Zlew

I had the overheating/who the hell decided it would be a good idea to put a metallic sticker under the battery pins problem when I first got my gopro. I was using the remote at the time, and on 3 jumps I didn't realize that the camera failed between turning it on in the plane and landing since I wasn't looking at the remote in freefall. My hypeye or something like this would have let me know. If you are using a gopro as a primary camera for paid jumps, this might be a good idea. I don't think I'll order one since I use my gopro for backup/2ndary footage... but it's nice to see new products like this.

This may not be apples to apples but- I put about 100 jumps on my velo with the PD RDS (slider only). They mentioned that it was suggested only for sub terminal, and I thought I knew better since so many people jump it terminal. Overall my openings were not bad at all, but they were pretty brisk (and i fly camera), and once in a while on the verge of being uncomfortable. I talked to PD about it (Kyle rocks!) at a boogie, and he mentioned that the RDS slider is smaller than the stock slider. I got the standard slider out and measured it next to the RDS slider, and it was (as I remember) 2 inches by 4 inches smaller. I felt like a total dumbass when I saw the difference in size- "well, there'z ur problem!". I put the standard slider back on, and my openings are fantastic. Snivel is great, and slow slider decent every time. Openings have been very very consistent over the past 200 jumps or so. I really liked being able to take the slider off, but for me the stock slider had terminal openings that were too good to pass up. I'm not sure if that would be the same for the comp velo. Z

I'm fighting getting CC as long as I can. Through work I get access to CS6 for stupid cheap, and I hate (hate!) subscriptions of any kind that regularly hit my bank account. It looks like this is the way of the future though ,and it looks like the work break we get with Adobe won't be moving forward with the traditional licenses. I anticipate I'll have to break down and sign up before too long.

I've loved following this thread. So cool to watch your project evolve. I'm not a rigger, and hope someone who knows better will chime in if need be...but harness sewing like that is something you don't want to fuck up. I know riggers spend big bucks on machines that can safely stitch heavy/harness webbing. Keep posting pics. Dont die. :) Z

I'm not sure about the sharpie mark...but I"ve never really believed in an absolute toggle input value as "stall point". I can stall my canopy at a variety of different toggle points depending on angle of attack, airspeed, time at a given input, what happened right before the stall etc. But I get your general idea. This is conjecture...but, I don't think the sharpie mark will change much, but the true airspeed at which the stall happens will change. At higher altitude your full flight speed will be a higher airspeed (true airspeed...i think..ha), and your stall speeds will also be higher. With more weight, your indicated airspeed will increase for full flight and for stall. In the second case, you will probably also find the amount of time for the stall to occur in a deep brake configuration will be shorter than in the lower weight/loading situation.

330 looks like OIS. I assume that is still not free fall friendly. I like the idea of the wider lens. Not needing a converter should save some money/size/weight and make great image quality more likely.

I may pick up a 430, or what looks like this years replacement ( http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1022663-REG/sony_hdrpj540_b_16gb_hdr_pj340_full_hd.html) If I can get it in thet 5-600 range with BOSS...could be nice. That is, assuming the Hypeye will work with it.

:) The Storm comment caught me by surprise! First... as far as I can see this is still a concept canopy. While it may end up as something you can buy, for now it is in the early stages. Second- the marketing line with this seems like it is positioning this wing the same way as they positioned the JFX after the summer of love. Something to the effect of- a canopy for experienced elliptical pilots who want more, but don't want to go all out with a JVX> try the JFX. Cross braced, higher performance than their non Xbrace line, but not at the edge like the JVX at the time. I wasn't surprised to see them posting this one and positioning it similarly.

I'd agree that 170ish is best for true inside video, and a little more narrow is better for anything outside.

