Why so many jumps before one can fly camera?

[Skylark 0]

I've heard that, strictly speaking, one needs 200 jumps before one can fly camera. Is this true? Why? Is it because having a camcorder on the side of your headgear is more likely to result in a malfunction when the risers come up on either side of your head?What about if the camcorder is extremely small, no bigger than a pack of cards, say?

"Into the dangerous world I leapt..." William Blake, Songs of Experience

[quade 3]

A good resource for any advanced skydiving is the USPA.

USPA SIM Section 6-8 covers recommendations for camera flying.

Most people on this Forum see the USPA recommendations as the absolute minimum and some have suggested that the jump number recommendation be moved upward to as high as 500.

A lot of the recommendations revolve around the assumption that it takes at least 200 or so jumps for a person to become a proficient jumper and able to control themselves well while in freefall, under canopy and during landings so as not to be a danger to themselves or others as a result of the distraction of the camera.

I agree.

I'm not really up on the BPA recommendations, but my guess is that they have a very similar line of reasoning behind them.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[indyz 1]

here (found by searching this forum for "why 200 jumps")

[Tripitaka 0]

in Australia its only 100!

[PhreeZone 15]

200 is many? 200 is just a few jumps. It took me 200 jumps to be able to not be needing to look at my alti and wait for my dytter to deploy. Its that level of air awareness thats needed.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[davelepka 4]

Consider this, how much time did you spend on your last ride to altitude checking your camera settings? How much time did you spend in freefall looking for the perfect shot, or just getting your subjects in the sight? How about during your last opening, were you thinking about the position of your camera in relation to your risers? Or during your last malfunction, were you keeping your camera gear clear of your departing main and deploying freebag?

I'm guessing from your post that you do not shoot video now, so the answers to the above are probably all 'none' or 'zero'. To be safe for yourself and others, you need to be able to perfrom the above tasks AND do everyting you are already doing on your skydives (maybe more depending your experience level).

Many people (usually those with little or no camera experience) will try to minnimize how big of a distraction a camera can be. Camera flyers with experience will tell you that it takes a HUGE chunk of your brain to shoot good video, and unless you can skydive on autopilot, you need that part of your brain just to make it down safely.

[AndyMan 7]

Why? Because like most "rules" that exist in skydiving, we learned the hard, bloody, painfull, and ultimately the dead way.

No, choosing a small camcorder does not make it OK, either.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[skydivexxl 0]

Learning to look with your head and not your eyes only take a little while, but I can count the times on one hand that I have checked my altimeter before my subject deploys, or a formation breaks off. There is a lot to learn in you first few hundred jumps. I waited till ~400 jumps, and I'm glad I did.

Blog Clicky

[nacmacfeegle 0]

Actually Andy I think this "rule" is in fact a hard and fast, cast in stone, RULE. Its buried in our ops manual somewhere. For a CCI (our equiv to your S&TA) to grant 'permission ' to jump a camera before 200 jumps takes an issue to be raised at the council and formal exemptions applied for. Pain in the ass to submit an exemption, and I've never seen a successful exemption 'approved'.
"we learned the hard, bloody, painfull, and ultimately the dead way." Yep. Thats about it amigo.

--------------------

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[FrancoR 0]

Can you give me an example for a case where somebody with insufficient experience had to learn the hard way? Was insufficient experience really the primary reason for that incident?

If it does not cost anything you are the product.

[FrancoR 0]

I think in the UK you are required to have at least 200 jumps.
Its not so much a technical issue as to likelyness of malfunction but more about distraction because you are not concentrating on the jump, but take more of your brain for the video.
I started jumping camera with about 170 jumps, but i do not aim on shooting the best video, i consider it more of a flight recorder and of course i don't do tandems.
I keep distraction down to a minimum, i set the camera on record long before the actual jump, to make sure i have enough time to do my final gear check and prepare for the jump. In the jump i fly like any other jumper. The videos from those jumps are a lot better that i would have expected. Only in the past jumps i started to concentrate a bit more on what i am filming.

Experience is important, but one should never forget dangers like snag points on the camera helmet.
My Helmet doesn't have any, more experienced Camera flyers usually have lots of stuff on their helmets that can catch a line.

If it does not cost anything you are the product.

[AndyMan 7]

Insuficient experience is never the primary cause of an incident, experience is what allows us to deal with an issue before it becomes an incident.

Strapping a camera to your head greatly increases the odds having an issue you need to deal with.

