BMFin

Last time I was in Italy I heard a rumour that one of the planes in skydive tortuga is flying cargo from milan during the week and they give you a free ride to tortuga as they fly the plane to the DZ for the weekend. Disclaimer!! (this is just what I faintly remember someone saying.. anyway might be worht checking out)

I have a faint memory of reading somewhere that the cypres will "deactivate" it self on 1000 feet, if the speed at that altitude is lower than 35m/s. Therefore speeds that exeed 35m/s after the unit has deactivated it self @ 1000ft wont matter. Now that I was trying to check wheter this memory of mine is correct, I couldn´t find anything about it on airtec´s website. Anyone know more about this ?

I have found Strong trap door almost non existant. The thing is that the drogue wont uncock with strong like it does with vector for example. Therefore there is no trapdoor really..

I never said their DZ ´s gear wouldnt cause trap door.. I was simply trying to tell you that it differs on what gear you use.

I agree, it is mostly personal preference. However, I do think that flying setup on brakes makes it much easier for you to get to your setup point exactly at the altitude you want to. You have more time to look around for any traffic, and should anything occur that suggests you would better abort, you would have more time noticing it. Also other swoopers (hopefully swoopers are the only other people occupying the same landing area) are able to see more easilly at wich point of set up you are at the moment.

But not all tandem gear cause trapdoor either..

Finnish requirements: Enough skills to fly safely with the tandem. We dont care if you have 10thousand jumps, if you cannot fly then you cannot fly If you only have 200 and you have what it takes. Welcome aboard.. We dont look at numbers neither the color of your skin. Just the skill level

Normally theses things dont happen on purpose. They are accidents and they DO happen all the time. The metal D ring does not stick out further. The loop does. Therefore its more likely to get snagged. The D-ring stays put alongside the jumpers ribs and if you were to touch it with your hand you would notice it much more easily than a soft loop.

Compared to what? A metal handle? No way. They´re not loops like this although I´ve seen loops like that on sportrigs too, but the ones I mean are more like half of a tearshape, like this, quite lowprofile. I likes. I know very well how they look like.. And yes they are much more likely to cause a snag hazard. Much easier for someone to accidentally grab..

For the reserve = bad idea. The snag hazard will be multiplied tremendously. For the cutaway = maby good for some HIGHLY loaded small canopies that might end up in violent malfunctions. (easier to grab and pull while spinning in hard G forces) Having hard housing on the risers will eliminate the need for the loop cutaway a lot. but why havent you got your self both loop cutaway and reserve if "you´d much rather go for a loop handle than a pillow." ?

For the reserve ?

Yes. Also there has been two fatal incidents in finland when the jumper couldnt pull the soft pillow. IMO, if you want to protect your handles you can get the soft one. However, the protection will be done by the expence of safety on the other end. (it will be more difficult to deploy in a stesss situation) You can reduce this possibility by having an AAD. This way you can have the best of both worlds.. Personally I wouldnt want a soft reserve pillow without an AAD. Do a search and you will find a lot of info. Also regarding your question about why cutaways are normally soft..

Its been debated much here in the past. Do a search. In Finland, it is banned to have a soft reserve ripcord. Personally I feel, that for some people the soft+AAD might be the safest solution.

Old, but CLASSIC ! http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/index.html Next time someone tries to scam at the classifieds of Dz.com lets also collect some money and scam the biatch like they did here....

Sure is nice flying, but i would say that this particualr round was relatively easy ? Basically flying just one slot in headdown and changing grips. Dont get me wrong, I do think they kick ass, but I have seen them perform much more difficult rounds with very nice results..

I dont know what you mean by "lock up", but what can happen sometimes is if you are shooting on AV-mode and you have the lens cap on and you press the shutter release it can choose 30 second shutter time which means you will not be able to shoot the camera for the next 30 seconds. So if you have a habit of keeping the lens cap on very close to the time of exit, it could still be taking the 30 sec. photo once you exit..

It helps only if we are able to pick up one of those for that price also..

Personally I would definetly choose the 580 if it was only 100 bucks difference. It is a much better flash overall. But still it doesnt take longer to recyle. I don´t understand why everyone thinks so.. Yes, and the "light power" is pretty much equal when the 430 is 1/1 and the 580 is 1/2 so there you said it your self too. They both recycle as fast.

You mean keep the power levels under 1/2 with the 430? No, I mean that if you would anyways use your 580 with less powerfull settings than 1/2, you might as well do the job with the 430. They would both perform the task without much difference. What is sufficient ? It is up to you. As I said I havent used my flash in freefall, so I cant tell you what kind of settings you would normally use.. The part where the benefit of 580 really comes in in freefall is that you can have the external power supply. With the 430 you cannot use it. I suggest using NiMh batteries with any kind of flash anyways..

