dragon2

Head off openings sound scary It may be you, it may be the canopy, it may be the rig. If you've already tried an experienced packer, let an experienced jumper jump your rig. If he/she also experiences off-heading openings, put the canopy in another rig and jump it. ciel bleu, Saskia

The wear on my rig is mostly on the laterals. I have 2 rigs that vary a lot in dimensions, therefore the suit only fits one really well, the other rig gets friction damage a bit. ciel bleu, Saskia

it was amazingly consistent this time, wasn't it? Well, duh, of course. It wasn't like he was asking what kind of wingsuit to get ciel bleu, Saskia

Tony Suit can make you a 1 or 2piece suit with big wings and a smooth jacket front (which is what I have). You can select which fabric you want for different parts of the suit. If you're a belly flyer, def get booties. You'll want them for the exit. For a freeflyer, freefly pants with lots of drag (not the modern freefly/tunnel suit type pants) might do as well (again, this is what I have). You may end up having to wear some lead plus the big wings to fly comfortably. I like that much better than smaller wings. OTOH one of our camera flyers can NOT deal with big wings at all so he switched to the small wings (which I personally do not find very useful at all). YMMV. Try and borrow some different camerasuits to see if you can deal with big wings. ciel bleu, Saskia

The whole point of OIS being bad for skydiving is that while sure you can turn it off in the menu, that won't matter much because stuff can and will still move in freefall. Hence, OIS = bad for skydiving. ciel bleu, Saskia

Which DZ were you at? Typical Dutch SL progression: After you do 3 by-the-book SL jumps in a row, you progress to fake-pulling your own canopy (called dummy pulls). You need to do this correctly twice in a row. You need to do 5 SL jumps in any case before freefalling. Most people take one or more extra jumps before they finish their dummy pulls but since these jumps are like EUR 32 each, no biggie. Provided you are at a DZ that offers the SL progression jumps (Texel AFAIK does not, nor Rotterdam), you can progress to freefall without having to pay for AFF. See, when we are convinced you can pull by yourself, within 24hrs of the last dummy you can now go up for your first freefall jump, usually this is a 10 secs freefall jump, from 5000ft-ish. Do this correctly and up you go, ending up at 12000ft/ 60 sec freefall jumps after a couple jumps. Each jump, you generally only pay for the altitude you go to and the equipment hire. You don't pay an instructor to jump with you. Hence the much lower price per jump. By the time you've paid that EUR 1300~ you would have paid for AFF, you will have made a good numer of jumps more if you go the static line route. Which is why it is a much cheaper progression. The SL license by itself isn't that useful by the way, only if you want to wear the military wing. With just the ground course plus a SL jump or two, you would be good to jump on another Dutch DZ that offers SL (not all of them do). It's just that usually you pay for at least 5 SL jumps with the course so why switch DZs so soon, doesn't make much sense. But you could. Anyway after the SL license you want to make sure you progress to 9000ft/12000ft and pass the stability tests, because that would clear you to jump at any Dutch DZ, whether they offer SL or not. ciel bleu, Saskia

YMMV. I love my vengeance (except in high winds), as do the other jumpers I know that own a vengeance. I'm not sure what you mean by sporty openings, if your packjob or body position leaves something to be desired then yes an eliptical will act up more. So "shitty bodypositions" are not recommended, no But even when a toggle fired during linestretch I didn't have to chop my vengeance, you just have to be on the ball. I've done a couple wingsuit jumps with mine even (though not recommended). I did have to chop my vengeance one time after a ball of crap opening but I knew the canopy needed a reline badly and I had continued jumping it anyway. All in all, if you're ready for an elliptical, the vengeance isn't a bad idea IMO, too bad they don't make 'em anymore ciel bleu, Saskia

Me neither, although I do drink -sometimes-. I did manage to do 2300+ jumps though, so al of the above is no excuse ciel bleu, Saskia

The opteka is much wider and more fisheye-y than the raynox .3 For most people I think the opteka .3 is (way) too wide for tandems or outside video. For inside video work its great. I sold my opteka .3 and raynox .5, I now only jump the raynox .3 for everything (tandem, wingsuit, FS4, FS coaching etc). One size fits most ciel bleu, Saskia

Looks like you're looking for a desert tan coverall/flightsuit. Take a look on Ebay, or an army surplus store. ciel bleu, Saskia

And not many whuffo friends left ciel bleu, Saskia

The vip at least has some paraglider in its pedigree. A little bit weird canopy -it flies flaaaaaat - from what I've seen, but I haven't flown them myself. I doubt they would be worth much in todays market, but you might be able to sell them as a cheap 2nd canopy (not for a camera flyer though) or for a water rig or something. You never know ciel bleu, Saskia

