DSE

The below text is a letter sent to USPA Competition Committee members. There was/is some confusion with a region wanting to attempt a record, and opinion was asked for by a USPA BOD member and Executive Committee member. None of them are wingsuiters, so they have reached out for help in understanding the grid mess. Up until the week before the record attempt, the USPA BOD had interfaced with only one wingsuiter, with said wingsuiter claiming to represent all wingsuiters in the USA. The letter doesn't suggest any better solutions, it merely addresses the problems some of us have with the grid. It's not my place to present the FlyLikeBrick software to the USPA, although I do believe it is a superior solution by comparison. This letter was sent to the USPA on October 27, 2009, nearly two weeks before the bigway event. The "email thread" referenced in the above letter isn't published here, as it contains several personal discussions between members of the BOD, persons not on the BOD, and some frustrations with the grid system. It is not appropriate to publish those mails without everyone's permissions. The one response received supporting the acceptance of the grid was "it was the only alternative presented to us, we need a means of measuring wingsuit flight." Yeah, well....you might present a starving man a plate of horseshit as his only "alternative." He probably still ain't gonna eat it. All this said, I'd like to reiterate that although I don't believe in the grid, it's a wingsuit-related effort, and I support wingsuiting 110%, which is why I was in Elsinore to fly in the bigway. "Please put me in my box, Coach. I'm ready to play...."

I too, quit paper logs as soon as I got my D. I do keep a daily log downloading my Altitrack into Jumptrack. Maybe someday Paralog will accept Altitrack data....but I do tend to keep a "novel" of my jumps when it's merited. As an instructor, I keep a separate (paper and digital) logbook of students, with a novel about those jumps in the event I need to recall anything. My handwriting is barely readable so keyboard input is preferable.

Like it says in my OP... "Coatings are fairly fragile" and yes...an abrasive will eat them right off.

How would being paid make an S&TA any more or less partial? I understand your point, but don't see that it's addressable from any direction. Old system or new system.

Sebum/nose oil and a microfiber won't work? The coatings are fairly fragile. You might want to take it to a camera repair shop to have them refract it and see if the blems are through the coating. If it's engine oil-caused, it may well be through the coating.

Yes, the header files are unique for each format. You need a computer to interface them when it's 50Hz/60Hz differences. File-based camcorders effectively require a computer for any sort of Xfer, unless it's Xferring Stick to Internal, and even then, you can't Xfer sticks from other format camcorders.

you can easily replace the USB-captured clips with the Firewire captured clips, in the Vegas Media Pool/Project Media window. Put all the old files in one folder (don't delete). then when Vegas asks to search for the old files, point it to the new file location. All files should replace in one shot.

Sounds like you're seeing interlace artifacts. Do you see the ghosting/lines when it's played on a television, or just on a computer monitor?

and therein lies your entire problem. You're capturing using the USB port, which uses windows codecs to feed the system, and it's 360 x 240. Not good stuff. You NEED a firewire port to do a direct Xfer. Using Firewire/1394, the transfer is all digital, and is 720 x 480 pixels. Vegas will capture via USB, simply because Windows will feed it, but it's not a supported format. It's a "maybe get lucky/maybe not" thing with old drivers left over from an old web-cam system Vegas once supported. If your laptop doesn't have 1394 port on it, you'll need a PCM/CIA or Xpress card adapter. They're very inexpensive, and will give you the quality you're looking for.

Nothing exports DV over USB, nowever, a few cameras do support 640 x 480 streams, but I've yet to see one work properly. Vegas itself only supports capture of tape media over: -firewire -HDMI (intensity) -SD/HD SDI (Black Magic or AJA) Nothing else.

given your goals, the GoProHD is a great option. It's not a LESSER snag point but rather a GREATER snag point unless you take some steps to make it smaller profile. Given that it doesn't sit flush on the helmet, the mounting system could create a snag, but the redeeming factor there is that you'll likely snap off the camera at the mount in the event of a bad opening. Quality is fair on this camera, and great as a crash cam.

