davelepka

Just for reference, the GoPro Hero2 with batt weighs in at 6 oz, and a CX100 with batt comes in at 11oz, so not a huge difference. I'm 99% sure I used to have a video camera battery that weighed more than either one of those.

Full disclosure - I do video for the free jumps, and the jumps the video work pays for. There was a time in my life when it was my sole source of income, and a time when it was a neccesary supplement to my income, but these days I do it for the jumps and to pay for the other jumps I make. With that being the case, there still remains no reason not to do the job properly. Like it or not, people are paying you for a professional service, and you need to provide a professional product. There was a time, not all that long ago, when the price and weight of camera was mugh higher, and the price and weight of cameras that could produce high-quality footage was even higher. A CX video camera, or a Rebel kit both cost about as much as you could make over one weekend of shooting video. Both are also available for less on the used market, where you could pay for both cameras with one busy weekend at the DZ. The quality of the lens and mic on the CX is far ahead of what you get with a GoPro, and on top of that you get to select your focal length to suit. How about being able to zoom in or out when shooting the parts of the video aside from freefall? The customer is paying for the whole thing, not just the freefall. Ditto for the Rebel. The lens, the size and quality of the pics, the number of pics and the adjustability of the camera all far outweigh the GoPro. I don't even take a ton of pics in freefall, but I take the ones I want and in the case that something 'good' is happening, I can reel off as many as I need. How about zoom and flash for shooting in the plane on the way up? How about ISO or shutter speed adjustment for late day jumps, or when a high overcast rolls in? GoPros are great for point and shoot work. For hand-cam, they're perfect because they're for idiots, and a TI uses enough of their brain doing a tandem that all they're left with is an idiot level of thought to apply to the hand-cam. For fun jumpers shooting POV, or free video for their pals, also a great option that produces good looking footage, but that's not what we're talking about. This is about a jumper being paid good money to be a dedicated camera guy documenting someone's first (and possibly only) jump. If you want to be an idiot, than shoot the idiot level equipment, and understand that by choosing that standard, you're making the statement that cheap and easy is good enough for you. One final point, with regards to what pics people print, I would suggest that far more pics get printed, framed, and hung up than people think. Personally, I can't remember the last time I printed a skydiving photo, or even took a disc or memory card home with me. Maybe once a year I get a pic I really like, and I make it the wallpaper on my computer for a a while, but that's about it. The reason is that I jump all the time, and take 1000's of pics every season, it's just not 'special' to me. Tandem students, on the other hand, are in a different situation. Their jump might represent a significant event in their life, one they are proud of and want to remember and display for all to see. I don't think it would unusual to find that a good number of tandems end up printing and displaying their photos the same way we would all display pics of getting to the top of a mountain, or some other significant achievement. To a non-jumper, making a tandem is on par with those type of things, even if it seems simple and common-place to us. It's their money, and their jump, and it's not up to us to choose how important it is, or is not, to the customer.

Sometimes it is. Despite what you might think, there are humans involved in skydiving, and along with that comes human error. Have you ever tripped over anything? Or dropped something valuable or breakable? I'm guessing yes. Now if you tripped because you were running without looking where you were going, and your shoes were untied, then there are lessons to learn from that. If you werer properly equipped and paying attention, but still tripped, then it was an 'accident', with the lesson being to simply 'be more careful'. If you dropped your Ming vase because you were playing catch with it after covering your hands in Crisco, again, we can learn a few things. If you dropped it under more 'conventional' circumstances, again it comes to simply 'being more careful'. The suggestion is that every incident is due a full investigation, to make sure that we're not missing any key factors or learning points, but just because it's an incident doesn't mean that there are any significant causes or learning points beyond, 'be more careful'. It's a valid conclusion to come to, with the slippery slope being that you don't come to that conclusion too quickly. As far as, 'it's not my fault', we all accept responsibility for our actions, or the outcome of the jump, the moment we leave the plane. Like it or not, once you jump, it is your fault, whatever happens.

