VideoFly

He better have a good set of air brakes...or should I say breaks?

Please, not when I'm on the plane!

"I'm a moron, this is my wife, She's frosting a cake with a paper knife, All that we've got here so nicely displayed, it's a little bit cheesy, but American made.... DZ's got the Flakes!" DSE Thanks for Frank's wisdom.

Although I have a coach rating and have filmed hundreds of AFF students, when asked questions about skydiving by students, my answer is always "let’s go ask your instructor." The AFF program is well thought out and planned. Additionally, instructors are taught and practice special skills in education. Instructors also have intuition with vast experience in working with students that I simply do not have. Sometimes instructors purposely wait to teach certain objectives and skills. Therefore, there is no room for me to circumvent the instructional plan. If in fact, I feel that I want to advise students, I feel that it would be appropriate for me to work hard and seek another rating. Until then, I will leave the job of advising students to instructors.

If you can, scan the company label and print it on sticker paper. Stick it to the front of your helmet and have a great fun jump in front of a videographer. To non-skydivers, the effect is large and they love the pictures. It also saves you from filming flags blowing so hard that they can't be read or worse yet, the flag taking you for a ride away from the camera. Depending on your experience level, flags can even cause entaglements or the loss of altitude awareness. Be careful, when all goes well, flag jumps are really cool.

When I was 6 feet and 260 with gear I fell fast but worked it out with a slightly baggy cotton jump suit and some different techniques. The beach ball thing did not work as well as what I call a "starfish." The beach ball grab did not increase my surface area enough and the cupped air did not stay around for long. For me, I find a flatter stretch with feet and head turned sideways allows me to float up to and stay with other jumpers better.

Congratulations, now the real fun begins!

Even though people get mad at me, I maintain a firm NO-LURKER (with the exception of very few instructors) rule if I am going to shoot video. Fortunately, our Tandem Masters respect my opinion, although on several occasions, I have had to give jumps to another videographer, instead of compromising my safety and the safety of others. Without experiencing the thrill of repetitive flight in close proximity to tandems, many skydivers have little idea of the variables and potential dangers involved.

"I think it is helpful when during training, instructors emphasize what a student should do in response to no-com situations or questionable directions." was a statement of fact, not a recommendation. I have a deep respect for all instructors and that is why I added that line to my post. I simply wanted to point out to students reading the thread that when during training, instructors emphasize what a student should do in response to no-com situations or questionable directions, students need to pay close attention. The AFF course has been developed to dispense all critical information and every statement and demonstration is extremely important. If all students followed all of their instructor’s directions, mishaps would occur far less often. We all need to revere and appreciate our instructors.

Obstacles can be like landing magnets. Inexperienced jumpers sometimes become fixated upon what they don’t want to land on and inadvertently fly themselves right into the obstacle. Sometimes, with several students under canopy, directions may become confusing and one jumper might accidentally follow another jumper’s directions. Also, concerning difficult radio calls on windy days, limited visibility, or confused traffic, I think it is helpful when during training, instructors emphasize what a student should do in response to no-com situations or questionable directions.

That is so cool. We are very proud of you!

With a couple of hundred jumps, I chopped my first main while in a steep spin on a rig I was trying out for the first time. I knew I released both toggles and could not explain why the canopy was spinning and at 2,200 feet, I knew I couldn’t land it. When my son found the main across the DZ, he called me over and showed me the risers. One brake was released and one was still stowed. I felt so stupid, but I was alive. The next time I had a toggle come unstowed on opening and began to spin, I simply reached up and unstowed the remaining toggle. The spin stopped and the canopy leveled out. I guess I learned a good lesson after my first cutaway, but I suppose that learning the same lesson through continued instruction might have been better. Either way, congratulations on your cutaway. I am glad you are safe.

Learn about the local crops at each point in the season, how tall they are, and what color they are from the air. Pick the lowest cut, least vine-like, and softest plants to land in. If landing in tall plants like late season corn, look at the row direction and plan your way out while in the air. It’s easy to get turned around and lost in tall corn and easy to flare too high if you misjudge plant height. When cotton is white (it’s not soft snow), it is prickly and rough on your canopy. Peas and other vine-like plants can trip you when landing across rows. Also, when fields are freshly cut and muddy, furrows may be quite deep and can cause you to trip and tumble in the mud. I’m a city boy now jumping in farmland. Over the years, I have learned to take some time and drive around observing the fields and plants. Now, I try to land between rows so I don’t damage any plants and close to a road or farmhouse, preferably with a car outside and someone home. People are usually happy to let me use a phone or give me a ride back to the DZ unless I know someone is already on the way. Of course, being aware of the spot and wind conditions helps to prevent landing off.

