davelepka

It's not a formal inspection with every pack job, but during the course of the pack job, you do handle just about every part of the rig. For a pack job to proceed as normal, things generally need to be straight and in good shape. As far as line burns or holes, a canopy will recieve a complete inspection after a cutaway. Durign general use, however, this tyoe of inspection will be done. This is the reason that you, as the renter, also need to be inspecting the rig. After you open, see that the lines are straight, the brakes unstow smoothly, the canopy fabic is sound, with no holes or open seams. Again, if anything appears to be 'off' or not working in a way you expect, bring this up to the appropriate person at the DZ. Of course, the condition of the rental gear is often times a good indicator of the condition of the DZ in general. If a DZ has good packers, who are educated about the gear, and encouraged to keep an eye on things, and report any problems, that's a good sign. If they have an on-site rigger who oversees the maintenence of the gear, this is also a good sign. At a good DZ, the rental gear is sometimes safer than that of some of the experienced jumpers. It's looked over by the packers several times per week, and some DZs a have rigger do more complete inspections on a regular basis. At the same time, an experienced jumper who packs his own gear will onyl have it inspected every 180 days, with nobody but himself to lok after it in between. If this jumper is not properly informed, or does not give it due consideration, then the rig might be jumped for months in a state of dis-repair. The lesson here is A) don't borrow anyones gear, because you have no idea what sort of crap they're jumping, and B) get your own gear ASAP, and take time to learn about the rig, and it's proper care and maintenence.

Here's what you need to have a shot - a Pro rating, and demo insurance ready to go. That's the first thing that a moajor corporation liek Home Depot is going to need. They won't come within 100 miles of allowing a skydiver to land in their parking lot without it. Thruthfully, if you can provide that, and you have the backing of the store manager, you probably have a pretty good shot at getting the OK. If you can provide two or three jumpers, and maybe if they will supply you wth a Home Depot flag you can fly in, all the better. Maybe look into contacting the local press as well. If you can arrange for media coverage, the Home Depot would be even more interested. Maybe come up with a promotion of some sort, where a contest winner will have the prize hand-delivered by one of the jumpers. As far as the USPA is concerned, who did you speak with? I don't know about you, but according to Parachutist, Ed Scott seems to have an endless supply of things o say about skydiving, so I would call and ask for him. In the end you have to realize that you're dealing with a major corporation. They are interested in two things - making money, and covering their ass. Show them how your demo cam do both, and they'll play ball. Who knows, you might make a few bucks in the process.

As previously stated, in the US the reserve is inspected and repacked every 180 days. Additionally, a good packer will keep an eye on the rental gear as they pack, and if the rig is used for students, the instructors will be inspecting the pakced rig before each jump during the gear check. If you are a renter, you also should be inspecting the rig before, during and after use. Often times problems with rigs start off as small, harmless issues. The rig may be functional, but if things don't work the way you expect, or with the ease or performance you expect, this should be immediately reported. If you rent on a per jump basis, and return the rig to a packer after every jump, tell the packer about the issue when you return the rig. Follow up on this by also reporting the issue to the staff rigger (if possible) or to manifest. Make sure to include the rig number (if it has one) to ensure that the correct rig is inspected. If you are renting by the day, and have a problem, report it before repacking the rig and jumping again. If the staff rigger is available start there, but otherwise inquire at manifest as to who can help you with an inspection before you use the rig again. This is actually a great question. Renters may not realize that gear inspection is something that should be done before, during and after every jump. Often times rental rigs fall through the cracks in this respect. If I had a toggle that hung up momentarily when I tried to unstow my brakes, I would look into it before packing for the next jump. A rental rig with the same problem may just be dropped in the pile in the packing room, with the existing problem to simply be packed up for the next unsuspecting jumper.

We offer a package with a DVD and CD of digital stills, and I think it's $99. I don't think it's in writing anywhere, but we have done video or stills only on request, but I think that's like $75 for either one, and we can usually upgrade them to the package after the jump. We used to offer just video or video/stills. This was when we shot film, and the policy was to shoot a roll on every jump (the DZ supplied the film). In about 75% of the video only jumps you could sell the roll of film after the jump (which isn't bad becasue you had nothing to show them but a used roll of film). Either way, the year we switched over to digital stills was when we switched over to offering just the package deal, and the overall volume really didn't change. The upside to the camera flyer was you got paid for the video and stills on every jump, and there was no after selling required. The after selling itself wasn't so bad, but on a busy day if you were doing back to backs, sometimes you just didn't have time to hunt down the customer and make the pitch. Last year we started doing some handy-cam. Not every TM was interested in doing them, and in an effort to not run the video consession out of business, the handy cams are strictly an after sale and up to the TM to bring the glove along or not. A few of the more enthusiastic TMs started shooting handy cam even if the customer paid for outside video, and on a few occasions managed to sell the handy cam footage as well, and had it edited into the outside video.

