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They were prison guard cadets, dispatched to help evacuate a prison in the middle of the fire. As the bus was making a turn around the road the driver saw the road ahead was blocked and tried to turn the bus around. Unfortunatly the wind had just then changed direction and intensefied, blocking the way back, leaving the bus stuck inside the flames. Two or three people had time to get away. Nobody else did. Three policeman died trying to get to the bus and rescue the cadets. It was done in less then two minutes, the fire just engulfed them.

Currently the number of dead is 41. Yes, what I meant was the magnitude of the event was not yet known, the timeline puts the cadet's disaster shortly before the picture was taken, and we found out about it as we landed from the jump. During the day the story the media was pumping was that the fire will be under control shortly, even after the death toll was known. During the night the fire picked up to what was a mega fire by morning.

This picture was taken when the fire was just getting started, its dimensions were not yet known, nobody died yet, and jumping continued. I have some more pictures I took from the plane and in free fall of a tandem with the fire behind it, I didnt notice it while working, just put my back to the sun like always. ill post them later this week if the fire dies down and roads to the DZ are open. This picture was taken by Hilla Shaked. This is sad beyond belief. All those lives, all that nature, just gone in a heartbeat. So sad.

Hi :) If your looking for an easy free way to analyze your jump data, this might help. I have been using openoffice to analyze my logs. openoffice is a free office suite, you can easily google and download it. I have been using a template to quickly copy and paste new jump logs into the spreadsheet and instantly have all the data and graph presented. Currently you can see top and average glide ratio, horizontal speed and total speed, as well as average and minimum vertical speeds. Also a graph displays vertical, horizontal and total speeds, as well as glide ratio to time. You can also see total distance traveled (ground track of actual flight path). Units are feet and km. If anyone is interested in different units or measurements, id be very happy to help. To use it, first download and install open office, just google it quickly. also download the file flysight template.ods attached. Get a csv file you want analyzed. open it in notepad and locate where the jump begins by looking for the altitude dropping when you leave the aircraft, and where it ends by looking at the vertical speed for deployment. Delete everything above and below it, except the first two lines that hold the titles and units, and save the file, as a new file if you want to keep the original jump complete. Now open this csv file in calc, and just hit ok on the dialog box that pops up. Click column D, and then shift click column G. Copy these four columns. Open the attached file, flysight template.ods, also in Calc. Select column B and hit paste. That's it. Now scroll right to column Q and you will see all the data and the graph. If the graph has too much or two little time in it you can change the length of the x axis (time) by double clicking the graph, double clicking the x axis and under scale changing maximum to reflect how long the jump is in seconds. Save the file under a different name, or select just the interesting bits and export selection as pdf. Enjoy :)

Same for me on a friend's rawa with similar head size to mine, very uncomfortable on the left side. I like to use two audibles, so no go for me.

Hi everyone I have cx105, had it without problems for 8 months. During the last couple of weeks it begun to sometimes shut down and reboot while im recording. when it starts back up it gives me an error code 13:00:01, and instructs me to reinsert the memory stick several times until everything goes back to normal working mode. whatever i was recording when it shut down is completely lost. This obviously being a problem I took it the lab with sony's local representative. They said there is nothing wrong with the camera and the error code is due to an unoriginal sony memory stick. however the cards in my DZ are all originals bought from them, this happened with several sticks, including one I bought directly from them at the lab. so I sent it back to the lab again and borrowed a friend's cx105, and hooked it up with my setup (big sony infolithium battery, hypeye and memory sticks) and... got the same problem. he's camera worked perfectly until that time, and hopefully will continue to. no one else in my DZ has this problem, and we only have CX105s. So you would think that the battery or hypeye would be my problems, but I was able to recreate the problem in the lab with a freshly opened memory stick, no hypeye and a stock battery they had lying around. so it must be the camera. but it happened to me with a different camera again... what am I missing? this is obviously something im doing wrong, but what? any ideas at all? any suggestion or thoughts would be very appropriated. Im burning up my DZ's profits with this shit, hundreds of dollars of money returned already. Thanks

Ive had the same problem twice with the led lights losing contact, trunk sent me replacment leds for free both times. I think the culprit is how we place the lights in the helmet. Most of us have it coming out from between the padding and helmet just above our eyes. This is great for easy view of status, but it makes us jiggle the led end around everytime we put the helmet on. Eventually the leds lose contact. I also have my hypeye mounted on my box with a zkulls quick release, which means more jiggling around of the led cable when i take the camera on or off the helmet. My solution after replacing two led ends was to mount the led end on the camera box, so now its one unit and nothing gets moved around when i put on the helmet or take the camera off. I actually went back to using a small mirror on my alti to see the light, funny and low tech but works and hopfuly no more dead LEDs :-)

Just to bring up another idea to handle this issue of rigs for back to back, in my dz when someone uses your rig for a back to back work jump, with your permission of course, he must report it to manifest and they keep track of it. For every seven jumps that are made on your gear you get a free fun jump, and you have control over who jumps your gear and when, assuming they arnt just taking it without asking (i would be surprised to hear that, DZs are small places mostly and skydivers love talking). This gives us the posibility to decline (if we choose) other people using our rigs and still use other people's gear without being assholes, because they get something they want out of it. Everyone has gear to jump and control over their own rigs, and the DZ solved a big problem that can cause alot of bad blood by throwing relitivly very little money at it.

