DSE

The life that I have. I'm one of the lucky ones in almost every aspect. Cheers, and happy Turkey day!

In this, I couldn't agree more, and it's the same thing Jarno, Butters, Tom, Andreea, myself have all been saying for a while. It seems to be a dick-wagging contest to see how fast one can get to a bigger suit; we see it all the time. Since the WS'r can't get under a Velo 103 for a while, he'll upsize to a big-ass suit because "he can really max it out on breakoff." Generally, I'd purport that a large number of WS don't really care much about improving their flight, or as you say, maybe they don't know there is any other way to fly because that's how they see their coaches fly and what they see in photos. Let's face it; a certain percentage of wingsuiters are people that suck in other disciplines. No FS or FF coaching in their pocket, no education in the sport at all. Half perhaps, got the A license, dicked around with free-flying and perhaps some tracking until the magic 200, and then put on a suit with no understanding of bodyflight. We see many FF-from-the-start folk be unsuccessful in Coach and AFFI programs because they don't understand their relationship to the air. WS'rs are much the same. Getting into a big suit very fast is a way to preen and say "I'm a bad-ass" without any background to their skill set. Bigger wings compensate for lacking skills, unfortunately. Come watch the Flight One guys teaching canopy control to newbies. You don't see them flying their Comp Velo's. They're smarter than most WS coaches. ~How do we change it? Competition is part of it. Watch what happens at the artistic/RW comps. You wont' see people wearing XBirds, Venoms, Vampire 4's, or Apache's. It's the same precisional difference between stock car racing and Formula 1 racing. People will see how generally sloppy and turbulent they are in big suits and turn in lousy scores. Some of it is manufacturer-rep pressure. "You need this big suit dude, it'll let you fly like...__insert big name here_" It's apparent in the BASE world, this sort of stupidity has killed and maimed quite a few. Robi had some great words about this subject during a rainy day at Elsinore. Manufacturer reps might consider the path they're painting (but it's unlikely). How else? By having mentors that practice what they preach. Photos of coaches wearing X/sbirds while an FFC wears an Intro, Prodigy, Impact, are common. It's about ego. "I'm your coach and you wanna be like me, right?" Changing that alone will be a big start. "Dress for success." If you're afraid you're gonna go low on a lightweight student, then learn to fly better yourself. Do *you* put on your S6, Phantom, or Tbird when flying with FFCs and coaching jumps? Or do you fly the Sbird?

Sure, getting on the load and even exiting is elective. Having a malfunction is "elective" too. I kinda doubt that people will realize too late that they didn't elect to be part of a CRW, Wingsuit, 100 way, or Nationals competition. Sometimes, what looks good in the air isn't the same as what looks good in freefall or under canopy. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't learn that until it's too late to get back in the aircraft. If you've never been in that situation, then god bless you for having never had a moment of poor judgement. Most every experienced skydiver has at some point.

If you're planning on shooting HD, there is no real value in using those lenses (if clarity is the goal). If you shoot SD...they're just fine. You'll love the file-based workflow vs tape.

Assuming you mean the front/ocular. Yes. 30mm. If you're adapting to most popular lens adapters, you'll need a 37mm to 30mm stepdown ring.

Thanks for posting those pix, John. I was hoping someone would post an old license.

Refer to post #43. I don't believe a D license should be required for the 1000 jump wings. Jumpnumbers are not related to skillsets. I do think that a D should be at least somewhat more difficult. I do think that D licenses should include night jumps. and night wingsuit jumps....damn they're fun. Get a few daytime WS skills under your belt first, and give it a whirl. And night CRW. And be on a completed 100 way. And have competed at nationals... The possibilities of arbitrary criteria are endless. Wingsuit night jumps, night CRW, competed at Nationals, and being on a completed 100 way are all electives, determined and planned/trained in advance. landing well after sunset may not be. Why did you take my post out of context and make it appear as though I'm recommending night wingsuit jumps for a D license?

Looking forward to seeing your pix of you backflying, barrel rolling, and looping in that suit of yours, John!

They do...only not in situations where it negatively impacts those trying to fly really tight slots or grips next to them And when their skills improve they'll be able to do that too. Are there still people so daft to believe that big suits have anything to do with skills (other than being a compensation for small dick and lack of skill?)

IDT Y5 We also filmed with the Panasonic AG-3DA1. Stellar wingsuiting in 3D. You'll see other footage from the Y5 very soon, being edited by Jarno Cordia.

Not my cup of tea but I respect you guys that do. I'm not sure you understood what I meant in my first post, so I'll separate it out. If I were king and convincer of the BOD, I'd do away with the D license requirement to receive wings. Changing the D license requirements however, would be something I'd want to add to, not remove from.

Refer to post #43. I don't believe a D license should be required for the 1000 jump wings. Jumpnumbers are not related to skillsets. I do think that a D should be at least somewhat more difficult. I do think that D licenses should include night jumps. and night wingsuit jumps....damn they're fun. Get a few daytime WS skills under your belt first, and give it a whirl.

SIM Sec 6.4: 4. To maintain safety and comply with FAA Regulations, any jumps between sunset and sunrise are considered as night jumps. 5. Night jumps to meet license requirements and to establish world records must take place between one hour after official sunset and one hour before official sunrise It is very common all over the USA that loads are in the air post-sunset. Quite different from Sweden. Flying over a fireworks show is pretty spectacular, but you can't really watch. It destroys your night vision. That's also why we're cautious with lights in the aircraft prior to night jumps; vision may be compromised.

a special mount on the left shoe. it's a different shoe. Saw one the other day that was more or less a tube with a cutaway cable through it. The tube slipped over the shoe, under the bootie, and the cutaway goes up the leg.