HERE'S a good starting point for people who learned the hard way.

I don't think there's any examples since 2001, which I attribute to the trend of people waiting longer to pick up cameras. Some guys at my DZ have taken their cameras off their helmets, because they didn't want the risk.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[mr2mk1g 10]

In the UK its C licence holders or above only (200 jumps + some freefall qualifications).

I initially atributed the rule to being a throw back to when people used to strap VHS recorders to their heads and bolt them down... daymn what a snag risk.

I looked at moden cameras and camera helmets and compaired them to the protec's with radio's strapped to the side.... "hmm, they look prety similar, in fact, the radio is more of a snag hazard". And I stand by that assessment when comparing some modern camer helmets and some radio talk down set ups. So what can the justification be if its not the snag risk?

It has to be because jumping a camera is far more than a normal jump: No matter how much people say they are simply using it as an in-flight recorder, they will soon turn to trying to get "that shot" and then thats when the problems can happen, cos they are no longer concentrating on flying, but on getting "that shot".

Untill someone has a certain experince level in this sport, they need to concentrate on flying their body and canopy. Only when a jumper has that muscle memory can start introducing other things to think about such as metal whiring things on the side of their head.

I guess theres also the fact that you can justify sticking a snag risk radio on the side of a students head because that is safer than letting them pilot themselves down. Once they can be trusted to pilot themselves that snag risk is removed ASAP.

caviat: the above views on camera jumping are those related to me by experianced camera flyers; I have yet to take up this aspect of the sport.

[shindig 0]

For the Military Freefall School you have to be
1. a military freefall instructor.
2. 200 freefall jumps.
3. go through the video course which last 5 days of classes and jumping.
4. to film tandems you have to have 500 jumps and 100 video jumps.

[FrancoR 0]

Quote

HERE'S a good starting point for people who learned the hard way.

I made a similar search you made a while ago and posted the results. Only difference is, i did not limit to 500 jumps. I came up with 30 search results instead of 9.
Here is my post
Unfortunately nobody replied.

Going through your serarch i noticed the following:
3. Prop strike
5. Very Experienced although no jump number available
6. Not video related
7. Entagelment. Really experience ralated?
8. Medical? Jumper went limb in freefall, really camera related?
9. Lots of other contributing factors.

Of course the number of search results is not accurate for when Video was really an issue and how much it contributed to the desaster.
I realize that distraction is an issue and it becomes more of an issue if you want to shot better video or want to get "that shot".But people tend to forget to give all the other important safety advice. This can be seen on the recent thread " Flat Top Mod.".
I think a certain experience is required for "flight recording" and around 200 jumps is a good number. In order to film an RW team or a Tandem it certainly takes a lot more.

If it does not cost anything you are the product.

[skydiver51 0]

This post hits it on the head. There is SO much going thru your head just to get good video that you have to be able to fly with out giving it too much thought. I also try to give the tandem a visual once over in freefall for anything that looks out of place. I don't get to every dive but I try to.

[Pendejo 0]

Well put Dave.

Pendejo

He who swoops the ditch and does not get out buys the BEER!!

[jimoke 0]

just a few weeks ago a visiting jumper came to jump at our dz. he was considered an experienced camera flyer.....1000+ jumps or so.
he was going on a 4 or 5 way funjump with his buddies. something looked amiss as one of our old time jumpers noticed him and his buddies waiting in the loading area as the otter was taxiing up......he was not wearing a rig. the load master asked if he was intending on boading the plane and he said Hell Yeah.......as he walked back by everyone to get his rig......now totally red-faced, he didn't feel very smart I'm sure.
the distractions of a camera helmet can be very small or very large.
another example is filming your own shadow as you land, It can make a pretty cool shot. but I have seen newer guys get so focused on that they forget or flair too late ......which really makes for cool video!

The ground always, remembers where you are!

[FrancoR 0]

That is exactly what i am saying destraction is a factor no matter how many jumps you have.

What i noticed is that i am mostly distracted when i don't take my time for jump preparations or talk to people while checking my gear.

This year, prior to a jump a jumper that we met at the bonfire the night before asked if he could jump with us as he stood in front of us and misrouted his chest strap. He wasn't jumping video.

All this distraction stuff is why i jump a simple camera setup and don't fly in slots that require me to fly any different than i would normally.

If it does not cost anything you are the product.

[vdschoor 0]

That is how a camera guy went in a couple of years ago, got on the plane without wearing his rig.

