davelepka

I take that back. Video and stills are free at the videographers discretion, and only after repeatedly refusing to accept payment. Even then, jumpers should hide a five-spot in your jumpsuit, or pick up your tab at the bar that night.

The problem is that poeple want things. They want you to film their jump. They want you to run to make a bacl to back load to film their jump. They want stills. They want them printed. They want all 10 guys from a ten-way to walk away with a DVD or a print. They want to watch the video, over and over again. It goes on and on. People ask for alot. Between the video gear, your slot, and the time and slots it takes to be able to produce a quality product, it takes alot just to get to the place where people want stuff. If it's just for fun, the fun goes away when people ask and ask and ask and take and take and take. If it''s a job, then you need to get paid. Anyway you look at it, video and stills aren't free.

***So you won't answer his question until he has 200 jumps? *** I was thinking a few hundered more than he already has. My answer is just what I wrote - just do the jumps, and have fun. See where it takes you. If you get to the point where you're ready to shoot some video, and that's what you want to do, then bay all means, get into it. My point is that you should just be open to all that skydiving has to offer. In the early days, you just need to spend time in the air. Trying to 'train' for something limits you from trying other things. What if one of those other things turns out to be more fun for you than video? You'd miss out if all you did was 'train' for video. Besides, 'training' to shoot video is the same thing as shooting video, without the product. You're going to be out there lurking, watching others jump, thinking about shooting video. This is exaxtly what we're trying to avoid by having people wait to strap on a camera.

I'll stand by my original answer. The best course of action is to forget about video until you have the jump numbers to be safe-ish. Just jump, and have fun, and see where you end upwhen you have a few hundered. Picking out cameras and helmets only takes a day or so. Get the jumps, get the money together, and then worry about it.

Start with 200 more jumps, then we'll get down to business.

Why not. You can always discount, or make trades, or package deals, but by having prices in writing, it gives you a starting point that doesn't involve giving anything away for free.

Work out a price list for everything ahead of time. How much for a video dub, or a dvd. How much for one pic on a cd, or one on a memory stick. How much for all the pics on a cd. How much for actual prints. Print it out, and keep it with you. If anyone asks for anything, say sure, and show then the price list.

Bump your zoom in a notch or two. That will keep the corners of the lens out of the frame, and will help to keep your hands out of th eframe. On that, try to fly without putting your hands anywhere near the camera. If you need to speed up, put them behind your back, or fold them on your chest. Also, think about adding a little up-angle to your camera. When you're on level, and the tandem is way up in the frame, it means your camera is aimed too low for your natural body position. Addiiotnally, pointing it further up will help to keep your paws out of the frame. Edit - a couple other things - try sighting in your camera a little further out. You cam see when they go out of frame when there's a little distance in between you and the tandem. Try using a tree or bush on the other side of the landing area to adjust your sight. This will keep the tandem in frame even with some distance in between you. Just remember that in the case of extreme close ups, you may have to park the tandem on the edge of your sight to keep them centered. About the edits, try not to slow-mo any mistakes, like the pulll shot. You blow the transition, but then you slo-mo it, which makes it look even worse. In this case, maybe slow-mo the pull in reverse, but just before they go out of frame, throw in a fade to black, or an maybe an overlap to the next shot. Just time it so the first frame they are out of the shot is the last frame at the end of the fade/overlap. This way you have every frame of good footage in place, but you leave the screw up out of the final edit. Overall, it's good stuff, but thats what I would look into to shine it up all nice and pretty.

What's interesting is that this will actually attract more hot women than would have previously been there in the first place.

Search the forums for threads about buying all new stuff for your first rig. Tons of reasons not to. As for colors, get whatever you want, just remember that being ugly or pink lowers the resale value.

Some of the complaining is based on the rate of increase experinced in the last few years. Indeed the equipment has gotten better, but has the rate of improvement matched the rate of increase in price? Who knows. Also, skydivers bitch and moan about anything they can, and gear prices are a pretty universal burden to all jumpers. I prefer to distract myself with actual jumping. Of course, now that winter has set in here in Ohio, I'm not sure where that leaves me,

When was the last time any of you passed a baton? Probably never, but at one point, the baton pass was the holy grail of skydiving, only to be eclipsed by the 10 man formation. It's enough to knock the French Paraboots right off your feet. Ok, so really, the point is that swooping is a brand new thing, and like everyhting else, it's going to change. In another thread, there's some static about making changes to some comp rules or formats, and while I can appriciate the sentiment, things are bound to change. Competition will have to change, just based on the simple fact that it's so new. For it not to change, that would mean that the format as it sits now, which is pretty similar to the very first swoop comps, would have to have been dead on perfect from day one, which is highly unlikey. Just the advancement of the equipment and swoopers themselves, will requre changes to the comp formats. None of this means that the current formats are wrong, or sub-par, they're just young, and need to grow. The same goes for training, and advancement in swooping. The sport itself is too young to know for sure what is the best way to learn, or progress as we haven't seen enough swoopers come and go from different educational backgrounds to pick a clear winner. We need to see several cycles of learning and development, all the way through to expert level, to really be able to analyze the pros and cons of different approaches. The same goes for canopy progression, and canopy selection for learning purposes. That said, when it comes to learning and canopy progression, there's no downside to slow and methodical. When you have questions, find the most experienced people you can to tap into what they know. Even then, the future may show thet they were way off base, so if something doesn't 'click' with you, err on the side of caution. The inevitable evolution of the sport is not something to resist. The status quo of swooping is largely happenstance, and not a chapter from an iron clad master plan. The evolution is the exciting part. Being a part of it is exciting. The possibilities are exciting. Discuss amongst yourselves (or not).

