pilotdave

Just got back from my winter florida trip last night... 4 dropzones in 6 days. There are hotels closer to z-hills, but at the advise of a waitress at the ihop in lakeland (we were driving from deland), about 20 miles from z-hills, we stayed up in that area at the holiday inn. Ihop had coupon books with some good prices. Heard that the microtel in z-hills is nice, but I didn't see it. The holiday inn was nice enough that when we decided to spend a second day at z-hills, we drove all the way back to lakeland for the night. Stopped at the ihop to grab another coupon too. Lots of hotels in sebastian. I was there a year ago... actually probably exactly a year ago today. Don't remember where I stayed, but it wasn't very cheap. We did get them to give a really big discount though, when we almost walked out the door when we heard the price for one night. It ended up reasonable for a night. Both are really nice dropzones. I have only been to them on weekdays when they weren't too busy, but had lots of fun. Also spent a day at clewiston... they have a boogie this weekend if you can make it. 2 hours south of lake wales. Nice DZ. Dave

Well, I really think there's a big difference between using booties on a camera suit and using them on an RW suit. I have them on my camera suit (for 4-way video), but I don't think they help all that much for that. I probably do a lot more controlling with my legs since I have my arms out of the way of the camera. But for RW, you learn to use your arms and legs together... I really had trouble using my legs for anything until I got booties. I guess I think there's a bit of a difference between what you're trying to learn for camera and what you're trying to learn for RW. Get the booties and learn to control your legs.... or else ya gotta relearn it after you pick up habbits... Dave

I think your progression was a tad more accelerated than normal...

Well, I know someone using an RRS mount with an L-bracket that works perfectly with a tongue switch in either orientation. I don't know if RRS makes the L-braket or not, but they definitely make the piece on his helmet. It's really nice... Dave

Comments and links to discussions about that video in 4 different languages at http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=4747 Dave

I'd recommend booties right off the bat for an RW suit. You will probably want them eventually (although some jumpers don't use them), so you might as well get used to them from the start. I added booties to my jumpsuit when I had ~200 jumps since I was advised when I bought the suit that booties weren't for beginners. I think all that did was hold me back for a while. I really didn't start using my legs until I got booties. I think not having them just gets people really focused on just using their arms for control. Legs are much more powerful, especially with booties. And if your instructors don't want you using booties for a while, tuck em in and tape em down. You don't have to use them just because they're there. Dave

You understand that USPA was sued by skyride, not the other way around, right? Jan spoke out against skyride before, during, and after the lawsuit. Skyride didn't like that a national director of the uspa was badmouthing them and then the uspa kicked out their owners and the dropzones they own. Thats why they sued. Jan was named specifically in the lawsuit. I don't know where all this stuff about providing information to the opposing attorney comes from. Jan pissed off the uspa board. They told her to shut up about skyride and she didn't. Good for her... but it probably cost the uspa some money and probably opens the uspa up to another lawsuit from skyride. The uspa is afraid that having a national director that's likely to speak out against skyride publicly will cost them more money. They took down their consumer alert about skyride, but jan still has a whole website about skyride. USPA wants to cut their ties to her. Course I'm just guessing here... Dave

The Neptune2 has a countdown timer. The features list is pretty disappointing actually... it doesn't seem to do anything a neptune doesn't do. And it can't be used as a visual altimeter. The neptune2 pretty seems to blow it out of the water as far as features go. If parasport audibles had a good reputation, it might not be so bad... but after the old skytronic... well... I wouldn't risk it. Dave

In reality, without a powerful flash, backlit pictures aren't going to look great (unless you get that nice silhouette). Any chance you can just stand on the other side of the landing area and get some pics with the sun to your back? At my DZ, I almost always get much better pictures when jumpers are landing to the south than when they are landing to the north, just because of where the sun is. And a lot of times I like to walk way out into the landing area so the sun is behind me. Dave

Considering their track record, you probably won't find too many reviews. Who would buy one? Dave

Yeah you should have been warned. I've held off on updating a few neptunes because they hadn't logged their jumps on paper. And I also write down their jump number and freefall time so I can at least restore those after the update. The good news is that no more updates will delete your logbook again, and future updates will be a lot quicker and easier because the battery doesn't need to be removed anymore. Dave

