dragon2

My advice is to go staticline, no tandem or AFF. I always have clogged sinusses, did SL myself, went well until the 2nd jump from 12k, tore my eardrum then. Hurt like hell and turned out I had a sinus infection that I didn't know about yet After that though, I'm better at altitude than I was before, I always had trouble being a few feet under water, when the car went through a tunnel etc, that's all much less of a probem now. So for me it worked out. We have another girl at our DZ with ear trouble, she did SL too and now usually goes up to 7k only, it's working for her so far. But the risk is there. If it's worth it to you, i'd strongly advise SL to find out where your limits are. Also my doctor knew I was jumping and said it was ok(ish), also he forbade me sudafed... and no jumping if you have a cold, although in my case I tend to ignore that until it hurts or I get nosebleeds, as i'm clogged up more or less always. But you need experience to tell you when it's ok to jump and when it's not. ciel bleu, Saskia

Of course a safire 1 packs smaller, they ARE smaller. Do a search, they are 8%/1 size smaller than the label says, 8% smaller than same-labeled safire2. So if you want to upsize, you need a 2 size bigger safire 1. ciel bleu, Saskia

Training? We were supposed to train........? ciel bleu, Saskia

"skydivelaw"? ciel bleu, Saskia

Yes, it's ok, provided the cypres is ready to go, preferably with no more batteries needed until it's retirement at 4/2009. ciel bleu, Saskia

Pictures are always appreciated, if you can video landings though that's even better if you arrange it so there's someone to debrief the landings with the jumpers if necessary. You can really make yourself useful that way if you can't jump for weather/money/whatever reasons, and try to sit in during the debriefs if you can. Anyway I spend a lot of time on the landing area myself, taking photos and videoing, I enjoy it and other people too ciel bleu, Saskia

We had a 'teach the teacher' course by a well-known canopy coach, for people from various Dutch dropzones who are or want to be canopy coaches. Seemed like a hit

Only reason I'm not jumping with one is that 99% of my jumps are camera jumps (big helmet) these days, I've had plenty of reserve rides, 2 with rsl. One was a 2out downplane, didn't disconnect my rsl because while I had plenty of time I didn't know is was a good idea to disconnect it, didn't matter the main went away clean. 2nd reserve ride was a spinner on a small safire, reserve opened on heading and no twists, yay rsl. Since then I had one spinner where I'd have liked an rsl since the cutaway put me on my back before I had time to pull, rsl would've been quicker. ciel bleu, Saskia

Babelfish? "I wish that I there only clogs and eat of those tasty goodies would could wear. Naked." Uhuh I totally get ya dude ciel bleu, Saskia

The lady who makes the suits at this Dutch shop used to fly freestyle herself: http://www.carolinesuits.com/ info@carolinesuits.com ciel bleu, Saskia

This is was parasport italia told my dealer to do, been working so far. I don't use the altitron much it's on my camera glove, but it still works ciel bleu, Saskia

Manfrotto 394. ciel bleu, Saskia

A lot of people here, including me, use the manfrotto 394, never heard of one failing or getting damaged and they're cheaper than the stroboframes too. ciel bleu, Saskia

You want to use 3 batteries, don't have my altitron handy right now but the idea is to stack 2 same batteries and one smaller to get the same thickness and volts as 2x2040 batteries. I'm thinking you want 2x2030+1x2020. These are easy to get and cheaper too. ciel bleu, Saskia

I must say I find it worrying if it's really true you can't flare a bigger (170? now that's not very big...) canopy. You're the same weight as me (or, as I was when I started jumping, ahem), I'm a wuss, haven't done any other sports for 10 yrs, am sick all the time, and I have no trouble flaring whatsoever. Also if you can't even flare, can you pull your cutaway when the canopy is in linetwists? Can you climb out of the airplane (front or back float) and hang on? I had a hard opening once, bruised 3 ribs and almost broke my back, still had to flare for a 0 wind landing, that took a lot of strength that I had to get from somewhere, not flaring would've hurt way worse (vengeance 135). In fact, the smaller the canopy the MORE strength it seems to take to flare, depending on the model and on the speed i think. Anyway it sounds to me like you may have a serious safety issue there. Seriously. ciel bleu, Saskia

Sure, if you can't stand up your landings the canopy is too big and you need a smaller canopy Frankly, that's bullshit. I jumped 280 and 230 at .5:1 for my first 50 jumps, stood up almost all of my landings, yay me. Not saying you shouldn't downsize, it's quite reasonable, but the reasoning behind it sucks IMO esp for the reserve. A reserve cannot be too big IMO. ciel bleu, Saskia