First off, nobody excluded low time jumpers from having 'shit happen' as well. Not every incident involving low time jumpers could have been avoided, things break and people make mistakes. However, when it comes to an area like swooping, where experience plays such a vital role, it's only natural to find a greater occurance of 'shit happens' with higher time jumpers than with lower time jumpers. It's not that 'shit' doesn't happen to lower time jumpers, it's just that when it comes to low time jumpers and swooping, they make far more legitimate errors in technique or judgement, that the majority of their incidents do have direct causes, and do contain significant learning points. Take the stats that offered a 50/50 split between low and high time jumpers involved in canopy fatalities. Out of 15 deaths from high time jumpers, maybe 10 of them were accidents, and 5 were easily preventable, dumb mistakes. The 15 deaths for low time jumpers might be distributed with 10 being dumb mistakes that could have been avoided, and 5 that were 'accidents'. Is it that hard to understand that experienced, high time jumpers are less likely to make an error when comapared to low time jumpers? I think even outside of swooping, you'll find more actual 'accidents' among high time jumpers, and more 'easily-preventable incidents' with low time jumpers. There's no reason it can't work both ways. One eventuality in one incident doesn't preclude another eventuality in a different incident. No two incidents have to be connected or related in any way. Again, you're trying to lump incidents together. Any analysis would have to be taken on a case by case basis. I see other swoopers doing things that I believe to be mistakes in their technique, mistakes that I have provided for in my technique or procedures. If one of those mistakes led to an incident, in that case I would suggest that it was my superior skill (or planning) that protected me from the same fate as the involved jumper. I also see incidents that just add up to bad luck. Sometimes the 'perfect storm' occurs at the least perfect time, and your number is just up. It can happen on a DZ, in traffic, or on a ski slope. What about Sunny Bono? He skied into a tree and was dead on the spot, while millions of others have hit trees and lived. Which is exactly what I'm saying, but you miss the point that this is on a case by case basis. It might be one answer for one case, and the other answer for another case. One night you want a burger, and another night you want pizza. Rarely do they co-exist on a single night, but it's not hard to imagine burgers on Friday and pizza on Saturday.

I wonder how far out Skyride has all of their 'partners' strung out on tandem payments? I can't imagine they're spot on with their payments, so another aspect of dropping them is how much money they owe the DZ at the time, money I can't see them being able to collect after they stop accepting their business. I know that the DZs take a hit after Skyride takes their cut, so they're already down on profits, but to have to turn around and out-of-pocket the expenses for X number of tandems they're going to have to write-off might be playing a factor in their continuing to do business with them.

Why? Why support them or their DZ in any way? They lost the Skdive Az suit in a big way, and as this thread points out, they continue to use deceptive advertising to poach customers. Sure, maybe in this case their local WI DZ will serve the WI customers they grab off the web, but what about all the locations where they advertise have no DZ available? I'm not just talking about a Skyride owned DZ, but not even a DZ that will accept their certificates? What do you think happens to a potential customer who buys a tandem from them, only to discover they need to drive 5 hours to make the jump, and then can't get a refund from them? Do you think that 'customer' goes back to looking for a place to jump, or do they write skydiving off as a scam, and forget the whole idea? That's a customer the local DZ could have served, and sent them home happy with their experience, but Skyride fucked them over and took them out of the skydiving 'economy'. I agree with you that if anyone opens a DZ in your neighborhood, it's open season on the local population as far as who get's what business. However, considering that we know they're crooks, and giving the sport a really bad name for no other reasons then to line their pockets, why would you as a fun jumper choose to patronize their DZ?

I would suggest that the over 1000 crowd has a greater exposure to landing fatalities than the under 1000 crowd. I think you'll find higher WL, more swoopers, and more activity in terms of overall jumps from jumpers with over 1000 jumps comapred to those under 1000. So the disturbing stat is that the under 1000 crowd is keeping pace with their more exposed counter-parts with over 1000 jumps. This is why I'm behind required canopy control classes and WL restrictions for new jumpers. If we can better equip and educate those new jumpers, maybe that stat for the under 1000 crowd can be brought back down to more closely reflect their exposure. The side effect is that all of those jumpers will, sooner or later, be in the over 1000 crowd, and the better training and preparation in their early years certainly won't hurt them several years down the line. However, at the end of the day there will always be skydiving fatalites of one sort or another. Sometime accidents do happen, and by that I mean 'true' accidents. 'True' in that the jumper made sound, prudent decisions, and despite that, the accident occured. Things break and people make mistakes, and you can't do much about that.

Just a side note, if you are in the US, or training at a USPA DZ, there's a chance that you are jumping with a Coach, and not an Instructor at this stage. The two ratings have different levels of responsibility, and different levels of training to earn each one. A jumper with a Coach rating would not have been trained to stop a spin or deploy a parachute for a student, where an Instructor is trained to do both of those. On a coach-level jump, the inteded role of the coach is to observe and report, and the jumper is expected to complete the skydive on their own. There are times when an Instructor is tapped to do a coach-level jump, and in those cases it's up to the instructor's discretion to intervene and act as an Instructor and not a Coach, but in the case that a Coach is tapped for a coach level jump, they are not trained, expected, nor advised to interveve. Stopping a spin or pulling for a student can present a significant risk for both jumpers if done improperly. moving forward, make sure you are clear on who you are jumping with, and what they may, or may not, be able to do for you. I'm not suggesting that you were waiting for, or expecting, any sort of help, it sounds like you took care of yourself. Often time the shift from working with Instructrors to working with Coaches is not explained to students, and I think it's something you should be aware of.