and the recycle time on the 580 is going to be about equally fast. It is only guesswork to say that the capacitor of the 580 would be any bigger. What is bigger in the 580 is the light bulb. Actually the brightness of the light is always the same with every setting. Only the duration of the flash light is the variable when changing "the power of the flash" It varies between microseconds how long the flash will be emitted. Anyhow the actuall brighness of 1/1 setting in 580 is the same as 1/32 setting in 580. And even if the capacitor would be bigger, even then it wouldnt matter much if you are shooting the flash constantly as we do in freefall. Once the capacitor is empty after 1 or 2 shots it doesnt matter even if you would have infinite capacitor after that... What matters after that is what kind of power source you have and how efficient is the flash in using the power. It also depends a lot what kind of power source you use. With Alkaline batteries you get least current, NiMh batteries will provide much more and NiCd will provide most.. (but this is another topic actually) No. You will most likely get about the same light with the same recycle time If u use the 580 in 1/2 it is quite powerfull. I have not yet mounted my flash to my helmet so I cant tell you how much power u actually need in freefall normally.. Someone else can tell about that. Anyways using normal alkaline batteries it will most likely take 3.7ish seconds to recycle the 580 EX II @ 1/2 setting so you can count how many times you can trigger the flash with this setting. I count about 15 pictures. (using NiMh batteries will improve the times) I doubt you normally need to use so powerfull settings.. Using 1/1 with the 580 EX II would take 6 seconds every shot to recycle if you have a set of fresh alkaline batteries. You can only get less than 10 shots in one jump. Therefore if you need a strong flash you might want to get the batterypack and maby a second flash also. In freefall the 430 can basically do the same things as the 580 as long as you would keep the power levels under 1/2 with your 580. In ground photography the 580 is much more versatile since you can use it as a master flash to trigger slave flashes such as the 430. There are also lots of things the 580 can do better, but most of them wont matter so much in freefall, though the possibility of using battery pack is a big plus also in freefall. On the other hand the 430 is more light weight...

Where do you get the idea that 1/2 power with the 580 EX demands less energy than 1/1 power with 430 ? Im pretty sure they demand the same amount of electrical power. I think this is exactly what is causing the dillusion. It would maby be easier to understand the idea if we would divide the power scale of these two flashes in numbers from 1 to 15 Now, the -580 can produce lightpower between 1 to 15 -430 can produce lightpower between 1 to 11 To produce 15 units of light it takes for the 580 6 seconds to recycle. To produce 11 units of light it takes for the 430 3.7 seconds to recycle. All this evidence we know for a fact, suggests that to produce 11 units of light it takes the 580 also around 3,7 seconds to recycle. You cannot compare 1/2 with the 580 and 1/2 with the 430 since they produce different amount of light. If you run 580 @ 1/2 power I believe it takes about the same time to recycle for it as it does with the 430 to recycle 1/1 Im sure those charts are correct, however they dont tell us anything about the recycle times.. All we know for a fact is that: -580 takes 6 sec for 1/1 recycle - 430 takes 3,7 seconds for 1/1. -We also now know that 1/1 power with 430 is about the same lightpower as 1/2 power with the 580. That goes together pretty well with the fact that 1/1 takes almost twice as long to recycle with the 580 as it takes 430 to recycle 1/1. Therefore most propably 1/2 takes about the same time to recycle on the 580 as 1/1 takes on the 430. Make sense now ?

If that would be the case then the both flashes would need to have the same recycle time at 1/1 manual setup. But they dont. 1/1 manual takes 3,7 seconds for 430 to recycle and 1/1 manual takes 6,0 seconds for 580 to recycle Sure you can get more power from the 580, but then it also needs more recycle time Isn´t it obvious ?

Your logic is incorrect. The guide number is higher because the flash is more powerfull. But using this power means also higher recycle times. Look at the Canon specs: 430 EX II : Approx. 0.1 to 3.7 seconds 580 EX II: Approx. 0.1 to 6 seconds Looking at those specs it actually looks like the 580 slower in recycling !!! (Both at 1/1 power) But this is not the case either. Look at the picture I drew. ( As an attachement.) No it doesnt let you reduce power. Why would it let you reduce power ? The both need the same amount of power to emit the same amount of light. Ofcourse it recycles faster at a lower power setting Why wouldn´t it ? In the picture you can see the basic idea why they both basically recycle as fast. U see that 1/2 power in the 580 is more than 1/2 power in the 430 and therefore the 430 will recycle faster with 1/2 power than the 580. (it needs less energy to charge to 1/2 state) However, should you test them at the same power you would need to know which settings are equal. (I dont know that and I doubt you know that either) But I am pretty sure they would both recylce as fast if you could find those settings which are equally powerfull. So I say it once more: The guide number does not tell you anything about the recycle times one way or another. The guide number only tells you how powerfull the flash is, not how efficient it is in using energy. EDIT: added the picture (the picture is just a raw scetch I drew by the eye. It will anyhow make the point..

Wasup Chris ! You can get in touch with the founder of vladiball Vladimir Milosavljevic with this email address: vladi_fa@EUnet.yu IF you order one, let me know how it works..

Why do you think so ? I think the same amount of light output basically needs the same amount of energy. The fact that the 580 has a larger guide number doesnt mean it is any more efficient in using X amount of energy. It only means its more powerfull, not that its more efficient. So therefore according to my understanding both 430 and 580 will recycle as fast..