Skwrl

Amazing! Your site is working again. Oh, and the shots are good, too. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Have you ever met Scotty Burns?

The best part? When you "pull your ripcord", it's a round. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

In fairness to Jean Loius, I have absolutely no question that if I had worn it inside my wingsuit, it would have remained on my foot. I just didn't feel comfortable doing that on my first flight with it for the reasons I mentioned above. Although, to be honest, the reason I wanted quick access to the bracket's cutaway was less about "fire" and more about "entanglement". I planned to leave it on following deployment and only open one leg of my suit. I wanted to add that it was very well manufactured (Lurch and I both commented on the quality of the workmanship that clearly went into it), and buying it from tunedbyjlo.com was very easy - it was shipped to me the same day as my payment and I received it very quickly when you consider it had to cross the Atlantic and go through customs. Stay tuned for my Home Depot/Puma sneaker/canvas shield DIY job. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

So this last weekend, I jumped smoke for the first time. Some of you have heard this story, but I figured I'd share it for those that haven't. I had a smoke bracket that I bought from TunedByJLo.com. The bracket itself seems like it would be fantastic for bellyflying or tracking jumps, but it posed a couple of challenges for me when using it with a wingsuit. For background, I generally jump a Tonysuit Mach1. Like all Tonysuits, it has leg release zippers. In the case of my suit, the zippers can be released by a lanyard that is stowed in three tuck-tabs on each leg. However, the bracket design presented a decision: I either had to put the bracket on inside the leg wing (in which case the bracket cutaway would be impossible to access in a hurry) or outside of the legwing (in which case the bracket's straps would pinch the leg wing, and wouldn't be all that snug. Since I wasn't a fan of turning into a roasted skwrl at 3,000 feet, I opted to put it on the outside of the suit. The jump went great, with the exception of a slight left roll input that that I had to compensate for. Joner has video; it was a fun flight. Here's where it gets interesting. At pull time, I closed up, pitched and was in the saddle a moment later. After I did the usual check of my airspace, it suddenly dawned on me that I wasn't still smoking. I figured the smoke ran out... But I looked down at my foot and discovered why I no longer saw smoke - on deployment, the bracket kept going without me. I'm not sure if it was the shock of deployment or the way the suit changed shape as I was sitting in the harness, but the bracket and I parted ways. I spent much of the canopy ride trying to spot it and hoping like Hell that I wasn't going to see the beginning of a forest fire... (That $50,000 of third party property damage insurance that the USPA provides would get used up really quick...) So, net result: one smoke jump later, I'm in the market for a new smoke solution. What do you smokers use? Is there a commercially available bracket that's good for wingsuiting, or have you guys assembled your own? Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Why didn't someone tell me!?!? I'd been using it as a bladder buddy for those long rides to altitude. (At least I'll no longer have that ballast shifting around during flight!) Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

It's not the tassles.

The dreaded mane-main entanglement mal. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

And, as we learned from Zach's video of the 71 way, we support the Little People of America. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

I had the same experience as Spot with Tonfly's service. From what I can tell, Giovanni spends a lot of time making sure that they generate a quality product - I suspect if you talk with him he'll make it right... Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Whoah, whoah, whoah... Don't drag me into this semantic war. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

I can't find Vermont's Rules of Civil Procedure on line (at least without spending more than the 2 mintues I went looking), but I suspect they are similar to the Federal Rules. Given that and that I'm not a litigator (and Civil Procedure was my worst grade in law school), I'll give an off the cuff answer. One of the basic rules to understand is that juries determine "facts" not "law". (Another way to say that is they apply the law to the facts, but the judge determines what the law is). That's true whether it's a jury trial or a bench trial (a trial with just the judge). Basically, you make an SJ motion when there's no material facts in dispute, so you are seeking a ruling on the pleadings and any depositions and interrogatories. So here, it was probably the case that the injured guy and the track weren't disputing any of the facts of how he got injured. Instead, they were basically saying, "even if all of the agreed upon facts were seen in the light most favorable to the injured guy, as a matter of law, he loses." And that makes sense - if the waiver is valid, he has no claim worthy of going to a jury. If the waiver is not valid, he would have a claim that could go to a jury. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