Good attitude. Now read between the lines. What it says it that you want to become good at it, but that implies that you are not currently good at it, and with 12 jumps, that's about right. Nobody, except for yourself, expects you to be good at it at this stage. Ease up on yourself, and realize that you will make mistakes, then make the best of it and learn something. The good news (really good) is that all you did was screw up a useless freefall skill. You will never need to do a barrell roll to save your life, and in reality the only reason they teach them (and front/back loops) is so you get the experience of leaving the arch, and then recovering the arch when you're done. In that sense, you achieved the goal, you went unstable and then got stable again. Beyond that, you pulled, on time, and with stability. You backed that up with good accuracy and a good landing. Call it a success, and make another jump.

Might never happen. Your dad might worry about you for the rest of his life. There are worse things. Things that have worked for others, invite him to come to the DZ as an observer. Not to jump, or ride in the plane, but just to see the operation up close, and see what the sport is all about. Maybe have him sit in on your ground training and dirt dives so he can see that this it's an 'organized' place with qualified professionals working there. Beyond that, you might just have to move forward with a difference of opinion. Offer to call at the end of every jumping day, just to 'check in', but beyond that proceed with your life as you see fit.

More or less, yeah. I pictured it as more of a pair of shorts, as we wouldn't need the full torso suit, and since I was looking toward the future, I also pictured it made of shiny metallic fabric, but the example you posted is close enough.

Not in the least. It takes years and tens of thousands of dollars to go from 500 jumps to 5000 jumps. In comparison to buying a GoPro, it takes the same amount of time, and another $150 to upgrade to a Rebel w/ kit lens. Big difference from making 4500 jumps. The point is that if you're being paid to jump, you should make the best 'reasonable' choice possible. Given that a somewhat busy video guy can make enough to outright pay for the SLR in one weekend, there simply is no excuse to cheap out and use a GoPro.

Not one of those people was aware that better cameras can be used for skydiving. As far as they know, the stills you display are the best available, and they can buy those or none at all. What do you think would happen if you also posted 8X10s from an SLR, and let the customer choose which ones they wanted for their money? Up to a point. Equipment does have limitations, and with a tiny little lens and a huge field of view, even the best photographer can only do so much. I would never suggest that everyone needs to be jumping a $2000 SLR with a $1000 lens, but given the price point of a Cannon Rebel with a kit lens, I don't think that's an unreasonable standard. You can buy them used for the price of a GoPro, or new for not too much more. It all comes down to ingetrity. You are the 'experts' in the eyes of your customers, and they are counting on your expertise to provide them with the best possible experience for their skydiving dollar. With the price difference between a GoPro and a basic SLR being no more than you can earn in a 1/2 day of jumping the camera, there is just no excuse for short-changing the customer like that.

I'm wondering what the finished harness will look like. When I first read the thread title, I pictured more of a 'suit' with intergal webbing, than a conventional harness, with the idea being to close up the 'holes' in a regular harness. I actually had a thought similar to that many years ago thinking about the future of parachute gear. Manufacturers were starting to build wider and wider legsstrap pads, and I fast-frowarded that idea and pictured something more like a pair of shorts attached to the bottom of the harness. The big problem, of course, is getting them to fit right, but like I said, it was just a daydream. In this case, however, with a custom harness being built, something like that would be feasable. Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing the video.

The WL shouldn't effect the opening of the canopy. If it's opening harder that you weigh more, you might just be going faster when you deploy, which can lead to harder openings. Upsizing won't fix that, as you'll sill be going the same speed at deployment time with a bigger canopy in your rig. I don't know how the big Sabre2s open, so I can't say if it's normal or not. Have the line trim checked, maybe it went out of trim recently, and of course consistant packing is going to be key. If you don't have that, work on it and see if you can't develop a reliable pack job. You could always go old school, and get a bigger slider (chord-wise, not span-wise) or lower your brake setting a little on the brake line, either one of those should do the trick, but it's not the 'preferred' way. I used to do that stuff when my canopy needed a reline and I couldn't afford it. In the end, maybe look up a Spectre 190, if you're happy with the 190 size. The Spectre might be the best opening canopy ever made, and I don't think that's an exaggeration.

