mdrejhon

One theory: On certain helmets when the visor is upwards, the air deflects off the visor and into the helmet, increasing air pressure around your ear area because the wind is now blowing into your face...

I think in 50 years from now, all of these behaviours will be legal, commonplace and accepted. One word: Robodrivers.

The satellites rammed into each other about 6 miles per second into each other, creating thousands of fragments from the aftermath -- it's well over 500-600 pieces when you include debris the size of sand grains. Over ten times faster than two Concorde jets crashing into each other at an approximately 90 degree angle. Some of the fragments did re-entry over Texas, while other fragments are doomed to orbit for thousands of years.

...start your own bigway team. Crazy Eddie's Wild Wild 100-Way Camp. There has been some changes to the rules for the 2009 camp: 1. If you can do a good momentum dock without missing the formation at least 50% of the time, you're in. This is stricter than last year's 25% requirement. 2. We were able to only get Three Twin Otters again. Additional jumpers will be strapped to the top of the plane. Do not forget to lean forward during takeoff to prevent stalling the plane like last year. 3. At breakoff time, the organizer in the base will take a gun out of his jumpsuit -- it's everyone for themselves when he starts shooting in the air. We will try to remember to use blanks instead of live ammunition this time, after last year's incident. We thank you for your interest in Crazy Eddie's Big Way Camp.

Troll or not... Tip for ya... One bigway newbie to another bigway newbie.... 1. The way to become a good bigway jumper is to persistently attend bigway camps until you become really good. I've been cut from bigways before 2008 (most particularly Guy Wright events, plus Deaf World Record), and then finally clicked into bigway skills during the year 2008. Was still happy to be at the events I was cut from -- I had my first night jump at Deaf World Record 2005. 2. Bigway camps have their own rules and you really simply have to adapt to them. And by the way, I've adapted by now having two jumpsuits (a fastfaller and a slowfaller) as well as a weightbelt -- so I don't have to inconvenience everyone by being low, as well as an openness to learning techniques I am not accustomed to. 3. Allow yourself to be humbled -- this scores you a lot of points. There are many amazingly good trackers at the dropzone, many of which are better than everyone at other dropzones. One can make mistakes like crossing tracking paths or landing in the wrong direction (which will give you a BIGGER scolding than a low pull at a bigway event). It is VERY easy to be a good tracker at the end of a freefly jump (and barrel rolls are popular in these small 3-way or 4-way freefly jumps) because of the extra vertical airspeed that can be converted into a really good track, but you don't get the same effect during bigway RW. Once you start tracking with some of the experts at bigways, you'll be well below them -- many new big way jumpers are shocked that they are not as good as good tracker as they think they were.

Time and money is often a problem with me; I went to dropzones only once a month on average during 2008 (but for big bursts of jumping), yet I managed to rack up an impressive 150 jumps, a tremendous improvement in my jumping rate. Perris Bigway Camp May 2008 -- 20 jumps incl funjumps (4 days; 2 vacation days off work) 2 Skydive Gananoque 20way Bigway Weekends - about 25 jumps total (3-day weekends, no vacation days off) Perris Bigway & 100way Sept 2008 -- 50 jumps incl funjumps (12-days; 8 vacation days off work) Texas Winter Bigway Camp Nov 2008 -- 20 jumps incl funjumps (5-days; 3 vacation days off work) Tunnel time (several hours worth) kept me busy during the winter; I just did 2 hours of 4-ways at Skyventure during December. So I jumped only once a month on average (I think I only about 10 dropzone visits in 2008) but VERY intense bursts of jumping, including that one 50-jump skydiving vacation. It's possible to become a bigway jumper through this surge-jumping manner; but refresher RW stuff is recommended (skytime and/or tunneltime) on the weekends prior to bigway camps. Tunnels and good coaching are really helping me get forward, but I need to step it up even further if I want to become a World Team Member someday. I suggest at least attending the 4-day Perris camps, you only need 2 vacation days off. I am also a consultant (on my own payroll), so I don't get paid vacation days, so it's doubly challenging financially sometimes. Now I'm doing 100-ways, and attending the May 2009 Perris 100-way camp.