I'm not a litigator, but I could see that working pretty well if the jumper is, well, still alive and capable of being deposed (or put on the stand). The problem is when it's the widow bringing suit on behalf of the orphans... Same exact situation from our perspective, different emotional dynamic in the courtroom... The trick, of course, is to get it knocked out long before it gets to trial in a motion to dismiss or a summary judgment motion. The way I've written my waivers, I make a point of basically putting them in REALLY plain English. (Having them sign something that literally says, "I know I could die... I'm willing to take that risk..."). The problem is that if you read the Vermont case, it's a judge who is thinking like a lawyer, not how a non-lawyer would think of the release. (So, for example, you end up with a whole discussion about whether it needs to state the word "negligence" in order to release negligence claims). When you get into that territory, you're dealing with magic words that the court wants to read, which results in releases full of archaic and dense language that only litigators read. People end up signing stuff they only mostly understand. If you think about it, that's counter productive - you should be able to write a release that the average high school educated 18 year old can read and fully understand. It shouldn't be full of the "boilerplate" language that really hasn't changed since the early 1900s... But when courts get excited about magic words and phrases, you need to put the magic words and phrases in to be safe. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Having drafted a ton of waivers myself, I am always curious to see anything that claims to be "bullet proof". It unfortunately varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. (For example, you might end up in trial over whether an instructor's actions constituted "gross negligence" even if "ordinary negligence" is validly released, since some states don't let you release claims for future actions constituting gross negligence...) If anyone has it, I'd love to see it for my own education... /Does not like lawyers. //Yes, I am full of self-loathing. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Well, that's what you get when you only pay $1 for all rights to a video, right? Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Wisdom. Only the paranoid survive - and even that's not guaranteed. But I think what Butters was getting at was that your LO can do everything 100% right and you can still die. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

