DSE

Does it make my ass look phat?

Hopefully the tracking dive info was good for you, Emily. That's a tremendously important skill to possess. Let's go track this weekend!

kermie, I'm the wrong person to ask. The needle is relatively fragile (I broke one replacing a scratched face) and it seems you could do more damage than it's worth. maybe the folks at Alti can tive you some direction even if they can't do the work for you. Maybe a watchmaker could help. Keep in mind that it's a precision instrument that you depend on for good information...

Spence, that was the sentiment I heard at the meeting as well. That the last one was cleverly worded and folks were afraid of it. Ed, just that the motion passed to allow for proxies doesn't mean it's gonna make it through. Without the membership making an effort, I believe it won't. I guess in that, you're right. It's up to the membership.

Be VERY CAREFUL taking the face off. I once unscrewed my scratched-up Altimaster lens to replace it with a new one, slipped, and broke off the altimeter needle. I sent it to the factory for repair, and it came back looking like this (see the attached image). That was a non-repairable item, which cost me an otherwise perfectly good altimeter... I was joking, but I can see how it didn't come across that way. Handpainting the face probably isn't a good idea.

And in this, is exactly why some of the BOD members are fully opposed to modifying the constitution of the USPA, in order to allow on-line voting. My belief is they're scared that most of the BOD will be voted off. There are several BOD members that want to see online voting happen, but not enough of them.

Hey! I apologized.

exchange of monies, goods, services are not required for a copyright claim/violation of copyright. If you can do it on your own, fine. But just like it is illegal for a DZ to use copyrighted music, copyrighted images in their tandem videos, DZ's do it all the time, sure. Alti is simply smarter than most DZO's. Alti2 cannot manufacture nor assist in the manufacturing of a device containing a copyrighted work. Take the face off and be real careful with that paintbrush.

Flockuniversity.org has a lot of the dates/events. One that isn't on there is the Freeflock Utah event the second week of July (July 9, 10, 11)

Never eaten a cat, but I do very much enjoy dog meat... Good stuff on a hot August afternoon at sun dance.

Curious thing... I *did* see the Flying Spaghetti Monster over Lodi, or something that resembled Him. I jumped there anyway. Lodi may not be for everyone, but it's a fun DZ, IMO. A lot of talent there.

Just wait till you get to jump with Joe "F##$@# " Jennings AKA CHUNX http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2964185#2964185 Umm...Amazon, Joe has sworn off dogs and would like to simply put that incident in the past.

There will *always* be exceptions and the "exceptional." That doesn't translate into changing up rules and recommendations. Rules and recommendations are a benchmark; waivers and special circumstance permissions are there for well...."special" considerations. Problem is, everyone thinks they're special. You comment on how the majority of incidents you see involving cameras point to higher number jumpers. That should tell you the story right there. If very experienced jumpers can get their asses handed to them, then it's more likely lower number jumpers will too (and have had). The stories are myriad. In the case of the GoPro/Contours, I'm "collecting" stories, and have three in less than 45 days. If I have three, there are easily nine. If you go back to November when they first started shipping, I have five stories of problems related to the camera. Does someone need to die or be badly broken to get the point? It's not much different than wingsuits. There is a reason for the recommended numbers. It's not arbitrary, and 200 isn't a point where everyone is ready. It *is* a point where the door issupposed to begin opening, however. For some reason, no one understands the rules and recommendations until they're on the other side of them.

just needs to be attachment sized. You decide the resolution and compression ratio

You coulda had dinner with him, Evil Queen, and a few others (and bought the requisite beer for jumping your own pack job for the first time) if you hadn't sneaked off before dark. Looking forward to seeing you in a Coach Course before long, Emily.

Therein lies the crux of it. Two situations reported related to GoPro/Contours... and here I'll add a third one. Saw a jumper with a GoPro and a yellow "line" between the GoPro and his chinstrap. Walked up to ask him about it. He's afraid of snagging/losing the GoPro, so he tied about 12" of cord to his camera and other end to chinstrap. That way "If the camera breaks off, it won't be lost." "Whatcha gonna do if the camera tangles up in deploying lines or risers? Do you think it won't get sucked into anything coming off your back?" "I'm a professional paraglider, I know this won't happen to me." I asked him if I could show him something, he agreed. Grabbed the cord and started pulling him around, told him to simulate a mal. He first went for his cutaway handle and another student pointed out that if his helmet is attached to his main lines, he likely wouldn't get a lot of benefit from cutting away. He then tried to undo his chinstrap but the Fastex wouldn't easily release due to the pressure on the chinstrap. He has 90 jumps, has had a couple issues with very low deployments and no AAD, and is still jumping the camera minus the "safety cable." Here's to hoping all the small camera/low-time jumper stories are as good as this one (so far).

just as a quick reminder... there are only 10 days remaining in the photo contest. Two entries rec'd so far.

my first attempt to help :) EDIT: ummm thats a really dumb mistake, just saying. No more "dumb" than a misrouted chest strap, an uncocked PC, missing legstraps on a wingsuit.... All have occured multiple times, all have contributed to incidents. The end of that report has some interesting information. http://www.wildfirelessons.net/documents/Willow_CA_Final_2009.pdf