Sounds like you're ready for the Perris Big Way Camps. First weekend gets you from 20-into-50-ways and and the second weekend gets you from 50-into-100-ways. You have 250 jumps and ability to do 20-ways reliably from near last out. Sign up at www.bigways.com -- there's still room.

I'd vote that this is a personal attack on Jan Meyer. (healthy debate or not, disagreement or not, this is a personal attack, IMHO) Jan's bigway coaching skills at Perris, was pretty good in my opinion and helped me make it into my first 100-way at Skydive Perris.

Many dropzones pre-increased their prices expecting gas prices to stay high. But gas prices went into a freefall... Assuming gas prices stays roughly stable at where it's now (give or take a few percent), I'd expect there will be 0 price increases this year at most dropzones, unless they already reset their prices.

Clicky: Disabled Skydiving Manual

There will be at Rainbow Boogie 2009 this year. We are going to announce the dropzone on February 15th, 2009. It might also be held concurrently with a women's event there too as well. Yes, it's a hetero-friendly event too.

Whoops. A Bonfire/Speaker Corner topic in this thread.

There is an on-site bar at the dropzone called The Bombshelter, and they serve a reasonable variety of beers, as far as dropzone bars go. Not sure if there's belgian beer, but there's at least Heineken.

Our country's parachuting association (CSPA) now has a brand new discussion forum, and there's a new photo of Skyventure Montreal in this thread. The wind loop is fully enclosed now and pratically ready for testing, the rest of the building (entrance/staging rooms/etc) is still in construction.

You're not the only one! Perris P3 has a lot of sub-250 jumpers in the 50-way camp and lot of sub-500 jumpers in the 100-way camp. Will this be your first P3 camp?

That's true -- low maintenance is easiest. For that, I suggest forgetting native resolutions and just letting the display upconvert. (Most modern HDTV flat panels /usually/ maximum computer compatibility via their VGA inputs, rather than via DVI or HDMI inputs. Less experimentation needed.) * Default resolution of 1024x768 or 1280x1024 at 60 Hz. Connecting this over good old fashioned VGA cable is still 3x to 5x sharper than SDTV (yellow cable video from old fashioned TV-Out video cards). A good compromise of a lowest-common-denominator that still looks pretty 'high def', and works with the vast majority of modern 1080p flat panels. (If the panel says '1080p', it's typically one of the recent panels with excellent 1280x1024 VGA compatibility) * Use Windows XP so dropzone can treat it like a 'normal computer', with Internet Explorer added to Startup to auto-launch in a maximized window on a specific URL. So you just turn on computer, it loads up to the manifest screen. Obviously Windows XP could probably raise the cost above $300, but Linux can install on a small thumb drive (Even a 1GB USB memory drive), and keep it sub-$300. Although if you sell the display along with the box, it's much easier to tweak it to native resolution of the flat panel (i.e. 1280x768, 1366x768, 1920x1080, etc) Now, if your software takes off (i.e. 10 dropzones buy), it becomes more feasible to do a little custom programming: Use a 4GB USB key running Linux that autoloads FireFox, but with a built-in web server that allows its settings to be remotely configured (without removing the FitPC), such as which URL to load as well as which resolution to run the display at (much easier experimentation). In theory, RealDropzone could scan the local subnet for computer running these RealDropzone-compatible servers and autoconfigure them accordingly. Automatically configured to the point that the dropzones would not even need to know it's Linux. But I'm not sure if it's worth the effort initially. (Just ideas...)

200 jumps minimum is what I hear. That said, an accuracy parachutist (demo-lander-in-training) with just 150 jumps will outperform me. My primary discipline is bigways, so while I can land in a large backyard (have done it once, more or less), big way jumps deprive me of the opportunity to concentrate on accuracy practice and rough terrian practice, and on lightly-loaded canopies, because a primary focus is safety -- keeping my head on a swivel. So I think if I was to ever BASE jump, I think I need to rent/buy some rig resembling a BASE (i.e. 7-cell at less than 1.0 wingload) and get very good at it first. Although I'm not an antenna or building guy myself or rock-skimmer, I certainly would love to fly the Norwegian cliffs someday, or jump off a few legal arch bridges. So even 400 jumps (me) is not enough for BASE. Depends on what kind of discipline you've been focussing on. One of these days, someday, I'll be at a Bridge Day, at least as a spectator.

There are two ways: ___________________ TECHNIQUE #1 [url]www.disney.com[/url] becomes www.disney.com __________________ TECHNIQUE #2 [url www.disney.com]Disney Website[/url] becomes Disney Website __________________

Actually, that is not always correct. Most HDTV's that support computer inputs will automatically sync to 1024x768 and 1280x1024. Newer HDTV's have excellent upconverters (same upconverter to convert DVD to HDTV), to upscale the VGA image to HDTV images. Older upconverters often pixellated and looked ugly, but newer ones are not a problem for flight information displays. Also, if you really wanted native pixel resolution, there's even a technique already. With PowerStrip software (custom computer resolution creator software), most boxes that are capable of 1600x1200 can be configured to output 1920x1080. PowerStrip is found at Entech Taiwan's website, and I use that software all the time to create custom computer resolutions normally not supported by the computer itself. Even if 1920x1080 is not supported, most $200 and $300 computers can be configured to output to a widescreen computer monitor, inclusive of the common 1280x720 resolution, which is a common HDTV resolution. To the best of my knowledge, the FitPC can be tweaked to output 1920x1080p via its VGA input, but it won't playback video because its CPU is too underpowered. However, static text should work fine. The key word is: Static images, web pages that refresh intermittently -- not a problem. I've even coaxed a sub-$100 used computer to successfully display 1080p static images (from a digital photo album) from a cheap crapass ATI pre-Radeon chipset (worth less than $10). The problem is it won't do video, but it certainly can render static images or webpages. And it's analog 1080p, not digital 1080p. But that doesn't matter too much for a flight info display. Email me if you want. A few years ago, I worked for 4 years programming entertainment boxes for the home theater industry, including video processors, line doublers, multimedia video boxes, onscreen menu systems, etc. I know more than you think about this matter. Now... portrait display is overrated. (That requires a more modern graphics chip, such as a Radeon or Geforce -- but I've seen sub-$300 computers with these -- which MEANS you can download graphics drivers that can do portrait. Even the cheapest oldest Radeon and Geforce cards cost under $50 for PCI or PCI-X brand new, and they all can portrait mode when appropriate drivers are downloaded from ATI's or nVidia's website. Now.... If doing a cost-benefit analysis on display and computer equipment, as well as computer maintenance costs (lifecycle cost), portrait is overrated. I can tell you that landscape is fine -- just display two loads side by side. What do you prefer: a 28" portrait display or a 40" landscape display? According to Pythagorean's theorem (28" diagonal versus 40" diagonal), the 40" landscape display has nearly exactly the same surface area as two 28" display. Just use a template that displays two manifests side-by-side. One 40" display is the same price as two 28" displays these days (approx). So even if the cheap computer can only support landscape... I can assure you that 1280x720 VGA (trapezoid connector) on an HDTV still looks so much superior to Composite/S-Video, and has enough pixels to have perfectly readable text (12 feet away) of all 22 people of a Twin Otter load displaying only on the left half of a 40" display. A sub-$100 used computer (with most video card manufactured after around year 1997....yes 1997...with PowerStrip tweak), is already capable of outputting stationary high-def VGA images, including web browser. Even if portrait is not supported, nearly all video drivers made since 2001 have the hidden ability to do custom computer resolutions, as long as it's below the maximum dotclock. That's why 1600x1200 graphics card from year 1997, can be tweaked to output 1920x1080 -- it's nearly the same dotclock on the video graphics chip. And since the vast majority of graphics drivers already have the undocumented means to support custom resolutions through third party tweaking software such as PowerStrip and other programs, it's possible to add a native resolution of a flatpanel if a native resolution was strongly desired. Now, this is pretty moot, because the fit-pc already supports high-def modes, copy and pasted from website: >>Display: Integrated Geode LX display controller up to 1920x1440 So, apparently, 1920x1080 VGA is not a problem for a sub-$300 water-resistant dust-resistant paperback-size PC... (use an XP or Linux install on a 16GB USB key to make it 100% solid state with NO hard disk, for less than $300) My recent experience show that about 75% of current 1080p flat panel HDTV's already automatically sync to 1920x1080 via the VGA input, but failing that, just simply switch to 1280x1024 or 1024x768, and you'll come arcross a high def resolution that works, and let the flat panel use its upconverter (same upconverter for making DVD look good on a HDTV display) scale it... Modern current-era TV's (even the Walmart cheapies) no longer pixellate text in scaling, and the text will still look much better than on a 480i analog TV even if it's not the native resolution (i.e. 1024x768 converted to the display's resolution)