Congrats on the new store, Gary, and for having the kind of customer service people want to crow about. That's rare in any industry. Good luck with the new venture.

Jumping a Blade, Phantom, and Firebird with a 7', 26" PC was no problem. When I went to the M1, I had hesitations out the wazoo. When I bought my new Voodoo, I went with the recommended 9' bridle and a 30" ZP PC. No issues anymore.

Looks great. Since it's still a chin cup helmet after all those mods, does it stay in one place?

mp4. http://www.vasstonline.com/Articles/VasstArticles/tabid/56/smid/374/ArticleID/10/reftab/38/Default.aspx The article link (a little old now), tells you the dims as well.

1280 x 720, between 5 and 10Mbps. It's likely not the size giving you grief, I've got several clips on FB that are 100MB or larger. May be the dims, or may be that your ISP won't allow a large Xfer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVVrX061gP4 PIA three years ago. I believe LouDiamond has some "inside" info on the product/concept.

Here is a good rule of thumb; -Inside video .3 lens (70% greater FOV from camera.) -Outside video .5 lens (50% greater FOV from camera.) -Handcam, belly mount, shoe mount .2 lens (80% greater FOV from camera.) or expressed differently: .2 (Extremely wide, far away things are teeny, near objects such as noses greatly exaggerated ) .3 (Pretty wide, close objects are somewhat distorted, far away objects are quite small) .4 (reasonably wide, close objects appear fairly normal, far objects discernable) .5 (reasonably wide, close objects not terribly distorted, far away objects very discernable) .6 (not very wide, close objects appear normal, far away objects are very discernable) .7 (why waste your time with one?) For those shooting tandems from a large door aircraft that allows the videographer some distance between the subject and the lens, a .5 or .55 is ideal. for those shooting in a small door where things are tight (such as a King), it's hard to get enough distance to capture the shoulders/head of a tandem student in the door, so a .3 or .4 might be a more appropriate option.

I rarely comment on what cameras are coming out (when I'm aware of them) due to NDA's. However. I assure you with 100% certainty that there is no 7DMKII coming out next spring nor in 2010 at any time.

premiere 7 doesn't support Blu-ray, nor HD of any flavor, IIRC. You can burn an HD MPEG 2 or AVCHD file to any DVD5 (standard DVD) and it will play in PS3 or BD player built post V1.2. The .dvd extension isn't a format, it's a reference file. A finished DVD contains only a vob. You'll need to output to MPEG 2 or MPEG 4 for HD output in Encore CS or other HD-capable DVD authoring application.

Your solution makes a lot of sense. There is a certain irony in your sigline (remove "safety") and this particular discussion.

I agree entirely. It's not the USPA's job to create/enforce moral standards. However, the USPA is giving a license to instruct in a classroom that can be fatal. A guy who is constantly bombed, known to be bombed (this is just an example), or is known to be intentionally unsafe can clean up his/her act for the few days of the course, and then return to their ways. Should there be a mechanism to counter this, or is it merely for a DZO to determine that they won't use that particular newly minted instructor?

That happened at my DZ too. I've been told that the coach course is not set up to account for personalities that shouldn't be coaching, i.e. the instructor can't just say "well, you're an idiot, so no". Seems to me that they should be able to say no as long as there's a viable reason. That was one of the points of the "new" AFF program (as I understand it) was to remove the personality factor from the end result. And I agree. The Examiner should be able to say no. Should someone who was found negligent in a fatality be given a rating? Should an individual who had been found to be skydiving while drunk or stoned on multiple occasions be given a rating? Should someone who had violated USPA regs on multiple occasions be given a USPA rating? Or...should they receive the rating because they were better skydivers than the examiners mother?

The flag means freedom. Freedom to choose where you will and won't live. Freedom to make covenants for a neighborhood where people choose to live. If one covenant is violated, then other covenants must be violable too. That's what the flag stands for. Freedom, equality, and this guy should know that above all others.