dragon2

so you would say steering with your rear risers on your main is a good idea? does that pass a controlability check? It might, for an experienced jumper. IE if a toggle is stuck you could choose to cut that steering line with a hookknife and land on your rears, instead of chopping the canopy. But if you haven't talked to your instructors about this, stick to wat you've been taught! Rear risers can be used for steering and flaring but it is much easier to stall the canopy and the flare is less. If you never tried it, you're better off under your reserve than under a main that might stall a couple feet above the ground Example of a high speed rear riser stall (luckily, over water) is in this movie, starting at 3 mins 19 secs: http://www.12000ft.com/video/23.html ciel bleu, Saskia

Watching deployments is for some reason a good way to get off-heading (or worse) deployments... ciel bleu, Saskia

Hmmm, partied a lot lately, have you? ciel bleu, Saskia

I hadn't even noticed the F1 thing ciel bleu, Saskia

At our DZ jumping through clouds it is dangerous if there are gliders in the air. They like hanging out underneath clouds and are usually around or below opening altitude. You need to see others in the air to be able to avoid them. If there's no one else around though, and they know the spot is right (GPS), well.... I'd jump. Sometimes it only SEEMS from the ground that we're coming through the clouds, and the glider pilots start complaining, but often we have video proving we didn't go through any clouds and had the dropzone in view the whole jump too. Storms are another matter, I once flew underneath a CB, don't want to repeat that! But if there are no storms YET, and definately won't be for the duration of the jump, again, I'd jump. It's not SMART to go through clouds, it's real smart to stay away from storms and to be able to see where you're getting out and where you're going, but, it happens. In some countries you wouldn't get to jump much, otherwise. But it's your choice, nobody will make you jump in weather conditions you don't like. ciel bleu, Saskia

Longer risers are usually used to let the canopy spread out more = more performance. I personally don't like long(er) risers because then I can't reach my slider, and I'm no swooper. But the top swoopers have pretty long risers. ciel bleu, Saskia

Can't wait to come visit... Some pics of the 2 sites closest to Teuge are here and there on my site! http://www.dragon2.nl ciel bleu, Saskia

You could try being ground crew for others. Made me see I don't want to do the typical Dutch low stuff, ever! But I like doing the ground crew thing even for the low stuff, taking photo's and stuff. ciel bleu, Saskia

He can take his daughter to The Netherlands, or other countries in Europe, no problem here, as long as her parent or guardian signs a waiver. ciel bleu, Saskia

not whith out converting atleast one of the formats to the either format.. mixing pal and ntsc aint posible. they dont have the same frame rate thats why it wont work... You only need to de-interlace the clips that don't match the project format, and change the size to match the rest (20% size difference). That's all, at least in Premiere Pro. I even did one PAL video with footage from a NTSC VX2100, a PAL TRV-25E and a PAL HDTV pro model. Not hard to do once you figure it out. ciel bleu, Saskia

Check the camera forum, you CAN mix PAL and NTSC on a computer, done it, but getting a computer to capture footage of the other type than the camera is can be a problem. Whatever you do, make sure the editing program knows what the format is supposed to be, I recently managed to make a PAL movie in an NTSC project which had very odd results ciel bleu, Saskia

Sorry, was past my bed-time already, yeah dutch regulations. ciel bleu, Saskia

We have a 2500 ft limit for square mains, for everyone. Although students are of course supposed to pull higher, the mandatory opening altitude after that doesn't change with your license. ciel bleu, Saskia

We've got a few Atoms with non-PdF reserves. Doesn't happen a lot, usually people order a rig and reserve together and they stay together. But over here it isn't illegal, apperantly ciel bleu, Saskia

Maybe not a big stretch, but a similar canopy is what got Nadine killed earlier this year ciel bleu, Saskia