I started jumping to relieve stress when my ex left me with three children 7, 14, and 16. I have been all they have for seven years and I have battled with the thought of my responsibilities to them. I am a great father; I cook every day, clean house, pay bills, cover college expenses, buy cars, etc. My youngest son will be turning 15 next month. He has spent every weekend at the DZ with me for the past seven years. Now, he is a drop zone kid with 4,000 pack jobs, several trips to the wind tunnel, airplane time, and a lot of skydiving knowledge. He can’t wait to jump. For him, the airport has been wonderful and my fellow jumpers have become part of his family. While my other two children have done several tandems, they do not want to jump regularly, but enjoy the stress relief I get from skydiving. You have a tough decision, but for me, my awesome responsibilities have made me a conservative, careful, and respectful skydiver. Furthermore, because of the balance and harmony that skydiving brings to my life, my family has become closer and more successful.

Jump off a 35-foot cliff holding a rappel rope at the 30-foot mark, expecting to stop just before hitting the ground, with no gloves on. Burned the skin off both hands and hit the ground hard.

If you see no brake fluid puddles on the ground, look into another master cylinder. When changing the master cylinder, carefully align the lines and very carefully hand tighten them, making sure there is no resistence. Once you are sure you have nothing cross threaded, use a correctly sized line wrench to tighten to recommended specs. Brake lines are soft and master cylinders are hard. Cross threading is easy if you are not careful.

I’ve got 600 tandem and AFF videos on one of my TRV22s and about 100 on another. They work well. The LANC works well and durability is good, except for the plastic part of the case, which cracks easily, but doesn’t effect the operation.

With over 800 tandem and AFF camera jumps, the learning curve keeps getting steeper. I can’t even imagine how much more I will learn and experience as time goes on. When I look back at when I thought I was good, I realize that I didn’t know much at all. My helmet is off to the video people with tons of jumps. I can only admire what you must experience when you fly camera. How long should a jumper wait to fly with a camera? Take your time. You need to be able to fly and react instinctively, oftentimes without thinking about what you need to do to get where you want to be.

I jump with a guy who never listened to me, but I kept talking to him when I thought he was unsafe. He is nursing a newly implanted titanium rod right now. Concerning video with unsafe jumpers, I have no problems saying no to videoing people who scare me.

After filming an uneventful skydive from a bad spot, I panned around and caught a buddy cutting away below me. I left my camera on as I followed his separated main toward the ground. By the time I tracked its landing into a small pond, I was miles from the DZ. There were several large fields below me; each surrounded by beautiful white wooden fences. As I got down to about 800 feet, I realized the fences divided sections of a horse farm. Terrified of the giant equines, I chose to land in the field with only two horses on it and swooped right up to the fence furthest from the ominous giant carnivores. My canopy fell over to the other side of the fence and in a super-human leap; I followed quickly behind it. As I turned around, one of the horses walked up to me and smiled for my camera. Concerning my buddies main, he followed the screams of the farmer’s wife, who thought a jumper went in with the failed main. He took off his jumpsuit and waded into the shallow pond to retrieve it. I took a pretty good ribbing when I returned to the DZ yelping about my terrifying close encounter with the dangerous beasts. It made for some fun video too.

I would prefer it all jumpers landing in the same area and at the same time as me were also doing 90-degree approaches. Especially if we were all doing 90s in the same direction. I have no problem with others doing high performance swooping landings at another time or in another area on the DZ.

Bachelor's 15 years; Master's 2 years; Ph.D. 3 years. Whew!!!!

I’ve had waves of nervousness over the last few years. Try to carefully analyze what part of skydiving makes you nervous. It might be a fear of death and injury as it relates to leaving loved ones, the take-off, plane ride, exit, performance anxiety on a jump where others depend on you to be in your slot, deployment, malfunction, and/or the landing. If you can identify a single part of skydiving that makes you nervous, get some training in that area and practice it well. For me, it is generally performance anxiety. I get nervous when doing new things and worry that I won’t be where I am supposed to be. It’s not so much a safety concern, but more like the fear of showing a video of sky with no one there. If the shear rush of adrenaline and excitement is making you nervous, try enjoying it instead. It is one of the parts of skydiving that many of us love so much.

Don't believe them if they tell you it is not addictive.

On Monday mornings after a rainy weekend my workers hide from me. They know that if I don't get to jump, I am hard to work with. Try jumping more. It helps me throw work stress away each week.