True, you're right about extra long VGA / HDMI / DVI cables being problematic, but one can also use a S-Video or composite output too (standard-def). The good thing is that you developed something that is super-flexible, and works with multiple independent computers too. You're right about separate computer being sometimes easier than multimonitor, and your HTTP based architecture supports this operation. I guess it would be easier for one to purchase a paperback www.fit-pc.com and a cheap flat panel, and presto -- instant flight information display! It has built-in WiFi now, and uses less than 5 watts of power, built-in web browser, and costs between $195 and $295 and even supports Windows XP if you preferred the included free Linux system. Perfect computer for flight information displays! A computer the size of a cigarette pack, it can be mounted on the backside of a TV. (Obviously, Ethernet cable would be better -- it supports that too -- wireless can have many problems if it's at the other end of a dropzone) Splash and dust resistant fanless enclosure, so it can be used as an outdoor computer, as long as the computer is reasonably protected (like in the nook/crannies of an outdoor TV enclosure) So all you probably need is the support for multiple simultaneous templates, for different info displays. They'd simply just be different URL's loading different templates. Either way, definitely migrate to a token-based template system -- much more flexible.

Well, it's cool you're thinking ahead! I actually made an edit to my post, while you were making that reply! (You should re-read my post about that info) Yes, making the manifest monitor screen a website is an excellent idea, since it is very flexible to either view locally or remotely, or even on a separate monitor of the same computer (Internet Explorer maximized on Monitor #2) It might be an idea to support separate flight information for separate displays (please re-read my post above for my ideas), and provide a simple HTML-viewer program to run in kiosk-style mode, that also supports either running on a separate computer or multi-monitor. (There must be free programs that can do this, too -- it's not much more complicated than a "Hello, World" program to display a single HTML URL using an embedded browser object -- more complexity in the multimonitor support) Either way, one of these days I'll go to Skydive Chicago (for some other fun thing) and witness your manifest system in operation. It shall be interesting to see how it compares to NouvelAir and Perris' flight info displays. As a fellow programmer, very interesting project, as long as you're having fun writing the software!

Although I'm not a potential RealDropzone customer, I am curious: Does RealDropzone support 'flight information displays'? I hope it already does -- it's a no-brainer feature. Many large dropzones such as Perris (California) and NouvelAir (Canada) have flight manifset information displays, displaying load numbers and other stuff. - Load number. - People on the load. - Minute call indicator (20 min call, 10 min call, 5 min call) with color coding. - Information for the next 1 or 2 loads (either in a row-by-row or column-by-column display, or even a scrolling display) Of all systems I've seen, NouvelAir's homegrown system is one of the best I've seen, because it tells me who is on the load (tandems, experienceds, etc) and I've hopped onto a few loads because I saw an RW load being organized on the manifest "public flight information display" in the lobby of the DZ. It's possible to highlight certan names with things like a "RW Organizer" or "Freefly Organizer" or "Coach" suffix, which immediately tells me that an RW load is being organized on load #9 even though only load #7 is taking off right now. Another benefit: A small discreet brandname logo at the bottom of a beautifully-designed flight info display, advertises to travelling experienced skydivers what software you are using, and helps these experienced skydivers to recommend this software to their own dropzone. Make sure that this screen is tastefully fancy and professional looking, with big text easy to read from a far distance across a field (at least critical numbers such as load number and minute call). The easiest way to do this might even just be a customizable HTML template, to allow dropzones to customize the flight information display -- with placeholders to insert load number, time, minute call, and the currently-manifested members of the load. And let somebody else (professional graphic designers) design the flight information display in HTML, perhaps your neighbourhood web monkey kid working on summer job who knows nothing about skydiving. Then it's just a matter of a web control window and inserting the appropriate text in the HTML template then just letting the web control render the HTML. Minimal programming time, since most modern programming languages support embedding HTML in a window nowadays... (In fact, animation can be left to HTML -- driven by JavaScript in the web control object -- if a web designer wants to create a fancy flight information display using your software. It would make the flght information display 'designable' in some commercially available web editors; relieving you of a potential design burden) This perk of NouvelAir's pre-existing flight information display, would be appreciated in RealDropzone. Obviously, this is optional, since it's a lot of effort to classify who's planning to jump, as those decisions are often made in the dirt dive area rather than at the manifest -- but organizer names can be flagged, since they're always jumping for loads. It also helps me become familiar with who are the organizers on the dropzone, just by reading the flight information display -- using a general category such as: tandem instructor, camera jumper, tandem passenger, experienced jumper, coach, freefly organizer, RW organizer. NouvelAir does this. Because of these info displays, loads at NouvelAir has also been reorganized on the fly using drag-and-drop, to remix two separate "3-tandem 10-experienced" Otter jumps into two separate 6-tandem+video (20 people) and 20-experienced plane loads -- when the two separate 10-way organizers noticed at a quick glance on these flight information display that doing this remix was potentially convenient, since they were 6 separate instructors, and enough gear was currently available to have a separate tandem-only load and RW-only load. I don't know how transferring people between planeloads work, but I'm sure that selecting multiple people and swapping them between two planeloads was what was done. (Hopefully you made it easy in your software to swap 10-people groups between two loads. Multi-select people in a load, and move them to a different load, then move a different group of people from that other load back to the other -- essentially swapping groups between two loads). Multiple separate 2-person groups of freeflyers at NouvelAir have often merged into 4-ways, because they saw familiar names on the next 2 loads on the flight information display, and asked the manifest to remix them into the same load. (NouvelAir's flight info display can manifest passenger list info for the next several loads in a rotating fashion, side by side ... with the current load being always visible on the left side as that's the most important load.) Anyway, flight information displays could easily be supported via computer dual monitor support, with the info display being displayed as a separate window on monitor #2. In fact, this is so dirt-easy to program: you could even support more than 2 monitors, with separate HTML templates for each, so you can have one display flight info for current load, a different display display flight info for the next 2 loads, and a different display display minute-call countdown in HUGE full-screen text (with an embedded video or photo-of-the-day on the side).... and you wouldn't even need to do much programming, by simply leaving this as HTML templates that you'd let the dropzone staff design. Obviously, you'd provide some basic templates so that there's an out-of-the-box flight info display. Perhaps the options would essentially be: Support public manifest information displays (requires multimonitor): [Yes] Enter number of separate flight info screens: [3] Template for info display #1: [Generic_currentLoad.html] Template for info display #2: [Generic_nextLoads.html] Template for info display #3: [Generic_minutesCallInMassiveText.html] Monitor number for info display #1: [Monitor 2] Monitor number for info display #2: [Monitor 3] Monitor number for info display #3: [Monitor 5] Refresh frequency (if no status change): [30 sec] Your software could scan the HTML files for template tags such as {LOADNUMBER(+0)} -- displays load number for specified load {MINUTECALL(+0)} -- displays minute call for specified load {PLANE(+0)} -- displays