A Springo is a HP canopy, similar to a Stiletto but twitchier, imo you have no business being under one at 100 jumps, let alone at 1.44... Under our rules you'd even need 500 jumps to jump it, and you have to stay below 1.5 untill 1000 jumps. Just a hint. The not satisfied part I can understand though, it's a different canopy, you either like it or you don't. ciel bleu, Saskia

This is interesting. What kind of reserve do you have? Did you really have to take a wrap to take up slack in the steering lines? This should not be the case. Do you have short arms? I had to do the same (well 2 or 3 wraps actually) on my Micron 175 (copy of a Tempo or something, WL 0.8). Don't think it's a bad thing really, less chance of stalling it as I've seen some people do. But I prefer a reserve that FLARES (which this one did NOT, with or without wraps) so I traded it in anyways. ciel bleu, Saskia

We had one cutaway due to spinning linetwists on a sabre2 this weekend. This was the guy's third BM jump, 2nd on a Phi. Personally I think the armwings are pretty big for a beginner, the guy admitted he probably didn't close his wings during opening and had to wait for the pilotchute to come out of the burble. Chopchop ciel bleu, Saskia

Don't know about the entry level thing, but I've got a top-mounted TRV style camera which I also use for wingsuiting. I started out with a top mount, never did like sidemounts much. But the topmount is harder when wingsuiting, because of the resistance you get when turning your head. The first time I jumped my camera with ws I felt the suit wanting to follow my head around Although I suppose with a sidemount you have the problem of only being able to film from one side, because for the other you'd have to turn your head much more. If you're filming above or below the formation that wouldn't be a problem but for within I'll stick to my topmount! ciel bleu, Saskia

We have similar weather over here. IE it's not going to be a full time job year round. The costs of getting your jump numbers up and getting the experience, all your own gear, the camera's, the editing gear (most dz's dont use a computer but a linear editing system, because of the speed), vcr's, dvd recorders, cd/mp3 players, mixing board, tv etc adds up real quick. Maybe you have to pay the dz a concession too. I added everything up, and figured out I could do it, but only during the summer months. I'd need a different winter job. I guess it helps if you're multi-rated, can do tandems etc, but still. After taxes, insurance etc, not much left. Would be fun, but I can't do it financially ciel bleu, Saskia

Some pics of this great weekend here: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/gallery/imageFolio.cgi?direct=Personal_Galleries/dragon2/Wingsuit_Weekend_Teuge_09-2005 Video to follow

I have an exit weight of 150 lbs, maybe slightly more when I was a student , but I've got 50 jumps on mata's 288 and skymasters 280 and 230. WL on a 280 is about 0.45 for me. I never had any trouble landing on the right field, even with more wind. The one time I landed out was when I exited before the field and had to get back against the wind which I couldn't, but after that I learned to spot 175 w/o gear isn't that lightweight, most students here don't have any trouble landing their mantas in the right spot, so.... ciel bleu, Saskia

There's an option in Internet Explorer (I'm assuming you use that): View - Size (or something like that, I'm translating from my Dutch version) which lets you set the font size for webpages. ciel bleu, Saskia

No I could pull it just fine yesterday when I couldn't get my pilotchute out! Didn't take any force at all, funny I remember "This is taking too long" and I was already tugging to get my ripcord free of the rig, which I can't on this rig because the the reserve pin can't be pulled through the housing (9-shaped reserve pin). Didn't even consciously think "I have to pull my reserve now" I just did it, after tugging on my pilotchute real hard for almost 1500 ft I was under my reserve at 2100 ft. First terminal reserve. First wingsuit reserve. Easy as cake

Encore isn't that difficult really, I figured it out without any help/manual etc. However there may be programs out there that will be less work when you're doing a lot of chapters and you want to have a play-all and don't agree with the default buton routing etc. The World Team Thailand 2004 dvd cost me a lot of time because of stuff like that. But, it works together quite nicely with photoshop if you want to make your own menu's. Get the latest version and updates though, version 1.0/1.1 is way too buggy. ciel bleu, Saskia