Why is that? And how is it recommended to do them now? Thanks :-)

I do a complete gear check: Every morning when getting my gear out. Every time I take it off the gear rack to put on. Immdiatly after putting it on. On the way to board. Just before taking off the seatbelt and becoming my own problem once again, and no longer the pilot's. Some time during the ride to altitude, at least twice along with emergency EPs practice Just before jumping. I sometimes find myself touching my three harness straps to feel the metal bit and even cutaway and reserve handles during free fall, mostly when filming tandems and having my hands free for a few seconds on the air, it just happens by itself I swear :-) The only things I cant check with the rig on are the AAD and PC cocked, so I make a point of slowing down and getting a mental picture of them being checked before putting the rig on so I easily and vividly recall doing it later. If i cant remmber doing it, ill have someone whom I would trust with my life look at them. I hate people touching my gear, most noticably the tandem clients sitting behind me grabbing my riser covers everytime the plane hits a burble. Iv had one of them (a kid) flip open my reserve pin protection to ask his instructor whats in there. Had a friend look me over and close it, stayed away from client, thank god he wasnt my video client. I am always obssesivly looking at other people's gear and checking it visually. To date I have cought misrouted chest and leg straps, misrouted RSLs, floating handles, open riser covers, AADs that are off, and once a completly misrouted three rings on a tandem harness at 8k on the way up. Scary. But no one has x ray vision - check your pins or have them checked by some one competent. And no one is obligated to look you over. Dont rely on it, be vigilant. Always look out for mistakes - your's and other's. Know how to check yourself completly, with the rig on and off you. Be self relient, but dont be afraid to ask for help, and particularly for knowledge. Look out for yourself and your friends. Be safe. And that one guy that lets you feel like its a hussle to help you keep yourself and everyone else on board alive, himself included, is a douch. I shuld know, im one myself, but id gladly give anyone a gear check :-) Im more of a safty douch then coolness douch :-)

I do pull both toggles to full extension when I test flare, so those two options are covered. Tetra316's post sounds like what I was thinking (not explicitly) when I stopped checking toggle turns: I dont do it or need to do it, so why check? Thinking about it now, if I ever find myself really close to a canopy collision after releasing the breaks, I will use the toggles for the sharper, dragier response. Or if I ever need to make a low flat turn. So I can think of scenrios where I would use them, all of them emergency related, which makes the ability the toggle turn worth checking. Still unsure about this. Does anyone know of any mals that would only present on a toggle turn, but not on a flare or rears turn? I guess checking the toggles steer properly wouldnt hurt, even if I am long, so im inclined to throw it back into my checks just because it doesnt cost me anything, but id hate to work something usless into my routine for no reason. Thank you :-)

Thanks everyone, this was interesting to read. I have a question, or more of a wondering thought, that came up while reading. I pre-apologize for the length of my thoughts :) when I was a student, I did my control checks as described above, ie release and let up, full flare, toggle turn both ways. at some point around jump 50 an instructor explained to me how to turn my canopy (then a pilot 190) by looking, leaning, and turning with the rear risers. this felt much smoother and more controllable then the sharper responses I was getting from the toggles, and very soon I was doing all of my turns on rear risers, up to and including turn to final. I am still flying my current canopy like this, a pilot 168. I only use the toggles to flare after opening, separate vertically from someone else on the load, and flare for landing. I do keep my hands in the toggles at all times. but only now as I was reading this thread, I realized that I had made a major change to my control checks over time without giving it much thought. I no longer check if it turns on toggles, and I don't directly check if it turns on rears either. I some times turn on the rears immediately after deployment, before releasing the breaks, to point my canopy away from jump run, so that is one side I will test, but before releasing the breaks, and not even that when i open on heading and with out traffic in front of me, which is often the case. then I release the breaks and flare, on the same stroke, a flare from a braked position, but if it feels right that's all I do for my control check nowadays. So if i open a tad low after a tandem video, and im long, flying upwind, opened facing towards the LZ and have no traffic conflicts and landing hazards between me and the LZ, I might not turn at all during the entire ride, just flare after opening, ride my rears to make the LZ and flare for landing. This sounds like a lot has to happen, but with the specifics of my DZ this actually happens quite often jumping camera first on the first load of a windy day, only me, the tandems, and two other video guys jumping a wing the size of a thong and going out later in jump run, that I would have a perfectly straight in approach with no turns what so ever at any point in the ride. I do look at the system after deploying, before and after flaring (harness straps, 3 rings/rsl, break lines and guide loop area, lines and canopy) to make sure everything looks normal, and im always mindful of my position under the wing, the feel and sound of the wind against my body and how my weight feels against the harness to tell me what the wing is doing and how it responds to my inputs, and >think< that I have a good understanding of how a good wing feels, looks, sounds, and responds. so my question is, do you feel this check is lacking, that I could miss a problem with my canopy and just fly it down low without knowing?