My procedure is that I don't touch my camera helmet untill all my necessary equipment is good to go, rig on, alti on, dytter set, wings attached etc. Then I go for the camera helmet.
Instead of jumping in my rig at the 5 minute call, I start putting the stuff on at 15 mins, so I have time to check everything.

Iwan

[freakydiver 0]

IMHO - its another level of detail to pay attention to. Something else to be "worried" about which can easily detract from the most important aspect of jumping out of planes - safety. If you are all worried about your camera - i.e. is it on, where am I pointing it in freefall, etc - you could EASILY forget about the other things that can go wrong.

Also, again IMHO, I've seen more and more people strapping on cameras earlier and earlier in their jump numbers and most of them don't even understand basic framing technique. What is the point of having a camera on if you can't fly without thinking about it and frame without thinking about it.

My two cents...

-- (N.DG) "If all else fails – at least try and look under control." --

[Peterkn 17]

At around the time I started jumping (1984) the BPA changed the requirement to it's current level of 200 jumps. Before this it was either the old blue C-licence (which was Cat 8 and 50 jumps) or C licence and 100 jumps. I can't remember which.

This was a real bummer for me, as I was a professional photographer at the time, and just wanted to start jumping camera ASAP.

I hindsight 200 jumps wasn't a bad lower limit - for all the reasons that other contributors have pointed out.

However, some things have changed since then.
At the time AFF was just starting to become available, and RAPS didn't exist. Most UK DZ's had piston engined planes, and the standard exit altitude was 10 grand (although we didn't break off until 3.5 grand). Most people didn't get Cat 8 until around 50 jumps.

Also, serious video men wore a helemt mounted camera and seperate front mounted recorder system, which generally used full sized VHS tapes. Very few people had Auldible Alti's (although camermen sometimes went for the Paralert) and nobody who wasn't a student would be seen dead wearing a rig with an FXC AAD on it.

So, bearing in mind modern training methods (including widespread availability of wind tunnels), advances in camcorder design, widespread use and avaiability of Audible's and AAD's, the might be a case for going back to the BPA and asking them to reconsider this ruling.

In my view there may be a case reducing the jump numbers to 100, with the proviso that the jumper is Cat 10, has an audible alti and (possibly) an AAD. They shoulkd also have CCI's approval and have been checked-out/briefed by a suitable person.

As the BPA Council elections are taking place at the moment, now might be a good time to see which candidates would be prepared to add their support to such a proposal (although it would STC rather than Council who would make the decision).

Pete.

[PhreeZone 15]

There is another thing that needs factored into if you should jump a camera or not... currency. It takes a high level of airawareness to fly a camera. There have been a few jumps where I was so focused on one part of the skydive that I was completly unaware of something going on else where in the air. Having swoopers ending up on level with the camera flyer and them not aware of it is a major issue and with low air awareness odds are you won't even know that someone is on level with you. I like 150 jumps a year as a mark of currency for video.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[nacmacfeegle 0]

Hey Pete, good to see you here!
"In my view there may be a case reducing the jump numbers to 100, with the proviso that the jumper is Cat 10, has an audible alti and (possibly) an AAD. They shoulkd also have CCI's approval and have been checked-out/briefed by a suitable person."

As far as I know, all camera helmets have to be 'approved' by the CCI, all fliers have to have at least one brief.

I think a better idea might be to get someone such as Fordy, or Sward to prepare some 'guidelines' for CCI's to use. Maybe similar to the wingsuit 'guidelines' that Andy helped out with recently.
The guideines should consider hardware, as you rightly point out, at least one audible is almost a must, along with an AAD, I'd also mandate a cutaway system that can be operated with a single action/hand.
I'm not sure that reducing jump number requirements to say 100, would prove to be popular (with CCIs). I also recall being frustrated waiting to get sufficient numbers to allow me to jump camera. In retrospect, I now realise that I was just not up to it at the time.

Either way, I reckon the development of some form of qualification and/or guidance would be a useful start on the road to change.

--------------------

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[Skylark 0]

Maybe I phrased the question incorrectly. I'm not talking about flying a camera to specifically film others, but simply wearing a camera during freefall, without concentrating at all on filming, just letting the camera record on it's onw. I own the smallest camcorder in the world, only slightly bigger than a deck of cards and not much bigger than a pro-track http://news.sel.sony.com/digitalimages/photo?photo_id=148464. Surely I don't need 200 jumps for this?

"Into the dangerous world I leapt..." William Blake, Songs of Experience