cpoxon

After opening, I readjust the legstraps, so that they are positioned further down the thigh, so that the student it sitting in the harness rather than hanging from it, with older style harnesses at least. This way, you can have the harness tight in freefall but alleviate the pressure under canopy. This usually requires briefing the student on the ground, actually demonstrating the position of the harness around the backside, how to locate it...with both hands (students are usually reluctant to let go of the harness to do such things or even look down to help themselves) and how to slide it down the thigh, which usually requires lifting the knee higher than the hip. This is a lot harder to achieve in the air without a brieifing after the disorientation of freefall, the fear of being up high and the noise of the wind. With larger students I often find myself having to reach down, grab the jumpsuit, lift their leg and slide the legstrap down for them, which can be quite a wrestle! I wonder if anyone is going to say whether this is too risky? I think the risk of anyone falling out of the harness in this situation is unrealistic. I take great care to move the harness only enough to relieve the pressure on the femoral artery. The effort required to move the legstraps is significant enough to make passing all the way through the legstraps unlikely. The tandem instructor's body behind is going to provide a big enough barrier to prevent any siginificant movement. Plus, I loosen and reattach my laterals after opening. The forces and situations involved where students have fallen out of harnesses in freefall are much different to those under canopy. Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

You'd have to ask Dave Lewis! Don't see why not though, if you can get comparable multiple aircraft (i.e. exit configuration, load capacity) as well as a synchronised exit altitude. Would Eloy be happy taking two Otters to 15k for the purpose of competing against Brits? I'm sure there would be people willing to take the extra slots on an Otter (compared with the 15 place Dornier G-92) going to 15k! How many does an Eloy Otter take? 20/22? Could do a little 10/12 way formation dive of their own. Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

My ratio is about one in a hundred so far, all under canopy. Top tip, carry an airline sick bag (pick up a load the next time you fly commercially) either in the student harness knife pocket or about your person somewhere. So far, I have managed to get the sick bag out in time and have avoided getting any vomit on me. Had one quite recently who was doing the sort of hiccuping/covering the mouth action. Offered her the sick bag the first two times she did it, which she refused as she said she'd be alright, after the third time, I forced her to take it. The forth time she used it! Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

British newspaper article (link will only be valid for 7 days) Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

Sky news report on Skydivingmovies.com Absolutely awesome event. Great weather, brilliant object, fantastic people, and enormous fun. Thanks to everyone. Textbook. Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

In the In pictures - Your perspective on the world section (image #2). Accompanying text says, I assume this is in tribute to Mark Dare? Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

This weekend I took part in a really fun 28-way competition. This is the second year that the competition has been run (I didn't take part last year) and it does seem to have captured people's interest somewhat. We have two dropzones in the UK that have the capability to have two 15-place turbine aircraft on site (one has Grand Caravans and the other has Dornier G-92s). This gives the great opportunity for doing 28-way sequential formation dives with a cameraperson on each aircraft. Despite the availability of turbine aircraft, multiple ones even, on UK dropzones, formation loads are still a bit of a novelty so doing a fun competition with the added bonus of formation loads seems quite appealing. We had three teams this year. You can have a look at the dive pool. The scoring system is a bit wacky, with a point for every person in plus a bonus of 15 points for every complete formation with all 28 people in! This led to some massive scores! All three teams completed 5 out of the 6 rounds on Saturday, with one team completing all six. The competition was called on Sunday, with no further jumps completed due to poor weather. I really enjoyed the competition, especially the fifth round, which had an inter of two 14-way opposed zippers with pod type things (anyone got a better name?) turning 180 degrees, which was awesome! The level of experience on the group varied from a few hundred jumps to a few thousand. I must admit that I thought it would end up in a huge funnel, but everyone took it slowly, easy and worked on the levels and it succeeded! Everyone was buzzing after that jump! You can see video of it here and I have put a larger, higher-quality version on skydivingmovies.com Edited to add: standard exit altitude at this dropzone is 15,000 feet, which makes doing formation loads a little easier with a bit more time! Official website Pictures from the official website Dave Lewis' (competition organiser and captain of winning team, Herding Cats) website Thanks to Dave Lewis and the other team captains for organising. Thanks to Hibaldstow for hosting, and providing a Skyvan to replace the broken G92. And thanks to my awesome Herding Cats teammates! Anybody else doing anything like this or done it before (found this old video of a Roger Ponce de Leon organised 28-way at Pepperell in 1993!)? Does this inspire anyone to do anything similar? Any other UK teams want to take part next year?! Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

Nope. Only terminal jumps this weekend. There's a CF introductory weekend at my dropzone in a couple of weeks. Maybe try it then :-o Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

Part I Part II Part III Part IV Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

For future reference, in case anyone stumbles across this thread, I know of an advanced packer who works in Central London and can potentially take your rig away for a repack to be returned in a day or two. Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

p.s. This is mostly hypothetical since I discovered that the Crossfire isn't as predictable in the burble of a CRW formation as a lower-aspect ratio (and lighter loaded) canopy such as the Triathlon. But i am still curious as to what bad things could happen, if anything? Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

I think that's really, really bad advice. People have died doing what you're suggesting. Hard openings can and have killed in this sport. I hate attempting to interpret what others mean in online discussion but I got the impression that Velopilot wasn't talking about trying to take a collapsed slider to terminal intentionally which I what I think you are refer to when you talk about people getting killed in this sport? Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

Not in this situation, I don't think. The limiting step in this process is the slider coming down, not so much the extraction of the canopy and even with a PCA, the (big, uncollapsed, sail) slider still has to come down. Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