Honestly, I don't know. I've never even seen a CX100 in real life, but I did read that there were very few buttons and no view finder on the outside. What I do know is that things change. Settings get switched or bumped during a debrief. If this guy has any plans of doing tandem video, how do you zoom in with accurate framing, either in the plane or on the ground? Above all, the best way to ensure you get the footage is to double check your camera settings during a gear check in the plane (I do mine right before I don my helmet - check it out, put it on, make sure it doesn't get touched/bumped). If you can't do that, you may be shooting in backlight mode, or with the zoom bumped in. Let's remember that you're the experts expert. Maybe not in terms of skydiving, but when it comes to cameras and their opertation, you've got experience and foresight well beyond all of us. Your SOP when it comes to camera ops is not something the average new guy will be able to match. It just seems like a real limitation that the camera itself has, and I can't see how it would be a good idea to further restrict your access by locking it in a cage.

If you indeed did a complete 360, then spiral is the correct word. As others have said, it's generally bad form, but by looking at your location in the pattern, you were probably MUCH lower than you should have been to be doing a 360. Another idea would have been to stick with the pre-determined landing pattern, and when you made you turn onto final, make it a 45 instead of a 90. This would have put you mostly into the wind, and in the case of a left hand pattern (as indicated) you have a clear and open view of the area you'll be using while on your base leg, and you'll be flying to the 'outside' of the pattern on final, with very little chance of cutting anyone off. Additionally, if you were indeed chasing the wind sock, by splitting the difference, you put yourself in a much better position if the wind should shift back to where it started. Many have suggested to just land cross or downwind, and this is a reasonable suggestion provided that you don't have any better options. In this case, however, my suggestion would been a better option as it would have put you more into the wind without comprimising the safety of the other jumpers in the pattern. The concept that you can land cross or downwind has been mis-used often times in this forum. Yes, you can do it, but you will get a better result by being into the wind. The caveat is that being into the wind is not the over-riding factor in making a landing. Landing with a level wing, and avoiding canopy or object collisions are the top factors to consider. Everything else comes after that. In this case however, as I illustrated, there was an easy way for you to fly the intended pattern, and make a slight change to your turn onto final (which would not effect any other jumpers) and would give you a 45 degree crosswind. To just look at the situation and say 'Fuck it, just take the 90 degree cross wind, you can do it' is stupid. Food for thought, if the wind had shifted 90 degrees in the other direction, you would have had fewer options. If you flew the predetermined pattern, and wanted to try for the 45 degree cross, your turn from base to final would have been 135 degrees, and would have had you turning back toward the pattern, possibly into the path of traffic coming up from behind you. This would have been a no-no. In that case your best bet would have been to fly the predetermined pattern all the way down and take the 90 degree crosswind. Additionally, you would be well served in that situation to keep a close eye on traffic on front of you or to your right, as they might want to 'adjust' their final, and turn toward you when they do (the same turn you didn't make to avoid any problems).

Am I wrong in thinking that you need to open the view screen to do just about anything with the CX100? I know a Hype Eye (or whatever its called) can control some things, but the design you have would require you to remove the camera to open the screen and do anything else. How about something much simpler? Mount the camera to the helmet in a semi-permenant way, and design a half clam shell to cover and protect it. Have the clam shell attach to the helmet with a hinge or quick release pin so you can pull the cover, and access the camera while it remains securely mounted to the helmet. That cage sure looks fancy, but it has to allow you to work the camera or it's worthless.

Who cares about the estimate, how about just buying or building the correct tool for the job? How far into mounting that huge plate on that little helmet did you realize what you were creating? The snag hazzard is one thing, how about the aerodynamics of all that overhang. This isn't just something that has to be strong, and look good on the ground, you're going to bolt it to your head and take it into a high-velocity windstream. Sell the helmet you have, and put the money toward a proper full-size camera helmet that has enough room up top for all of your stuff. It would be one thing if you were trying to set-up something unsually big like a film camera, or a medium format still camera and even a Flat Top Pro wouldn't hold all your stuff. Then you live with the overhang and hope for the best. But in your case it appears that several helmets are available that were made to hold the stuff you need, without any overhang at all. You want it fixed, that's the way to fix it.

