mdrejhon

With a really good low-resistance DVI/HDMI cable, the distance can go quite far -- A good source of inexpensive high-quality cables can be found at www.monoprice.com (or similiar discount high-quality cable seller). A top-notch 10+ meter coated cable can perform better than the really crappy/cheap 4.5 meter chinese-made cables. Back in the analog days, it was easy to tell the difference between 50-foot VGA cables. I was surprised how well cables that used silver-plated wires performed -- I have a 50foot silver-plated analog VGA cable that has a much sharper picture than a common 6 foot Belkin VGA cable. ($400 cable, which I got at a discount to $99 a few years ago). This very 50 foot cable had 1920x1080 quality indistinguishable from a 6 foot cable, and 1:1 pixel mapping on a digital was actually achievable without the usual analog blurring artifacts associated with long analog cables at high resolutions. I also used them back when I had my NEC XG135 CRT projector (139 pound beast!) This was the BetterCables.com Silver Serpent, I got one in the days before they started calling them the Silver Serpent... They still sell them even in VGA version, good stuff. As a former electronics hobbyist, even back in high school/university days, silver has lower electrical resistance than copper (at room temp, anyway), and most of the electricity in a conductor moves near the surface of the conductor, so it made sense that even merely coating the copper wires with lower resistance metal , made a huge improvement to achieving longer distances without quality losses... Either way, a very interesting tidbit -- excellent 50 foot cables can be engineered to outperform crappy cheap 6 foot cables (at least for VGA), and some report the same is true for HDMI and DVI cables, though quality can be hit-or-miss. FWIW -- Monoprice has 50 foot HDMI cables with silvercoated copper wires for under $100. I highly recommend them when you need distance with least chance of problems with the widest variety of equipment, without needing to pay a fortune elsewhere... (There are $1000 'videophile' cables that perform far worse than these sub-$100 monoprice cables. I don't really believe in the $1000 hype stuff, but I believe in the good science of thick gauge, good conductors and good shielding, and good connectors) For DVI instead of HDMI or VGA, monoprice doesn't have them silvercoated copper but larger gauge helps a lot too, especially for DVI. If you go long for DVI (i.e. 25feet, 50feet), make sure they are 24AWG not 28AWG. MUCH better! Approx $50ish for their top-quality 50 footer DVI cable. High quality at good distance is doable, if you just get the right cable.

And oxygen jumps done properly! My first-ever oxygen jump. I didn't properly pre-fill my full face helmet with the good stuff before I exited (16000 feet at Perris). As a result, once I removed the hose while the fullface was open, and then closed the fullface after, it resulted in a low-oxygen environment inside my full face seconds before I exited. So by the time I was opening the canopy, I was starting to feel tired/woozy that lasted for about twenty minutes. It felt almost like I hadn't eaten or drank all day long, even though I did do the trailmix-and-gatorade routine between loads... Top that off with a rushing to the next load, and I noticed I made a rather stupid gear mistake on the ground that was discovered in the waiting area... (Let's just thank the person who pointed it out for me -- I am still kicking myself even to this date, who was totally understanding too!) Needless to say, subsequent oxygen jumps went wonderfully, ending in my first 49-way

Make sure "toggles all the way up" means just right before tail deflection point, rather than the loops at the top of the risers. This is because I had about 7 inches of slack line when I first started jumping a relined Sabre 170 back around jump 70-ish or thereabouts. I had great standup success with it even to the first jump, until it got relined, and then of a sudden, I was having some difficulties... My landings were dodgy until I figured out I needed to pre-position my toggle positions to where the loose slack starts giving resistance (tail deflection). Deflection began about 7 inches below the loops. At that point, when I started prepositioning my toggles there instead of at the loops at the very top, my flares was much better. On some linesets (especially worn ones that needs to be relined), tail deflection is the same or above the loops where the toggles are. If there's lots of resistance to even slightly pull the toggles two inches away from the loops, the lineset needs to be replaced -- the brakes are too short and you're always flying braked even when you think you're flying full flight... It was a "gotcha" I learned back in 2005...

