AndyMan

Anybody can make big wings and booties. I'm hardly a lightweight, either. For me, both my Merlin suits are lacking in basic quality, and have fallen apart quickly. My Tony Suit hasn't. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Chalk me up as a guy with a Merlin suit who hates it. I've never had a suit fall apart as quickly as my two Merlin suits. I regret buying both. Buy a Tony Suit. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I use the normal post. It works well. I see no reason for the more complicated setups. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=45844; _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Oops! My bad. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Here's one of my favorites... _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I don't hear it so much as I feel the vibration in my Flat-top-pro. I do hear it under canopy, though. I'm not sure if I see the value in a cam-eye style setup. I don't see many problems going on that I can fix in freefall. I make sure that my still is ready and working in the plane, because if something were to go wrong I'd probably be able to fix it there. I surely can't fix it in freefall. Prior to exit I pop up the flash and take a few shots. The flash illuminating the plane tells me it works, plus I get the occaisional shot like the one attached. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I did find Printroom - www.printroom.com. They offer a pro solution similar to Shutterfly, with a similar cost structure. Their setup fees are less - only $99, but you only get 1 GB of storage, but with the option to add more disk space for $10/100MB. I'm still looking, though. Ideally I would like to host the images myself. There's no reason why this can't be done... _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

He ripped it up because he always wanted to. Daley always wanted that land to be a park. This is a trend going around accross the country where cities are getting rid of their lakefront airports because of their insane real-estate value. Toronto may follow, and I would expect Cleveland to happen eventually. The federal government had been holding him back, promising help renovating o'hare. When the bill to federally mandate the o'hare project failed, daley figured he had carte blache to do what he wanted with Miggs. Aparently he was right. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I'm getting tired of Shutterfly's $200 annual fee. Their smaller packages include a LOT less disk space, but don't cost a whole lot less. There's got to be alternatives. I'm looking for the ability to upload photos, have customers buy them, and I get to set prices and get a check every so often. Anybody have any suggestions? Or is my only option to go back to printing them myself? _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

News on the legal front: Case number: 2:05cv2656 filed in US District Court, Arizona district. The complaint is for violations of sections 43 (A) of the Lanham Act,CONSUMER DECEPTION, trademark infringement,and unfair competion. I understand the Lanham act involves civil law, not criminal. I don't have a PACER login, so I can't lookup the details. Can someone do the homework and post the results? http://www.azd.uscourts.gov/azd/courtinfo.nsf/court/pacer?OpenDocument _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Doing it in photoshop is one option. So is doing it in windows XP. Both are quire slow, especially if you're dealing with a large number of shots. The fastest option I found was using Picasa. Of course, the far superior option is to not do it in the first place. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

You can have bonehead make you a wider flat plate. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=45844; _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Yup, and rotating them can be a pain in the ass. Hanging your still upside down worked OK for film, but it sucks for digital. I'd try to find a way to mount your Rebel rightside up. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Phreezone wrote: Tell that to the skyride customer just paid $259 for a tandem, shows up at the DZ and see's the $189 price posted on the wall in manifest. What do you tell them when they start demanding a refund from manifest? It makes the DZ look bad, and it makes the industry look bad. It certainly is unethical. I'm a big proponent of "buyer beware", but I sure wouldn't want to be associated with a company who's entire business relies on abusing it. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I think its interesting in how it has changed, without people even noticing. - Beer and soda bottles are measured in mililiters, not ounces. - Even American cars use metric nuts and bolts. - Photographers shoot 35mm film. - Almost all science uses metric measurements. The lone holdouts are air temperature, vehicular speed, and dimensional measurements in the construction industry. Vehicular speed would be the easiest to change, and I often wonder why governments don't start simply replacing signs. All cars in America built since 1977 have had metric units on the speedometer. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

USPA recomends you do a "currency" dive with an instructor after a long layoff. Following those recomendations is smart since you've been out of the sport for so long and have so few jumps. Exactly what that currency dive ends up being varies widely between DZ's and instructors. It will probably involve going over your emergency procedures, practice pulls, and reviewing your canopy flight plan. See section 5.2 of the SIM - http://www.uspa.org/publications/SIM/2005SIM/section5.htm#52. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Botched landings often end up with grass stains on your clothing. Wearing a jumpsuit helps keep your clothes clean. :) Also, as you progress into more freefalls, your instructor may request you wear a certain style of jumpsuit to help manage fallrate differences. Don't rush to buy a jumpsuit until you've done more jumps, and get your instructors can help advise what style is right for you. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Yes, it's unrealistic in no winds. If you choose to jump at higher wingloadings, it becomes unrealistic even with good winds. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I can't top Tonto's explanation. I will offer my own anecdote. I jump at about a 1.9 wingloading. At this level of performance, "runway management" is critical. Rarely do I slide for less than 30 feet in no wind conditions. This happens at the end of what may be a several hundred foot swoop. Notice I said slide, not run. At higher wingloadings, "running off" the landing is not only dangerous, but nearly impossible. Most people jumping at higher wingloadings slide off the excess speed on their feet. The technique involves putting most of your weight on one foot (for me, the left), and putting the other foot out in front to provide forward stability as you slow down. You don't really need to worry about side-to-side balance since you do have a canopy overhead providing lift, which holds you up. The first time I tried it I found it far easier than I had imagined. The technique of stalling your canopy right before a no-step touchdown is oldSkool, and high performance canopy flight is clearly taking us away from that model. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

How old is it, and how often do you inspect it? A good pilot chute puts about 75 pounds of force on the bridle. Bridles should be inspected periodically. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

You haven't mentioned your weight. For some lighter people, a 210 is perfectly big enough for a recurrency jump. For a heavier person, I would recomend a bigger canopy. As some guidance, I did jumps with two different jumpers last weekend. For a woman that who weighed somewhere around 120 I had her rent a 170. For her man who weighed somewhere around 170, I had him rent a 220. I'm fortunate in that my DZ stocks a wide array of different sized canopies and conatiners. Yup. When you get to the DZ they'll assign either a USPA Coach or AFF Instructor to work with you. They will help ensure that you jump appropriate gear. Depending on what the DZ has available, they may ask you to jump student gear instead of your own. It will probably be bigger than what you ended the season with. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

In his defence, I think there is nothing more lame than the steady stream of "what settings do you use" type questions that show up here and in other places. Especially with the digital SLR's, modern cameras are not hard to figure out. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

For 10 years I shot a fully manual Nikon FM10. In hindsight, I regret every moment of it. I've learned far more shooting digital in one year than I ever learned with my manual SLR. Automatic cameras provide great tools to those who are interested in learning about them, and work pretty well anways when people don't care to learn. If anyone wants my FM10, it's collecting dust in my closet. So far I can't even give it away. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Yup, although exactly what time of day it is will change the setting. When the sun is high and bright, I find setting the camera in TV mode (shutter priority) with a shutterspeed of 500 works. As the sun gets lower in the sky you have adjust your shutter speed lower. The attached image was shot in shutter priority mode (TV), 1/500 F-11, ISO 100 with a Sigma 15mm lens. I am quite close, flying on my back. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

40 jumps! I dont' care how much he's packed parachutes, you don't learn to fly them by packing. 135 square foot canopies have short lines, which means they turn quick. I'm glad you managed to get through your early days without serious injury, but that does not make your experience a good path. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.