That's perfect, just what i needed. blue skies mate ;-)

Thank you! that looks even better then what I had in mind. I can do a decent job with the soldering, but my expirience with electronics is limited to DIY electric guitar effects, soldering small components to a board, never fiddled with power supllies. I can buy the DC plug and mount localy. Could you please explain, when I cut the DC power line, will it simply be a matter of soldering three wires to the plug on one end and the mount on the other? Is the cable shilded, and if so do I also solder the shilding to the plug and mount? Thank you so much for your help :-)

Hi :) This is a bit difficult to explain, so bear with me please :) my question, bottom line, is if anyone knows how many and what kind of wires I will find if I was to cut open the wire on a stock cx105 camera recharger that comes with the camera. I want to separate the black box (ac/dc transformer) from the plug bit that plugs into the camera, and attach small connectors to each wire so that I am able to easily disconnect and reconnect the transformer from the camera in a scenario where the recharge connection at the camera side is made permanent. has anyone ever opened one and can tell me how many wires and what kinds are in there? is there any shielding? would it be possible to weld it all to plastic connectors that can easily attache and detach, and still get good results when recharging the camera and not blow anything up? I am of course talking about the DC side of the transformer, between the transformer and the camera, the AC side that goes to the wall was already made detachable by sony. here's why im asking. I have cx105 in a tonfly box and helmet, attached with zkulls. I am looking into changing my setup so that the camera, box and hypeye are all one piece and there is no need to take the camera out of the box. Iv solved most of my problems but one remains - recharging. Iv seen many people cut off a small section of the box to expose the recharge port and allow access to the charger cable with the camera still in the box. unfortunately that is not possible in my case as the zkulls connection on the box is directly over the charge port in the camera. the only solution I have found is to pass the charger wire through the zkulls, attach it to the camera and screw the camera into the box, living it permanently attached to the charger. only problem is, then im stuck with the charger itself (the black box that plugs in the wall) dangling from my helmet, ugly and heavy. so thats why I want to cut it, and still be able to reattach it :) thanks for any info you have!

Hi everyone My passion in skydiving is tracking. Of my 450 jumps I guess more then 250 are tracking jumps, probably about half of that solo tracking and the rest mostly two and three ways and about thirty jumps were six to ten ways with Marco and Giglioglia Tiezzi organizing at Skydive Marche, Italy. I'm looking to go on a skydiving trip some time in the next few months. I will very probably be in new york some time in september, so if I can do my skydiving in the US around that time, all the better, but europe works as well. I want to get tracking coaching, preferbly in a place where there are also organized tracking jumps or just many people tracking about. A posibility to get a first flight course for wingsuiting with rental suits is a plus, but not a must. I am willing to pay for full days of one on one instruction if need be, but prefer the load organizing way. Jumping seven days a week with many loads per day and easy weather is definetly very important to me. I had tons of fun last year in the atmonauti pro boogie with the Tiezzies in Marche, Italy, and am considering going back again, but havn't recived any answer to my emails trying to find out if and when it is happening again this year, any info on that is welcome. So these are basicly my issues I'm looking to work out for my coming trip, any ideas are very welcome. Thank you for reading :-)

isnt part of the way skyhooks work is to deploy the reserve as soon as the main is safely out of the reserve's way? of course you should pull your handle, but isnt trying to beat your rsl (skyhook more so) unnecessarily increases your risk of a main reserve entanglement? maybe if your main gets shredded to bits at 500 feet i see the point (though I was instructed not to chop below 1000 ft, just deploy reserve), but at 2500-3500 ft? i am not saying get stable before pulling, just let your main clear the space where your reserve is going into. I was trained to chop with both hands on each handle with my eyes on my reserve handle when pulling cutaway, I would think time from cutaway to getting hands on the reserve handle is enough. do you think waiting to clear the main is a waste of time? I have 300 jumps and zero cutaways, I jump with skyhook and cypress2, and will not change my current EPs based on anything written here without talking with several instructors at my DZ, so dont worry about me going stupid becuase of anything smart you say :)