I've been a full-time professional educator for over 35 years. I do know something about courses, teaching and testing.[/reply This explains your bias (sorry, a cheap shot, but I couldn't resist), but to my 1st point; have you ever (especially since the introduction of the ISP, definitely post introduction of the old BIC) taken any USPA instructional courses? What you seem to think "testing out" means is not what it takes to challenge a USPA ratings course. Passing the written test is the smallest part of it. The biggest part is the teaching and evaluation of student performance, and it must be done following a defined format using clearly defined techniques. If you were to take a rating course from me, I would presume that I didn't have to teach you how to teach (positive vs. negative reinforcement, time management, lesson plans, braking down a topic into teachable portions, etc) and would certainly allow you to "test out" of this portion of the class. If I did have to teach you this, that wouldn't say a lot for your 35 years of experience. Your point seems to be that you, as a professional educator, should have to listen to me spend the better part of a day explaining basic educational theory to someone like you. To me, this would be a waste of time for both of us. This is where the methodology of USPA really is important; understanding the whole/part/whole, repetitive analysis, and most importantly....consistency come into play. If someone can satisfactorily "test out" of the ground evaluations...then I agree...they should not have to sit through the day(s) of training involved. I'd be surprised if many could test out without the contextual training that the courses provide.

Converting AVDHD to .mxf is very fast. Converting MPEG2 to IMX is very fast. Converting SD MPEG 2 to IMX or .mxf isn't so fast. But "fast" is relative. If it's just a couple jumps (1-3 mins) then even "slow" is fast. Maybe 3-5 minutes on a slower computer? Just this second, I converted an AVCHD jump to .mxf on a quad, and it took 2.5 mins to convert 2 mins of footage. HTH?

You don't feel someone with say....25,000 jumps who coaches hundreds of students each year should be allowed a waiver should they request one? (as an aside, CG took the coach course before the new ruling, taught more students than required to maintain currency in a week, took the AFFI course and passed both very handily). While I agree with the new rules and publically supported same... A guy has 16 years in sport, 600 jumps, becomes AFFI and just completed TI course. Different guy has 2.5 years in sport, 1200 jumps, easily manages the AFFI course, but can't be a TI due to time in sport restriction. He got coach rating at 100 jumps, AFFI around 450 jumps. Which guy would you prefer take your daughter or mother on an AFF or tandem jump?

Very few NLE systems use the video card at all, and the ones that do (aside from Mercury or proprietary cards) aren't to be trusted because of widely varying gamma. The "jello" you see is what I don't like about most of the low-cost MPG4 cams...Rolling shutter should almost never be an issue for mid-level skydiving cams, simply because the shutterspeed isn't high enough to worry about. Usually.

That couldn't be further from the truth. Most television stations don't know anything about AVCHD, MPEG2HD, nor HDV. *Most* only know the in-house formats for which they are designed/workflow-defined. The be-all, end all delivery format that nearly everyone can open is .mxf, or Material eXchange Format. Mac and PC interchangeable, reads on Media Pool systems, Quantel, Apogee, Matrox, and other media distribution HD/SDI systems. AVID, Final Cut, Quantel and other NLE/post systems read it well. You can transcode to either Sony MXF (biggest industry standard) or Panasonic's .mxf format, but they're both open XML containers. Don't ever expect ENG guys to know what to do with your raw footage. Most won't. That's changing... FWIW, I have a vimeo/YouTube training stream on using Vegas to Final Cut, Final Cut to Avid using the .mxf format encoder.

The focus these days is on air skills. Knowledge has been thrown under the bus. It explains why there is so much stupid shit going on. We're doing a piss-poor job of instilling knowledge and safety in the youngsters. POPS, USPA is trying very hard to change this. The IERC is one of the major steps forward, and more is coming. I don't know what the teaching methodology was 15 years ago, but what they've adopted for the IERC, and requiring standardization courses is a step in the right direction, IMO. Agreed, this shouldn't be an easily done thing. Flip side, look at someone like Craig Girrard...Why shouldn't he be able to take a Coach Course on Monday/Tuesday/Wed, and an AFFI course on Friday-Friday? With quadruple the jumps and instructional experience of most of the AFFI/E's out there, would you agree he's kind of in a different boat?

Mark, Other photos and "dummy formations" have been used to suss out the viability of other systems. They are superior, IMO; several USPA board members thought so to.... The systems are up for peer review if you merely look. But with everyone looking in one direction, there is a lot happening in the background. The process of what it should have been will hopefully begin anew. I don't suggest I have a better answer. I thought i did, until I saw what Kallend, Jarno, Andreea, and Zach put up as alternatives. Anyone can see that they're superior alternatives, and certainly require the skills that *most* would deem record-worthy. And yes, technology will play into this. And it's already accounted for in one of the methods that has been proposed. The best wingsuiting resource in the world is, well....the wingsuiting world/community. You know the best way to discover a GREAT idea, right? Start out with lots of good ones....