If you do have a ringsight, having it installed and lined up correctly is as much, if not more important than just having one. I have seen some really goofy (bad....) installations and setups that probably do more harm than good. While you don't have to have one, I do think it helps. Some people have a hard time really understanding what looking straight forward, and on the same parallel line of the camera lens is. Being off 15-30 degrees on what you think is straight forward and where the cameras are pointing isn't unusual. having a site can help make sure you are putting your helmet on consistently and accurately every time, and help make sure you are looking on a parallel line with the cameras. As you become more advanced and comfortable you can start to use it for distance/range finding and framing. So...not a must have...but can really help you out and start with good habits.

My setup, with notes of what I would consider optional and not- Flatop Pro 2 cookie flat lock mounts on top (optional) 1 Xshut front mount (optional) 2 hypeyes (1 optional) Adapter for my olympus camera plug (not all stills need an adapter) Bonehead L bracket for still cam with xshut (cut down to size and comes with the FTP) Conceptus tongue switch Ring Sight (cross) Articulated mount (non removable and optional) N3 audible (optional/use what you have) Gopro mount (optional) Edit to add- Bonehead cx150 box (optional) Cookie cx150 box (optional) Sony .8x lens and Centruy .55x Cameras supported- 2 cx150's, olympus EPM1 (soon to be sony nex3), canon DSLR, gopro. I agree with DSE; I might as well get a larger platform. It isn't that big of a difference for weight/flying size, but can give you a lot more options as you grow and try new things.

I don't have any problem with people selling them even if they won or didn't pay for them. I think the problem is people usually try to sell them for much more than they are really worth...and end up screwing over (unintentionally) someone who was looking for a break on gear. I saw one the other day where someone wanted like 800 bucks for a 50% off certificate. That certificate was probably really going to save someone maybe 250 bucks. If the price is realistic to what the actual value is, that's fine. But as I noted above in cases like mine the real value can be as low as 5 or 10% on a 50% off certificate.

I agree with most on here that say they are not as good of a deal as they seem sometimes. I was part of a group that won a certificate for 50% off...but upon further inspection, it really wasn't much of a deal. 50% off retail (as noted, almost no dealers sell at full MSRP) 50% off only the base price; options were excluded. On this particular piece of gear, the options work out to about half the cost of the total sale price. We would have all had to put our orders in at the same time. It worked out, that it would have saved us maybe 150-200 bucks max, on a $3000 dollar piece of kit, compared to what our cost would have been going through a good dealer. For the retailer, it would have been great for them if 4-5 of us would have made the purchase. I think they would have made more per person with the "50%" off than they would have if they sold it through a vendor. If you really wanted that piece of equipment, the few bucks you save might be worth it. But I think a lot of us were thinking, fuck, for 50% off a 3000-3500 piece of gear, we'd jump on it even if we didn't need it and sell our other gear. The deal wasn't nearly so good once we read the fine print. YMMV, but the ones I have seen are not as good as they sound. So be cautious if you pay someone for one of these.

I've seen similar with whistles taped to helmets.

I think Trunk has something on the hypoxic site that breaks down several lenses with all the pro/cons. They may not be as wide as what you are looking for, but I've been very happy with the two I have now. The Centrury .55 is super low profile, and the image quality is very good. The Sony .8x I picked up because it was an OEM lens for like 75 bucks...and worth the shot. It isn't quite as low profile, but still pretty small. Image quality is also excellent. Most of the videos in my profile were shot with the .55x century if you would like an example. Obviously, pre render, pre youtube footage is even more crisp.

I think most student/tandems get ~40 give or take a few bucks.

You've been in the sport for 1 year according to your profile. That (hopefully) means you haven't had the pleasure of feeling the shock wave through the ground as one of your friends blows up their body. You hopefully don't know many people who are now para/quadriplegic from bad landings. Hopefully you haven't had time to see what a floopy femur or squishy pelvis looks like...and never started running to help someone you just saw thunder in and had those few seconds to prepare yourself to see a dead body. I've experienced all that, and every time it happens I think to myself... am I doing the right things to make sure it's not my friends/family standing over me telling me it will be ok, then turning over their shoulder screaming for someone to call 911. Can happen to any of us man, but what's the rush? Why push it? By any standard jumping a Velo at 400 jumps, regardless of wing loading is aggressive. Most will probably tell you that your current wingloding on the KA and Stietto are aggressive and beyond BG's recommendations. If you want something that dives and is responsive. The KA does all of that. spend next season on a reasonably sized KA (i don't know you...and I don't know what size that would be... 120...107.... bigger? fak i don't know) but put some time under a less aggressive wing... fuck up on it... live to talk about it.. .and next season decide if you are ready to get another wing. random bold for effect :) Z

