VideoFly

I think that would depend on each individual situation. If a plane is climbing and flaps are up, you might be sending a jumper into a tail strike and/or tail-parachute entanglement. In certain situations, a pilot chute outside of a quickly closed door and/or a tightly secured skydiver might be a situation that can be dealt with. We might not want to necessarily always throw the baby out with the bath water.

She was a tandem student, mostly trained in what is in the tandem rig and harness construction, and exiting, flying, and landing positions. Tandem students often no nothing about regular parachute gear. Fortunately, we were toward the front of the plane, behind the pilot, with the door closed. On the lighter side, while a srious breech of procedure, it was a bit amusing. Since then, I often ask students not to mess with my gear.

Another recent pilot chute loose in the airplane incident has given me reason to pass this reminder on. Shooting video often places me in the unique situation of sitting on the airplane in front of first time jump students who have no clue as to what I am wearing on my back. When I sit, I check my pilot chute handle and tell the student behind me to excuse me, but I will be checking my handle throughout the flight and that I am not grabbing at them. One time, after checking my hacky, a student who thought I needed it and couldn’t reach it was kind enough to pull it out and hand it to me. Additionally, on a tight plane ride, pilot chute handles often become painful when they get pressed into the thigh of the person behind you. Oftentimes, when that happens, they move the handle to the side, sometimes displacing the pilot chute. Furthermore, people moving about excessively, seat belts, plane parts, seats, and other objects can cause problems with pilot chute placements. For these reasons, I stress that when approaching the door of the plane, final personal gear checks need to be done, including checking your chest strap, reserve and cutaway handles, goggles, helmet straps, and of course, your pilot chute handle.

Alexander Calder did a great job years ago.

One more piece of advice. Do the jump over a clear unpopulated area. It wouldn't be too cool dropping a raft onto a highway.

I’m seeing more and more people wearing them and it scares me. Unfortunately, your message may be a premonition soon to become true.

I use climber’s tubular webbing instead of rope. Use short separate pieces for each anchor point, knotted tight enough to get a good grip, but not have spaces big enough to get a finger through. I use different colored webbing to be slot specific and avoid confusion. Choose your jumpers carefully, looking for good flying skills and some raft experience on the load. Rehearse the jump on the ground. Do not fully inflate the raft on the ground. It will expand as you gain altitude and lose firmness as you descend. Don’t let the passengers get stuck in a “clam shell” when descending as the raft becomes less inflated. Plan each jumper’s break-off to maintain stability until letting go. Have fun—Be careful!

Oriental Trading has a great catalog (and on-line catalog) of inexpensive party theme goods specifically for 40th birthday and over-the-hill themes. With their selection you can completely decorate the area and match all utensils, plates, cups, and decorations to your 40th theme. It’s a nice touch for us “older” people. Also, you can locate as many pictures of your wife as you can find from years past and scan and present them in PhotoStory (available as a free download) with music. You can burn the presentation to show on a TV or play it on a computer during the party. It’s especially great if you include old pictures of your wife with her parents and friends attending the party. You can also try to make the party a surprise, but women seem to be able to accomplish that better than we can. Make the party something very special. 40 is an important number for women.

The neck will always hurt from arthritis and my left arm and hand have lost considerable use, but jumping seems to loosen me up and the flare takes a little different technique. I am done with cameras and it’s nice to have time to fun jump. The best benefit is not feeling defeated and the freedom of the air incredibly rewarding.

I broke my neck on a hard opening with cameras last August and had a C5-C7 fusion with hip implants and a titanium plate done in November. I got back in the air on Saturday and it was simply wonderful to be jumping again. I didn’t expect it to feel so good!

I built a helmet and used foam that I got from an auto upholstery store for a liner. For the actual cloth surface of liner, you can get foam already adhered to cloth or use contact cement to adhere additional foam to thin foam-backed auto headliner material. The process is difficult to do by yourself. However, as far as Skysystems helmets are concerned, I recently sent my Oxygn back to them and they relined it. They did a fantastic job for a very reasonable price and the helmet feels like it’s brand new. You might want to contact them.

With enough speed, perhaps about 150 knots, I've seen wing suiters fly up on exit out of a Casa, which is a rear tailgate aircraft.

Most manufacturers have no problem correcting problems with fit, typically for no charge, except maybe shipping. My new suits usually needed correction in fit somewhere or another. I never had a problem getting the fit corrected. The last suit I bought had a size 9 bootie, instead of a size thirteen. That was a more difficult size correction to fix than your need for lower leg shortening. However, Tony fixed them and they fit great. Tony suits rock!