Just for reference, the word 'freeflying' didn't even exist until about 1993/1994-ish, when the modern version of freeflying really came to be. There were some variants of the theme before then, but not really groups of people falling at higher airspeeds and unusual attitudes for the entire jump. Once it started to catch on, the rig manufacturers started to improve the performance of their product. The people who design rigs are jumpers, and have a profound interest 'function'. If the market has a need for a certain function in a rig, they will come up with a solution. Until the middle-90's, the market just never expressed such a need. For the record, older rigs are capable of things besides RW, but that's provided that they are packed and maintained properly. On those rigs, that involves frequent replacement of velcro and spandex pouches and properly sized canopies. Even then the designs aren't ideal for freeflying, but the trouble is that older rigs tend to end up not being properly maintained, and somtimes mis-matched with canopies. It's part of being old and cheap, they end up in the hands of cheap (or poor) people, and so the rigs end up with some limitations.

On the first day? Sure. When things have been going well and you made an honest mistake? Of course, 100%. What about the soldiers who won't stop playing games with the hand grenades? They know it's wrong, and have been told it's wrong, but there still in the bunker playing 'hot potato' with a live grenade because they 'know' they have 5 seconds, and there's nothing to worry about for the first 3 seconds anyway. How do you handle those guys? How you respond to someones actions have a lot to do with the action itself. The frequency, severity, surrounding factors, premeditation, etc, all contribute to which method you use, and sometimes it's not Mr. Nice Guy. For the record, when you talk about instuction, this is never the way to address a student. They don't know because they're new and haven't had a chance to learn the ropes, and that's what an instructor is for, to show them. When dealing with licesned jumpers who have been informed, warned and flat out told not to do something and proceed to do it anyway in those cases I call 'no holds barred', and have at it.

One other thing, using all caps in internet land is the equivialant of shouting. I've seen at least two of your thread titles you've typed in all caps, and you should stop. If you feel that your threads are important, by all means use caps on the first letter of every word, as in a proper noun, but there's no need to 'shout them out' with all caps.

Maybe not obvious at first, but think about it for a second. There are two problems here, the one is freeflying with a non-freefly friendly rig, and the other is the unintentional deployment. The first problem is easy to understand, the non-freefly freindly rig isn't designed to stay shut for anything but flying on your belly. In that orientation, the rig is 'hidden' from the wind by your body, and does not recieve any direct, high speed wind blast. So the flaps and covers don't have to be too tight or secure to stay put. Enter freeflying, now the rig does recieve direct, high speed wind blast, and needs to be designed to stay shut under those circumstances. Just about every rig built in the last 10 to 12 years is freefly friendly, but it's not uncommon to find older rigs still being jumped and still used as student gear. Side note - using old rigs as student gear for AFF is a huge mistake. Static line is one thing, there's no freefall and the 'friendly-ness' of the rig is unimportant. However, AFF is another story, and it's not unheard of for a student to roll on the back and fall that way for several thousand feet, which is alot like freeflying, so they should have a rig that will stay shut. Back to the story, and the unintentional deployment. Rigs and canopies are designed around being opened at belly flying speeds, and with the jumper facing the relative wind with level shoulders. Change any one of those, and the opneing will not be 'as designed'. It might be harder, it might spin into line twists, or it might tear in half. Who knows. Anywho, look at the video and note that you can see the jumpers hands and feet while he's flying on his back. Stand up right now, and position yourself so a camera on your head could film your hands and feet at the same time, and now picture the jumper falling back-first in that position. You can imagine that he might be going faster than square and level on his belly. Remember that surface area = speed. That's why you speed up when you arch harder, you're presenting less surface area to the wind. So think about the amount of surafce area you present on your belly (most of your body, relatively flat), and compare that to the amount of surafce area this jumper would have been presenting in his 'back fly' position. He was going somewhat faster than normal. The other factor was the 'shoudlers level' aspect of a good opening, and this jumpers shoulders were not level, and not facing the right direction for a deployment. Normally, the canopy goes straight up over you back, and opens. In this case, the canopy had to go from the jumpers back, around the side, and then up to open (you can see this in the video). At this point, the canopy is anything but straight, and trying to open. So combine the higher airspeed, and asymetrical opening, and that's how the canopy tore in half. I can't say for sure, but 9 times out of 10, if the container is so old that it's not freefly friendly, the canopy in it is also going to be old as dirt, and maybe not all that 'strong', so that might have contributed to the tear as well. On to the camera. it's not a direct cause of the tear, but it's a contributing factor. The jumper in question was trying to flim his buddy from below, so this might not have happened without a camera. Of course, you can backfly without a camera as well, so maybe it would have happened anyway. The DZO is partially to blame for allowing to non-licensed jumpers to jump together, with both of them wearing cameras. That's an awful lot of 'variables' for one jump, and not something that should have been permitted.

