davelepka

You are leaving the closing loops nice and loose, right? You can tighten them after the pins are in place. If the loops are loose, use the part of the ripcord past the top pin to pull the pin into the loop. If you're trying to push it in (like every other pin you've ever seated) you're just asking for a hard time.

Between this, and you other post, you really need to get your jump numbers, and previous canopy experience posted in your profile. If you haven't started jumping yet, hold these questions untill after you've made a few jumps. You'll understand more at that point. Judging by the questions, I would guess your expericne to be either no jumps at all, or very very few jumps. Either way, you equipment ideas are way off base. Your other thread is asking about a 135 Spectre. Why would you pair that with a 99 reserve? How about a 126 or a 143 reserve? What sort of container do you think would hold a 135 main and a 99 reserve? Get some experince first, see what it's all about, then worry about buying gear. Improper canopy sizing can and will lead to serious injury or death. It's not something to fool around with.

Real quick, what cards are you guys using (size and speed), how many pics are you taking on a typical tandem, and what file size are you using? Also, how much space do you have left on the card after the jump (including landing pics)? Thanks

We know it wasn't the ideal set up. One of the problems we had was that asdie from you and Vern, Preezone, and one guy from Skydive PA, we had no real interest from anyone at any DZ's, even Aerohio. If we had any indication that it would have remotely worth it, we would have taken a comp elsewhere. As it was, if we traveled, we only knew for sure that there would one or two guys who would compete. On top of that, pre-season efforts to work with DZOs and make arrangements for possible comps at their DZ's weren't really too well recieved. Even at Aerohio, we only had four guys confirmed for the first comp. A bunch showed up that morning, but it was all a surprise to us. The real problem is that it takes ALOT of time an efort to organize a region with no real compensation. I'm not even talking about getting 'paid', but just recouping expenses for travel and course materials and such. Even forgetting about the time, and what thats worth, you can't expect a guy to miss work at his home DZ, travel to a comp, set up the course, run the meet, travel home, and pay for it all out of pocket. As far the NSL or any RW league goes, it's alittle different in that there's no course to set up or course materials, theres more participants to pay into reg fees (our biggest CPC comp had fewer jumpers that three fourway teams), and most likey more support from the DZ due to the high number of full altitude slots they sell. Again, I know it could have been better, and at the beginning of the season, we really had high hopes. But once it got underway, we did the best that we could with the situation that was presented to us. I'd encourage anyone to give a shot themselves, and see what they come up with. I hope the IN league work out better for all invovled, but in reality, I suspect it will very similar to what we had, only closer to you guys, so you'll like that better.

Huh? Filming tandems is easier then filming freeflyers. Tandems don't go anywhere. Drouge out = sitting still. Forget the ringsight all together. If the dot on the goggles works now, it will still work when you jump with tandems.

Nope. I toyed with the idea of trying to do a Friday afternoon thing, but there were too many negatives. How early to start, with regards to sunset, and the winds are usually more calm in the AM. It's a tough spot. We've got a limited amount of productive daylight to work with on the weekends. You could try for a week day AM, but then you have all the guys with 9 to 5 jobs who might not make it.

We had that problem. What we did was scedule meets for Sunday mornings, figuring the scedule would be the lightest. We would be wheels up by 7:30 or so, and be done with six rounds around 12;30 or 1:00. This is with a dedicated plane (182)and anywhere between 8 to 12 competitiors. The other thing we did was to scedule all of the non-swooping staff memebers to be on scedule that day, helping to free up the other guys. We didn't have anyone miss a comp jump, but we did have a few guys land from round six, and be on a 15 min call for tandems/studetns/video.

Come on now, thats not true. Just because you use booties doesn't mean you suck. If you NEED booties, then you suck. I'm pretty sure you could prodcue plenty of forward drive without booties.

It's just a judgement call on exits. Sometimes you want to lead the team, sometimes you want to trail them. How much you lead or trail them will depend on the size of the piece. For a bigger or longer peice, you'll need to leave more gap between the teams exit and yours. On of the dangers with leading, especially if you're new to a team, is if you get behind the curve, you'll exit right on top of them. There's a point in time where your 'window' to lead the team will close, and then you have to shift to plan B, which is to stay put, let them go by you then trail them. As such, it's hard to go wrong trailing a team. Learn to delay an extra beat if their pulling out a bigger or longer peice. Also, in freefall, I know it's cool to be tight to the team, but the difference between tight, and cutting grips out of the frame, or worse, taking the team out is only inches. On the flip side, you have to really really far away be too far away, so play it safe, give your self an extra foot or two in freefall. Your job isn't to shoot shit hot video. Your job is to produce a consistant and judgeable product.