For my reply, not talking about canopy or wingsuit but flatfly spins (bellyfly spins): Controlled flat spins on my belly were lots of fun when I had to do a solo and I'm not in the mood to practice -- I've been able to stop them pretty quickly. The G's can be rather intense. The problem is uncontrolled flat spins, which I found myself on my back once. When I was still a newbie. That was a little scary at 8000ft (approx), arching for 5 seconds didn't help, I stayed on my back! I knew I still had plenty of altitude, but it was scary back at the time that a hard arch didn't return me belly to ground, since the centripetal force of spinning while on my back, kept that from working. So I just barrel rolled while I was still spinning, and converted my fast backfly spin to a easily-recoverable fast bellyfly spin. That was when I was still a newbie. Stopping a fast spin while falling on my back, was one of the harder attitude-recovery during bellyfly while as a few-jump newbie... Harder for a new skydiver to recover from than a simple tumble during falling, but easy once you figure it out -- you are trained to barrel roll during your AFF, so that's the training I reverted to. Now even though I do mostly only RW, I can now stop a backfly spin without going back to belly, but this can be unexpected for newbies who has never flown on their back before (accidentally or intentionally)... Now I'm just merely the classic 100-jump wonder that has to watch himself from becoming too complacent.

That's right! However, I also agree with Brett too as well. About "tunnel are tools" -- I agree with MajorDad! Just optional tools, but good tools nontheless! Without some 4-way tunnel time, I wouldn't have done a 49-way from a winter layover in only 28 jumps. (Logbook shows only 28 jumps in the 6 months preceding my 49-way on Jump #273) (P.S. I also want to thank Team Evolution for their help.)

Oh, gotcha -- yeah -- the media did do a bad name on the whole sport. No offense taken.

No need for personal attacks. (There. I just saved the job of billyvon ) It was a suggestion worthy of public discussion, and I expected more mature counterarguments. I was trying to solicit opinion because not many people have simultaneous ski racing/jumping experience and wingsuiting experience. (I'm neither!) I have no experience with wingsuiting and ski racing, although I've had experience with raising sponsorship money and GPS, as well as scientific theory (i.e. one would think it should be adequately controllably safe for some proper professional such as Loic to at least do some GPS-only tests in the wide-open-air, above 3000feet -- I'm sure you are all doing this already -- just wondered if GPS has been tested while wearing skiis). I love people like Loic and Robi, I have watched a lot of their videos. I'm still hoping that wingsuit can still be landed by them! Was trying to throw ideas in. Sad you don't have Loic and Robi's positive attitudes when you called me that 4-letter word. I believe you misinterpreted/misjudged my post. If it was because of the video link I posted, I was not aware of the rivalry with Jeb and you. For that, I apologize if I thus struck a raw nerve because of Jeb. I did not know this, and am not quite aware of the background info, but you should have brought this up in a factual and neutral way. Disclaimer: I do not know Jeb, Loic, Robi personally and any rivalries or bitterness that may exist (as you have now so pointed out), but it is not a reason I shouldn't have posted a potentially discussion-worthy post. Also, I have no inside knowledge about Jeb, Loic, Robi plans, beyond what is posted on the Internet. If I coincidentally posted some resemblance of pre-existing plans by some competitor, then I did not know that and I apologize.

Very interesting to know! I can relate in a different industry: I have successfully washed an electronic device that got into saltwater contact. Basically, if you drop a cellphone or digital camera into saltwater, it's important to remove the battery immediately (like removing a non-waterproof Cypres on-sceen immediately) and then immediately rinse the cellphone or camera in tap water (like washing the rig in clean water) to get the corrosive and abrasive salt out. It does take 72+ hours under a heatlamp to dry out an electronic device, one must resist the temptation to 'test' the device with electric power until it's fully dry. Testing before dry damages the device (water+electricity = short circuit) ... It is hard to remember to remove the battery immediately and/or immediately intentionally dunk a cellphone into fresh water (within minutes or less or it's too late!), but it's what necessary to maximize the chances of saving the cellphone that got dropped into salt water. Some cellphone repair stores that uses such washing techniques, report a 50% success rate in resurrecting water-damaged cellphones, what's important is that the battery got removed immediately and avoid the temptation to 'test' the device to see if it's still working because the act of testing does more damage when water is still inside... Note: The document you attached was made in 1998, before the era of waterproof AAD's.

