dragon2

Do a search on here for Brian Germain's wingload chart, also for BillVon's list. Basically (for your weight and presuming a dropzone at about sea level) a generic progression (you may want to jump BIGGER) would be: stay at the 1:1 wingloading you have now until you have 100 jumps then you can go to a wl of 1.1 (~180 sqft), up wl 1.2 (~165 sqft) after 200 jumps and so on, also make you you can land the canopy you're jumping in any conditions, wind or no wind, downwind, outlandings etc (see BillVonn's list) before downsizing. For the 170, I'd sure wait until 100-150 or the advised 200 jumps depending on your skills and confidence by then. Right now at 35 jumps you ain't seen nothing yet ciel bleu, Saskia

No. ciel bleu, Saskia

The Netherlands: For your A license (for which you need 25 freefall jumps, a little exam, various practical skills) you need 5 coached jumps, for B you need 10 (making 10 total). In those 10 jumps you mainly have to demonstrate you can jump safely with others, ie be altitude aware, track decently, not dive through people, stuff like that. After you're deemed safe and learned a few basic skills you get cleared for jumping with others, this can take a few more or sometimes less than 10 jumps, the basic program is 10 jumps and you need 10 for you B anyway. So jumping with others here is not really dependant on your license but on whether you've finished your coaching program yet. You can start the coach program when you've completed 20 jumps and various stability excersises, so if you're quick you can start jumping with others (non-instructors and non-coaches) after 30 jumps. We prefer you jump with people with say 100 jumps or more at first but that's not a rule as such. ciel bleu, Saskia

Mine Pilot 124, WL 1.5 or thereabouts. Nice camera flying canopy, nice wingsuit canopy. ciel bleu, Saskia

I'd try to rent or borrow a suit like classic, gti, intro, prodigy etc first, do say 10 jumps on it, when and if comfy then proceed to buy a suit like a phantom or firebird. If however said person is a BASE jumper and want to BASE the suit later I'd buy a prodigy stright out. ciel bleu, Saskia

Caught one with 18 jumps today, said he had permission to jump it from an instructor at another Dutch DZ. Now this should be impossible since we have mandatory rules here for camera: if you want to jump camera in freefall, you need: B-license, audible, 200 formation jumps. Not: "it's just a gopro,so go right ahead even before you have your A". I'm guessing that although he denied, said jumper did know this as I saw him turning away his helmet every now and then, holding it with the camera hidden against his body, while he was getting pin-checked so the instructor didn't even see he had a camera on there. Of couse a few of us jumpers standing around had spotted him a while back... Kind of a give-away, him wearing a student rig, loaner alti, fairwind helmet + gopro I'm hearing this more and more, also from other countries, so maybe these little cameras should be specifically mentioned: "you need 200 jumps to jump ANY camera no matter how small it is" But in this specific case the jumper hadn't yet read the BVR, has probably no clue it exists either (not until you need to do theory for your A do people start reading this, generally, unless you have an inquisitive jumper), so jumpers like this one wouldn't be deterred by a change in wording. The instructors OTOH should already KNOW it's not a matter of size ciel bleu, Saskia

Just off the top of my head, and for non-CRWjumps: there's a post somewhere on here where a cameraflyer got his swoopcord stuck on his helmet while trying to grab his toggle, he needed his knife to free his hand. Also there's a video of Tom Aiello floating around where he fixes a lineover on a BASE jump with his knife. ciel bleu, Saskia

owwies, what happened to the guy at 7:20 He broke both bones in his lower leg, multiple times. He was warned a few times already (see previous landing of his @ 3:00), he had 800 jumps and was in a beginner competition (the rest had 1-100 jumps) and he kept complaining about everything including the ambulance guys and that he got a 0 score for that round for dangerous behaviour. Since this wasn't a simple mistake, we put the landing in the video to show what happens when you don't listen and turn too low Of course he complained about that, too. ciel bleu, Saskia

For a computer: you need the dock, a firewire port on your pc, a firewire cable with the right connectors to connect the 2, some capture software. For a mixing board: generally these use the A/V (composite) port, sometimes the S-video port. I'm thinking in this case you need the composite cable that came with the camera (ie, with the half-moon shaped connector). ciel bleu, Saskia

Beginner accuracy competition: click Another competition we have here for beginner skydivers is a 3way FS scramble competition: 1 experienced skydiver and 2 beginners per team. Lots of fun

A HP canopy like a CF at a WL of ~1.6 is a bit much IMO for 450 jumps, especially coming from a ST as it behaves nothing like a swoop canopy. You may want to put some jumps on a more diving canopy than the ST first, like on a sabre2 150 or 135, before moving to a CF. In fact, you might want to just get a sabre2 altogether ciel bleu, Saskia

I use 2x CX105, so I have EIS instead of OIS cameras. OIS might work for me too though as I usually bellyfly anyway. I'm trying to remember what the specific problems with Canon cameras that were jumped here were. I specifically seem to remember focus problems (having to re-set the focus for every jump?) or something, but not 100% sure. This was a few years ago anyway so maybe (hopefully) things have changed by now