If you were my friend, I'd tell you it's a bad idea to make that jump in canopies. Will it be instant death? nope...but your risk goes up considerably at your jump level going from a 120 KA to a VE103. But if you were my friend I'd also say you are a big boy, and it's your ass on the line, not mine. Why I say it's a bad idea- I don't think at 400 jumps you can have enough experience (lead or no lead) to really know that Katana well enough to have it translate to the Velo. The Katana is by far the most aggressive non-cross braced wing I've jumped. I have one now, and you are right, the dive and recovery are very similar between my 107 and my 96 (riser pressure is another story, but once you get them going...they are similar). Just man to man... If you were one of my friends at the DZ asking me about this I would say to dial it back... get some more time on the Katana, then work your way down. The VE is my favorite canopy ever. It is a fucking machine, and if you get a few jumps on it, you won't want to go back to something else. It will do exactly what you tell it to do, and if you tell it to blow your femurs out your ass, it won't hesitate or ask you to clarify. Just understand your risk level is high at that experience jumping that wing (it's high under the KA too...). I've seen lots of people justify why the downsize is a good idea (me being one of them), and I've seen it go both ways. No problems... and chopper rides.

also, when you say filming 4 way, do you mean inside or outside filming? I know a few guys like the fisheye lens for 4 way, including some of the best in the world, but I'm not sold on them. They can help for some exits, but a lot of guys that shoot that wide end looking so far away that the teams look like ants. On my CXs right now, I usually shoot a .55 century on active stabilization for my primary, and a sony .8 for my backup when i run two. Standard stabilization on the .8 gives it about the same FOV as the .55 with Active. Edit to add- this just hit me... you might try changing to active stabilization if not already. It zooms the image in a bit, and might help fix your corners... not sure what the overall impact would be, but worth a shot.

Do you really need it that wide? If you need something near fisheye/180 degrees with a decent picture, have you considered one of the action cams? You can probably pick up a gopro white addition for less than the cost of a decent .2x to throw on a CX.

120 to a 103 is, IMO, not close enough to consider it similar sized. That's 400 jumps, planform change and two downsizes (VE- 120-111-103) The 20 jumps on the 107 Stiletto equate to almost nothing. Dive on A stiletto is sooooo much shorter than a KA or VE, and 20 jumps isn't much. Call me overly cautious, but 400 jumps, going down 2 sizes and to a cross braced design isn't the best road to take.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178380 One of these guys. They are kinda new... the idea is a standard hard drive that has a small-ish flash memory potion that intelligently leans what you use most often. So things like your os and common programs get cached on the flash memory. The idea is that it will boot up and load programs with near ssd speed, but you have standard HD space. Best of both worlds is the selling point. I hear very mixed results. I'm currently using a raid 0 ssd c drive with o's and programs, and have standard hard drives for my storage.

Concering the belly bands- I know they used to have pilot chutes mounted on belly bands (like they had them on leg straps too). However, on the modern rigs belly bands have made a very small come back and really only specifically for the top level canopy pilots. They are not for deployment purposes at all. The purpose they serve is to allow the swoopers to let out, or remove their chest strap to allow them to lean forward (belly to earth) and not fall out. Most that I have seen are removable. I'll see if I can find a photo. http://thealteregoproject.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/IMG_6845-copy2.jpg

I think this may be the overall theme for this thread. Maybe an issue of being more comfortable/familiar more than being better/worse based on something you can quantify.

can't say just how far down based on the angle... but he's looking down on his slinks... is it pec vs belly button...who knows...but it is a hell of a long way. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPKX2wtXHpY