For sidemount the best lenses are the low-profile ones by cookie, waycool etc. Sony makes some crap lenses, be careful which one you get, the black .6 is a plastic piece of *** but the silver one is ok, provided the helmet case fits round it otherwise I'd advise a low profile lens. Preferably get a 37mm lens and a 37-25mm step ring so for your next camera you won't need to buy another ($$$) lens. Get a .45 (or sony .6 it's about the same angle) for outside video work, a .3 for inside (for bad freefly inside i'd advise a .45 LOL) and a .2 for AFF style inside video, this is what works for most people. ciel bleu, Saskia

Still wouldn't pay more than 1500 eur ciel bleu, Saskia

no way is that worth 2000 euros... Cypres is almost dead, atom eur 400 sabre eur 400 reserve eur 500, max, cypres 150 euros provided it doesnt need 8yr or batteries anymore. 1400 euros - 1500 max. ciel bleu, Saskia

All Dutch DZs on a map with clicky links: http://www.parachute.nl/paracentra.html ciel bleu, Saskia

- don't use all the fades, effects etc the software has available, stick to simple crossfades, fade-to-black etc, pick one per movie. - use music that fits the movie, it's usually harder to fit a movie to a song later, so pick something with the right theme/vibe (sunny weather, having fun, fast or slow beat, etc etc), I find a track with just beats (dance music f.i.) no(t much) lyrics is easiest to edit to at first or when you're in a hurry. - START with the music track, add the video to the rythm of the music, do not just dump in the music afterwards (seen that done ) - see if your software can mute an entire audio track not just per clip, than drag the audio of the clips you DO want sound with to another audio track, this saves lots of clicking - get LOTS of video you're gonna get rid of most of it so don't firewire 5 minutes of video for a 5 minute movie, that'll usually be a boring movie unless the person filming it did some pre-cutting (like most tandemvideographers do) ciel bleu, Saskia

Mwah, atoms are real comfy though and well made, even the old ones are freefly proof. I love mine, anyway

I only have one jump on a super7 (sorta like a triathlon/spectre), don't know much about the other canopies they make but this is our national classification of them, how many jumps you need to be alowed to jump one: Balance 0 jumps (student type canopy) Super7, Quadra v-tec >25 jumps Faqtor >100 jumps Rage >400 jumps So based on that and your previous canopy I'm thinking the faqtor might be the best option for you, being an intermediate type canopy: our 100 jump category has canopies like sabre2, safire, lotus, hornet. The rage falls in our "stiletto-type" category so may not be what you're after. ciel bleu, Saskia

I think you'll notice: a zoom is at it's worst in the wide end and narrow end, so both at 18mm and 55 mm you are using the worst parts of the lens, add to that you need about 3 stops from it's fastest f-speed, you need to shoot at say 25-45mm at about f/12 to get the best image quality the kit lens has to offer. With a 15mm prime lens, this would be f5.6-f16 at 15mm, a much wider range of "best" apertures, usefull for skydiving mainly when it's darkish or when you want fast shutterspeeds, so you win a lot here. The 10-22 zoom will still be better at 18mm than your kit lens, even though it has the same aperture problem (although to a somewhat lesser degree), the barrel distortion will be less at 18mm (part of it's "best part"), and that's even without the better (heavier) glass it's made out of. I'm not a big fan of fisheyes either but the wide angle straight lenses are very heavy in comparison and also very big (and the fast ones are $$$$$). If there was an affordable and not-too-heavy and big f2.8 16mm straight for my nikon I'd buy it. For 1.5x nikon I find my 14mm a bit too wide to jump with, might work better on a 1.6x canon. But hey, at least you can't see the barrel distortion on a fisheye Eh, wait..... ciel bleu, Saskia

It's also about twice as good (yes it is) and not that expensive for a 2.8 lens, and what are you complaining about anyway, with those toy cameras you should be able to handle a mere 15mm lens The 10-22mm or 10-20mm lenses are all way bigger and heavier and lots of people are jumping those. Really, when you start using fast lenses (fast as in f/2.8 or f.1.8 or better) there's no going back A few good prime wideangle fast lensen that are affordable and suitable for skydiving are available, why the heck would you jump a cheap slow zoom lens that's not even very wide.....????? Beats me.... When the weather isn't cooperating very much or it's close to sunset, you'll be glad to have a decent lens. Sure when it's bright out there almost any lens will do for tandem shots and the like but even then, nothing beats a good prime lens for sharpness. The lens is even more important to image quality than the camera ya know... ciel bleu, Saskia