davelepka

I know you feel like at 200 jumps you have a handle on the canopy thing, but you don't. I'd say that anyone under 1500 to 2000 jumps needs at least 200 jumps on nay one canoyp to really give an accurate desciption of the canopies performance and abilities. Even then, if you have 1500 jumps, you need at least 50 or so, on a lower performance canopy than you usually jump to really 'know' a canopy. More if you're jumping a higher performance canopy than you're used to. Aggresssive downsizing isn't game, and it usually doen't end well.

Yeah, sorry.

The Protec has a super thick pad, sp your skull should remain dent proof. The trouble with the Protec is your need a chin cup to stabilize it. The fit is too sloppy without one. As far as the washer thing, go to a hobby shop and get a sheet of aluminun about the thickness of a washer. Cut out a giant washer (3" or better) and drill a 1/4 hole in the middle. You shouod be able to bend the washer to match the curve of the helmet. This should keep the camera in place. The real issue here - it seems like if you had any prior video experience, you'd know how to construct a camera helmet, have a camera helmet, or realize the benefits of a made-for-cameras camera helmet. If you don't have any video experience, this seems like a shitty way to get started. Shooting stills requires an additional layer of thought (triggering the shutter) over video. It might be better idea to get some video experiecne first, learning to fly your slot, and work with the light, and then add the shutter action.

"Stall/surge" is just a name. You don't actually reach the stall point. Doing that on final would be beyond stupid. The 'stall' is really a deep braked slow flight.

The stall/surge does give you speed beyind full flight. The momentum of the canopy moving forward from far behind you carries it beyond full flight to a point out in front of you (aka a dive). It will return to full flight soon after that, so timing is key. Every canopy can be landed without swooping. The higher you load, the higher the stall speed will be, and faster the stall will develop. Canopies with very high loadings will often have a stall speed faster than jumpers can run. The 'sliding your feet on the grass' method (aka the Flintstone brakes) are one way to combat this. By pitting your landing gear down early, you partially unload the canopy, and raise the stall speed. This is one reason jumper get dropped on their ass in distance comps. They have no Flintstone braking, and when the canopy stalls, you'll notice a good bit of forward speed still exists. The other reason is to go further. Every techinque for canopy piloting works on any size canopy at any loading. The things that change are the altitude loss, turn rate, stall speed, and the speed at which the stall. As long as you account for these factors, you can do any manuver with any canopy.

Good answer. The whole thing is still retarded.

Yeah, no shit. What happened to the 'EOS system'? It was supposed to be the ultimate photo set-up. with everything you could ever need, and everything was interchangable. Maybe they had a 'Bring your crack-whore to work day' at Canon, and while the regular employees were at lunch, the crack-whores got into the product planning dept. Just a guess....

Oh, OK I see. I guess I figured that having the comversion factor for small sensor cameras was confusing enough, they had to introduce camera specific lenses as well. Yeah, that makes sense. Sure. I'm glad I don't work for Canon, because their thought process is beyond me.

That TM must have been high. He forgot to put his gogles on too. What a jackass.

Ok, hang on a second here. Is there a reason that you couldn't take a 10-22 and put it on a full frame sensor camera, and actaully get '10-22'? Is there a difference in the ultra wide lenses that makes them only applicable as semi-wide lenses for small sensor cameras? Semi related, why would they change lens mounts? Wouldn't they just go back to selling lenses that are a bit longer than the current offerings?

For the record, I'm not saying that is the answer, but that maybe thats the answer the OP was looking for. Persoanlly, I'm not sure there's a 'problem'. Maybe things could be better, but I know for sure the current system is helpful. If the 'new' system would be as helpful or not, is up in the air, and for that reason, I'd say just leave it be. I disagree that the word of mouth or actual bonfire talk is better than what we have now. We have access to the insight of a huge number of very smart and experienced people who might never have an occasion to visit your local bonfire. Furthermore, the most qualified jumper in your area may not be present at the bonfire. What you have is the senior jumper at the bonfire taking the lead. I've walked up to the bonfire to find a guy with 200 jumps talking out his ass to a group of 100 jump wonders and tandem students. It's the blind leading the blind, and up to pure chance if it gets corrected, or just runs it's course. The home page says something like "The single best source for skydiving information", and for jumpers off student status, this is pretty close to the truth. You'll never find a better cross section of jumpers and experience levels anywhere. It may seem liek overkill the way advice gets corrected down to the nth degree, but in the end it does go alng way to ensure the accuracy of the advice.

I jump at a DZ that sounds just like this. A good idea is to ask an instructor on your load who can point out the DZ and landmarks on the way to altitude. Asking the instructor to do it may interfere with their work with their student, but they will know who's capapable of steering you in the right direction. You may end up asking the biggest knucklehead in the plane without an instrucotrs refferal. All the briefings and aerial photos cannot replace seeing the real deal from the plane. This isn't really directed at the OP, just an extension of what was already good advice.

THANK GOD we don't have to answer to the NTSB or the FAA in the wake of a skydiving incident. That said, what do you think those organizations do with an accident investigation? My guess would be they look at the circumstances, SPECULATE as to the probable causes, then investigate the facts and evidence to come to a conclusion. Even then, those conclusions are often times just educated speculation. So why do they bother to investgate at all? Because the best way to prevent future accidents is to understand the accidents from the past, and implement training, procedures, or equipment changes that will prevent repeats of the same situation. With the absence of the formal investigations, all we have is the discussion of other jumpers, using the inforamtion provided to help us gain some useful knowledge from a bad situation. Do these discussion sometimes get off track? Yes they do. Is the new track sometimes also helpful and informative, albeit about a different, related situation? Absolutely, and that information is every bit as valuable to a jumper who had not previously considered it, despite it's lack of direct relevance to the incident being discussed. This is all we have to work with. For the record, before DZ.com, or the internet was popular, all we had to work with was word of mouth, and Parachutist, neither of which presented a very clear or in depth picture of the situation. Having open discussions, in a global forum, has done far more good than harm. Far more. Maybe your issue is that there isn't enough thread splitting in the incidents forum? As far as the fear of speculation causing some incidents to go unreported, that seems a little paranoid to me. Considering the popularity of DZ.com, and the small size of the community, you would littlerly have to have every jumper on the field agree to a pact of absolute silence regarding an icident to keep it from the public eye. Even then, if the media gets involved, enough jumpers monitor the news wires to catch even the smallest blurb. If all that fails, we've seen family memebers log on looking for answers as to what happend to their family members.