OK. I haven;t seen anywhere in the USPA rules, regulation, recommendations, guidelines, literature or anywhere else where D = Expert. Please point it out and let me know if I'm stupid in this or not. If I am, I'll take up the D=Expert torch. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the D-license (when it was 200 jumps) referred to as an "Expert License?" Read part 105. Wording is specific to "Master" which is also equivalent of "expert." Searching the web, there are many references to "Master" post 1980, and "Expert" pre-1980. Additionally... Gotta match? or do you need my lighter? If you don't want to be a TI or PRO, there is no need to have a D. So why bitch about it? C License holders can do everything a D license holder can do except be a TI or be a PRO. So what if they can't hold that highest rating? If you don't wanna earn it, then don't cry around about it. I disagree with the D license being required for jumpwings, FWIW. Number of jumps is not relevant to skillset. If nothing else, it gives people something to argue about on wet rainiy nights. It ain't a perfect world, and USPA will always have something for folks to bitch about (pokes self in eye).

but there is a contingency for that. It's called a waiver. Same waiver exists for those that want a D license. Same waiver applies for anything that goes beyond the norm. Tell me this: What is the ratio of incidents are related to late sunset exits that got too dark for sensible exit vs water landings where the water was within 1K of the DZ? (I'm a fan of training water entries, BTW)

A-only a rocket scientist wouldn't know what I meant. B-If everyone were a rocket scientist it would reduce the level of misunderstanding around here, too. Alternatively, if the rocket scientists would pull their semantics out of their gashole, it might help reduce the level of misunderstanding around here too

That was one of the most funny things heard at the camp after the Performance Cup, eh? LOL! "You guys fly like Europeans, it's just too fast!" The 2.5 min, 3.5 mile flocks were outstanding.

You just don't get it. Weight translates to speed. Speed translates to lift. Lift translates to glide. Ergo, the more weight you wear, the more glide available.

Perris and Elsinore are within an hour of four large airports, and just over an hour away from a coupla others. LAX ONT SNA LGB SDA PSP Both have bunkhouses. Both are open Wed/Thurs. Mass transit is gonna be a hassle to most any DZ, but if you're flying into SNA or ONT, lots of people that could probably help out with a ride.

I wouldn't use the velo envelope, but I can see how some folks would appreciate it being there. I'd split out the exit and slow it down separately. Makes for easy connection to the rest of the freefall, too. Wait...that's exactly how I do it. :-)

if it was "a little better" you'd be right. Twixtor is a lot better. It has much better interpolation and resampling algorithms than Vegas does. You can insert a velocity envelope and force resample. Force resample demands that Vegas look at every frame (actually at sample level) before rendering it when it's invoked. Vegas does a much better job of slo-mo than any of it's competitors (sans plugins) but it's still not remotely close to Twixtor and other higher end timewarping tools.

80 jumps on his 80th birthday, completed in 6:37:41 at Skydive Elsinore, from a Cessna 206 piloted by Lob Lobjoit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=z1C6ZOBsSj0 Inspiring man, has been a mentor to thousands. Congrats to Alicia for standing by (and jumping with) Pat through many years, and through this incredible day

I'd suggest that the position he's flying is incredibly common in flocks where you have mattresses combined with more typical suits. I *really* wanted to see him pop out his feet and sail off the wind into the trees. Put down some mattresses, see how far he'd fly. Where's Stoney when you need him?

It's actually quite likely. It allows them to claim higher valuations for PVT and charge accordingly. China uses diary as a big part of their measurement (according to NAB) vs people-meters (costly) and so the data may be quite easily faked. The following is an excerpt from Roland Soong The Statistical Reliability of People Meter Ratings. Journal of Advertising Research, February/March, p.51-56. To counterbalance the claim of the television program host, the reporter interviewed a Mr. Hu at CCTV-SOFRES. Here is the translation: According to him, the calculation of the rating is not based upon "the number of viewers divided by the total number of survey respondents." First of all, the company will select 300 representative households by considering sex, education, family composition and other factors. Next, in order to reduce the effect of fatigue from participation in the survey, the company will replace 2% of the households in the sample. Furthermore, the calculation for a time period is based on the minute as the basic time unit. Thus, the number of viewing minutes is added up for all persons and divided by "total number of persons in the sample multipled by the total number of minutes in the time period" and the result is the rating for the television program. Why does the sample consist of 300 households? According to Mr. Hu, "Based upon international standards, 1,067 sample persons is the point of balance between reliable numbers and research value. This number is the number of persons in 300 households in the case of China." "From a sample of 1,067, we can achieve the international standard of being able to achieve an error tolerance of plus or minus under 3% at the 95% confidence level. If we increase the sample to 1,000 households, the costs will increase geometrically but the increase in reliability and the reduction in sampling error will be quite limited," said Mr. Hu." Curious that they don't take into account the poverty levels of the majority of the country. India was busted a few years ago for something similar. At the end of the day...the only people that should give a shit is the CCTV marketing and sales department. Any intelligent person knows that 500M is a specious claim and somewhat clouds the overall achievement. Hundreds of millions of people saw a wingsuit fly through a hole in a mountain, and no matter how you slice it, it's a pretty impressive achievement whether one does or doesn't understand the logistics involved.