That's an idea but this is my regular canopy and I don't really want to be changing the slider often. I know that's not really a good reason not to do it, but that's the way it is! Really? Why is that? What's the difference between a mesh slider and a collapsed one? Tried that. Not effective enough. Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

The Triathlon that I have been jumping with a collapsed slider has a drawstring. I wrapped it around the slider and tied a knot in it to minimise the risk. There is a risk but I don't think it is too great. Perhaps a velcro wrap would be better (and mated precisely so that none could escape and be another snag risk)? Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

I'm curious about speeding up the openings on a class 5 high-aspect elliptical 9-cell canopy, specifically, my Crossfire 109 loaded at 1.8:1. Does anyone know of any adverse reactions to hopping and popping such a canopy with either a collapsed or modified (spider/mesh) slider? Why I hear you ask? Basically, in an effort to film CRW using a non-CRW canopy. See here for more details. And yes, I realise that if I am not able to deploy within a certain space of time with such a configuration then going to the reserve would be my only option. Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

Yes, my team-mates told me about cross-control, as they call it. Due to the wide variation in flight characteristics of all the different formations I was filming this weekend, I did try to employ it (especially with the fast dropping 8-stack versus the forward moving Triathlon!) but I found it tricky to get the right balance and didn't want to be perfecting it in competition so mostly reverted to sashaying. Need to practice more! Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

Thanks for the comments people. Due to the issues I already had mentioned and those raised here, as well as my lack of experience filming CRW and jumping with the team, I elected to stay on the Triathlon 135 for the four training jumps (of 8-way speed) and the competition itself. We did okay; 2 Golds (8-way speed and 2-way sequential) and 2 Silvers (4-way rotations and 4-way speed)! :-D I did get the opportunity to follow out a 2-way sequential plus camera during a jump off and took my Crossfire to see how it would handle. I assumed that it would take longer to open than the Tri packed with the collapsed slider, so I gave the 2-way a good 10 seconds before exiting so that I had horizontal and vertical leeway. The Crossfire predictably opened slowly (mostly due to the slider coming down - I do wonder how a high aspect ratio canopy would open with a collapsed or modified slider? perhaps a question for the Canopy Control forum?) and used all of the height buffer from the delayed exit but I was quickly able to make up the horizontal distance back to the 2-way. I was pleasantly surprised how compatible the flight of the Crossfire was with the 2-way (arguably the floatiest formations but with decent drive). However, the Crossfire really didn't like the turbulence I was picking up, and this was jsut 3 canopies, although I was flying a lot closer than I would have done for competition. Whereas the way that the Tri reacted to the turbulence was almost predictable, the Crossfire felt quiet unsettled by comparison and gave me a bit more concern. However, this could be something I could get used to after a while? I modified my flying style so that I passed through the burbles are quickly as possible, minimising my exposure to it, unlike sitting in it, with the competition flying. It gave some interesting footage but I prefer being right behind for competitive purposes. Also had a lot of fun spiralling around Gordon and Gav whilst they "trashed" their canopies (both on the Triathlon and Crossfire). I might post some footage when I get a chance. Congratulations to "my" teams, Cenobites (8-way speed), Lost Boys (4-way rotations and speed) and CFUK (2-way sequential) on the medals. Thanks for letting me film you; it was an honour and a privilege, as well as quite a bit of fun. It's just a shame we didn't enter the 4-way sequential too! Congratulations to all the other participants and medallists as well. Uh oh, now they are threatening to get me inside the formations too! Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

This weekend I shall be filming an 8-way speed formation team (and maybe some smaller sequential). I have filmed them before and have used a rig they supplied with a Triathlon 135 in (I weight 168 lbs, so with 20lbs of gear that's about a 1.4:1 wingloading - Plastic, if you are reading this, what are you guys loaded at?). On some of the jumps I have struggled to keep down with the formation, even using when using the burble from the stack, and have had to resort to some fairly serious bell-ringing to keep down. I am considering using my personal equipment (Crossfire2 109 loaded at about 1.8:1) to film instead. What concerns should I have about doing this? Firstly I thought turbulence from the formation may be an issue as the Crossfire won't react as well to it as the Triathlon. Secondly is whether the altitude loss on opening would be too excessive. The Triathlon is bagged like the Crossfire but the slider is packed collapsed...I wonder how the Crossfire would react to that?! We are doing some training jumps tomorrow so I might give it a go, but would be interested to hear if anyone has any comments. Alternatively should I just put on some weight or find a smaller Triathlon/Lightning? I'd really like to use my Crossfire; that way I can get some decent swoops at the end, and also dissuade those pesky dogs from trying to dock on to me! Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

I seem to remember, but am unable to locate, a post or an email that went round some time ago, from the production agency wanting to get hold of the footage from the fancy dress party that was held the night before and I think it claimed that they had the support of the family. Is this a misconception? Are you suggesting that the family would wish to profit from the death of their son? If the family are supporting the production of this programme, I would surmise that they are still looking for answers. Time will tell. Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

No problem Marco. No need to re-upload if you assign it to the wrong area. That is only a suggestion on the form, and we set where we think it goes best when we approve it, but no big deal with a small file like yours. I'm sure I don't need to say, but be careful, especially with more than 1 wingsuit! Also, if you can, try flying with bigger formations as they fall faster giving you more range. Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

Also on skydivingmovies.com (no need to upload video twice, Dave is in the States and I'm in Europe, we both work and skydive so stuff doesn't necessarily get approved immediately!) but I think my footage is better! You can see the difference in forward speeds, and as I said in my post I wasn't flying the suit very well and was almost stalled out, but then I think slow flight past open canopies is a good thing, giving more time, room and better footage. Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

More detail in this article Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

From Radio Times Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

From KBCI 2 Boise, Idaho No mention of the previous record? Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live