dragon2

I did a night tandem jump because I have always been sort of nightblind, and after Lasik I wanted to see if my eyes had improved enough for me to do a night jump on my own. I was told I could ask a TM but I had to ask an experienced one. No regs, just common sense. It was a blast! Turned out I could see fine, however my sense of direction was gone, the TM was screaming in my ear in freefall and pointing, but I couldn´t find the lit T... The next year I did do a night jump on my own, with 10 of us jumping in what turned out to be too much wind, noone ended up at the DZ but most were close, I ended up miles away A very experienced TM took his kid up on the same load, we think she´s the youngest night tandem passenger here. This was her 2nd tandem. She loved it! And some of the girls here that are afraid to do night jumps or are night blind are now thinking about asking their bf TMs about doing a night tandem as well, to see what it´s like, but not all TM´s will do it. ciel bleu, Saskia

If you don't already know: be careful and get the good stuff, the stuff that photographers use. Over here, it's all "ducktape" and you have to know what you're looking for, so I'm not sure if "gaffer's tape" is always the right stuff. You want tape that won't leave a gummy residue mess on your expensive camera ciel bleu, Saskia

When Henny jumped the kodak pro it would sometimes do the same thing: because the flash would move a little bit some pics were taken with a too-low shutter speed. It didn't pop up entirely but the air getting underneath and moving it was enough to trigger the camera into thinking the flash was being used, so it went to a slow shutter speed. Solution: gaffer tape, as mentioned before ciel bleu, Saskia

How elliptical a canopy is does not say all about it's performance. We just updated our Dutch canopy charts, to give you an idea about which canopies we consider more or less hp: http://www.parachute.nl/uploads/media/bvrbb.pdf We have 5 categories, based on the number of jumps you have, how current you are, the wingload, which model canopy and the size of the canopy. This is the list of which MODELS you can jump Surpisingly (to me, but I don't make the rules LOL), the pilot ended up as a canopy you can jump after 25 jumps but for the sabre2 and safire 2 you need at least 100 jumps.... ciel bleu, Saskia

Yeah I tried. Like I said, you need a decent card, but other than that, the camera is just not fast enough to make use of the fastest cards. Therefore I'd save my money. I tried various cards, all performed at about the same speed. On faster camera's (D20, D70 etc) the faster cards may show an improvement. There are various testing sites on the 'net which show which cards work best with which camera's. This is one just googled: http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6816 The D70 is a fast camera and it takes advantage of the fastest cards, working best with SanDisk Extreme/Ultra III and Lexar 80x cards. Same for the 350D: http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-7699 About the same results too for 10D/20D. The 300D gives very weird results if you look at the order of cards, but most cards give about the same speed, except the cheapo ones, so why buy top-of-the-line: http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6425 Same results for D30/D60. ciel bleu, Saskia

A 80 x card is not going to make the 300D any faster, any decent card will work (san disk extreme, san disk II, pqi, lexar 40x, lexar 80x, etc also microdrives but you can't use those for jumping). ciel bleu, Saskia

Most digital photo camera's that are not reflex camera's do not have remote shutter releases. The numbers 2.8- etc have to do with light, not with the angle of view. 2.8 is ok, 5.8 is poorer. The field of view would be a number like say 28-105, with 28 mm being the widest. Most digital pocket camera's don't go any wider then 35 mm, when you'd like 24 mm. ciel bleu, Saskia

does it refuse to recognize the signal at all, or can you still capture but incorrectly? you can also try to look for answers here http://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?howtoselect=4;41#4;41 Doesn't capture anything at all, no preview screen. Just started browsing your link, there's a lot of info there maybe it'll help ciel bleu, Saskia

A lot of folks here have their warm suits from rainbow. they last like 10 yrs or more of heavy duty use (crw, tandems etc). Great suits, very comfy and durable! ciel bleu, Saskia

Tried playing with the pal/ntsc settings, nope. ciel bleu, Saskia

I can't dump some ntsc video I have using my PAL camera either I use premiere pro. It plays fine on the PAL camera. Therefore if someone knows how to fix this, both ways, much obliged Or we'll send each other the tapes and burn them on dvd for one another ciel bleu, Saskia

Most people here have the standard conceptus plugs, usually stereo, and definately stereo for the 300D. For Bruno the solution was wrapping the camera in plastic, for the other camera man a firmware upgrade seemed to fix at least the frequency of the error (this 10D was even giving error 99 on the ground, without the remote). Bruno bought another camera (I think a D20). Whatever, I got rid of my 300D, but not because of the error 99 thing (I never experienced it myself only Bruno did with my camera). My D70 has other problems, related to the wiring of the infrared remote. I want a D70s Or a D20.... Me? I'm not picky The 350D looks and feels nice though. But I'd wait untill someone else tries it first. ciel bleu, Saskia

Well the canopy is 1 1/2 cells wider, that's more than 10 percent. Something weird here.... ciel bleu, Saskia