which plane is being used for this load {LOADTIME(+0)} -- displays current estimated departure time for this load {MANIFESTLIST(+0)} -- displays whole list of names, separated by linebreaks (for simpler displays) {PASSENGERCOUNT(+0)} -- displays number of passengers manifested {PASSENGERNAME(+0,1)} -- displays a single passenger name {PASSENGERTYPE(+0,1)} -- displays a single passenger type (tandem, experienced, camera, load organizer) Upon finding these template tags in the HTML control, substitute with the appropriate data, and then let the HTML control object to render the flight control display graphics. You'd scan for everything inside { } brackets. Then within the bracket get the keyword, and all the data between paranthesises. Then parse accordingly. ...Basically first argument being load number increment (+0 means current load, +1 means next load, +2 means load after next one, etc). ...Second argument means passenger number (1 being first person, 2 being second person, etc). A HTML table can have one tag per row, for each passenger, blank being no passenger manifested -- or even a JavaScript loop can even be embedded in HTML to iterate through all the passenger names up to the passenger count, and dynamically adjust font size or scrolling based on number of passengers.... but leave this creativity to the designer of the HTML templates used for the flight information displays. In fact, the HTML template could even use Adobe Flash too (but simply passing the template arguments as parameters in the HTML) -- if a dropzone wanted to design a fancy Flash-based flight info display -- you wouldn't even need to worry about whether Flash was ever used; just that your info display was a standard embedded HTML control object (that often also typically supports plugins too). ...The flight info display HTML templates doesn't even need to use all these tags for each screen, one DZ might want to display a limited amount of info on one screen, and detailed info on a different screen. Modern TV's are getting cheaper and many have computer inputs, and it is now finally becoming more affordable to smaller dropzones to install an extra TV or two, so "flight information displays" replacing chalkboards and whiteboards at certain dropzones. Flat panels that are easy to install on walls, etc of cramped manifest offices and windows. Or even outdoor manifest info displays. I expect "flight information displays" to slowly become a little more popular over time, and I think your software should be marketing this useful feature more. I think this feature probably only needs a few minutes of programming time. Okay, yes, a mild exaggeration, but I'm sure you could program a simple flight information display in less than a day because your software would already be keeping track of who's on the next load. (If you add this feature, make sure closing the application "X" button simply minimizes the application, in order to keep the flight information display always running on monitor #2 ... monitor #2 might be repeatered onto multiple TV's and displays, you don't want that going blank when someone shuts down RealDropzone.) It's just simply a full-screen maximized window with a single HTML control object with no titlebar, something that's very easy to program with most modern programming languages nowadays -- and you'd just use the appropriate API call to display this window on a specific computer monitor. Plus capturing the window-close event to simply make it behave as a minimize (so that it keeps running the flight info displays when you close the main manifest office working window). Maybe even system tray icon too, if time. One day's programming time at most, unless you've chosen a language that makes multimonitor and full-screen HTML dialog windows difficult. I was pretty impressed at NouvelAir's (Montreal, Canada) custom flight information display -- much more useful information than Skydive Perris' own system, although the text was much smaller. A superior hybrid combination of Perris' system and NouvelAir' system would be perfection. And if you used HTML templates and configurable number of multimonitor displays, then any dropzone can make it look exactly like a Perris display, or look exactly like a NouvelAir display, or any custom flight display -- just by designing up a good HTML template (can be crude HTML, doesn't even need to include JavaScript, or can even be designed in an off-the-shelf web editor, or can even have CSS or even Flash or even an embedded advertising YouTube video that autoplays itself, or a self-rotating annual photo album at the bottom-right corner of the flight info display. By letting it be a HTML template, flexibility for the flight information display is virtually infinite) (To the best of my knowledge, NouvelAir is one of the most efficiently-run dropzones in Canada, financially. The owners NouvelAir are also investing in Skyventure Montreal, and they have a near-monopoly in Montreal's skydiving market, also owning Parachute Montreal too. So their manifest system SHOULD be part of your research. I don't know what system they use, though.) You NEED this 'flight information display' feature to help MARKET this software to such a small niche market... Eliminate the chalkboard/whiteboard that announces to everybody who's on the current load, replaced by a sub-$500 big-screen HDTV flat panel running a flight information display.... And most of these HDTV's are all computer compatible now! Many dropzones still use the chalkboard/whiteboard system. Kudos if you already have this feature, but if you do, you may wish to market this under-estimated feature a little better on your website... Tell you what, try to make sure you DEMO this flight info display feature at PIA, using dual-monitor support. (It's such an easy programming addition, so why not?) This feature, alone, is potentially worth over $3,500 to certain dropzones -- and in some cases justifies the purchase of this software solely for this specific feature. (business plan be damned, but a bonus if the dropzone saves money to boot)

Some excellent ideas were provided to me (to out-rank Skyride's home DZ) for the next Rainbow Boogie, in a much cheaper way. I plan to take advantage of these ideas when the time comes.