All you can do is suck it up and get there as fast as you can. Never ever do anything on a video jump that you don't feel 100% about. Especially when it comes to building up some big speed, save that shit for solos or fun jumps. You can fly more defensively in the mean time. On exit, come off early (as usual) and relax on closing the gap at first. If the drouge is delayed, they will come down to you, and as you see this happening, you can punch it out, and fight to stay under them. When you see the TM reach for the drouge, maybe relax a touch, but not too much. Only when you see it clear the pouch, get aggressive, trow out the wings, and get up there. It's like this, before the drouge is out, the tandem can go faster than you. Your mindset should be to stay lower then them at that time. If they do start going faster then you can, you have a buffer zone where first they have to catch up to you before they can smoke you. Conversely, if you have a really slow falling pair, try to stay as high on them as you can. Lets say the pair slows down for a bit, first they have to float up to you, then pass you before you're low. All of these concepts are just ways of thinking and flying. Exactly how low or high you are, and at what time depends on the situation, but I hope you see the idea. Be ahead of the curve. Undertand where you could get caught off gaurd, and fly yourself in such a way to keep that from happening, or at least minnimize the effects if it does happen. Right up in their face is not always the smartest place to be. A few moments in a different location can set the satge for a better product in the end. Edit: Thats another thing, whats the big rush to get there anyway? Is there another camera man out there racing you to the slot? Is the winner the one who gets paid? Closing the gap can be used as a cinimatic tool. A steady approach, maybe with an orbit thrown in can really illustrate the open-ness of the sky, the altitude, the view, all of which are good things. If you're confident that you can get in your slot, and get the face shot, if it's a few seconds shorter, than so be it. If there's a gap, see the positives, and utilize them. Focusing on the negative will only cause you to rush, which is never a good thing. You can dive at a tandem at 200 mph, as long as your brain is moving at a workable speed, and you're calm and in control.

Fuck those guys. I would have pushed them too.

First off, OK to an average jumper may not pass PD's 'ready for the market' standards. I think the real deal is what you said earlier. The only market for bigger Katanas are the very small handful of very large HP canopy pilots. As much as it sucks for the big guys, it really is a good move. The Katana is really an HP wing, and think that alot of unqualified pilots would have ordered them if they could have gotten the sizes they wanted. As for Aggiedave, I've heard enough of his whining. Just buck up and order a Velo. The big ones are awesome, and if he's managed to survive this long, I'm sure he'll be fine. In fact, I've seen a few 120s in the classifieds recently.....

I saw this as well, but have come to the conclusion that you can't derail a young camera flyer once they make up their mind. Shit, it's tough to put the brakes on the newbies who want to downsize too fast, and we have the fatality reports and numerous broken femurs on our side with that one. Without any such stats for early camera flying, it's tough case to make. I figure that keeping the booties off the new guys will at least moderate the speed at which they can over-amp, and hurl themselves at a subject.

OK, here's where I don't get booties. How are they helping you here? You're flying by yourself, and can position yourself however you please. Also, you're the only one out there, so what the rush to get anywhere? Again, no offence to bootie flyers, but unless you're trying to remain really relative to someone, such as 4-way or AFF instruction, whats the point? It seems like one more thing to check, or break, or maintain, or worry about, or pay for.......

Thats what I mean. The team isn't going anywhere you can't follow if you're paying attention. Booties help if you're a little 'slow', and need to catch up to the team. If you're jumping with a sponsored team, than you have to put on the dog and pony show. The suit mfg. wants his suits out there, on the winning team, loaded with options, so people buy them loaded with options. If that was the case, I'd wear booties too. I'd also probably sell the suit the day after nationals, but thats just me. I have no world record to gloat about.

Yeah, forget the booties. They only work on way (belly to earth) and sometimes fly off or get in your way if you're trying to freefly or backfly. Unless you're shooting competition four way video, and you suck at it, no camera man needs booties. For non-comp videos, you'll get there soon enough. The difference in speed between booties and no booties isn't that much. A better flyer or a guy who reacts to the changes faster can more than make up for the difference in speed. They rock for four way guys, who are turning points, but camera guys should never have to move that much, that fast (unless they suck). Edit: No offence to the bootie flyers out there. It's really just a matter of preference, but if you've never used them, a camera isn't a reason to start.

What do you plan to do with the suit? What sort of flying will you be doing? Have you ever jumped with booties before?

The type of audible makes a difference, some are louder than others. More than anything, I would say you're just not paying attention. I use a Pro Track, mounted internally in my cam helmet. I'm usually pretty focused when I'm shooting video, and I never hear my 'tandem or student pull time is coming' beep at 6000ft. I think the reason is that I usually know it's coming, and I'm prepping to video, and catch just the right stills. I would guess that in these early freeflying jumps, you're probably pretty focused on what you're doing as well. Maybe try using the audible on a belly jump. Sure, the wind noise will be less, but see if you hear it at all. Set it for well above break off, so it goes off while you're still turning points. Maybe try a freefly jump with an experinced freeflyer. See if they can give a hand signal just before your audible is supposed to go off. Then you can listen for it to see if it's the beeper. your ears, or if it's all in your mind. Good luck. Oh, and as far as checking your alti, just put it in front of your face when you feel like checking it. Forget your body position or whatever. You'll get it back after you know where you are. Your alti is what important. Soon enough, your body will figure out a way to stay upright while you check.