Without problems for who? If an airliner is down at 12k or less, they're probably on approach, and expecting them to stay above 14k until they pass your location would create alot of problems. An airliner cannot just wingover like an Otter and dive for the ground. Trying to keep them above your desired jump altitude is not a solution. In the US, the jump pilots just communicate with ATC, and work around the commercial traffic. Skydive Dallas, for example, sits in between the appraoches for two paralell runways. It's not uncommon to see airliners at or below jump altitude just a couple of miles away on both the left and right side of the jump plane. It's a little odd at first to see airpliners around while in freefall, but they do it everyday and it seems to work out OK.

Call it what you will, but that's not a $50 pack job. Not by a mile. I wonder what the owner of the rig thought about it?

Try contacting all the DZ in your area. There's a good listing of DZs on this site. You could probably make a few bucks if you could turn three loads an hour, of course it all depends on the ferry time. If you do find a DZ holding a boogie nearby, you could hit up the DZ owner for a few bucks toward the ferry costs. Often times they will charge the jumpers a boogie registration to cover those types of costs (but I wouldn't count on it). Of course, there always the weather. Even if you can fly to the DZ, the winds might kick up enough to keep the jumpers on the ground, and then you make nothing. It's a tough way to make a buck, but if you have a bird and nothing better to do with it, it's worth a shot.

As others have stated, a helo is usually more of a 'novelty' jump. Jumpers love helo jumps, but only becasue they are different that what they are used to. Generally the 'love' wears off after a jump or two. How you could be successful is to plan an 'event' where you offer helo jumps. DZs will hold 'boogies' which are just giant parties that generally involve bringing in larger aircraft (than the DZ usually has) or happens to coincide with a holiday weekend. A helo is generally a popular feature at a boogie, and you could probably do pretty well in that setting. The idea is that you have a large number of jumpers, and you could line up enoguh to keep the baldes turning for a few hours. By having jumpers lined up and ready to go, you can run the laods back to back without shutting down in between loads. Again, as others have stated, about 5000ft agl is a good comprimise between time to altitude and the cost of the jump. Speaking of the cost, helo jumps generally run anywhere from $45 to $65 to 5000ft agl. You need to run the numbers for your helo and see if you can get by on about $100 per load. Keep in mind that you'll need to cover the ferry cost to get form your home base to the DZ and back. Where are you located anyway? What sort of helo are you flying?

It appears that - I think your T-shirt idea falls under the heading of a 'public reprimand', no?

Bingo. The idea that the generally accepted 'optimum' competition WL for X-braced canopies are the only WL to jump them at is rediculous. The OP in this thread never once mentioned any cometition experience or asperations. What he did mention was a solid history of sensable downsizing, and a fair number of jumps at a higher WL on a Stiletto. The guy is an ideal candidate for the canopy he's got at the WL he's at. I started off jumping a Velo (90) at 2.3, and loved it. Because of the type of the type of jumps that I do and where I jump, I decieded to upsize to a 96 to make it more practical. I ended up finding a great deal on a 103, two sizes up, and have been jumping at 1.9 for the last 500 jumps. It's really ideal for what I do, and I think I'd miss the sq ft had I found a 96. The same 'myth' that everyone seems to rail against, the one where everyone feels like they 'need' a crossbrace, is the same as the myth that every crossbrace 'needs' to be loaded 2.0 on up. It's just wrong. A canopy needs to be loaded at whatever WL is both safe and functional for the job at hand. I shoot tandem videos, and like to be able to float around with the tandem canopies after opening. I also like to get home from a long spot, and when I get there, I like to go big and lay down a long swoop. I really feel like a Velo at just under 2.0 is the ideal tool for the job. The sooner we drop the myth that you 'need' to load them at 2.0+, the better. Even if every jumper still wants to needlessly jump an X-brace even if they don't swoop, I'd rather see them do it at 1.6 than at 2.0+ any day.

What the fuck does that mean?

I had no problems viewing the picture. The sharp edge in the insert tube indicates sloppy work. There's no reason not to take two minutes and smooth those edges over. The real question is if the webbing going through the tubing was cut, would it separate the reserve cable from the rest of the handle? If so, then yes, it's very dangerous.

Scott may have said those exact words, but they were in the context of a lesson, and were in reference to days when you have already made a determination that the wind conditions were safe for jumping. I know for sure that this was not his response to a question about making a jump/no jump decision in gusting winds. If this is true, you need to remember that you wear the label of 'instructor' for all to see. It's not just your students, but every student on the DZ, and every fun jumper on the DZ sees you as a rated professional. Your words and opinions will carry weight with these people, and for this reason you need to be very careful with what you say and how you say it. Your original post just wasn't right. Even if your thoughts were harmless, the way it came across sent the wrong message about the subject of wind gusts and personal limits in terms of safety.

