Must be a european thing.

You've probably got that right. I'm at a school of over 30,000 students and our club has about 6 or 7 "regulars." When we really do a good job advertising a skydiving trip, we can get over 30 first timers to come along. About a fifth of them usually do AFF and the rest tandem, but almost nobody comes back for another jump and only a few have gone on to get their licenses. Dave

Seems to me it's not the frames as much as the shape of your face that matters. My glasses fit just fine under the Z1. They're small, but not tiny. Bring the helmet to a glasses store, and start trying on frames. Maybe you'll find a pair that's shaped right to fit. I dunno how bad your eyes are, but I'm not sure if they make goggles that accept strong prescription lenses. Dave

Totally depends on the school and their funding policies, but the short answer, at least for the near future, is no. University clubs that own gear (such as georgia tech, which owns 7 rigs i think) are well established clubs. At my school, and probably most schools, the amount of funding a club can get increases with time, beginning with no funding the first year. I happen to be the president of a collegiate skydiving club which is about 4 years old now. We were able to get funding for van rentals and advertising (in the school paper) for the upcoming semester. We asked for the university to pay for part of each student jump to cut the price down a bit, but that didnt get approved. We wouldn't even think about asking for gear (and dont forget rigging to go with it). So, my best advice for you is to just get established. My school has very set, strict procedures for getting money from the SGA (student government). Find out what you have to do, and start off small. Unless your school works very different from mine, you'll have graduated long before they'll spend enough money on your club to purchase and maintain gear. See ya, Dave

I am definitely not saying being a jump pilot is easy or commercial pilots already have the necessary training. They definitely need to learn a lot before they can safely fly jumpers. I just think it should be the responsibility of the dropzones to ensure their pilots are properly trained. If they don't, well, I see that as negligence. But just because it's not in the laws (FARs) or recommendations (SIM), that doesn't mean it's not important. Getting the FAA involved in anything related to skydiving certification is just a bad idea. We definitely don't want FAA designated jump pilot examiners or anything like that. The USPA can require anything it wants for its group members. I just don't trust that they could start a simple program like requiring new jump pilots to get sign offs from experienced ones without it costing a huge amount of money and a lot of trouble for new and old jump pilots. Chris, I'm sure you're a really experienced jump pilot. How would you like it if one day the USPA told you that you can't fly any more jumpers at a USPA dropzone until you attend an expensive jump pilot certification course taught by someone with half the number of hours as you? Thats exactly the way I picture it happening if the USPA got involved in something like that. Maybe not... who knows, but I wouldn't want to test those waters. Dave

I defintiely wouldnt want the FAA to make any requirements. Keep them out of skydiving wherever possible. The USPA can go ahead and require a signoff for pilots at group member DZs if they want, but who would sign them off? Just seems like a bit of a waste of energy and an area where a lot of pilots could get screwed over. Maybe I'm totally wrong but it seems to me DZs only hire pilots with the appropriate experience for the type of plane they're flying, and they train them on jump procedures. Making it "official" doesnt seem necessary to me. Dave

HAHAHA! It's currently running on a p2-350, 192 megs of ram, total of 40 gigs of hard drive space, and win 98. Oh, here's the best part: it's a Gateway! And while it's busy sending out an average of about 15 gigs a week, it's also getting kick ass connection speeds in multiplayer games on the net, editing huge files in photoshop, and stuff like that. Any skydivers play half-life team fortress? And while we're on the subject of UPGRADING my computer to become a low end machine, who wants to donate to the "buy dave a new motherboard" fund?

back to the bag strip theory... http://www.fliteline.com/images/Catapultseqlast.JPG The guy in back is holding on, from what seems to be a terminal deployement (from the rest of the pictures in the sequence), to the bridal with both pilot chutes attached. Shouldnt they be making enough force to rip his arm off? How realistic is the possibility of bag strip? Dave

Linux shminux. The servers may run better but my fingers might get tired from typing all the commands!

I've only been once, but I swear I've never heard the word "nutsack" said over a loud speaker so many times in my life.