dragon2

Youtube is also out if you want the soundtracks to remain intact ciel bleu, Saskia

The minimum of 200 jumps for wingsuiting is NOT to get you to fall out of an airplane 200 times it's so you LEARN stuff, be aware of your surroundings, know how to fly with others, get some experience in different situations, like that. I for one would hesitate to give you a first flight course even if you have 200 jumps in a short time if this is your attitude. 200 jumps is the bare minimum for wingsuiting, we'll want to see a well-rounded aware safe skydiver too not a rushed single-minded (= often bull-headed in my experience) one. My tip: know your goals, by all means get a lot of jumping in if you can afford it, but make sure you enjoy the journey! Learn all you can along the way, for wingsuiting (generalizing here) this means heading control and awareness, keeping cool when dealing with serious freefall instability and spinning canopies, belly docking skills, precision landings (for those outlandings you'll most likely have a lot more of when you start wingsuiting) and general head-up-ness. Then again, if you haven't even taken a first jump course yet, you have no idea what you're talking about, jumping may not even be for you at all let alone the more restrictive wingsuiting which many skydivers find scary or at least uncomfortable. Or you may fall in love with belly flying, freeflying or canopy relative work yet ciel bleu, Saskia

Why would you even want to mention that? I'd think if you DIDN'T, they wouldn't even THINK about gay men, you just put ideas in their heads. Might be a cultural/personal thing though. ciel bleu, Saskia

Not really. My first ever jump with a tandem was with a friend as pax, no camera, after that I did 2 jumps with one of our TM/cameraflyers in a camera suit playing "tandem" for me, I then got asked to film as 2nd camera for a TM's nephew and then for a couple dozen freebees (jumping with visually impaired people, and for kids with cancer), every one of those videos (+ stills) was safe and selleable for sure. Next videos were "real" videos

Yes you want wings, and you may need to wear wings + (lots of) lead for the heavier tandems, or arch like hell. The wings aren't so much for fallrate as for getting the face shot, without wings on your belly you get video of the TM not the pax, and never mind about trying to freefly the vids. You want wings with 8yr old kids (Well WE get those sometimes, YOU'll likely only see 110 lbs girls at the lightest) + 150 lbs TM, you want wings + lead with 220 lbs TM + 220 lbs pax. Tandems with drogue I find can go ~100mph to ~145mph, WITHOUT drogue (ie, malfunction or unstable exit) they'll accelerate FAST. Be ready for that, and able. You definitely want a LOT of videojumps before going anywhere near a tandem, with or without a videocamera. Go buy a suit with wings and go film newbie FS2, FS4 and stuff for a few hundred jumps, you'll learn a lot. Better FS4 teams are easier to film but won't teach you as much as newbies though still better than nothing. DO NOT practice video jumping on a tandem, you should be good enough to not need any or much practicing on tandems themselves to get a safe and decent (selleable) video from the start IMO, do your practicing on other skydivers not students in any shape or form definitely not tandems. Make sure you can match any fallrate, be anywhere relative to your subject you want to be, get all the shots you want and be safe the entire jump, ask for the specifics about jumping with tandems - where to be and where NOT EVER to be, also have a good customer attitude and get the editing stuff down before you need it would be my tip, plus learn to use that camera ie read the manual and experiment with it, after all that you're ready to start shooting tandems and you'll likely do quite good right from the start. It's fun, but it'll take a lot of investing time (jumps) and money (jumps and equipment) wise, but it's worth it Oh yeah, be sure to read the entire "little things" thread click ciel bleu, Saskia

You don't have to sign up, just click on the gold stars to vote, last one on the right gives 5 stars. ciel bleu, Saskia

Under canopy it's fine if you take them off, in freefall not however: for me I'd stay in the plane if I had no goggles, too worried about my eyes (Lasik never heals 100%) and can't see much then anyway. Fortunately for me the one time my goggles broke in the plane and there were no spares around, the TM I was videoing was kind enough to give me hers, she jumped without. ciel bleu, Saskia

Hey, how come you didn't give me that video for the daily vid? ciel bleu, Saskia

Clicky LOL nice vid ciel bleu, Saskia

I started out filming rookies, then more rookies, then a team that's less rookie but doesn't get any coaching ever so blocks are... interesting... I then did some training with a good AA team, with a good exit count too. I thought, Hey this is EASY! I can do this!!! And finally managed to learn to fly closer, steeper, and boy was it easy I hardly had to move at all. Big change from chasing teams all over the sky. Hard to go back I think a rookie cameraflyer is better off learning with a A or AA team than with rookies, if said team doesn't mind being smallish in the frame and getting hit once or twice during exit (hopefully only during exit). ciel bleu, Saskia

What plane? I'm still learning this, but this is my advice/tips (for a Grand Caravan). Trailing is safer but not all teams like this, ask them/their coach if this is ok first. Should you ever miss the count, do not jump off at the same time as the team (unless you are very far away in the door then it may still work - otherwise you're going to hit them) but turn with them and peel off after them. If you want to lead, make sure you have as much separation from the team as possible to start with (ie, right hand on the tail of a C208 if you can reach it, if you're short like me try standing on the end of the step with your right foot, 2 hands on the end of the floater bar and push off slightly backwards NOT UP as you leave to get a foot or more extra separation), make sure you don't jump out to the side but slide down right next to the plane that's your air. I find the easiest teams to film are A and AA. Rookies have a lot of trouble with exits themselves, best trail, although watch out for points jumping out after, lol. We just had our Nationals last weekend, I filmed my first AAA team as a fill-in having never jumped with them before and only 9 training jumps of AAA ever, of which 7 were trailing. Ahem. Managed not to cost them too many points things on the hill happen FAST at this level so trailing with this team was not an option. I sure as hell learned a lot last weekend, and we actually managed to come in third after fighting for it Have a look at our videos to see examples of trailing and leading, on various levels: friday weekend monday Best is to ask a good FS4 camera flyer on your DZ to help you! ciel bleu, Saskia

