Zlew

Sorry about your friends. Some situations you are pretty well fucked no matter what you do. A plane crashing from 120 feet is one of those situations. I do think that you need to know your emergency procedures and protocols and stick to them. Likely to cause more harm than good if every load of 20 plus jumpers has 20 people trying to decide to go by the book, or take their chances every time an engine sputters below 1000 feet.

I hear Sandy is over there now...She has a long history of being one of the very best in the business. Not sure if that is who you are working with (or what her specific role is there), but I wouldn't be surprised at all.

1 engine on fire and shut down shouldn't be a big deal on a twotter. I'd think your odds of surviving...and even landing on the airport are high. If both engines are toast at 120 feet, you are, IMO, still in a way better position landing in the plane than trying your luck at sub base jump altitudes on skydiving gear. Those nice big fat high lift...short field wings should deliver you back to the ground pretty safely.

We saw his booth at Nationals this year, and I will have to admit I was impressed. The team was even talking about looking into getting team jumpsuits via them. I'd have to see how their camera suit flies, but I'd be willing to give it a shot for sure. The tug of war demo is pretty impressive. I tried my best to rip that thing in half (and...it really should have....) and it didn't budge. My experience with jumpsuits in the last few years has been pretty poor. The old "they just don't make um like they used to" saying seems to be true. I've had established and major jumpsuit manufactures for the last 2 years and my experience included extremely long delivery times (4-6 months) and jump suits that require 125 to 150 bucks worth of rigging repair every season. In fact, my camera suit is in for repair right now after a seam decided to let loose at Nationals. My team has had similar problems with newer suits from 3 different makers over the past 2 seasons. Some of the suits cost close to a grand....and were still having issues after one season. So for me...something that is strong and durable would be very desirable. Throw in a good price, reasonable turn time, and good service and you should have the design for a successful company/product. *edit typeO

looks pretty fake to me. 2:25 looks badly faked.

Thanks! Totally missed the WL's. Hard for me to judge altitude with all of the different field of views from different cameras people jump. I would have guessed way off on yours.

not a criticism, just out of curiosity. What is your wing loading and what altitude are you starting your dive?

as i remember- he has a harness on under his clothes, and is physically attached to the legstraps via his left hand. Very cool and brave, but not exactly what it looks like.

Thanks for posting! I think a lot of people don't realize that photo editing existed (extensively)before the existence of "evil" Photoshop. I had one person tell me they wish people would just use pictures right of the camera, like Ansle Adams did before the days of photoshop.... clearly having no idea that he was a great photographer, but even more skilled with the Photoshop (dark room) of the day. "The negative is comparable to the composer's score, and the print to it's performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways" A. Adams Also a good view if you like this type of history- http://petapixel.com/2011/04/05/a-tour-of-ansel-adams-darkroom/

Remi thinks I'm sexy, don't let him fool you. Thanks for the congrats! It was a great adventure for sure. For the sake of the story- we didn't train for every exit, but did train quite a few (a dozen or so) and by the end of the season had a list of exits we felt strong enough about to use at Nationals. The all H thing was kinda happenstance, and a little bit of strategy. H is usually rock solid for us and a quick transition for many points. The way the draw worked out, we were planning on H for most of them (not all....) but then when the comp got under way and things started to unfold it seemed like the best strategic move. When things were close we had to consider the risk/reward of maybe gaining a point best case...vs risking 3-4 worst case. The 6 in round 10 was a good example. He have a good 6 exit, but had a nice (but not unbeatable) lead going into round 10. It seemed smart to take the H and risk giving up a point on the hill, but limit our risk of losing 3-4 (and maybe the lead....) if the 6 went wonky. So we didn't go into nationals only training for, or only planning on using a single exit....but it worked out quite well for us.

And their camera guy is sexy as hell!

That's really cool that you ended up with the F. That isn't one I would have guessed. What is your team name? I might want to stalk the Omniskore vids.

The better the team exits and flies... typically the better your video will be. Just getting cut in a little, or going from the perfect hill presentation to being a little bit steep or a little bit flat, can make your exit frame go from "easy money" to.... "fuck". The exit is a 5 person process. The better and more consistent all five are, the better the outcome. If one team is good enough to start cranking early on the hill, it might help explain why your video of them was better.

IMO, launching the first point every time is great if your skill level is high enough to do each one, rock solid each time. We did a lot of review of our exits and in most cases found that if the exit wasn't rock solid (presenting perfect, no rotation etc.) it was better to launch a sure thing and grip switch to the first point. They key is time to the first point , followed closely by time to the second point. So it is fantastic if you get a great exit that doesn't need time to un-fuck itself, and has no momentum and allows you to cleanly move to the 2nd point. But if you Frisbee an exit out of the plane and tail goes flying out when you break grips... or if it gets cut in and has to unfold so you can see the grips...or you go flying away from camera because it balls up or gets cut in... you are doing more harm than good. We had a comp this year where we launched an H and everyone else launched the M. We timed it, and we beat every team (even in the division above us) to the second point because they all rotation and/or stability to deal with. H and P seem to be the way to go for exits you don't have time to train/practice. E's can be hit or miss. Some teams nail them from their first attempt, and others struggle with them. Edit to add- Remember, if you blow the exit up, you typically will lose ~1/3rd of your working time.