Well, thats your first problem. You have to everything straight and lined up in the first place. Does the Rawa have the camera angled up as much as your old helmet? Alot of the freefly type camera helmet tend to have the camera fairly flat, which is workable for freefly, but terrible for belly flying. Look into getting a little more up angle on how the camera is mounted. After that, you'll need to re-sight the dot on your goggles. If you get a new pair of goggles, and use tape or a sticker to get the sighting right. Once it's lined up, mark the corners of the tape, remove it, and draw a circle or square with a black permanent marker. Make the lines thick enough that they're easier to see. Once thats done, it's still a matter of getting the flying worked out so that you can think about framing. Spending money on a ring sight, which is also a big snag hazzard won't help you in that area. Camera flying is tricky in that you have to do a couple things at once, and you have to be good at all of them, or the video looks crappy. Fimling skysurfing takes that one step furhter due to the big speed changes during the jump.

I understand the concept, but I'm not sure how much it applies here. There are a shitload of jumpers who know next to nothing about competition swooping, let alone which canopy everyone jumps, who makes it and what else they make.

The bottom line is this, if your spot on your goggles in lined up properly, it does the same job as a ringsight. You do have to wear the goggles and helemt in the same way each time. If your spot is lined up for belly flying, and not lined up when you are freeflying, check that your hemlet and goggles are secure, and not moving around at the higher speeds. If everything is tight, and not moving, look at the video. Is the framing always off, or just sometimes? If it's just sometimes, there's a chance you may be 'forgetting' about framing while you are concentrating on staying with the skysurfer during the big speed changes. In that case, the problem is with you, not your equipment. You'll need more practice to make the flying happen without thinking so you can pay attention to the framing.

Hey Ryan, how's it going? Before you try to clean the 'grease' off of your canopy, I think you should take a closer look at it. I suspect that it's actaully some used K Y Personal Lubricant. Any chemicals needed to clean grease may not work for K Y. As a side note, whats a guy who's about to have quadruple triplets doing messing around with K Y? I figured you would have learned your lesson, and kept it in your pants.

I'm not sure how much influence competition results will have on overall sales. If X-brace canopies are only 5% of the market, 95% of PD's customers are buying non-competition canopies. Even if the JVX came to light as the supreme swoop machine, how will that effect that sales of the Sabre2 for example? One step further, how many of the 5% are buying Velos becuase they win comps? I like my Velo regardless of comp results, as do others. Not to mention the JVX might not be a good choice for everyday jumping (faster line wear and all). I know my Velo could go faster with different lines and an RDS, but thats beyond my needs, and subtracts from the functionality of the canopy. Also, the JVX is a fortune. I can get a new Velo for dealer price somewhere. No discounts for the JVX. So we're looking at a very small percentage of buyers who will pick up the JVX over the Velo based on competition results.

Holy shit people, mid-freefall rigging, and trying to re-invent the wheel are both bad ideas. It's simple, follow procedures, and pull your handles in order. Main, then maybe cutaway, then reserve, like any other skydive. Go into it with the understanding that is may be an abnormal situation, and be ready to react to that. Even if you do have an RSL, and even if the RSL riser goes first anf the other stays put, I'm pretty sure that you'll catch on real fast that things aren't right (you were ready for this, remember). Finish the cutaway, and thank whoever invented the freebag (Bill Booth?). Then go hit yourself over the head with a bottle for letting yourself get into that situation.

OK, I'll repeat myself, be ready to pull all of your own handles. Keep yourself out of situations where you are unable to pull your handles. An AAD is an electrical device that can and will malfunction or not function at all. So is your rig for that matter. You are responsible for yourself once you leave the plane. An AAD is a useful device, but it's usage is limited to the last possible option. Giving it more authority for your skydive is a mistake. The only time an AAD should be activated is in the case that the jumper is incompacitated in some way. Period. If you are awake and mobile, be prepared to handle yourself or go home. Any accidetnal death is sad, regardless of the circumstance. Even a drunk driver killing himself in a car crash is sad, and I feel for friends and relatives who have to suffer through that. I am, however, also a realist. If you want to jump out of airplanes, there are risks that you are taking and responsibilities that you are assuming. Attempting to pass those responsibilities off to a machine is not the answer. You will encounter situations that will take you to within 99.9% of what the AAD cannot handle, and if you cannot manage them yourself, you need to stop jumping. Trust me on this one. For the record, I'm not suggesting that you are not cut out for jumping. Your new, and full of ideas and enthusiasm, like we all were. If you still think this is a good idea in 100 jumps, after you have seen how and why things are the way they are, then maybe you shouldn't be jumping.