Deuce

I know several of you are jumping sidemounts, but is anybody jumping a Birdsuit with a still camera? I intend to. I'm just wondering what the issues are. I didn't want to hijack Ray's thread about enlisting more bird talent into the stable. My experience with openings has been that they're a lot like CRW openings. My Spectre's have been predictable.

Good pics, Ray! Question: Do you wear your stills much in the birdman suit?

Not yet, Eddie. In my RW and Freefly suits it causes me to have a very steep track. Once I get my SF3 dialed in, I think guys like you are going to have to fly a little dirty to let me get pictures.

Anybody who could survive the crap ChopChop puts you through is a bad-ass freeflier. Dude is putting you through the full-contact-combat-school of sitflying. Seriously. Look.

And you'll need an account manager to keep it all straight. Of course you'll pay your manager very well.... Then again it may just be the "other duties as assigned" of a groupie wrangler.

Well, I"m taking Mouth on a birdman rodeo at Eloy. You hear that Lisa!? I'm thinking I'll mount my cameras backwards to take pictures of her hanging on for dear life. Maybe I could make a ton of dough offering picture jumps of birdman rodeo rides? Did a monkey just fly out of my ass?

Here's some screen grabs from Chris DeBar's view of one of last week's jumps. It actually flies pretty good.

You guys are hard! I've been jumping that setup since June (the American Boogie was in June, right?) Laying the flash flat has it's own set of challenges. I hope jp posts pictures of his, cause it's the same stuff, but on a Flat-top Pro with the 10D hanging out front. But yeah, lineman neck is helpful.

Hmmmm. Well, I've had two. One violent at 488 and one just stupid for not cocking a pilot chute (probably, possibly a bag-lock) My attitude is " I chucked the chute the FAA will let me pack, If I go to the reserve, I'm going pro" I don't mean to take this litely, but don't fuck around with a malfunction for the rest of your life. When you pull, you are likely at the point where you need a chute. I had a single set of twists on my Spectre due to pulling in a full track this weekend. I was totally ready to chop. They cleared right away without the canopy diving, so I kept it. Don't hesitate to deploy a current reserve. I defer to the riggers and veteran jumpers here. Period. But my feeling is that when your main isn't doing it's thing fast enough, go left handle. Anyhow, I went 488 and had a diving spinning mal, and then 100 jumps later negleted to cock my pilot chute. Got a beautiful baby blue PDR148 both times. (damn hippie rig!) And I get to buy round of golf for my rigger, so it's not so bad! Love and happiness.

It should really have a name. There are many, many better skydiving photogs than me, and this setup still gets my attention, both in sit and when doing RW. The flash is quite the sail. Anyhow, it's worth it, cause I get at least one epic photo per outing. It's a Bonehead Bat-rack, with a Canon 10D and a 550EX up top, and a Sony PC120 on the side. It is a big and heavy unit. But, I like what I get with it. Cheers. JP Edit: Holy cow! Thanks to Evan Mortimore for the pics! I gave him my memory stick, and he did the pics on his Sony Digital Camera!

That's wonderful Lisa! Good for you for waiting long enough to get yourself better! Me? :11!:0 Only one paid camera jump, a level one on Sunday, but 10 very nice skydives on Saturday, including a nice three way with ChopChop and GFD (That's GirlFallDown, I've decided she'll be GFD from now on while typing, say the long version in your head) 7 big way RW jumps where I did not f*ck up. Big as in 8 to 12 way, not 800 to 1200 way. Congrats again Lisa, I'm so glad you're back. I've attached a picture from the last jump I saw you make. Hope you are wearing that smile again.

Nah, he was singing really, really loud, and I could hear him "Domo Arigato, mister roboto!" He's like a karaoke freeflier.

What's your most vivid memory of your Dad when you were a child? My kids dig watching me skydive, and everbody at the DZ really likes them. Pulling cars over in Oakland at 3:00am was way more dangerous, and never allowed me to ask "Have you ever been pulled over before?" "Uh, no." "BEER! " Being an alcoholic is more dangerous. So is just killing time in a job you hate waiting for that first fatal heart attack. My favorite skydiving couple with kids raised their son and daughter on the DZ and they turned out fine (the kids and the parents).

You're just hitting your stride at 30, holmes. I can hit 220 on my head and 150 on my bike. I'm not proving anything other than how much fun I can have. What I've lost in flexibility I've replaced in spades with cunning and evil. My hair will probably all fall out before it all goes grey. But I am dead sexy . I am 40, hear me roar. -Quick! Take a picture! I'm talking trash and I haven't even started drinking yet!

488. Pretty, huh?

Since your old one is toast I guess you need some new screensavers. PM me your email address if you want me to replace the pics I took when you were out. JP

I get paid to do camera and video jumps. I'm at least a year from recovering my equipment expenses. Two rigs, cameras, suits. I'll break even in another 400 or so paid tandems/AFF videos. At that point Murphy says I'll have to ditch my helmet and replace all that stuff. None of it's free, it's just different kinds of fun.

My ground lens is the 28-200. Quade uses that one too. Look at some of his landing pics, very nice. What kind of flying are you going to do? If you are a hardcore freeflier, you might want to go with a 14. For tandems and RW the 20 is good.

That's Sta-puft, missie. Think of the thing that could never do any harm, and, Uh-oh.

Neato!

Dude, if sport skydiving was anything like the Army Airborne thing, I'd be mowing my lawn on the weekends. I am on the verge of making a special offer on some digital stills to insure that your brother sees you do the depleted uranium lemon-flavored anvil imitation you do so well.

These are autofocus shots with fill flash.

Yeah, I think so. The WA adaptors for video are all pretty different. My .5 Diamond matches up pretty good with my 20mm Canon (32mm corrected). The .3 would probably work pretty closely with the 14. Check out Pete Galli's galleries about the American Boogie. He shoots a Sigma 14 I think, with his D60

Only if each of them is enjoying the superiour fit and comfort of the Wings harness and container system.

Bump. Doesn't this look like fun? This was just last Sunday!