freelyflyn71 0 #1 February 21, 2006 Are there any special skills or drills that I need to work on when I do my coaching jumps if one of my top goals is to video tandems and AFF's in the future? If there are, what are they? I'd like to integrate them as early as possible into my coach jumps...maybe that would help me fly a camera when I am ready to strap one on? Thoughts?...advice? P.S. I'm 270 lbs exit weight, and have a few jumps on a bootie suit that I purchased recently, but have not used the swoop cords that it's equipped with yet. Thanks, Eric The Braver the Bird...The Fatter the Cat. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cacophony 0 #2 February 21, 2006 QuoteAre there any special skills or drills that I need to work on when I do my coaching jumps if one of my top goals is to video tandems and AFF's in the future? If there are, what are they? I'd like to integrate them as early as possible into my coach jumps...maybe that would help me fly a camera when I am ready to strap one on? Thoughts?...advice? P.S. I'm 270 lbs exit weight, and have a few jumps on a bootie suit that I purchased recently, but have not used the swoop cords that it's equipped with yet. Thanks, Eric Don't even worry about wings or anything for a long time. Learn to fly your body, and do so without a lot of conscious effort. You want to be able to fly fairly slow and fairly fast on your belly and still be able to maneuver easily. (I can do 156mph on my belly with my Firefly camera suit on. Yes it has large wings on it!). You've got a ways to go before you're ready for a camera. Find yourself a good RW coach, not just some kid who barely met the coach requirements.......... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Peej 0 #3 February 21, 2006 QuoteFind yourself a good RW coach I couldn't agree with you more here Cacophony. To Eric: The road to me getting in as a camera man at my home DZ has been a long and meandering one but only now in the last few weeks am i starting to see the fruits of my labour. I started freeflying very early, at something like 30 jumps and i waited till i had at least 260 total before i put a camera on my head. Then at around 300 i bought a pair of wings and started doing jumps with experienced camera flyer friends of mine. We'd go out and work on side sliding, fall rate control and other such exercises. Then i started paying my way onto tandems as an outside camera man with the goal of learning to fly with them and eventually dock on the tandem. (I owe a lot to the tanden master who trusted me and was prepared to let me near him in the sky) A few weeks ago i got my first break at filming four way. I paid half my slots on the first few jumps and when the team was happy with my footage they covered my slots for the rest. Thanks to their recommendation and a fantastic manifest person i've been doing a lot of four way and eight way filming in the last few weeks, wih all my slots covered. I've also done my first few paid tandems (this of course with learning to edit on a linear system in the mean time). Becoming a camera flyer is not something you can rush, i thought i could engineer it so that it would happen the way i wanted it to but you can't. I've been very lucky. And i still have LOADS to learn. I'm constantly running to my experienced friends for advice on this and that. But to go back to Caophony's point about finding a good RW coach, do it. And spend some time on an RW team as well. I hate the fact that while my footage is good of four way and eight way, i have no idea what they are doing below me. At the moment i'm sitting trying to learn what blocks and randoms are what. To finish: get a good grounding in RW, then free fly and really learn to fly your body - back, belly, head, sit, etc. Then a ways down the road think about learning to fly a camera and lastly a set of wings. Good luck! Advertisio Rodriguez / Sky Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
davelepka 4 #4 February 21, 2006 No. Forget about camera flying for now. You've got at least 200 jumps to go, and so much to experience between now and then. Just jump. Show up to the DZ, spend all your money, and have as much fun as you can. In 200 jumps, when you start to talk to the local camera guys about video, then you can take stock of the skills you've developed, and see what needs work. At that time, you should be able to clean up any areas you need work on pretty easily. If you can't, then you're really not ready to fly camera, and need another 100 jumps. Don't look so far down the road. You've got alot of other things to look at here and today. Focus on that, and the rest will fall into place. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
freelyflyn71 0 #5 February 21, 2006 Thank you all for your advice! I will take heed and work hard on my RW skills...although, I have been tempted to start doing some freeflying, you know, to hang with the "crowd"...but I've got a good buddy of mine that I've been jumping with, and he's a real floater! When the good coaches are busy, we make fun jumps trying to dock with each other...it's taught me LOTS about fall rate control...and it's fun!!Thanks, Eric The Braver the Bird...The Fatter the Cat. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
