popsjumper 2 #26 June 4, 2012 Quotehttp://robert.branzone.com/pics/Cool.jpg Yep, there's that effect again. MAN, they look low... Everybody goes low at Z-hills. j/k people...My reality and yours are quite different. I think we're all Bozos on this bus. Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnMitchell 16 #27 June 4, 2012 Quote If I'm with a tandem passenger after opening and point out a subsequent tandem deploying, I do have to explain to the student about the camera flyer -- who falls away and appears to be plummeting to his death in the fields below. 'Relax, they're still thousands of feet in the air...' When Vskydiver chased or videoed one of my tandems, I'd point her out and say "Pull, Honey. Think of the kids!"Then I'd explain. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JohnMitchell 16 #28 June 4, 2012 Quote Quote http://robert.branzone.com/pics/Cool.jpg Yep, there's that effect again. MAN, they look low... Everybody goes low at Z-hills. j/k people... Oooh, not over the runway . . . Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JackC1 0 #29 June 4, 2012 Quotehttp://robert.branzone.com/pics/Cool.jpg Yep, there's that effect again. MAN, they look low... Not to mention the flock of gliders about fly under them! What always freaks me out is when someone rips a 450 when you're under canopy 1000ft above them. That always looks like a candidate for SoFPiDaRF. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
muff528 3 #30 June 4, 2012 Quote Quote http://robert.branzone.com/pics/Cool.jpg Yep, there's that effect again. MAN, they look low... Everybody goes low at Z-hills. j/k people... That's what I kept saying! ...but they made me wear 15 lbs of lead anyway! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CazmoDee 3 #31 June 5, 2012 Zhills!!! I'm behind the bar at Sloppy Joe's....See ya in the Keys! Muff 4313 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MikeJD 0 #32 June 6, 2012 And people certainly are tiny in that big expanse of air when you see them from the right perspective! One of my favourite visuals from my years in the sport - I think all of us have some burned into our brains - is of a DC-4 load exiting over Eloy. Our Otter was holding parallel to them while they were on jump run, and we watched all those people trickle from the door of that big old plane and gradually fall away until they were just specks against the backdrop of the desert. It was elating and sobering at the same time. "They look so small and vulnerable," I thought - and of course they were. And we are. And it does us good to be reminded of it! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Anonthemouse 0 #33 August 5, 2012 So how about this video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx5efKsN5zYI am bad at this sport because I play by the rules. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
airtwardo 7 #34 August 5, 2012 Last week jumping the Oshkosh demo I had an interesting visual... Ten of us in the stick jumping from a DC-3 at 5000'. We have a certain order we depart the aircraft in which stays basically pretty much the same, other than instance of high cross wind exits...then we reverse the order. The 3000sqft flag is jumped on tandem system and that jumper deploys @ 4500' following a short drogue fall...the flag is always the last to land so opens 1500' higher than everyone else ~ except me. I always follow the flag guy out, I'm the one that assists rigging everything prior to his exit and help to keep anything from snagging him while moving round the aircraft...I also pull practically out the door as I deploy & spin down with a smoke candy-cane making me first to always land. It makes for a good visual effect as the smoke spins down right next to the huge flag...most often I'm the last out...however, when he and I are 1 & 2 in the stick the #3 jumper is supposed to wait 2-3 seconds prior to exit giving horizontal separation from the two canopies opening high. One day last week #3 had a brain fart and left immediately after I did...doing what he'd done in the days prior he just ran out behind the person ahead of him. I hop out and watch for the drogue deployment while reaching for the monkey fist and turning away 90 degrees. As I'm 3/4s into inflation I hear some free-fall flapping and a shout of some kind...looking over my shoulder I see a guy dressed just like me 20-feet off the canopy tail ~ eyes as big as manhole covers, unpacking the main. I can recall with great detail the bag rocking back & forth as the stows popped and the sound of the nylon catching air. It sounds considerably different that close when not actually having wind noise too... as when deploying your own 'chute! He came right over to me after landing offering up an extensive & heartfelt apology...all's well that end's well, he knew he screwed up & how...end of conversation. That is until we were tellin' the story later that evening in a bar over a chilly one...I mentioned he should probably use tinted googles, as that would better hide the fear in his eyes. ~and what exactly was it that I heard along with the jumpsuit in free-fall? He said he got stable and looked down only to see the D-bag leaving my back ~ Answering kinda sheepishly he replied: Whaddya THINK i said.... S H H H I I I T T ! ~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Divalent 117 #35 August 5, 2012 Scary. But why was the camera guy tracking off? Isn't the main reason they pull in place because he's out of the group, and so not in the circle of awareness of the group he's filming? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jclalor 12 #36 August 5, 2012 QuoteQuoteScary. But why was the camera guy tracking off? Isn't the main reason they pull in place because he's out of the group, and so not in the circle of awareness of the group he's filming? Wearing a camera does not make you the camera guy, it just makes you a guy with a camera. He should have stayed until the agreed break altitude, watched which way the other 3 were tracking and then tracked into clean airspace. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jclalor 12 #37 August 5, 2012 QuoteQuoteDoes anyone know of any videos online that include footage of this sort of thing? There are quite a few with the camera man falling away from someone who just pulled, but how about a camera man under canopy filming others in the air coming down past him? I always thought this looked pretty cool at 1:25, talk about looking low. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybsHCTsRyns Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Divalent 117 #38 August 5, 2012 QuoteWearing a camera does not make you the camera guy, it just makes you a guy with a camera. He should have stayed until the agreed break altitude, watched which way the other 3 were tracking and then tracked into clean airspace. Does this make you the camera guy? (From the guys comments on the video): "This guy was in my group (4 way) He was sit-flying while I was recording the group from different angles. I left the group and tracked away at 7k." Also, the wording is ambiguous, but it does seem he's saying that he also broke off well before the rest of them. (I hate it when someone just disappears from a group. I think if you do that, you better track like hell. But better to be there when everyone else breaks, so everyone know where everyone else is going). Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jclalor 12 #39 August 5, 2012 QuoteQuoteQuoteWearing a camera does not make you the camera guy, it just makes you a guy with a camera. He should have stayed until the agreed break altitude, watched which way the other 3 were tracking and then tracked into clean airspace. Does this make you the camera guy? (From the guys comments on the video): "This guy was in my group (4 way) He was sit-flying while I was recording the group from different angles. I left the group and tracked away at 7k." Also, the wording is ambiguous, but it does seem he's saying that he also broke off well before the rest of them. (I hate it when someone just disappears from a group. I think if you do that, you better track like hell. But better to be there when everyone else breaks, so everyone know where everyone else is going). I Know it's just semantics, but if someone was going to be the "camera guy" on any of my jumps and then he just splits at 7k, I would not look at him like a camera guy, but just another dangerous guy with a camera. But technically speaking, I guess he gets to be called the "camera guy". Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rrmtopo 1 #40 August 6, 2012 Interesting opportunity a few weeks ago at Skydive Spaceland, busy Saturday so the Super Caravan was hauling tandems & Otter team & fun jumpers. On the Otter team jumping, and the SC took off after us, but that plane climbs like a homesick angel. The SC caught up with us after a few thousand feet, noticed it out the window but visualizing my jump I didn't pay much attention after that, until the sight of a body going by the window in my peripheral vision caught my attention! Apparently the pilots decided to let the tandems go first so the Otter held right echelon on the SC and we were able to watch the whole tandem load go with front row seats. Once the SC was empty & split-S we did a left turn to go around and could see the line of tandem's in droguefall in a line to the DZ. Very cool visual. On the ground I asked a number of the tandem passengers if they saw the Otter in formation.....not one. :-) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MikeJD 0 #41 August 6, 2012 Quote Also, the wording is ambiguous, but it does seem he's saying that he also broke off well before the rest of them. (I hate it when someone just disappears from a group. I think if you do that, you better track like hell. But better to be there when everyone else breaks, so everyone know where everyone else is going). I agree with you. Although you must keep looking all the time while you are tracking - including in places where you don't expect other jumpers to be - with a simultaneous break-off you get great information about where everyone else is headed (and they get to modify their vectors if necessary in relation to you). I used to hear a lot of dive organisers saying stuff like 'If you're below the formation and can't get back up by 6 grand, turn away and track like hell.' I hated that, not least because too many people's 'tracking like hell' is actually diving at the ground. If people are already below you and start tracking before you but steeply, then that's a recipe for a parachute in the face. As has been noted elsewhere in the thread, people get very small very quickly with vertical separation. And they get very big very quickly when they open their canopies underneath you! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
theonlyski 3 #42 August 6, 2012 One of the coolest jumps I've done was when we were shooting the video for the Betty White jump and we had the 182 flying in formation with the PAC-750 up to 10k."I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890 I'm an asshole, and I approve this message Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites