brettski74

PAL and NTSC are two different video systems - ie. how the video information is structured. NTSC is primarily used in most of the Americas and Japan. PAL is used in Europe, Australia and many other places. In North America, it is quite rare to find televisions that will display a PAL signal - even in top of the line models. In PAL markets, or at least it was in Australia, it is fairly common to find televisions that will display both PAL and NTSC signals in the mid- to high-end models. If you want to know the gory details, I'd suggest looking them up on Wikipedia, but the bottom line is that if you're in North America, you probably want to make sure you have an NTSC camera. If you're buying from a North American source, it more than likely is NTSC. You usually have to look pretty hard over here for PAL gear. It should say NTSC on the camera somewhere - probably next to the model number.

Paraequip Never used them, but found them on Google and noticed that they have a bunch of what you might be looking for. I haven't really looked at the prices of said materials, so not sure how they compare, either.

Another mention in there of a tunnel being built in Toronto. Does anyone know any details, though? There's nothing on the SkyVenture website, although I know that's not the only possibility. I have heard murmurings around the campfire, so to speak, but nothing substantial, yet. I'd be interested if there is anything serious going on towards a Toronto tunnel.

No. Life insurance. I really wish that my home contents policy would pay out whenever I got home contents or my car insurance would pay out when I get a car, but unfortunately they only pay out if they're lost or damaged somehow. [Wink]

Except that he's one of those crazy Canadians... Anyway, I don't think he ever questioned the quality or serviceability of Crapistani hand-woven yak hair rigs. I'd jump one except that rigs made with petrochemicals are so much cheaper.

Try calling them. Email is nice and easy, but I've always found that the phone is a much better means of communication when you actually want some kind of response or feedback.

If you're jumping in a particular country, then it's that country's rules that apply. In the US, foreign jumpers are allowed to jump rigs maintained under their own country's rules (eg. 180 day repack cycle for Canada) because the FAA regulations specifically say that they can. If you need a repack, you get a locally qualified rigger to do it. It may be that some countries use FAA qualifications for their riggers. Most places I've been have their own training standards and qualifications for riggers. That said, Canada also *accepts* FAA rigger qualifications (ie. an FAA qualified rigger can do repacks in Canada) even though Canada has their own rigger standards as well. I'm not sure whether an FAA qualification would have been OK in other places I've been, but I used a locally qualified rigger. I'd also note that coming home with a rig that's been repacked while abroad has also never been a problem. As long as the packing data card is filled out and in date and the seal is intact, that's all that anybody has cared about.

The demo request form on the Icarus Canopies website has options of "United States" and "Europe" for the location field. Have you asked them? In case you're looking at other models, too, I don't know about PD. They seem to be US only, but I could be wrong.

Life insurance is something that pays out when you die, so I'm hoping that's not your friends goal in AFF! Are you looking for coverage for injuries and medical treatment, etc - that would probably be a travel health policy. I have heard that some insurers/countries though, these specifically exclude injuries due to participation in extreme sports, so you may want to check the fine print before just taking the cheapest available policy. Alternatively, are you wondering about third-party or public liability coverage? That's the kind of insurance that normally comes with a parachute association membership like CSPA, USPA, APF and I would assume, BPA. Most places I've been, your fees for an AFF course also include some kind of student membership for the duration of the course and liability coverage, although, I'm not sure of the details in Empuriabrava.

Have you actually had to pull your canopy out of the bag? Or are you referring to pulling the D-bag out of the container? I'm wondering what kind of puzzled looks you'd get from the average passer-by while repacking a parachute by the security screening area of an airport terminal. [Laugh] I'm pretty sure she's referring to pulling the rig out of a gear bag, not pulling the Dbag out of the rig. Ok. That makes a lot more sense. I've always checked my rig in the past, but with my new rig was thinking of carrying it on my next trip.

Have you actually had to pull your canopy out of the bag? Or are you referring to pulling the D-bag out of the container? I'm wondering what kind of puzzled looks you'd get from the average passer-by while repacking a parachute by the security screening area of an airport terminal.

In an emergency situation, you may not have enough time to think about variations in what you have been taught. Do you want to train yourself to skip a step in your emergency procedures so that when you jump a borrowed rig without a skyhook, you don't pull the reserve handle? Maybe the AAD will save you or maybe you don't have one. Maybe you forgot to turn it on. Do your emergency procedures the way you have been taught. Always practice it that way. The more automatic it is, the more chance you might just do it right when you need it.

You're confusing 3-ring maintenance with something entirely different, as beowulf has already pointed out. Do your 3-ring maintenance like you've been taught. You shouldn't need a rigger to help you with that if you have your A licence. With regard to attachment and removal of a canopy from the risers, I'm not sure what the requirements are in Canada, although I know that I have seen it done by non-riggers in the past. The people in question were, however, much more experienced packers and skydivers than me. I wouldn't recommend assembling any of the integral components of your rig without an appropriate level of supervision and/or experience.

That's pretty much right. CARs are law. BSRs are mandatory recommendations of the CSPA which are mandatory for all CSPA members. There are also technical recommendations which are similar to BSRs but may be waived on request, depending on the circumstances. And yes, the harness/container and the reserve canopy are TSO'd items, but not being a rigger, I couldn't tell you specifics (like what TSO is required).

It depends on the nature of his agreement with whomever did the interview. I'm guessing that since he expects to be paid for the use of the interview, the terms under which the interview was done included him retaining at least some portion of ownership of the result. This isn't asking to be paid twice for the same thing. His payment for doing the interview obviously included some or all of the IP rights in the product. Now he's able to sell other people rights to use that product. It's more like the owner of a conference hall being able to sell rights to use the hall for events.

Also, most notice that these turns always turn them into the direction that they DO NOT want to go. These involuntary turns are often noticed when people land their canopy. They are convinced the the wind blew them of course Tongue But we know, they really only has one ball [Laugh] [Wink] Student in pic: It was the WIND I tell you! It's been blowing me sideways on landing the whole day [Mad] Yes - it must have been a really strong wind to blow his arms around like that.

Nice! Had you ever practised the leg-locks before, cos they look damn smooth!

I sit corrected, but I'll happily be wrong if it means there's going to be a turbine in the air! If all goes according to plan, I should be there November 10/11. Sounds great. I'm looking forward to it. Blues.

I called St Louis Skydiving Center a couple of weeks ago cos I'm heading down there for a couple weeks for work. I can't remember the exact conversation right now, but the guy did say that things are generally slowing down at this time of year, so the Beech may not be flying any more unless enough people turn up, and things are probably only going to be happening on weekends. They also fly a Cessna to 10500', not sure what type, but I'd guess a 182. I'd give them a call, to be sure, but the impression I got from the phone was that at this time of year, loads outside of the weekend are unlikely. When are you heading to St Louis?

I'm not sure of the legal status of the SkyRide owners and the DZs in question, but your statement is not quite right. I'm not a lawyer, but I am both an owner and director of a company. As an *owner* of a limited liability entity such as a corporation or LLC you're liability is limited to your investment in the company, so yes, if you're talking about ownership, then your statement is true. As a *director* of such an entity, you are not afforded any such protection. As a director of a company, you are legally responsible for your actions in that office. If you are found to be negligent or to have acted illegally in your role as a director, you may be held personally liable, both civilly and criminally, for the infractions of the company to the extent of your involvement in them.

I can't answer that question for sure, but given the reputation of the guys involved, I'd be extremely surprised if they hadn't spoken with the FAA or they had done anything that might hurt the sport. They really seem more like the kind of people who do stuff like this to push the envelope, raise the level of interest/excitement in the sport and have a little fun along the way. Here's a link to a thread about one of his other stunt jumps. There's even a link at the end that will take you do a description of all the preparation that went into it, including discussions with the FAA prior to going ahead with the jump. If you look hard enough, you might even find an article or posting somewhere that discusses all the planning that went into the plane-to-plane stunt jump.

While that may be quite prudent, it's not really the issue here. Regardless of what other people's experiences are or have been with a Vigil, I'm fairly sure that when AAD sold him the device through their dealer neither AAD nor the dealer represented it as a device that he'll be lucky to see in a working state for much of his first year, therefore he has every right to be upset with what he has received in terms of both product and service. On the other hand, I'd also agree that this is probably not the best way to go about it and a few phone calls to the right people would probably be a lot more productive. It's got a 20 year service life. If it took a whole season for them to resolve the problem and provide me with a working unit, I'd start by asking for a refund of 1/20th of the purchase price.

Yeah - saw them, but comments about Canon's are fairly rare with almost as many positive posts as negative ones and the ones I found about poor stabilization and similar problems were at least four or more years old. Their still camera electronics had gone through at least two new generations since then. It seemed reasonable to expect that they may have improved on their video performance in that time, also. The only recent comments about Canon camcorders were around the problems with OIS on the HV10. The ZR850 doesn't use OIS, so those comments would seem not to apply directly and at least some people seem to be reporting similar problems with OIS on Sony's HC7, also, so this seems - at least to my inexperienced mind - more like a technology thing than a brand quality thing. Thanks. Some good points in there that I hadn't yet considered. Doesn't the lightweight body comment also apply to some of the newer Sony products such as the HC28/38/48. I haven't yet put one in my hand, although a friend's HC26 did seem much lighter than some of the old PC series cameras I've seen. An HC28 that I've seen in stores seems similarly lightweight. I'm not sure that I've seen the HC38 or HC48 first-hand, yet. For the record, I'm aware of at least some of the historical reasons for Sony's dominance and I was (and still am) leaning towards a Sony for the proven track record for performance and reliability and wide availability of a variety of mounting hardware. I will admit that I am a Canon still fan, so that may have been part of it, although there were several factors that made me question whether I should be so quick to rule it out. My goal was to make sure I wasn't going to rule out the ZR850 without due consideration. A complete lack of positive response for this specific camera is enough of a reason because I have no intention of being a guinea pig. The point is that if there is anyone out there flying a ZR850, this is about the only place I'm likely to find them, even if it is only a very slim chance. Has anyone ever considered a camera/camcorder category in the gear section of the website? It would probably make it a lot easier to find specific info on specific models and how well they work for different skydiving applications. It takes an awful long time to find useful information from searches alone, since some searches will return thousands of hits and knowing what to search for to reduce that to a more workable number that still finds something useful about what you're wondering is often difficult - especially when you're a rank newbie at video like me.

If you wanted to say that you think the PC series of cameras were more rugged than the HC series, then you could have just said that. On the other hand, do a search on here and you'll find that a bunch of people are flying HC3x and HC4x series cameras and have put hundreds of jumps on them. Look hard enough and you might even find one or two posts from people flying Canons. That's about what I expect out of my first camera - a few hundred jumps. If I get serious about video and out-grow it, I can spend more money later. Maybe that question wasn't quite phrased correctly. What I was really getting at is Why not buy Canon? I have done dozens of searches and I've spoken with and listened to several camera flyers at a couple of DZs. I know that the vast majority of camcorders used in skydiving are Sony. In fact, I've not seen any other brand. I also know that most people on here use/like/prefer them. That doesn't mean that everything Sony is wonderful or that anything else must be crap. I was wondering if anyone else actually had tried the Canon and whether there were any reasons to avoid it like there is with the HV10. I have found one possible reason so far since my original post. It seems that the Canon ZR850 may not have a thread for lens attachment. I'll have to confirm, but that certainly would be a strike against the Canon. This is the kind of information I'm looking for.

I'm aware that Sony has huge market share in the skydiving world, almost to the extent that they're the only manufacturer in it, but I was more looking for reasons why. Why are the prices so high, though? I understand that people probably paid a lot more for these cameras when they were new, but a PC110 is a 6 year old camera. I can buy a brand new camera with similar features (eg. DCR-HC38) for around $300 brand new with a full manufacturer's warranty. The only thing I can think of that the PC110 has that most of these newer cameras don't have is the LANC port. Are there other reasons why these older cameras are going for such prices that I'm not aware of?