Which is all you need. Too many digits (like alti watches) make it more confusing to process while in freefall, and +/- 50ft wouldn't make a difference anyway. The Neptune (and I presume other digital altis too) can be set to display more digits when you're under canopy, which is when more digits do matter. ciel bleu, Saskia

The one and only altitron i jumped was defective: it read 800ft wrong in the plane so I disregarded it in freefall, it did tell me when I was entering my pattern under canopy that I was at 4k. Parasport Italia makes nice helmets and suits, however customer service is non-existant and their altis and beepers have never been as good as other brands'. I'd go for a L&B or Alti2 product anyday. ciel bleu, Saskia

1) I'd ask Cookie about all that, they know best. 2) There's a whole camera forum on here, did you see that? 3) You may get more responses if you fill out your profile, 130 jumps isn't nearly enough to start camera flying BTW. ciel bleu, Saskia

There's a whole wingsuit forum on here, and it has a FAQ too: click. ciel bleu, Saskia

Of course it's cheaper than the CX100: it's not a highdef cam. It's got EIS which is good. No way to control the camera though, as a cam-eye or hype-eye will not work, so no visual feedback about what the camera is doing and you'd have to turn it on/off manually, no idea if it needs the lcd screen open for that which would be very annoying indeed. On some previous canon camcorders turning off autofocus for the day was impossible, very annoying that. I'd stick with the CX100, especially if you need the footage to be good (tandems, FS4 etc not just inside fun jumping). ciel bleu, Saskia

It was worse for a while than it is now: we just got an entirely new door and the elastic band thingies (click) don't form a loop anymore when the door is open, like they did for a while with the previous door. These elastic bands are still new so there's tension on them. Still managed to snag the elastic though I was up high with my rig, definitely higher than normal because of one of the vidiots being in the way and i was trying to make room, in that corner of the plane you're usually not standing up so high. But I'll raise it with the DZO, see what he says. ciel bleu, Saskia

True, bonus is that it also makes for a better tandemvid I video the door opening and looking outside (gets lots of oohs and aahs of the family later) and keep an eye on the spot, I get a hint from my TM when the pilot thinks it's ok to get out, all without looking back and forth outside - light - outside - light - smile, student - repeat LOL ciel bleu, Saskia

We jump a Grand Caravan, I was sitting in the rear in front of my tandempair, 2 cameramen between me and the door. When the door opened I had to move out of the way a bit for the 1rst and 2nd tandempairs + videos, we were going third. Eh, no we're not Felt something snag a bit, felt for my hackey as I turned towards the door, but found my whole hand suddenly full of pilotchute Kept good hold of it, backed to the window as there was nowhere else to go as the plane was still pretty full and door was open. Everyone else had to go out past us, most were grumbling about it as we 3 were kinda in the way, while I was holding on to that pilotchute. Everyone else out, I could finally move towards the front of the plane and my TM closed the door, we went for a go-around while my TM fixed my pilotchute and the jump went fine (even though the 106kg tandemstudent suddenly decided to go play superman for his 2nd jump ) Oops. I KNOW that elastic band stuff is there on the door, another one of our camerapeople also snagged his PC once on the stuff and ended up under a reserve as the TM that put it back managed to wrap the bridle around it. Got complacent about it though, won't be in the future ciel bleu, Saskia

Use a hype-eye ciel bleu, Saskia

The burble is behind and up from the canopy, and widens (and lessens) the farther you get from the canopy in front of you. If a canopy is straight in front or straight below you you won't hit it's burble (ie, I can fly with a camera right behind another canopy without getting burbled, not so when filming say a 4way CRW formation as then there are canopies in front but also below me). You'll know for sure when you do hit a burble Effects from hitting a burble may vary from a slight "bump" which is the most likely, to something more serious, depending among other things on your altitude and your canopy's susceptibility to turbulence. If you want to explore this, ask for an experienced jumper to come fly in front of you (up high, duh). Seems you handled the situation well enough though. ciel bleu, Saskia

With most good Sandisk cards you get these little pouches for free, these seem perfect for what you need Ask someone that jumps Sandisk cards if they don't need theirs (I for one have at least five of these in a drawer somewhere), buy some Sandisk cards or buy the pouch separately click ciel bleu, Saskia

You can try contacting our skydive shop, I know they've sold Atom freebags to other countries before when PdF wasn't responding. info_at_parachutecase_dot_nl ciel bleu, Saskia

Again, you CANNOT measure YOURSELF. At least get someone ELSE to hold the measuring tape ciel bleu, Saskia

Every manufacturer measures differently, it's an art LOL so make sure you get yourself measured by someone who knows how to measure for that particular brand. Of course you can NEVER measure yourself. Container sizing, again, make sure you ask someone who knows about that particular brand combination, the manufacturer may not know your canopy brand(s) and type(s), especially if you have something rare, and pack volumes can vary enourmously. 4k difference? No way. You'll maybe pay a bit more if even that if you go through a dealer than if you ordered yourself, don't forget you'll have to pay mport duties and taxes same as your dealer does (unless you physically go and pick up a rig from the States and then don't declare it, something your dealer will not do). Also, many manufacturers will not sell you a rig directly, you'll have to go through one of their dealers. Also, pissing off your local rigger = bad idea ciel bleu, Saskia