Hmm it's got OIS though which is likely not good for skydiving (and unfortunately seems to be found in all pro-sumer camcorder models, like this one...), and there've been problems with Canon camcorders in the past so I wouldn't want to be the one to buy one first Sidenote: Not useful for us, also kinda weird IMO, I'd assume you want extra IS with higher zoom settings not lower. ciel bleu, Saskia

ciel bleu, Saskia

Been done, quite a while ago already. At least 2 times by a jumper I know, and I found another one on youtube. ciel bleu, Saskia

+1. Even a guy I didn't know but who had 1000 jumps and had followed tandems out before screwed up by diving right under the tandem pair instead of sidesliding a few feet closer as he was asked to do. The tandem got burbled a few feet... When I confronted him about it after we landed, he said it was no problem "he only went underneath the legs". I later found out he had taken out another videoflyer (at another DZ) by ending up OVER the tandem instead of on level, barrelrolled over the TI, then fell on top of the videoflyer. I especially dislike being put on the spot as I get told (or happen to notice) while boarding or even in the plane they're coming with. "Yeah but I'm an up jumper so you can't refuse" Like hell I can And an up jumper IMO would KNOW that all parties involved would like to be told/asked ahead of time about a change in plan like an accompanying jumper Some pleople can lurk me al they want as they do not distract from the video and they're so good I don't have to keep an eye out for them, while others even though they may have 500 jumps or more can go fly with the tandem if they want (and if the TI allows of course), but without me. "Up jumper" or not ciel bleu, Saskia

I haven't seen this camera in person, so this is just from browsing the 'net. At first glance it doesn't seem possible to attach a wide-angle lens to it, which would mean it's not usuable as a skydive camera, unless you either jump without (some skydivers do) or someone like Cookie comes up with a box with integrated threads like they did for the TGV-series. This does add up in costs... Also for the price and the reviews ("While this HD video doesn't measure up to the video you'd capture with a full-fledged HD camcorder") I have my doubts about the videoquality, which may be a big deal for you or not ("just debrief video" vs selling tandem videos). I'd also want to test the A/V port first to see if a hype-eye will work with this camera, but again this may not be a big deal if you're just doing coach video or something you can maybe live without a hype-eye. ciel bleu, Saskia

Phoenix-Fly lists PFIs at 4 different Aussie DZs, if that helps. ciel bleu, Saskia

Completely off-topic: pro-skydivers they may be, pro-spellcheckers, not so much... 2 out of 3 anyway. I wanna learn crow control! ciel bleu, Saskia

I only average 2 demojumps/year, because even before the winds died down enough for my first SL jumps I was groundcrewing for some demojumps, and I'm a chicken for some of the stuff that happened then and later: I don't like small obstructed landing fields if I can avoid them, jumping in higher winds than I would have on my DZ, being in the air with people who are too focused on being on a demo jump to look around where they're flying, jumping into football fields where teams are still running around because they refuse to budge, etc. BTW I've never gotten paid as such, sometimes we get a free jump after, sometimes we actually have to pay a few euros to jump (military demos or you get some drinks in return). I'll do the occasional nice big open field demo jump (airshows and the like, usually you only need 100 jumps or so for these), I'll happily film tandempassengers or fly wingsuit or do CRW during those, and I'll happily groundcrew for everything else but I'm too chicken for the "real" demos myself ciel bleu, Saskia

All skydiving disciplines (also fun to pick what you want to try next!) SL course from last year SL course, plenty of wind, this video includes a "don't try this @ home" landing LOL (also, no idea about the sunglasses LOL) Beginner accuracy competiton, about zero wind, lots of landings of mostly student-type canopies (squares + rounds), not all landings are good examples, this vid includes something you REALLY don't want to do, see both landings of the yellow/red canopy... ciel bleu, Saskia

The printer won't recognize RAW no. But the pc sure can. If you use the usb as a Mass Storage Device and use windows explorer to get to the memory card (as opposed to some software that tries to do that for you) you can copy the RAW files to your pc. Then you need software capable of handling your specific type of RAW files to edit and/or save them as jpegs, for example Photoshop 7/CS1 and up will handle D70S RAW files (if not, update Photoshop). ciel bleu, Saskia

If there's moisture INSIDE the lens, it's as good as dead It's not going to go away. I'd get a new one, myself, and not jump this lens anymore... As for the settings, I got them from the exif of YOUR picture so that's what your picture says you're shooting with I do give RAW pictures to the occasional tandem student that asks for them before the jump, usually those are photographers themselves. For the rest, they get jpegs, but not "souped up" like yours so there is still a fair amount of room to play with them even if they are only jpegs. Many of the younger folk twiddle around in photoshop or similar these days. Magazines are also not too fond of extra saturated and sharpened pictures. Also sharpening can cause noise, especially on sunset loads etc. It's not a MUST, if your customers are happy then why not, it's just that I wouldn't use that as standard settings myself. Also, not a dude ciel bleu, Saskia

I don't consider MOST of the canopies in this thread to be intermediate Just 3, in the starting post... ciel bleu, Saskia

After every jump. I have fast cards and a fast cardreader, this is the fastest solution. I also don't have to tether the camera (+helmet) to my pc this way, don't have to leave my camera on for the duration of "dubbing", I also can leave the card at my pc and go jump with another card if I'm in a big hurry, especially during back-to-back loads as this way the coach can get a look at the jump on his laptop while we're jumping again. ciel bleu, Saskia