OK, one more time. Morage built the rig to the provided measurements the first time. The error was on the part of the customer, for measuring himself. Mirage was presented an order form, and they built the rig to that order. Mirage is not at fault. The cust is remeasured by a rigger and Mirage dealer. Mirage fixes the custmer error FOR FREE. Howver, in doing so, they make a mistake. To remedy this, they do all they can, which is overnight shipping, and a rush re-size. So far it looks like Mireage has made one mistake, and incurred a great cost to rmedy it ASAP. As far as the chest strap issue goes, I'm not sure who's at fault, but the customer did don the rig at the loft, approve of the fit, anf go home. Ltaer he thought that it could be longer, and Mirage complied by having the loft complete the repairs in order to avoid shipping delays. I'll admit that this is not the 'ideal' reatil transaction, but when you order a complex, custom made item, there are many areas where problems could occur. There was no cause for the poster to publicly hang them out to dry that way. That was the biggest error of the whole situation. Again for the record, Mirage is the only skydiving company I have ever had a service issue with. It took sending a well-know jumer as a representative in person to get my issue resloved. Since then the person I was delaing with has left Mirage.

I've seen more guys pound in resulting in serious injury (some life-long, some fatal) than you have jumps. In 90% of those cases the jumpers were jumping a at WL that I consdiered too aggressive. Thats only the people who I know personally. I feel safe in saying that were scores more incidents involving jumpers I didn't know. Look pal, just because you choose to jump at a DZ that cannot provide suitable gear for a range of different sized students, doesn't mean that aggressive donwsizing is a good idea. You showed poor judgement in continuing to jump at such a DZ. How do you know that their lack of attention to the student gear doesn't extend to other areas of safety? Furthermore, you showed additional poor judgement in aggressive downsizing just beacuse they didn't have anything better to jump. Thats the worst reason of all to downsize. Just beacuse it's worked for you SO FAR, doesn't mean it was or is a good idea. Considering your inexperience, and your mulitple errors in judgement, my only hope is that other new jumpers will realize that your opinions are not based on any sort of facts, and NOT to follow your example.

This is misleading. Mirage got the order correct, made to the provided measurements, the first time. On the repair (due to the customers measureing error) Mirage did blow it. They made a mistake, which they corrected at their cost, and with overnight shipping. Who knows why the chest strap was too short. For the record, I've been unhappy with Mirage in the past. In this case, I don't think thay did anythign but make a mistake and fix it as best they could. The guy who posted this though, that guy presented an edited and slanted version, painting a picture of cusotmer mistreatment and irresponsible business practices, and thats just fucked up.

No visor.

Agreed. But there is a point at which you're not 'trying' anything, you're just doing it. An accomplished canopy pilot, who is also an accomplished TM, who has sufficent experience on a certain model of tandem canopy would have no problem with a 90 or so on final to pick up some speed. 'Accomplished' in my book is several 1000 jumps of sport swooping and tandems apiece, with a few hundred on the tandem canopy of choice. I'm all for being safe, but eventually you reach a point where it's just another parachute. Ditto with the rear risers, it's just another way to arrest your descent, and bleed off some speed. Furthermore, I don't see a 90 toggle turn as being any different than the deep brakes to canopy surge that many TM's use for extra speed. Lets remember that nobody is cranking a front riser 450 with a tandem. I'm not even sure it's possible.

The one in the pic is the Gath with the pull down visor. I've jumped them, and the visor isn't great for everyday jumping. It does look cool as hell. I use a standard Gath for a general skydiving helmet, and I like it. It's light, low profile, and provides good coverage, and mine fits me well. The snug fit means an audible may not fit inside the helemt. I've cut a Pro Track sized hole in the side of mine, and added some palstic strips to keep the Pro Track from popping out. The good news is that the plastic is easy to work with. If you're in the market for an open face helemt, it's a good choice. It's also on the cheap side, and I've had mine for years, and it still works great.

Are you asking about having an actual ring sight, or any sight reference at all? If your set up is right, and you know the edges of your frame, and dot or circle drawn on the goggles will work 99% as good as a mounted-to-the-helemt round thing that sits in front of your face. As far as a jumper with no reference at all, you would need alot of jumps with the same cameras and lenses, and most likely filming the same things to get away with no reference. Some of the 'pro' guys have a selection of video cameras, still camera, and lenses for both. When making those types of changes, sometimes from jump to jump, the helmet moutned sight helps to keep everyhting on the same page.

OK, lets refine that technique a bit. Grab only the rear risers, and give them a symetrical tug, maybe an inch or two (your canopy may need more, but start small). This will 'encourage' the slider to come down. It works at any temp or altitude.

Their own delusions.

No. Firstly, it will differ greatly with changes in desinty altitude. Second, the size and shape of the load will effect the no wind speed, not just WL. It's just too dynamic to be meaningfully measured, and even if I could, I can't see how it would be relevant.

You thought right.

Go with the Sabre2 150. The switch between 170 and 150, and the bump in WL give you waht you want. You'll see. It'll kick ass in comparison to what you have now.