Thats a shade higher than most DZ's run jumprun. Is the idea to give you an extra 1000ft or so on top, and then everyone dumps a little higher? If it is, that's an awesome idea. No harm in opening a little higher AGL.

I use one called an 'Alero", like the Oldsmobile. I don't know if thats the maker or the model or what, but if you google it, or search B & H for it, you'll find it. It works good, and I think burns and plays all sorts of things. 40 ish medium sized pics take less than a minute to burn onto a CD.

Who really cares? We know the lines create drag, and reducing it by 10% is a good thing. There's no real down side to reducing line drag. It's not a trade off. You could say that you need more frequent relines due to smaller lines that may wear faster, but most higher level swoopers are relining their canopies well before the lines are breaking, and would see the marginal cost increase as worth the extra speed under canopy. If all it cost was money to reduce drag even further, I'd be spending waaay too much money on canopy mods.

First off, unless the pilot is making a tear drop shaped manuver, the time the turn itself takes builds in some offset to the second jumprun. Additionally, the time it takes to call a bad spot, perform the actual turn, jam the exit and go should allow some additional time for those who have already exited to clear the airspace. As far as video guys, they should be opening as soon as possible after the tandem pair has opened. By virtue of opening after them, and having a faster canopy, they should have no problem beating tandems to the ground without humming it down. As far as jumpers go, they shoud be in the habit of flying down the jumprun once its safe to do so, in essence clearing the air for the groups behind them. You do need to locate the group before you, and make sure you're not creating a conflict. This can be a problem if you're in the first freefly group after the RW groups. You can pass them in freefall, open before them, and fly under them if you don't clear the airspace. The bottom line is this though, the satff at the DZ needs to be more in the ball. If they want a go-around to improve their spot, thats fine, but it's up to them to employ safe procedures at all times. If the 180 type of go-around does not work, they need to be doing a full go around, with sufficient time for the jumpers to clear the airspace. Another option is for the tandems to exit on the first pass, in the original exit order. TM's can adjust their pull altitudes if need be to make it back to the DZ, and can easily communitcate this to the video guys so they follow suit. Even without communication, if video guys would pull soon after the tandems, or simply be smart and see how for out they are after the tandem opens, and adjust their pull alt accordingly, the problem would be sloved, without the cost of a go-around to the DZO.

Good point. Hitler thought of the jews as a race, and I don't think that jews would want to alaign themselves with that guy.

I didn't read the whole thread, but the short answer is that alot of people can't afford to jump, so they don't. Many jumpers get out of it due to the cost. A new spouse or child can make jumping too expensive to continue. Alot of tandems and dtudetns would love to keep jumping, but don't have the cash, so we lose them. Sometimes these folks come back when their situation makes a change for the better. It's a combination of the right person, at the right time in their life, in the right situation that makes a skydiver. If thats not you now, it sucks. Some have the idea that if you cannot jump X number of jumps per year, you're not current enough to be safe, Thats bullshit. You can make one jump a year, and be safe. It needs to be a supervised jump, with a refresher course on the ground and coach in the air, but you can do it. Just remember to respect your jump numbers and currency when you make decisions about what jumps to make or not make.

10%? I'll take it. You wouldn't want a 10% reduction in line drag on your canopy? If Cessna could make a Citation 10% faster or more fuel efficient with only a nominal increase in production cost, they'd be all over that shit.

Thats fuckin funny. Good game..

This guy has 8 jumps. I'm not sure that competition standards apply. I'm prety sure that if he does end up doing competitive RW, he'll have gone through a helmet or two by then. Furthermore, I only brought up the possibility of CPR when another poster brought up the possiblity of getting kicked in the face. Either one of those things MAY happen, but an full face will absolutely restrict your periferal vision, and cost about 1/3 more than an open face.

Yeah, fuck it. Are you using a straight stich? Or the no-sew fingertrap?

Are you expecting every line to break at the same time? Thats seems to be what your math is implying. I'd be more looking at the individual line breakage, in the 'A' line area to be specific. At the very least it would put the canopy out of service for the rest of the day (which sucks becasue my choices for a back-up canopy are big and slow). At the very worst, I'm cutting away, and have all that to deal with. Anything that will prevent any wear is a plus in my department. For my money, I'd prefer to not know when a line will break, just that they will all make it to the next reline.

Thats fine, but if you are using the smallest line possible, maybe your margin between tensile strength and expected loads is only 20%, or maybe even less. Factor in a combination of wear from use/abbrasion along with the UV wear, you can see that wear you can afford from UV may be very slight. Maybe slight enough that it may manifest itself toward the end of the useful life of the lines. Maybe the coating can stave this off?

You saw the clouds around, and boarded the plane anyway. Your choice, your dime. Don't want to get weathered out? Don't jump when there's heavy clouds or borderline winds around. It's simple.