I try not to associate with the extreme ironing crowd. Too XTREME for me. Dave

Sport mode works great. When you find something you don't like about it, switch to a mode that gives you more control. BTW, a lot of skydiving pictures that get posted to the internet have exif data attached. That includes just about all the camera settings that were used. If you use firefox, you can install an exif viewer plugin. Then you just have to right click on a picture to (sometimes) see all the photographer's secrets. Otherwise you can view exif information using the regular windows picture viewer by looking at the file properties and hitting advanced (or something like that). Dave

I agree with the rubber grommet. I've gone through about 3 tongue switches now... thank god I don't have to splice a wire every time another switch shorts out. I switched from having the wire taped to the outside of the helmet to passing it through a rubber grommet last year... much cleaner/nicer. Really easy too. Dave

Oh yeah? Good to know. I've been accused of being a spammer before, but never a dodgy scammer. I've used a paid yahoo account as my primary email for 5 or 6 years now. Must be scamming myself... FYI, I'd say exactly the same thing about anyone asking for money through western union. That must make you a scammer too.

It's listed as "Homey Airport." And yes, it's in the middle of a huge restricted area. And yeah, you should be able to see that on an aviation GPS. Dave

I had about 700. Shoulda waited till 750. One thing I'll say is that nothing has hurt my flying abilities as much as camera flying. I'm slowly getting better at shooting videos, but my RW skills have seriously suffered. Starting camera flying early has got to be a perfect way to miss those skills altogether. I'm talking outside video (RW). My first unpaid tandem video was about my 100th camera jump (following the rules in the Sigma manual of 500 RW jumps and 100 camera jumps, etc). It got scary after maybe 150 video-only jumps when I added the still camera. That changes everything. I'm unable to just bring the still camera along for the ride and hope to get some good pictures. It takes concentration. The video camera is bad enough... trying to minimize head movement and not getting hands in the video. Makes it hard to check altitude. But with the still camera, I have to concentrate on the jump, on the lighting, and on actually snapping pictures. I mostly stopped jumping my still camera for 4-way videos just because it took too much to concentrate on being in the right spot AND getting any pictures at the same time. Too scary. Dave

Yup, that's the one. It's back up and flying after it got pretty much destroyed in a Tornado in 1979. Now called Liberty Belle. B-17G that never saw combat. I used to know one of the guys that was sent out to Davis Monthan to pick out which B-17 Pratt was gonna buy (in ~1947). The fuselage was cut just aft of the cockpit and rebuilt to be much stronger (and longer of course). Apparently it was quite a sight to see it flying over with all 4 props feathered and one huge prop pulling it along faster than a regular B-17 would go with 4 engines. Dave

How bout this one? Dave

Woohoo I made the front page photo! Course I'm the one NOT flying straight but at least I was in the pic.

I thought it was important to be able to stick your tongue out for freeflying... Must be for controlling the airflow or something. Usually seems to be done right after exit in tight groups. Someone does it in every freefly video I've seen. I assume he's helping control the group like an RW organizer might use his legs to put the base back on heading. That freeflying is complicated stuff. Dave

Yup... Guy Wright and Dr. Pete are organizing. Usually there's at least one formation load toward the end. Video from a couple years ago: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=3313 Dave

Put me down for maybe. I'll be in FL that weekend (leaving sunday) at another boogie. We'll see... I used to go to the UF boogie when it was at williston (and I was in college, except 3 years ago). Dave

Don't know about demos or lended rigs, but deland has very nice rental rigs... Vector 3s mostly I think with Sabre2s and probably other canopies. I rented there once when I was down there for some tunnel time without a rig. Wasn't cheap though. I would hope they wouldn't give you a 190 at that loading. I might even be at deland one of those days... I'll most likely be there on the 14th. Hopefully traveling to a few DZ over the week. Dave

Check out this video and pause it during the slow motion deployment. Watch the slider... http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=6386 His slider comes down before the canopy even begins to slow him down. You can see it's fully inflated at the beginning. Hard to tell from the compressed video, but it looks like maybe the back of the slider started coming down first, kind of dumping the slider drag. It actually looks like the slider collapses itself on the way down. So what's the technical explanation for this one? Dave