This one is impressive: Wingsuit BASE, skimming 6 feet above ski slope Imagine him wearing skiis and just simply touching down on the ground. Landing without a parachute! You wingsuiters need to test GPS glideslopes wearning skiis and not wearing skiis, as well as seeing historical landing speeds, to see if this is at all possibly doable... Precedent: - Youtube video shows it's possible to glide just a few feet above a ski slope, in a full-speed wingsuit parachute jump from a helicoptor. - The world record in skiing speed is 251.4 kilometers per hour, that's faster than wingsuit flight. So wouldn't this be worth some GPS analysis of wingsuit flight in the high altitude open while wearing skiis, to see if glideslope can be maintained while wearing skiis and pretending to land on an imaginary slope, and speeds, to see if it's feasible to just safely touch down on a slope? Landing without a parachute, more economically than the multimillion-dollar solution? Some analysis to be done: Jump a GPS tracker while wearing a wingsuit and skiis on a regular skydive, play, and then analyze the data on a laptop. Do it many times, wearing skiis and not wearing skiis. Get some data. And, if data shows that it's possible, it is much cheaper to specially groom a ski slope to optimize it for a high-speed ski jump landing (which just happens to be a heli wingsuit jumper instead of having lifted off at a ski jump), there's already established experienced ski jump builders who would be happy to be paid sponsorship money to groom a massive well-chosen ski slope of an optimized angle, as a large target area. Perhaps the same ski slope pictured in the video link at the top. Landing in an artifical tunnel is more untested. All it'd take would be an Altimaster VUE, some custom software, a skilled wingsuit BASE'r that happens to be a skilled ski racer/jumper, no? Even just a cheap $100 GPS tracker would be fine for the research stage of this, just use off-the-shelf software after you've landed. Worth at least some research -- basically some fun in-the-open-air GPS glideslope analysis, no? You high profile guys...Worth recruiting some sponsors at least for the safe high-altitude "research", no? It's only 4-figures for the initial research -- CHEAP. Some of you may already have the equipment or can afford to buy it (purchase or borrow speciallized skiis optimal for high speed ski jumping, and just buy a good $100 GPS tracker). With just an individual budget that costs less than the price of a new skydiving rig, one could do the research on your own, as a precedent to applying for sponsorship money towards training for the real attempt? Basically, if research confirms this is possible, use this data from your research to get a big sponsorship to pay for the training in high speed skiing and ski jumping, and after a year, after many low-altitude skim trials similiar to pictured in video (including while wearing skiis) to test for ground effect risks, finally make the attempt to land without a parachute? This could easily only be 6-figures or maybe even 5-figures, much cheaper than the multimillion dollar solution requiring construction of speciallized structures.

I count on doing it!

I'm aware of this. Just there aren't major 'camp' (open to anyone who's not yet quite at 100-way invitationional levels) events before Perris P3. I've checked plane flights from YOW-to-DUB, and they all seem to go for more than $1300 unfortunately. I could dig more, but even an $800 flight from YOW-to-DUB is still painful, considering I need to save up for Perris too! So far, I've found these candidates bigway events, I just now need to pick and choose: AUG 30-SEPT 1: Skydive Gananoque Labour Day Weekend, 20ways (Gananoque Twin Otter boogies often have 20-ways) Distance: 1.5hour Cost: $ AUG 2: Skydive Pepperell, 20ways Distance: 7hour Cost: $$ AUG 9-10 Skydive Burnaby (Niagara area), 20ways Distance: 6hour Cost: $$ JULY 26-30 Skydive Ireland (www.skydive.ie), FS Big Ways with Kate Cooper-Jenson (26 - 30 July) 50-way big way camp. Distance: $1350 (YOW-DUB) Airplane Flight Required Cost: $$$+ Anyone else -- any recommendations -- any domestic 50-way bigway camps that would be open to someone who only just did his first 49-way recently? (I'll also check calendar listings about major boogies still yet to happen, similiar to Skyfest, MOAB, Lost Prarie, WFFC, etc and see what's being organized there before September) I'll get to the invitational level eventually (I count on eventually getting there, even if it take me years!) but I'm now lala land beyond 20-ways and before the invitational level, makes things a little challenging...

True, true... Actually, I just thought of a way that might actually affect you Western Canadians indirectly: The Future Canada 100-Way Record! Canadians in the East will now become better RW bellyflyers. Increase the pool of bigway flyers in this country. Make it more interesting for you westerners to come out to a future Canada Big Way record event! And it happens -- since the most likely two dropzones for Canada Record are Skydive Burnaby (held the last record), and Nouvelair (supporter of tunnel, held the Canadian Nationals, at least in 2005). Both are within rough driving range of Skyventure Montreal (~7.5 hours and ~1 hour respectively). NouvelAir also happens to host Team Evolution, the Canada 4 way champions that are tunnel coaches and big supporters of the tunnel... (Their tunnel coaching helped me achieve my first 49-way at Perris P3 in May) This could mean a bigger Canada Big Way Record when one is finally scheduled in the future!

Duh. *smacks my head* I wonder how I came to click this thread. Either way, I'm more Perris P3 BWC league, though I really want to bring it to the next level (P3 100WC) as soon as my skills are ready! Will let this sleeping thread die.