Ive been jumping my neoxs for about 100 jumps now, and I really like it. here are some basics, let me know if you want to know anything specific: it is always on when the battery is in, using some power saving scheme where it still tracks pressure all the time and updates its pressure at ground level setting, so no need to turn it on. if you want to zero it manually you can do that too. if you take it on a commercial flight take the battery out. to start access just push the center button several times. you will hear bips and a symbol telling the unit is locked. keep pushing until it unlocks. the unit will show you current free fall alarm settings. at this point pushing left will switch between meters and feets. push right to change free fall and canopy alarms and other settings. profile will blink. you can go up and down now between 'profile', 'swoop', alram' and 'config'. profile allows you to set up to five different profiles of freefall alrams and easily switch between them. access profile by pushing the center button while profile is blinking. at this point up and down will switch between the 5 profiles, right will select the current profile for use, and left will allow you to edit the altitude and time counter free fall alarms for the currently selected profile. swoop allows you to set canopy alarms. only one set of canopy alarm altitudes is stored in the unit, the one in use. no profiles. alarm simply allows you to directly set freefall alarms with out using profiles. I would think it is useful if you regularly use all of your profiles and want a different setting for a few jumps without losing any of your profiles. config allows you to manually zero out the presure at ground level setting, select one of three volume setings, and listen to a demo of all the alarms (>very< loud on the ground). when you enter config you will see the word 'gnd'. if you push up at this point you will be telling the unit that current pressure levels are to be considered ground level. push center to move on to the next item, vol. now up and down will let you chose a volume level. push center once more to see the word 'snd'. push up now for an alarm demo (loud). I think that is all there is to it.

If anybody tries that, you should report them to your DZO. You need at least 500 jumps to go on a hammer jump in my DZ.

I would make sure I understand what specifically the instructor wanted me to 'think hard about'. if its because you raised your concerns with him and he wants you to think it through thats one thing, but if he had something else in mind make sure you tackle it when you do your thinking :) be honest with yourself. As for the fear, it sound like what I experienced at first. Im a thinking oriented person, so I looked through the statistics and incident reports, saw some malfunction videos on the net and became confident >in my head< with the idea of skydiving, but the body was still afraid. Its kind of like washing a cat. he doesnt really care about being clean afterwards, he just doesnt like getting wet. jump a few times and your body would get used to the idea that it is survivable and gives you pleasure. im just past my 100th jump now, and I still get a little bit of anxiety every now and then, just before they open door on jump run. but its no where near the sensory blinding thought sucking uncontrollable adrenaline rush that I use to exprience just before my AFF jumps with my instructors trying to get me to smile :) now you cant knock the smile off my face with hammer when im in the air :) good luck

Are we talking regular earplugs to mute the engine, or something that has to do with the quick pressure changes involved in a jump?

Thank you for all the info in your post, it was very helpful, and thanks everyone else for your ideas :) Like I said in my original post, I'd break all my fingers to save my life. on that malfunction I was talking about, I was not thinking about my fingers. I was thinking about my safety drills, and going through them. Having done that I decided to seek advice on protecting my hands and fingers while being a safe sky diver first.

Thanks everyone for the ideas.. The packing is shit on the fingers, yes, I just take my time and make sure I dont aply too much force. Any more ideas? and about the drug use is a good advice for everyone :)

Hi everyone I started jumping four months ago. Among my other interests i also play the piano. Recently I had slider stuck all the way up, and had to pump it. It all worked out fine and I had a good chute by 3k. But after the experience, I noticed some pain in my fingers, which I can only assume happened when I was in a hurry to grab the toggles and pull them with force to pump the chute open. Now im not being a baby here, if skydiving was all i needed my hands for I probably wouldn't even notice that pain. But as a pianist, my fingers are sacred to me. Now the pain was gone shortly after that and had no effect on my playing. but the whole thing got me thinking about hearing twice already about people breaking fingers while parachuting. and then I also need my right leg at the very least for the pedal, and of course first and foremost be alive and well enough to play. So while my basic idea of saftey is the same as anyone else, that is, survive, survive uninjured, survive with out incident, I was hoping for some advice to minimize finger and hands injuries. I would of course break all my fingers to save my life, but if it is not necessary, Id really prefer to skip it. The survive part and the bigger more important part of survive uninjured and with out incident I learned in my aff and im still learning it day by day with instructors at my dz and experience as it comes. its the smaller bits of the survive uninjured and with out incident im asking about. So any ideas? all I came up with so far is gloves, something that would add some toughness to my fingers and still be flexible. is that a good idea? other suggestions like how to handle riser and toggle issues in a safer way? how do people break fingers or get hurt in the hands while skydiving? and how about minimizing incidents that require risking fingers and hands to fix like (almost any malfunction I guess) line twists or stuck toggles or stuck sliders hard pulls and handle problems? Thank you for answering:)

Thanks everyone for the help :) Im still thinking about this... I might be going to the USA later this year so Im thinking of just waiting and going somewhere over there, like Eloy or somewhere :)