dragon2

If you want to make an instructional video or video collection, make sure you have that instruction ability yourself, first. Even then, for AFF every DZ has its own way of teaching and doing things, a video showing "what's right" is likely only right for that particular DZ and at that particular time, and might confuse other students. Also a first jump student gets told way less than someone with 50 jumps or 100 jumps or more. The ONLY ones who can help you through AFF are your own instructors. The information you receive is tailored to your experience, this is really important for your first 2 dozen jumps or so. Later on (say, after your A) you can use other resources to your hearts desire, but even then, running stuff by your instructors is the smart thing to do. Skydiving is not a sport you can learn just by watching video. Especially beginners should stay well away from "instructional videos" unless accompanied by commentary from their instructor. Trying to learn via YouTube has the potential to make you a distracted or even quite annoying student at the least (yeah but this guy on YouTube did THIS) and may prove dangerous at worst (conflicting information or simply too much information - overload). ciel bleu, Saskia

If you want to use a trackingsuit to prepare for wingsuiting, I wouldn't. In this case, your time and money is way better spent on jumping with others, preferably on your belly. Het your jumpnumbers up then do a first flight course and buy a real wingsuit. If you however want a tracksuit for BASE, that's a good reason to buy one. According to PF, a minimum of 80 freefall skydives is recommended before trying the trackingsuit. You may have different rules in Denmark or on your DZ, however I think with 100+ jumps you'll be allowed to fly one no problem. There's just IMO not much point in a track suit if you're not wanting it for BASE. ciel bleu, Saskia

Um, thanks? ciel bleu, Saskia

What about a SSD boot/OS disk, a dedicated SSD scratchdisk, and then an internal data drive? Assuming of course, that $$$ isn't an object. An SSD for a scratchdisc is pricey, also it won't last as long that way - an SSD can only handle so much write operations before it fails, and scratchdics get a lot of writing. I suppose it would be quick though yes, so if money REALLY is no object and you can spend a couple hundred bucks on just one drive that's also gonna fail fairly soon.... ciel bleu, Saskia

Definitely get a SSD for your bootdrive. Saved my bacon a few times with the mega fast reboot times I have a 50 GB extra fast SSD (Sandforce), you may want to get a 90 GB or bigger though, and make very very sure your NLE app doesn't try to use the SSD as a scratchdisc (Encore does that to me every now and then, filling up the SSD, hence the occasional crash...). SSD trumps RAID for bootdrive

? ciel bleu, Saskia

That depends on the country. Let's just say I wouldn't thrash a rig just yet if it were just over the German age limit ciel bleu, Saskia

Do you fall under the BPA? If so, you need 200 jumps in the last 18 months, or 500 jumps total. Even if you do not, and whatever Irish rules you may have about wingsuiting, most wingsuit instructors will still hold you to these jumpnumbers. ciel bleu, Saskia

I managed to do something similar: I got my wrist stuck in the excess brake line/triple riser part of a borrowed spectre 135, on the World Team '06 960 skydivers mass demo jump Now I was used to triple risers, and the brakes although awfully long were stowed I'm sure. I'm very much not sure about how I managed to get my wrist in there, and the knot was pretty tight. I didn't chop it because that would have involved cutting line and maybe riser of a canopy that was not mine, also it flared if I moved my arm out sideways Landed out though, because flying in more brakes than it already was as i needed to to make it to the big landing field hurt too much, the canopy pulling on the one line around my wrist. Can you tell my right arm is stuck? 5th picture down on the right. OK, I pretty much suck at demo jumping ciel bleu, Saskia

When I had about 100 jumps but was already aspiring to become a camera flyer, I made my first jump in Empuria Brava. I went to a Dutch instructor to sign my logbook, he said I should have it signed by someone local and pointed at a guy sitting with his back to me at the bar. I asked and he did sign my jump. That was Patrick Passe

Our local para shop has a check to see if gloves you buy are suitable for jumping: can you tie your shoelaces with your gloves on? I'm guessing boxing gloves are out... ciel bleu, Saskia

Awesome! Lucky you! Any trouble getting the rig back from the seller? Did they come by it in good faith? Did the police handle it? ciel bleu, Saskia

Can't point your toes with ankle high shoes (annoying in freefall for most types of jumps), also most high shoes/boots have hooks on them, that's not allowed. We do see a lot of military type boots @ Teuge: the clubs who jump rounds wear boots, as they have much harder landings than we do, also the military typically do their 5 SL jumps wearing their own boots. Nobody else does though, it's not necesarry and not really practical. But if you have high shoes without hooks, sure you can jump them. A few jumpers here do wear high sneaker type shoes, with any hooks removed. ciel bleu, Saskia

The older (firmware) pro-tracks don't have the slo option at all, hence all the high deployment readings. Something the Vigil 1 does as well, as a sidenote: if you look in its logbook it will usually log 2 jumper per wingsuit jump ciel bleu, Saskia

You need to have a pro-trak with the newer firmware, with the "slow" mode. Other than that, any newer model logger (like a neptune, n3 etc) shouldn't have any difficulty logging your wingsuit jumps, anyway not more than logging usual jumps (which also include the occasional weird reading, due to mving your head/hand or whatnot), but you should have much better results with one of these than using an old pro-track. ciel bleu, Saskia

Take a look in the BVR. So, you need to wear a hard helmet up to your A license. You need to wear a helmet of some kind (hard or cap) up to your B license. If you're going to do freefly formation skydiving you need a hard helmet regardless of license. ciel bleu, Saskia

You don't need an altimeter to be safe, esp. on hop and pops.

I don't HAVE any focus delays. Nikon D300 + Nikon 16mm or Nikon 10.5mm. I have way more flixibility this way, on exit shots and in-plane I can get very very close, under canopy I can shoot much farther away. I've never used the Canon 10-22, so not sure if a fixed 15mm lens would help you there, but if you jumped a better camera than the 350D (say a 50D) you'd probably not have any delays, either. ciel bleu, Saskia

Hmm I don't agree with that. I did use to shoot stills on manual focus, but now that the (my) cameras are good enough I shoot every skydive AF. I also have good (fast) lenses of course. I rarely use AF during ground photography, but for skydiving, it works pretty much always, aside from the occasional exit shot (me in the door) but those were tricky with MF too. My CX105 is on MF, BTW. ciel bleu, Saskia

That's what I was taught is called a horseshoe: the canopy is attached to part of you and/or your gear other than at the risers. This includes problems like a bag out with pilotchute still in pocket, a bridle around your arm/leg, a line snagged on a flap or grommet on your rig, a breakline snagged on your camera helmet, etc etc. ciel bleu, Saskia

Here ya go. Some landscape and some portrait shots with a 10.5 mm nikon fisheye (x1.5). Also some landscape shots with the sigma 10-20 mm on a Canon (x1.6). ciel bleu, Saskia

That's not just in France. If you buy a Tonfly helmet from their website, same deal. Then again you do not have to pay import VAT for your helmet either since you already paid it in France. ciel bleu, Saskia

ciel bleu, Saskia

One more vote for the sigma 15mm out of those 2 lenses. ciel bleu, Saskia

It's just 30g heavier than my current Nikon D300, so yeah I'd jump it. ciel bleu, Saskia