Lions are built to take down gazelles, people are not built to fly. No matter, it turns out he'll be at the tunnel for three hours, not in the tunnel for 3 hours.

Right on. Most of the time when someone says they booked '3 hours' of tunnel time, they're talking about actual flight time (even though that time is broken up into short 1 or 2 minute flights with time for rest and debrief inbetween). I glad to hear you're not flying for 3 hours, that's way too much for a first shot. Still make sure you're well rested, fed and hydrated, it is a workout and you'll feel it the next day. 3 hours of flight time you might feel for a couple of days.

That's a shitload of time for your first shot. Best advice - prepare for the tunnel time like you're going to run a marathon. Be well rested, proper nutrition and hydration, be sure to strech and limber up for a few days before hand, and then on the flip side, don't make any plans for the next day, you're going to feel like you got hit by a truck.

This is the error in your argument. The point is that if you're in the corner, you're not in level flight, so comparing the time-to-recovery from level flight is irrelevant. You said it youself (kind of) The trim is also what makes the canopy dive, and the steeper trim allow the Velo to dive further. That steeper trim, however, also requires a greater degree of change to go from diving to level flight than a canopy with a flatter trim. So you may turn the JVX lower, but at the same time it requires a lesser degree of change to dig out, cancelling out the disadvantage of the lower altitude. There are other factors as well, like the human tendency to be more accurate judging closer distances than farther. This can come into play during the set-up, initiation, and determining a bailout altitude. The truth of the matter is that long or short recovery arcs are different, each with their own pros and cons, and from a safety perspective, neither has a clear advatage over the other. For the purposes of speed and distance, the long recovery arc certainly gives the pilot more time to build up speed in the dive, but that's hardly a safety issue. Case in point, my first 4000 swoops were split up between Sabres and Stilettos, ranging from 135 to 107, and loaded between 1.4 and 1.9. None of those canopies had a long recovery arc, and the bigger Sabres had almost no dive at all, but I managed to swoop them incident-free for a decade. Now I have 1000+ on Velos over the last 7 years, again without incident.

I didn't drag the guy to the DZ and force him to jump a Velo loaded at 2.0. That was his choice, and there are consequences for his actions. He knew damn well what he was doing, and that it was going against the wishes of the DZ managemment, as well as the opinion of the majority of the skydiving public. Keep in mind that the 'punishment' has to fit the crime. In this case, the guy blew it big time. It wasn't a case of a slight over-estimation of ability, or 'pushing' the envelope, he went far and above what any normal jumper would think of as 'prudent', and in turn he gets a reaction of a similar caliber. Despite what some have suggested, there's no 'bullying' going on here. This guy stepped up and made his position clear, he thought it was OK to do what he did and he was ready for he fallout. Well, much like all the other consequences he knows nothing about, this is one of them. He took a chance, and made it out alive (and with both legs working), but his ego and reputation didn't fair so well. Lesson learned? Maybe, maybe not. However, beyond the jumper in question, I think the position of the majority of high time jumpers here was made clear to all who read the thread, so there's a chance that it made an impression others, and that's a worthwhile benefit. If I have to make an example out of a guy who is proven to not be a team player in order to possibly reach others who may be willing to play by the rules, than so be it. Once the jumper in question made his choices, I quit worrying about his thoughts and feelings. He had no concern for the thoughts and feelings of the DZ management, the staff who is trying to make a living, and the other jumpers there looking to have a good time. If he can so carelessly cast those feelings aside, I can do the same for his feelings.

Once again, I'm no bully, on the internet or in real life. I would say anthing I would type right to someones face if I had the chance, and I would defend my words and actions before a jury of my peers with 100% confidence that I was onyl saying what needed to be said. Some people here know me in real life, and I walk the walk even more than I talk the talk. I put 100% effort into my time on the DZ, both into my own performance and the performance of the DZ machine as a whole. You want to jump where I jump? Great, now you're a part of the machine. and if you're fucking it up, be ready to hear about it and correct the problem. Don't fool yourself into writing this off as bullying. I explained this three other places already, but what we have here are reactions to choices and actions a jumper made on their own. Nobody singled the guy out, nobody apporached him and started shoving, he made all of his own choices, and this is the backlash. He fucked up, and fucked up big time, and this is what happens. Don't like it? Don't fuck up. Don't want to die and early death? Don't fuck up. They go hand in hand.