Tempting to get out of this continent! Airfares today, bite though. Which airport is closest to skydive.ie, anyway? As for the Irish record attempt, I assume that's open only to the Irish or European Union nationals?

There are only three events a year that I can do 20-ways nearby: Gananoque Twin Otter Boogie. And two of them is already past. I'll definitely go to the last one before Perris P3. There are no 20-way events within 2 hour driving distance before Perris P3. No Otter dropzones within 2 hour driving distance. That's my dilemma I just recently found out that the nearest one is Skydive Burnaby in early August, 20-way event at 6 hours driving distance, I may be going to that one. I'd however like to find more multiple-plane bigways because I've already got a slot on Perris P3 BWC and a provisional slot Perris P3 100WC, so I'm trying to do my best to get as much bigway experience before then so that I can do my first 100-way this year!

Thanks to Remster that brought this up. This is major (to us Canadians), so I think this now merits a new thread instead of being hidden in page 2 of a different thread that's more than one year old... Now.... PICTURES of Skyventure Montreal groundbreaking - CLICKY! This thread will henceforth, hopefully, be the main dz.com thread for Skyventure Montreal progress. Remster wrote:

Wow, pictures of Skyventure Montreal groundbreaking. Finally! That merits a new thread, or maybe we should ask mods to rename this thread to "Skyventure Montreal Groundbreaking"

Hello, Looking to go to as many bigway camps I can this summer. Which dropzones in the Northeast U.S. (or Canada) are running bigway camps? Either a casual 40-way event with a reputable load organizer, or a major P3-league camp that leads to 100-ways. If not Northeast, then anywhere in North America. I also have been doing 4-ways in the tunnel as well, so also keeping an eye out for 4-way tunnel camps. Have done Perris P3's already (49-way success) and going again September, so that's where I am at. The only jumps around here I can do is 20-ways, while definitely fun, that is not enough alone... Need to keep these skills current, and get good enough to go on invitationals. I now have to travel to keep these skills current, with only Cessna dropzones near me...

I'm already going to the Perris P3 again in September, however, I'm pretty curious about the Eloy bigways. I was looking into maybe the November Spaceland event, but where is the information about the Eloy bigway camp? Also looking for another bigway camp before P3 in September (even a small 40-way event would be good).

At 1400 jumps, just stay super-current and practice your downsize checklist everytime your wingload goes up a notch. No need to get a new canopy that way!

High altitude cross-country. You do a hop-and-pop at 13500 feet, and you don't want to tire your hands out holding the toggles. It's a 20 minute canopy ride! At an extreme, tired hands will make it difficult to flare - if you stay in deep brakes for 15 minutes nonstop to keep up with other cross-country canopy pilots, your arms are going to be very tired. (I find my canopy descends slowest at the beginning of the deep brake region, but before the flutter point where forward airspeed drops significantly). Instead, keeping them stowed keeps you in a braked configuration and you can use rear risers or harness turns to steer. That said, for a crosscountry, I did pop them by about 5000 feet. It's a risk-tradeoff, and that's higher than a typical pull altitude anyway. Still definitely want plenty of safety margin well above the hard deck, no need to play with fire...

Welcome to the club. I delayed my PC upgrade by 2 years to help pay for skydiving. I replaced a 2002 PC in 2008 instead of 2006. I sold my entire Star Trek DVD collection (STTNG and STOS) for almost a grand, before DVD prices depreciated significantly, so that paid for almost a third of my used rig too. It's a good 'ol Vector2 though - but does what it's designed to do and has been extremely reliable.

Hello, I'm interested in 3-way or 4-way RW camps at Skyventure New Hampshire. Can anybody inform me of available tunnel camps that are planning to go to SVNH? Some more about myself: I have about 4 hours of tunnel time, slightly more freefall time than I do in the sky. Of this, a little over 2.5 hours of tunnel 3-way/4-ways - including with coach standing just out of the airstream in the door just monitoring. I consider myself novice-intermediate, currently roughly the 12 to 26 points per minute league, depending on skill level of buddies, complexity of points, and how much time I've taken to warm up. I'll do up to 2 hours in the chamber in one day if broken into 15 minute sessions. (I did 1.5 hours, wasn't even too sore) My normal tunnel camp, Team Evolution (Vincent, Martin) is lots of fun but they do the weekend camps only during the Canadian winter, so I want to also have other tunnel camp options during the summer and fall! P.S. 3-way and 4-way is a very cost effective use of tunnel time. Participants splits the costs of sharing the chamber: Cuts tunnel costs by as much as 75%! Plus a modest coaching charge on top. Coached freefall at only $3 to $4 per minute!