There's not a mamimum number of jumps per se. But, it's F111. If the lineset is worn or out of trim, I shouldn't bother replacing it. If the fabric is worn out, ditto. If both are still good, and the flare is still ok-ish, you could sell it for cheaps to a beginner for another 50-100 jumps maybe. Just do not load it over 1.0:1, so sell it to someone with a absolute max body weight of 190 lbs. Lighter preferred. Or, sell it on ebay as a car cover/decoration parachute. You might get more money out of it that way... ciel bleu, Saskia

Not every canopy can be stalled by holding the toggles down at full arm extension. Student canopies are often de-tuned to prevent exactly that. Also a canopy that has long enough brakelines to be usable for swooping (ie, not distort the tail while hanging in full front risers) may not be stall-able that way. Be very very careful when taking a wrap, especially for the purpose of doing toggle stalls. I'd strongly advise you not to. If you let the brakes up too quickly, let the canopy spin up or have something else happen, you are now stuck to your canopy. ciel bleu, Saskia

If you paid for the canopy by creditcard, you may have some options there to file a claim with the cc company, you may even have insurance for goods paid for with your cc. ciel bleu, Saskia

That's the image stabilisation you're seeing. Turn it off. Most likely this will solve your problem. If however you're still seeing edges on a computer (don't just check on a TV screen), zoom in a tiny bit until it's gone. ciel bleu, Saskia

You don't list your wingloading, and what you're used to jumping, and how many jumps you have. All of which make answering your question a lot harder. So, stab in the dark: if that pilot puts you at a 1.0-1.2 wingloading, by the time you're ready you should be fine on that canopy. ciel bleu, Saskia

The chest strap ending up too high is due to a too-long main lift web and/or not tight enough legstraps, as mentioned before. If you can't change to a smaller rig, and you have trouble reading the alti because it is under your chin, ask to jump a hand mounted alti (or buy one yourself, 2nd hand analog altimeters are not expensive). If you can't do that either, at least slide the chest mounted alti to one side of your chest strap so you can read it better (which is what I used to do during my SL jumps...). ciel bleu, Saskia

Over here it's 25 euro for a packing class if you're not a member (AFF students are automatic members the year of their FJC). Packing courses are free if you're a member. The packing class is a half-day supervised show-and-tell type of deal + some supervised packjobs. If you just need a checkpoint check later on, that's always free. As is the mess test to get signed off. ciel bleu, Saskia

Well, see above A little bit of turbulenc, such as encountered way behind trees, way way behind a tandemcanopy makes for a interesting ride/landing. If you've seen my other posts, there's a video in there somewhere where a guy with a springo lands ahead of me and the canopy just about half collapses, TWICE, before touchdown without incident. My Fusion 120 (or maybe it was my Pilot 124) OTOH had no major issues with the same turbulence neither did any of the other canopies that load. So for me, even when I was jumping a springo 120 for free, thanx but no thanx. ciel bleu, Saskia

[raises finger] Except I was the cameraflyer with a whole bunch of lines coming at me... Everybody had missed the bag lying on the floor on exit. The tandemcanopy opened fine in the end, and yes the drogue was pulled out of the pocket before the TM could do it himself, he was going for it right out the door. By the time the canopy had passed me, the half linetwist was gone as well. From my point of view, it kinda looked like a direct-bag staticline type of jump. ciel bleu, Saskia

I very much doubt that: I've flown a springo 120 for a season and it flew the same size so to speak as sabre2 120, safire 2 119, etc. It also packs up the same size, if not bigger. The safire 1 119 I had was definitely smaller than "advertised" yes. But not PdF canopies. ciel bleu, Saskia

+1 ciel bleu, Saskia

Hi, Well, first off, welcome to the sport If you're thinking of taking a skydiving course, take a look here. This is a short overview of what a skydiving course entails, what to expect. That should answer a lot of your questions. If you have any more, come back here and ask

Both? So how does the cutaway work? I strongly prefer the rear-entry type helmets for a DSLR+CX type of setup. All of our regular tandem video crew switched over to this type of helmet eventually if they didn't start out with one. The other type of jumps I film, for outside FS work again I prefer the rear-entry type helmets. For inside FS work, I prefer a chincup type helmet with just a CX. For CRW, I don't think it matters much either way. Although my first chincup helmet had stability issues under canopy (not in freefall - weird). For wingsuiting, the smaller helmet is probably easier on the neck. Again, you can go either way. Basically I jump 2 helmets: a FTP for outside video work and a chincup FS helmet for inside/coaching. I prefer the FTP because it just feels much more secure and stable, and I'm much quicker putting on/off that helmet than the chincup one. YMMV ciel bleu, Saskia