pilotdave

This is interesting to me. When I got a camera a couple years ago, I did a lot of searching on dropzone.com and the consensus was that sony tapes are the best and never use anything else. What's DSE use?

Well, I agree that the lawyers got the most out of it, but at least a lot of people got alerted about skyride and their business practices. You aren't making much of a point though. You keep talking about how skydivers shouldn't associate ASC (adventure skydiving connecticut?) and their jumpers with skyride, but then you say that you get treated great everywhere you go. You say that skyride is bad, then you say that they are just trying to get more customers by advertising where they don't do business. The fact is that ASC jumpers support the owners of skyride, which supports skyride. They use their crooked tactics against their local competition. Last thing we need is for ASC to expand to the areas where nobody will do business with them. ASC=skyride, whether or not you agree with what they do. Dave

After 27 years in skydivng, you can't see that skyride is bad for the sport? It's not a DZO problem... lots of shitty DZOs work with them. It's a skydiving problem. Trouble is that it's the DZOs (or the government) that can do anything about it. As long as there's a turbine plane at the DZ, it's all good, right? Dave

You want the regular one. The digital plug would be for cameras like the 40D. Dave

Unless he mean the new 40D... 400D isn't so new. Dave

That's a shitty thing to say. For the most part, I agree with him. The fact that skyride is still in business, which in my opinion is hurting the sport, is the fault of the DZOs that accept their certificates and nobody else. The DZOs are to blame (along with the crooks at skyride themselves). Those DZOs could take the high road, but they choose not to. They could probably market themselves more successfully if they spent a fraction of the money they lose to skyride on advertising. I don't know of any blind and deaf DZOs, so there aren't any DZOs that can claim ignorance to what Skyride is all about. They know who they are dealing with. Dave

There are plenty of DZs open all winter within driving distance of NYC. Shouldn't be a problem to make a few hop n' pops every month to stay current, if that's all you want to do. Getting current shouldn't be too hard... Good idea to read the SIM. Exactly what you have to do will depend on what DZ you go to and what the instructor/coach feels you need. At a minimum: http://www.uspa.org/publications/SIM/2008SIM/section5.htm#52D How much it will cost will depend on the DZ and how much you need to do. At my DZ, I'd guess it would cost you a jump ticket and gear rental (unless you have your own), but it depends. Dave

As I posted earlier, the problem with the rig in the video was soft housings on the rig. I'd assume he didn't have hard housings on the risers either, but I don't think that contributed to what you see in the video. Dave

I think you're blowing this a little out of proportion. They kicked the owners of skyride and the dropzones they own out of the USPA. Seemed like a good move at the time. But they were well aware that it was a mistake as soon as skyride sued. They knew they were going to lose as soon as they talked to their lawyers, or soon after. So at some point they needed to start listening to their lawyers. That's the smart thing to do when somebody sues you. I think its great that they put that statement up. It's basically saying "we had to let them back in even though they are criminals. And we had to take down the consumer alert about the 1-800-skyride-scam. We aren't going to tell our members how to run their businesses no matter how crooked they are." Hardly an advertisement for skyride. The USPA screwed up bigtime by kicking them out. But I'm still glad they didn't consult their lawyers and wuss out way back then. They took a stand and did what was right. Turns out it might not have been legal. Oh well. I do think USPA needs an overhaul. I think the GM program should be dropped immediately. As far as I can tell, it just lets dropzones advertise that they are members. As if that means anything more than that they paid a fee. I guess group members can also look up individual members in the computer. I guess they'll need a way for DZs to do that, because I think most dropzones would still require membership even if the GM program was gone. Dave

How about the pepperell casa boogie? I never get to see pics of me... Dave

Anyone have a good example of one of their really quickly edited (nonlinear) tandem videos they could post? I barely ever do tandem videos, mostly because I take so long to edit. I once paid $30 to have one video edited for me. Just curious how a really quick edit compares to one of my videos. I have Vegas Pro now... that will help because I used to use 2 different programs and render 3 separate times. But I'm still struggling to figure out how to speed up my editing. I never dealt with linear editing... I shoot knowing I'll be able to chop the video up, move things around, cut parts out, and put it all back together. That's my biggest problem. I also need to go back and watch my first jump video and remember how thrilled I was with it. As far as editing goes, it had the sky turn a funny color on takeoff, and had a title that said "David's Skydive" and I was thrilled with it. I think maybe I go a little overboard with my videos...

I believe the hard cutaway in the video was caused by soft housings on the rig (the main path for the cutaway cables to the risers), not because of a lack of hard inserts in the risers. Just pointing that out to avoid confusion. Housings in the risers are good to have. Hard housings in the rig are CRITICAL. Dave

Better quality version with less annoying sound track, along with comments by the guy in the video: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1209 Dave

You don't wanna share your scripts by any chance, do ya? My copy of vegas pro arrives from Amazon.com tomorrow. ($343 after mail-in rebate). Dave

Did it work before with that same battery? Got another battery to try? Dave

Would you measure the top skin or the bottom skin if there was a difference? Even planes don't get their wing area measured directly, since the dihedral and the imaginary part of the wing inside the fuselage affect the "effective" wing area. Guess the answer is just because it's more complicated than that. Dave

An Avenger weighs more than three T-6s. Pretty amazing size difference for two planes that look somewhat similar. Dave

When skyride tried to get our DZ to accept their certificates, they wanted something like a $35-40 discount per tandem. I'm convinced that if a DZ spent a fraction of those losses on effective advertising, they would do more business than skyride possibly brings. I'd bet that holds true even in a skyride infested area like southern CA. Believing that they HAVE to accept skyride because their competition does is just short sighted and lazy. If a DZ wants to spend $40/tandem on advertising, come see me. I want in on that and I'm sure I could get real creative. Dave

Well, #1 applies to any risers/toggles. (I assume he meant the tab on the toggle going through the cats eye above the metal ring). And I don't understand #2. How does having the pin not quite all the way in cause a brake release? I can see that it might cause the top of the toggle to not be seated as tightly as possible, but I can't see how it will definitely cause a brake release. Maybe I (or my packer) always push them in all the way, but I never think about it so I doubt it. Dave

I hate watching riggers work.... everything they do looks wrong to me. Seeing the inside of a reserve container is like watching open heart surgery. Just gross.

One pin is "that much hardware?" I've got somewhere around 1000 jumps on risers with trulock toggles and no problems. They work well... I don't see how they're overkill. I'd guess any big problems are caused by mistakes in setting the brakes and stowing the excess line. I stow em just like the manual shows and teach anybody packing for me how to do it correctly. Dave

At real dropzones, I think I've heard the 45-degree rule taught twice, and I've heard it explained to be nonsense at least a dozen times. I'd bet those numbers would be reversed if kallend wasn't posting this stuff. Dave

Up until this year, it worked exactly like that at my DZ. Video was independent from the DZ and the video guys got all the revenue for video. This year, it's similar except that the slot price for tandem videos went up to $32, so the DZ basically gets an extra $10 for each video. But aside from that and standardized pricing and packages, the video guys are independent from the DZ. Provide our own equipment, supplies, editing, packing, etc. Dave

The 45 degree rule is not coming back to dropzones that dropped it like Skyride is... Education is working. Slowly. Dave

Every 182 is different... but yeah, they should try to minimize anything a jumper might snag on. I've jumped Deland's 182... gorgeous plane, but the rear seat brackets are still installed (so the seat can be put in when the plane is used for travelling)... great big snag points. It's really up to the jumpers to be really really careful in any cramped space when moving around. Dave