After working on cars and batteries, I have often noted that my clothing appeared to be unaffected until I washed them and then saw small and large holes in the material. Also, after repeated washings, the damage often gets worse, as if there was still acid in the material.

My C5-C7 plate and screws cost about $150.00. Installation cost over $40,000.00.

I joined and when it was time to renew, I dropped it. They send lots of junk mail with all kinds of offers that I didn’t need. They have a crumby boring magazine with all sorts of information that most people already know. I found no offers better than what I already have. It was a big zero for me and I can’t recommend joining AARP.

If the new small cameras were mounted to jumpers’ feet, knees, shoulders, elbows, or hands, inexperienced jumpers would know that they sucked because they would flail around while trying to grab great shots. Why is it that inexperienced jumpers fail to understand the importance of their heads in flying safely? Why don’t they realize that until they have mastered instinctive flying skills, their heads need to be on a constant swivel and their awareness needs to be keen? After many skydives and many camera jumps, a keen awareness of the skydiving environment is possible, while also maintaining a focus on subjects. The head swivel becomes more of an eye swivel and the ability to predict occurrences, confirm reality, and respond to situations becomes second nature. But that takes a lot of time and commitment to safe practices.

Just add camera dive to the list of types of zoo dives. I’m not sure we can stop people from jumping with cameras, but if they can’t fly well, their stills/videos will be garbage, just like most people’s home and vacation videos are. Who cares about crappy shots as long as students and others aren’t expecting and/or paying for quality filming. As far as safety goes, that’s another story. From someone with many hours of camera work in freefall, I think we may possibly see more mid-air collisions, low pulls, tail strikes, formations failing to build, funneling, canopy wraps, and crash landings. Some of those problems may hurt young photographers and some may hurt those being filmed or others on the plane. It seems to be impossible to explain to young jumpers, the stages of awareness that experienced videographers go through after hundreds and even thousands of camera jumps. Also, the “it can’t happen to me” syndrome seems to be alive and well in respect to skydiving with cameras. Once again, as has happened many times throughout history, technology has evolved at a faster rate than social norms and common sense. So, with safety in mind, get ready for the sport to go for a backward ride and watch out.

I saw my first skydiving demo at Lakehurst in about 1964. It was the Shooting Stars. It led me to skydive about 36 years later.

From UPT manual: A. Participants qualifications For any relative worker to accompany a Tandem pair, the following criteria must be met: 1) Relative worker must have a minimum of 500 relative work skydives; or 2) Relative worker must be either a current Tandem Instructor or a current AFF jumpmaster. 3) Relative worker must have made at least 100 relative work jumps in the last year. 4) Cameramen must meet all the above guidelines, and in addition, must have at least 100 camera jumps.

As a videographer, I have seen some real screwed-up flying with tandems. Some screw-ups were with low-jump individuals and some with lots of jumps. Similarly, I have seen some good flyers with tandems, some with medium jump numbers and some with lots of jumps. Bottom line is I rarely film tandems with lurkers anymore. If there is a chance for a screw-up, regardless of jump numbers, I feel it may place a student at risk. However, I agree that it is up to the TI. I have given jumps to another videographer because a TI has invited a lurker. That’s my choice.

As a single parent, I brought my youngest to the DZ since he was seven. By 16, he had 6,000 pack jobs behind him and now at 17, he has over 500 jumps and shoots video. My home DZ has been a wholesome place and the regulars have been family to my son. My two older children have done some tandems, but never wanted to get into jumping on a serious level. My son has seen two friends go in and has seen many accidents when he was relatively young and has dealt with it well. Additionally, he saw me break my neck skydiving. These incidents have helped to make him a safe and aware skydiver. I think I worry about his safety more than my own. As far as preparation for my death, I am well insured with a clear will describing plans for my survivors. However, I have survived a year of chemotherapy and other health issues and somehow feel that for me, there are greater threats to life than skydiving. Have I done the right thing? I am not sure. I have been a single parent of three for over ten years and also have two wonderful grandchildren. I have done the best I could. My children are all successful and we are a close family with lots of love to share.

I can tell you from first-hand experience that repeated deployments with heavy cameras on your head can cause spurs on the vertebrae, arthritis, ruptured discs, and as in my case, during a hard opening after many camera jumps, pulverized neck parts.

I started at 43.

I’m so glad to here of your jump. With my young son that packed in his younger years, who began jumping at a young age, I was speechless to here of your accident. I hope all is as well as it can be with you. You are an inspiration to us all.