So, are you bitching that some people thought a shaky video that was a little on the dark/underexposed side was neat? It was neat. Not because it was the best video ever, but because it caught a pretty cool moment in time. I mean, I don't think anyone think it compares aesthetically to some of the better stuff that Matt, Scotty, etc. have put out in the past, but it's still fun to watch and think about participating in a Shuttle jump. I was exploring plane tickets to get down to jump with those guys (which in retrospect is good I didn't, because I would have been there for the scrubbed launch). It's great that I got to live it vicariously. I think that's pretty far from hero worship. Hell, I'm almost fucking 40 years old - the only hero I worship is the motherfucking Sumerian dude who invented beer. Do I appreciate what the video guys do, though? Sure. On the other issue, don't want to be paid for your video? Don't ask to be. Don't want to pay for video? Don't agree to, and use someone who doesn't charge for video. It's that simple. If someone wants to do that for you, cool. I don't think any of the video guys that we're talking about will object. But this being America, they can offer their services for a fee - you can agree to pay it or not. If they want to say, "hey, it's good to support video dudes", all the more power to them. You're free to disagree. Personally, I think it's short money to pay a buck for a video debrief - and that's what you're paying the buck for. And so fucking what if people make money skydiving? Yes, it's a hobby for many people. So is bowling. Some people make a living bowling. Is that wrong? In fact, I'm happy that some people can make a living doing this shit - we end up with better products, better events, and a better experience overall because some people can dedicate more time than people like you and I can. Do I wish I could make the money I make at my day job if I was skydiving instead? Sure. But it's not likely to happen, and I like and need cash (and so does my wife), so personally, I can't do it. If a giant sack of money fell out of the sky at my feet and I could, then I'd be doing the same thing. But I don't see why we should bitch about people who are making a go at it. You don't want to support them? Don't. I can choose otherwise. I know I'm not going to convince you on anything, but not everyone shares your point of view, either. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Simple: economics. It's the way it is because it's a free market and the laws of supply and demand are in play. You want a video debrief, you (collectively) pay for a slot - that seems to be what the market price has worked out to be. [footnote] You want more than that, you pay more than that. That also seems to be the "fair market price". Whether you think that's a good deal or not is sort of not the point - that's what the market has determined the price to be. You have the option of not going on jumps where you have to pay $1 for the video debrief. (And I acknowledge that you don't always get to decide whether or not you have to pay the $1 if you have someone doing the organizing for you... but then your issue is with the organizer who agreed to terms with the video guy, not with the video guy.) Since there's no videographer's union, individual videographers could elect to offer their services cheaper. The fact that some individual video guy hasn't started pimping his services as "just the same as [Norman/Matt/Scotty/Craig/whomever...], but cheaper!" tells me that "the way it is" is the "market price". Similarly, if for example Matt suddenly started demanding a free pony (just checking if you're reading this, Jarno), every time he did video jump, the market - us wingsuiters - would probably shift to less expensive alternatives. There's nothing to stop anybody from offering video services, really, so it's a pretty efficient market. If they suck at it (like me, for instance), they ain't gonna make much money. [footnote text]: This assumes that you don't have what they call in economics a "free rider" problem (someone who gets the benefit of a good - video debrief in this case - without incurring the cost for the good (paying $1). "Free rider" is just a fancy term for moocher. But again, that's an issue with the organizer, not the video dude. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Scotty and Jeff - Looks like some batsuiter (I mean, ummmm, "wingsuiter") got the memo wrong: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts119/launchbat.html ("Not on the Shuttle! Near the Shuttle!") * * * Edited to add: Even though Scotty didn't get the shot, it looks like someone else did: http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/7263/omfgadr.gif Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Here's my take on it, as someone who is known to be a cheap-assed bastard: I'd agree with the "know what you're getting ahead of time" principle. If a load chips in and pays $1 per person for a videographer's slot, I'd hope for a video debrief. To be honest, though, I don't feel like I have a right to that. (If the video guy loses a bootie on exit and doesn't film us, we don't get a refund, for instance.) The quid pro quo here is to watch the video and see how I screwed up, not to have a right to the video to do whatever I want to with the footage, though. However, if that same camera guy is also jumping stills (like Scotty and Matt do), I don't see any reason why I should get any sort of automatic right to every still picture they take. That seems to be a huge reach. Now, if a camara guy puts low res stills up on a website - then that's great. I can show my grandmother. Neato. But that doesn't mean I have a right to those images, either. For full resolution, cropped, photoshopped so I look like I'm in my slot, etc., pics - yeah, I would expect to pay for that. What's the price? That's up to the photog and what we agree on - if they wanted $200 for a shot of me fucking up the exit, I probably wouldn't pay that because there are so many of those pics around (supply > demand). If they want $25 for it, then I might if I wanted the pic badly enough. That's my thought on it, for what it's worth. (In full disclosure, I have bought pics from both Scotty and Matt.) Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

The Skwrl. Or my full, proper name - that my wife game me when she saw me in my wingsuit for the first time: "Giant Retarded Flying Squirrel." (I promise to buy one if you name it after me.) Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

I had a Sabre2 210 (WL at < 1) that used to spin up like clockwork. (In a lot of my videos, you can hear me saying, "Awwww, this shit again?!?!" as it spins up...). I ended up getting a Storm 190 (WL slightly > 1) because I heard rave reviews on its opening characteristics. The only time I've had trouble with it was when I had to do an evasive maneuver at pull time... I’m not 100% sure it was the Sabre2’s fault, but take that for what it’s worth (and from the point of view of a n00b wingsuiter). Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

I've not flown one, but my understanding is that what you're seeing as the "rigid" part is an airlocked wing, not all that different from a number of other wings on the market. It looks "rigid" in the pics because it's being inflated by a vaccuum cleaner out of frame that's gone from suck to blow. You can also tell from the uninflated left wing in the "Typoon-2" pic Justin posted. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Here we go. Linked Gainer exit. Done wrong. My bad. http://www.skydivingstills.com/photos/359041694_b8o5Y-M.jpg Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

Das ist nicht so gut. My Swiss German is pretty much non-existent. Does this say that they are banned or will be banned or may be banned? I'm still trying to get in a few jumps the next time I have to go to Basel for work. Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork