pilotdave

You rely on it to do exactly nothing when it's not supposed to be doing anything. Unfortunately the older vigils have proven to not be so great at that. The new ones may have fixed the bugs, but a lot of people that used to believe they were superior are now sitting back and waiting for the beta testers to make sure. Especially people that have witnessed a misfire first hand. (Always strange the way skydivers need to see something with their own eyes to learn a lesson...) Dave

I think you're seeing two reports of the same incident. One as originally reported by whoever wrote the fatality report (2-way) and then the USPA's description of the same incident (tandem). Dave

3000 according to the fatality report here. Dave

2K Composites FF2 was the best I could find for a sidemount helmet. Not cheap, but meets your criteria (cutaway system costs extra). Dave

And just to be clear, the US has no rule about number of jumps required to shoot video either. So this has nothing to do with different rules between the US and SA. Dave

No idea... they've never offered that. There's a fedex (air) location less than 10 minutes away. But air and ground seem to be pretty much different companies. If ground could deliver to the air location, I'd be all set. Dave

Yeah... it's equivalent to setting a plane's altimeter to 1013 (29.92 in the US) while on the ground and seeing what altitude it shows. If the barometric pressure that day is 1013, it'll show the ground elevation. Dave

Almost... It's a CASA 207 Azor, which is a scaled up version of the 202. Only used by the Spanish Air Force I think... replaced by the CASA 212 Aviocar (the one WE call "CASA"). Dave

Nope and nope. It's european... It was used for carrying paratroopers among other things. Its replacement, which came quite a while later, is often used as a jump plane, especially at boogies. I'll tell you what country it's from if you still can't figure it out. Dave

Yes to French, no to Breguet. How about the other one? It's cousin (well, maybe nephew?) is a jump plane... Dave

Well, I could tell right away it was a 2-seat modernized version of the wright flyer. I just had to do some searching to find out what replicas are out there. The 1911 Wright Model B replica matched. Dave

Wright Model B replica. Dave

I much prefer UPS to fedex. UPS can have their issues, although I've barely had any. But fedex (ground) just can't get packages to my apartment. They won't leave any packages in the lobby, even if signature is not required by the sender. A driver explained to me that he would be held personally responsible if my package was lost, and since he can't know the value of the package, he won't take the risk. That seems really messed up to me that even after I signed for the package (on the slip fedex leaves when they attempt to deliver), it's still up to the driver to decide if I get my package. I might not hate fedex ground if they had a closer office, but any time they try to deliver to me (always when I'm at work), I end up having to drive 40ish minutes to pick up the package at their nearest location. And that's a wonderful experience... gotta go through an abandoned security shed, then through an unmarked door into a building to find a random person sitting in a cubicle. No signs, no front desk... UPS can be weird too... They allow "same day will call" when I find that i missed a delivery early enough. It used to be really shady... Show up between 7 and 9 pm at the closed gate to the parking lot (which happens to be 5 minutes from me). Wait around a while and eventually a guy comes out to take your info. A few minutes later he passes your package through a gap in the chained gate and you sign for it. Feels like a late night drug deal or something. They have a different system for it now which requires going through an employee entrance and showing ID... not as fun. DHL is the worst I've used. Their tracking shows that a package was delivered to me. Nothing there. All the support I got from them was "we'll send a message to the driver" and I never got farther than that. Dave

You might be missing that the tunnel doesn't have to take away from skydiving at all. I did as many jumps last year as I wanted, and still went to the tunnel every month or two. One doesn't necessarily replace the other, unless you want it to. I went to the tunnel pretty much as often as I could afford (thank god it's not a few minutes closer or I'd be broke), and I was still at the DZ every weekend. Tunnels are great tools and a lot of fun (to me)... if you didn't enjoy it, that's fine. But your reasoning for not liking wind tunnels in general doesn't make much sense. You're right... they aren't skydiving. So what? Dave