Does anybody at Niagara Freefall Center have anything to say about this matter? How are things run there -- do they have a timeslot scheduling system similiar to Skyventure's or is it more adhoc? If more adhoc, the owners probably got upset at the tunnel idling when no instructors were around (= loss of money for owners). That said, a procedure of "You must be back 15 minutes before your next slot" for instructor breaks, could have been done (somewhat similiar to what Skyventure does), to minimize problems. If what I hear is right, the owners should have only deducted the late minutes, i.e. if the instructor was 5 minutes late, they should have agreed to just deduct 5 minutes from your tunnel time. Operators run the same profit, keep their tunnel schedule, keep good karma with customers like you, prevent bad word-of-mouth, you even admitted your mistake of making the instructor late, etc. (Even better, give you a 5 minute credit with another instructor) Customer should have been be priority: Send the instructor home after meeting the needs of customers. Pink sheets should not be timed to allow theft of customer money, unless it was a safety issue or something more major than a minor lateness. You may wish to write to the newspaper and/or call the city's business department, and also point out the alternatives that would have been more profitable and ethical to them. Also explain that an instructor switch in the middle of training has a vast adverse effect. You could even attempt to go through Small Claims Court, since this is big enough amount of money to make it worthwhile. (it's usually only a quick visit to a courtroom, no laywer, representing yourself, the time impact is similiar like contesting a dodgy speeding ticket, about an hour of your time) Google is your Friend. Spend an hour researching on how to file a grievance, make an appointment (which may be a month from now because of backlogs), spend an hour to show up (similiar to contesting a speeding ticket), and then you may get a full or partial refund out of it, given the circumstances. And if you are lazy, use a third party small claims service to help you (i.e. Ontario Process Services, or other services -- no affilation), which would cost you $75 or thereabouts and they'll pretty much do most of the rest for you. It's only a quick "speeding ticket league" court visit after all, and well established. Use the system that is in place, if you'd like! Also many sources tell you to contact the offending party in person or write a letter (personally addressed, by registered mail) to attempt to resolve this out-of-court. And if what you said is true, I may have to reconsider giving them the benefit of doubt -- I was still willing to visit them despite previous controversies. And I spent 4 figures total in the last 12 months at wind tunnels.

If this is merely 1/16th the resolution, the full resolution is probably better quality than some of the footage they had to blow up to IMAX for "Adrenaline Rush". I bet the 4xHDTV (4096x2048p or 4520x2540p, which RED is capable of) footage that you captured is absolutely stunning! The lens would probably be a limiting factor, as that's a pretty small lens for 4520x2540p video. Can't wait to see portions of this stuff filter down to compacts. (well, except for the lens -- that's always gonna be expensive). Even the lowly new Sanyo Xacti HD1010 can continuously take 7 frames per second of full quality 4 megapixel JPG images, only slightly 3 times more speed and you can take 24fps of full quality JPG's, full film rate motion. It won't be nearly as good, but I'd love to see a consumer HD camera that takes video with each image as good as a full-resolution still taken from the camera. 120fps footage should be fun to try. One can tell the difference in 60fps versus 120fps for fast action stuff, such as some gaming material - my old NEC XG135 CRT projector (139lbs from 8 years ago!) was capable of 120Hz refresh rate, and I did some tests with that many years ago in the days I used to work in the home theater industry... Gaming tests were done at 640x480, as computing power wasn't high back then 8 years ago, and I did not have 60Hz versus 120Hz film-based material (nor the computer was capable of playing this at the time). Exciting stuff to see -- it will be hard for consumers for a long time to get the full benefit of 12 megapixel video clips without making a film print. Should make really amazing 1080p downconverts for Blu-Ray, should help maximize the sharpness that can be crammed onto Blu-Ray with the source material being well beyond Blu-Ray resolution, and the extra resolution allows the luxury of using a good downconversion algorithm that preserves as much sharpness as possible when downconverting to 1080p. (This is similiar to the situation where high quality 1080p masters are downconverted to 480p for DVD authoring, often end up looking much better than original 480p material that are mastered more directly to DVD.) Hey, maybe see if you can make Blu-Ray's for sale, I'd like to buy a skydiving demo Blu-Ray from RED footage. If you have the camera long enough to fill one with good material! From tandems, to CRW, freefly, RW, and more. Maybe even a record attempt or the next Perris 100-way camp.