Error 99 can be a lot of things, not only problems with non-Canon lenses. During the FS World Record 2004 in Thailand, Bruno had error 99 with his and my 300D, with a Canon lens, there's a thread on it on this forum somewhere.Another cameraman i know had error 99 on his 10D during the Dutch Record jumps... Maybe the camera doesn't like Hercs?!? LOL Don't know if enough people have jumped the 350D yet to know if it has the same problem. The 10D didn't seem to have the problem at first, then it showed up. ciel bleu, Saskia

The image stabilization in Sony cameras works well. Turning it on does -not- make the video any more shaky than if not on and in most cases improves it -quite- a bit. What -does- affect the shakiness of video is the tightness of the entire system to the camera flyer's head, how steady the camera flyer can hold his head and the width of the lens. The first two are obvious but are often ignored. The last one is basic optics. Usually I can spot if someone on our dz had left the image stabilizer in, for freefall and for crew video. These are often beginning video people with say freefall helmets converted for video, the more experienced people who fly ftp's don't leave image stabilisation on here, or seldom forget. Maybe the effect is more pronounced on those presumably shakier helmets? But it is noticeable in the videos for sure, seen it in my own crew videos as well (with an nvertigo helmet, TRV25). ciel bleu, Saskia

Don't know about the camera, but you don't want image stabilizer for skydiving. If you can't turn it off you'll get shaky video in freefall. ciel bleu, Saskia

Seems like a poor plan to me, what about the times you jump a friends rig or demo a rig? With a Pro-Track or Neptune, you can carry them with any rig and your log stays current. You are also using the batteries in the Vigil more. I prefer to keep my AAD batteries as fresh as possible. Ed She never jumps another rig and nobody jumps hers, AFAIK. I'm having a lot of trouble with my neptune logbooks, cause I keep lending them to others ciel bleu, Saskia

The vob files are the dvd video files, a dvd rip program will convert them to avi or other file formats for you. http://www.download.com/3120-20_4-0.html?qt=dvd+rip&tg=dl-2001&search.x=0&search.y=0&search=+Go%21+ ciel bleu, Saskia

Did you change the sizing as well? My 1996 tri 135 will not go into my Atom 00 without the rig looking like it's about to come apart at the seams. That Atom has held a brand new spectre 150 and an old Merit 170 I then compared it to a brand new demo tri 135 when Aerodyne came to our DZ. Mine is way bigger left-to-right, about 1 1/2 cell! Front-to-back it is the same. It packs like a 150 or even slightly larger. It flies fine though. Our Aerodyne guy had no explanation. Mine is not the only one that is off-sized, there is at least one other tri 135 on this dz that is the same size as mine (I think it's also from 1996). My tri 120 however definately is SMALL compared to the 135, that one seems to be a "true" 120 (canopy is about the same age). ciel bleu, Saskia

Is this something a senior rigger can do (modifying the container)? Or is it best to send it off to someone who does that all day long? Sorry can't help you there, I don't even know what a senior rigger entails, exactly My rigger here can do it, I just opted not to. if you can rotate your bag 90o (grommet-to-pin) you may not even have to, but with my rig I can't do that. ciel bleu, Saskia

I got them a couple times on my first few jumps (opening without slowing down much), after that only a few times, mainly when the pilotchute had been in the burble for a bit. You can modify your container a bit (cut the corners, longer bridle, large pilotchute) but I didn't. I adjusted my body position and even with the bigger suits, no more linetwists

Speed is a vector. It has no meaning without the direction or are you talking about horizontal and vertical components of your speed? When talking about wingsuit speeds, most people mean the downward speed since that is what most people can measure (pro-track, neptune). You can of course take a gps with you, but I meant the downward speed, which is also what does or does not trigger AAD's and audibles. ciel bleu, Saskia

Ask Vigil that It seems to me the same problem the Pro-track and the Neptune sometimes have, if your speed is slow enough (and this friend is not particularly slow in a wingsuit, about 60-70 mph) the thing thinks you opened your canopy, then it notices you're going fairly fast (again?) and switches back (or not, in case of a Pro-Track). Or something like that. That friend noticed that because she uses the vigil as a kind of log book so she wants the jump numbers to be correct. I'll ask about the vigil in another friends rig who IS a good wingsuit jumper this weekend, I'm kinda curious... BTW the vigil SHOWS the 2 jumps, no idea about what my cypres "thinks" as I can't see that. So I'm not saying the vigil is worse for wingsuiters per se. ciel bleu, Saskia

Sounds like maybe your kill-line is too short, a rigger can tell if it is. After 3 where-the-heck-is-my-canopy openings I decided to let someone check my brand new (!) killline pilotchute, guess what, way too short. ciel bleu, Saskia

It's not, really. We have girls that are 45 kg (125 lbs geared up) starting out on 288's, maybe a 230. A wingload of 0.45 to 1. They manage just fine (for smaller people, the harnass size may be more of a problem than the canopy size). ciel bleu, Saskia