I disagree with this approach to managing wind conditions 100%. I would discourage anyone from using this approach when makign decision about their personal safety. Wind speed and conditions are a huge factor in your skydive, and need to be treated as such. This is not an area to be taken lightly, and a cavalier attitude in this area can lead to serious injuries or death. As much as I hate to do it, looking at the posters profiel reveals a very high WL on both main and reserve with a short time in the sport, and jump numbers well below what Brain Germains WL chart would call for at those loadings. Please take these factors into consideration before taking advice from this person.

This is really confusing to you? Really? Gusting winds create ever-changing conditions, and you never know what you're going to get when it's time to land. Even is the differential between gusts is the same, when the high end is getting close your personal maximum, the gusty conditions should rightfully be considered. Wind gusts need to be considered when making a go/ no-go decision. Wind speed needs to be considered when making a go/no-go decision. Doesn't it stand to reason that when you have some of each factor present, the two could add up to a no-go decision? Maybe not enough wind speed to keep you down, and maybe not enough gusts to keep you down, but combine the two, and it's Miller time. Another point, about watching who is, and is not, jumping as an indicator of the conditions, do not look to the staff as a factor. The tandem and video guys will typically jump in conditions which are borderline (or beyond). The money factor sometimes plays a part, pressure from the DZO may play a part, and pressure from the other staffers may play a part. Their decisions are not always based purely on safety. An interesting thing to note would be which of the staff members are actually doing the jumping. It might not be a coincidence that the laod going up in shitty weather has the newer/younger staff guys on it. On any other day, this might just be a result of the rotation, but what you may not know is that the older guys are sitting in the office saying, 'Fuck that, I'm not jumping in these conditions'. Lastly, why would you want to jump in conditions that are borderline? It's your money, and you're just there to have fun. I can tell you from experince that I have made many, many jumps that I was not overly excited about. I was confident that I could handle the conditions present, but knew going in that is was going to be a alot of work, and not the good time that I'm used to. Again, the only reason I was up on those days was either for the money, or to get the students up for the DZO or the other instructors. I would have never made a fun jump on those days.

Mike, Now that deal is final, I can let you in on the secret. Myself, along with the rest of the homeowners association, took up a collection among the residents to raise the money to buy your house. Even in these tough economic times, we all thought is was well worth the price to get you out of the neighborhood. Either way, please be sure to let me know your move out date, as were planning a little block party - for the day after. If you would have just refrained from peeing off of your porch none of this would have happened. Even if you had restricted your peeing to night time hours, that might have been OK, but to be doing that during the day (need I remind you that you were 'out there' during trick or treating last year) is just not acceptable.

Yeah, 6 months. My problem with other brand cameras was never that they didn't function, any new camera should turn on and record, the problem was that they didn't hold up under freefall conditions. Give it 16 months, and see how many of those other cameras are still running at 100%. You may very well be right about the 'good old days'. It's entirely possible that Sonys new stuff may fold up after a season or two as well. At least the prices seem to have 'adjusted' as well. I paid $1200 for a PC-1 in 1998, and it looks like Sonys new CX100 is half of that price in 2009 dollars.

Solid state? Sounds like a recent switch, how long ago was this? When you can jump camera full time for five years, and it still works, then you have something. I put close to ten years on a PC-1 with something in the neighborhood of 3000 jumps. A buddy who bought his PC-1 when I bought mine is still jumping his (he does fewer jumps with a camera though). Show me the other brand that can match that reliability, and I'd consider it. Otherwise, I'm sticking with the longest lasting brand available. As much as I like cameras, buying them is not my favortire part.

We would only be jumping Javs and PD canopies if every other container and canopy broke after 100 jumps or so. People have tried other brands, and they rarely work out. Regardless, people keep trying, and nothing pans out. The reason that I doubt it will change is that none of factories are designing cameras for freefall use. The fact that Sonys work as well as they do in freefall is just luck. In truth, I always cringe when they come out with a new generation of cameras, because sooner or later, whatever magic dust they put in there is going to run out, and the Sonys will die after 100 jumps too.

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3033162;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread Fourth question from the bottom

Really? 40 years of commiting, in writing, to a personal coach ro see them through to the 'A'. I find that hard to believe. A culture of helpful experiecned jumpers who readily assist and jump with the newbies? That I would easily believe, but that's not the same thing they're talking about.