pilotdave

I dont disagree, but does UPT say that those 100 camera jumps have to be dedicated camera slots anywhere? I've heard that keeping a camera in a jumpsuit pocket doesn't qualify, but never that there are specific requirements for those camera jumps. I'm also told that a toothpick flag in a pocket doesn't qualify as a flag jump for a pro rating. What gives?!

Where shall I send the bill? Dave

His shots have the exif data intact. He was in Tv mode. Dave

Tends to make you pitch forward. A student could flip right over, but for the most part it is more likely to cause harder openings. See attached pic of someone doing it. You can see how head-low it put her. Since we would still slow down and wave off after tracking, this would not help increase separation. Dave

It's funny how different opinions can be. I'd give the exact opposite advice. Forget wingsuiting for now and focus on RW. I think it's a lot more useful and will help keep him from turning into a one-trick-wonder like so many wingsuiters. No offense.

Just my opinion... you can't learn very much that will help you fly a wingsuit in the tunnel. Maybe with your body awareness you'd be able to fly the suit really well... but that's not the point. The 200 jumps are for getting awareness of everything else around you. They're for dealing with linetwists and having altitude awareness. The wingsuit adds complexity to the jump in a lot of ways. Equipment complexity, emergency procedures, flight planning, RW skills, etc. So again, just my opinion, but work on RW skills and things you can't do in the wind tunnel and get 200 canopy deployments and landings before you consider putting on the wingsuit. Dav

How's this work for ya? My thumb is still a little sore from all the wing flapping I was getting from dropping down to them. Dave

I always used my XTi in the landscape picture style. It does bump up the saturation and the sharpness a little. Not even sure what my 50D is set to right now. Dave

You might want to get a book on photoshop for photographers. There are zillions of them. You can learn how to use photoshop to really improve photos instead of just applying canned effects. Anyone that's used photoshop would look at those pictures and say "eh, 3 seconds in photoshop." Use the power of photoshop to make your pictures better, not gimmicky. Just my opinion. Don't get me wrong, crazy special effects are fine every now and then, but applying built-in photoshop filters just doesn't do anything for me. Dave

I didn't understand at first, but I figured it out. Scotty mentioned his moment of thrust in the first paragraph... "When I farted the dyno broke." The thrust only lasts a moment, but it's powerful.

Some of my favs... Dave

I don't see your point. This is one example. I'm sure not every base jumper has been charged for their rescues either. When a base jumper goes into wires in front of a crowd of spectators and makes national news, they probably deserve a freebie rescue too.

http://www.uspa.org/USPAMembers/Safety/SafetyDay.aspx Dave

They will probably put him in a hanging harness to practice his emergency procedures, quiz him a bit to make sure he remembers important stuff, and find someone trustworthy to take him up on a jump and air him out. He's probably stale from being on the ground so long.

Don't know about your dropzone, but normally most jumpers aren't on teams. We just jump. Just go to the DZ or call and speak with an instructor about getting current. It won't be a big deal. Then get jumping. Your DZ will have people that will want to jump with you, I'm sure. Don't even worry about it. Just get out there and jump. It's great that you got your A before taking time off... Won't be nearly as much trouble to get current now. Dave

If you want to be a skydiver, you are going to spend all of your money on skydiving. ALL of it. You can work toward an A-license for as long as you want. You can be a student forever if you want and keep renting gear for 10 years. But realistically, you won't want to do that. It will get boring very fast. You'll probably quit during or after AFF, or you'll want to really become a skydiver which will mean completing your license, buying gear, and jumping. If you accept that all your money now belongs to the dropzone of your choice, it makes spending it a lot easier. Dave

I have fun with them. My goal is to find out the name of the company that's actually calling. I once tracked down a company that was sending me spam and spoke with their lawyer on the phone. Well, he was supposedly their lawyer. The secretary was nice until I asked what it's like to work for a spammer. She did not like that question. I was getting the car warranty thing on my work phone for a while. It was a recording... press 1 to speak with a representative. They ask for the make and model of your car... so instead i asked what company he was calling from. Click. Next time, first thing I said was "Don't hang up. What company do you work for?" He responded, "that's gonna get you hung up on." Click. Third time, I got a woman. She actually gave me the name of the company. I googled them and found that they are the skyride of the car warranty world... complete fraud. They haven't called back. I was really looking forward to it. When I was in college, I had the regulation that made telemarketing calls to cell phones illegal printed out at my desk. Got a phone from "visa" or something. Got the telemarketing company's name and asked the guy if he knew the call was illegal. He said it wasn't. I told him that he had called my cell phone, and that was illegal. He said he didn't know it was a cell phone, but it didn't matter because that's the number I gave his company. I reminded him that I didn't give his company my number. He said "oh, well this is what your university provided." Aha! Anyway, I asked for a written apology. I got a form letter explaining their do not call policy. I wasn't satisfied. Dave

That's all it comes down to for me. There are plenty of free places to post videos that don't require yet another password to simply view them. Which ones don't reencode/recompress your videos?

Yep, I was at Eloy for nationals. Not quite as fun as the holiday boogie, but I wasn't excited to leave. Dave

Don't blame CT weather for not jumping... I don't think CPI's been closed more than 1 or 2 weekends since last fall. I can't even imagine taking a winter off anymore. I'd go nuts. Dave

I'm sure it depends on the size/wingloading. On opening, I just try to keep my feet together so I'm as symmetric as possible. I cant predict which way its going to turn and once it starts, it decides when to stop. It's usually not too bad... 90 or so. Sometimes it starts one way and then switches. After opening I can use harness turns, but it's sluggish. A rear riser turn with the brakes stowed doesn't want to stop on it's own. It's typical for me to start a rear riser turn and then kill my slider, then unstow my brakes to stop the turn. If I'm slow, I might miss the heading I want before I get my brakes unstowed, long after releasing the riser. Sometimes I can stop the turn with harness input but not always. But to prove that skydivers like and recommend whatever POS they own, I like and recommend the Sabre2.

Tandem instructors do it for free and video guys get paid? After trying both, I'd say that's backwards. Or at least the tandem instructors deserve to get paid. Some work at a club should be volunteer work. Hurling yourself out of a plane with another person attached to you and actively trying to kill you isn't one of them... in my opinion. And I've only done tandems with experienced jumpers in front of me... that was bad enough. Dave

If mine wants to turn, it's going to turn. Trying to control it during the opening doesn't seem to have much of an effect. Pulling a left riser when it decides to turn right just makes for a wierder opening. It snivels straight, then when I'm thinking it's on heading, it turns hard. I just get on the rear risers and put it back on heading when it's done doing its thing. Dave

I explained it before. It's so that we can gather email addresses and sell them to spammers. DUH! Or what Fast said above. That could be it too. The web hosting is donated. It would cost well over $1000/month if we were paying. Registration keeps the load on the server low, so downloads are fast and available for those that care enough to register. I'm not sure what the big deal is... yes, it's annoying. That's the point. 63,000+ registered users don't seem to mind too much though. Dave

Almost always off heading for me. Could be body position, but I have over 1000 jumps on mine and I just think I'd get it right by accident a little more often. It's not packing either... I had a PD rep pack it and it gave me a 270 (which is only 90 degrees off heading... not too bad