Give these a shot. Dave

Oh I can get hundreds of shots with IS. I have auto-review shut off... I figure it just wastes battery in freefall for no reason (unless someone's flying right behind me and wants a peak). Before putting my helmet on, I always turn on my still camera, check the settings, then shut the LCD screen off, then turn the camera off. Then before exit I just switch the camera on and I know it's ready to go with the LCD off to save power. The IS sucks battery power compared to non-IS. But battery life is still great. But what I've noticed is that when I'm using IS, once the battery indicator is showing half way down, there's not much left. I used to be able to keep shooting on 0 bars of battery for quite a while with the XT. The XTi with my IS lens is just less predictable. Can't trust the battery meter the same way. But I'm definitely not complaining about battery life. Dave

It's just an approximation based on standard pressure... aka pressure altitude. Gives an approximation of elevation to get an idea of how your canopy performance might be affected. Dave

Yeah dust removal runs on startup and shutdown, not when coming out of standby (although it's never in standby anyway). The XTi is more of a battery hog than the XT, probably mostly because of the LCD screen. But it's the IS that really sucks the juice out of the batteries. Works so well though... With 2 batteries, I don't have any trouble. The battery indicator on my PC1000 is much more accurate. Dave

Well, it's a scam creative advertising... They advertise tandems for $165. You can really do it for that price, but it's a hop n' pop basically. Although I checked their site and they seem to have stopped advertising it. Dave

You might be surprised by how much you actually accomplished in 10 minutes of belly flying. If you didn't enjoy it, I guess it doesn't matter how useful the tunnel is for learning. I wouldn't have spent thousands of dollars for tunnel time if I didn't find it fun. It can be really frustrating and you often don't think you learned a thing, but magically you start getting better and better. I'm sure with 60 jumps you've moved beyond belly flying (pretty sure most people stop after graduating from student status, right?), but coached tunnel time has got to be the quickest way to pick up a lot of skills. Happens when you're not noticing... but I bet you were a better skydiver by the end of your 10 minutes than you were when you started. BTW, I tried back flying last month for my first time in the tunnel after hours of belly flying. So much fun... couldn't stop laughing the entire time I was flying. Dave

Ok, I'll have to go more obscure next time. 1. Commonwealth Aircraft CA-15 2. Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer 3. F+W C-3605 In case you're curious... "This aircraft is based on the EKW C-3603 piston engine fighter bomber developed by the Swiss. They added an Allison T53 turboprop (the same kind that powers the OV-1 Mohawk) to the fuselage resulting in the really long nose. This aircraft first flew in 1968 and a total of 24 aircraft were built. They served primarily as target-tugs for the Swiss Air Force." Dave

I used to be able to go a whole weekend (~1000 shots?) with my Rebel XT on one battery charge. My XTi with an IS lens doesn't last anywhere near as long. And not only that, on the XT I was able to keep shooting for a while after the battery indicator was showing almost nothing left... But with the XTi (and especially with the IS lens), I don't trust the battery once it goes under the halfway mark on the indicator... it won't last much longer. I didn't buy a spare battery until I missed some good (ground) shots with the IS lens because my battery died so much quicker than I was expecting. Dave

Our DZ (operating a grand caravan) started doing lower passes for tandems (10.5ish) occasionally last year, when it would help. Worked great. Only did it when TMs would be making back to back loads. They were all set with their rigs and students by the time the plane landed. Otherwise the plane would be sitting there idling for a few minutes while they rushed like crazy. Made life easier on them. Only complaint I heard was from a video guy that felt like he wasn't getting his money's worth (video guys pay slot+$10 to the DZ). We also did a bunch of low passes for 4-way teams. Makes life a lot easier on them (I LOVE 10.5 passes when doing 4-way video) when making back to backs. But yeah, the faster the plane climbs, the less advantage you'll get from lower passes. But there's still a DZ near here offering tandems from 6000 feet (for the discount price they advertise). Dave

I'll see if I can find a place to put it up (I don't seem to have anywhere I can upload a website right now...). Here's a few to get started... Some of the stuff I have is REALLY obscure. At least one of these shouldn't be TOO bad...

Took this one myself... Kaman K-16. You guys might like a website I used to run. Had a weekly aircraft identification quiz as well as an aircraft silhouette identification quiz. I still have all the files... I should put it back up. Dave