103 to 96, I found no noticeable difference.

Very interesting stuff. While the majority of cameras on G3's are action cams... some of the top teams at Nationals had camera guys running G3's with twin Sony's on top. Having a good cutaway system seems critical if this trend of G3's being outside camera setups continues. I like the idea of a full face setup, and something that is super light weight. I had a few concerns (cutaway being the big one), but it seems to be a viable setup. Well, at least good enough to win gold in Open class.

I think the shift you are seeing is that now more and more people are shooting inside video with action cams. It used to be only "video guys" jumped video cameras, and now it is really common for fun jumpers or other inside skydivers to have an action cam on. When shooting super wide angle/inside, you really don't need a ring sight. I'd say the majority of outside video guys still have a ring sight. When shooting outside, having something to help with your distance/range finding, and to make sure your line of site is parallel to the cameras center line is still very handy.

not sure I fully understand. can you post pics/video of what's going on?

Typically, TV should not automatically use the popup flash. AV,P,M should also all only pop up the flash if you tell it to, or fire a speedlight if you turn it on. Maybe make sure your flash button isn't stuck down? Flash being activated will limit the shutter speed in most modes (depending on the camera and your settings, usually around 1/60th or 1/250th). When you are using shutter priority (Tv) having it automatically pop the flash up and change your shutter speed kinda defeats the point of using a mode that gives you control of the shutter speed.

I can't speak to Sabre 2's, but I can speak to Stiletto/Katana/Velos ranging from 1.4 or so to 1.9 to 1. In my experience, a hard turn on opening will require some counter turn to stop it in a reasonable amount of time. I've never just let it go to see how long it will turn...but on all of those wings if I get a wild opening I usually stop it with harness (aggressive harness), or opposite rear riser. It usually just needs a quick input to stop, but without input it feels like it would keep turning for a while in a manner similar to how the same wings will over-steer on an intentional and aggressive turn. Note- I only give those counter inputs after the slider has come down (not during the snivel). Is it a new lineset? Being out of trim could significantly change the flight characteristics and/or where the true brake setting is.

ha...started reading that and thought... I wonder if he knows that's her! Edit to add- this was shot in 1 day. I wasn't on the jump but was there the day they did it.

Yeah. Wouldn't work for any "workflow", would just be kinda novel.

True. Lots of people go though the phase of "Nice to meet you, I'm Zach..... and I skydive!" Drives me a little crazy, but I guess most new jumpers go through it.

would be interesting to see if the "ski" mode works for skydiving. "Additionally, in Ski Mode, the VIRB Elite is able to recognize the difference between going down the mountain and going up the ski lift. In this setting, VIRB Elite automatically turns on and starts recording when going down the mountain, and then goes into standby mode once on the ski lift. This mode saves battery and memory space, and keeps the user from forgetting to record when going down the mountain. "

Can't tell if it is a troll thing, or a know it all thing or what...but doesn't really sound like you are up on all your info.... Raid 0 is nice, and SSD's are nice esp for a boot drive. For editing, most people find SSD for the programs and separate drives to write to can help remove some bottle necks better than a single really fast drive. A good fast drive helps, but doesn't need to be SSD to write to. You typically don't need a "big ass" power supply as things like SSD's and the new processors are using less and less power. Where a few years ago everyone was going 1000W and more, you can have a screaming machine with well less than that these days. For the context of this thread? No way. If you want to be a master overclocker, sure... but even the new i7's run just fine on the rinky dink stock cooler from intel. Maybe some kind of misunderstanding here, but sounds like you have an idea of what you are trying to say, but not really understanding it yourself. Some programs can use the GPU to render (HD,SD, anything). Not sure what "micro connectors are", unless you are trying to somehow point to CUDA cores or something similar. Even then, some cards with CUDA cannot be used for gpu rendering. Of the list there, Intel is the only maker of boards that the majority of DIY folks will use. I've never seen a consumer level IBM or Microsoft Mobo. Intel makes great boards...typically spendy and not made for overclockers, but they are high quality boards and are not known for not having enough prots. Buzz through Newegg and you will see most have 2-4 6GB Sata, and 2-4 Sata 3GB. Along with a few eSata ports for good measure. you mean.... card readers? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820223103 Our work computers have them built in, and you can add them to any computer that has an open 3.5 inch bay. The best way is to connect it to the usb pins on the mother board, but many also have a long standard USB cable you can snake through the case and plug into a back usb port. Sorry... I usually try not to respond to posts like this, but that one was pretty out there.