Di0

johnmatrix

Having said that, virtually everyone at my DZ jumps a GoPro without a cutaway system once they have 100 jumps and none of them have gone in (skydiving) yet, so maybe it's not an issue.

floormonkey

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This can save lives. Lots of 'em.

How many fatalities have there been in the last 5 years from entanglement with helmets? Last 10?

Even if it was one.
Both are not accurate samples to disregard a super-simple and effective idea that probably costs 3 dollars and can be made by virtually anyone else in less than, I don't know, 20 minutes at most. And that includes gathering the necessary tools/material. I would understand if Brian was trying to sell you something or make a profit out of a string, a screw, a nut and two washers, instead of just spreading an idea pretty much for free. Seriously, people...


Back on topic.
My only concern is that, well, like with everything you add to your system, you might never know the interactions. I'm an aerospace engineer and naturally very cautious with every "non-standard" modification that is done to complex systems.
In this case, I think my main concern would be that the little extra string is an entangle problem itself, as it might get caught while climbing out, or during frefall, RW, etc. The likely outcome would be to lose the helmet (yes, not a big deal, risk largely compensated by that one time it might save your life, but maybe worth considering if there is an alternative way to route the string and maybe to mitigate this risk). But depending on how the tangle goes, it might pull in the other direction, lock up the whole thing, and the you would run, well, into some problems.

Just my 2c.

I have an Oxygn, I bought it used and it's serving me well, after I replaced the visor with a new one (don't bother with old ones, really not worth it, a new one costs $30, just go for it).
I keep it clean with those scuba anti-defogging spray (not recommended by mfgs, but in New England even a new visor will fog/freeze, so I need the extra protection), I don't open it since it doesn't fog too badly if I take those couple of precautions (breath through the nose and out of the mouth, people think I'm hyperventilating LOL, but really, I'm just "defogging" my helmet!) and keep the visor clean.
When I'll have the money in a few years and I'll have the rest of the gear I need (who said you need a rig to skydive?), I'll go for either a G3 or a REv2, for now I'm quite happy with my Oxygn.

It has a background behind it.
Of course, it is From Wings Came Flight:
http://youtu.be/Xl6dNx1Lp3s

But more specifically, it is the video one of my AFF-Is showed me a few months ago, after failing my AFF Level 2 for the 4th time in a row ( ), trying to get me over the nervousness/anxiety/whatever was messing with me and making me too nervous to do anything the second they released me. It worked quite well, I'd say, I've been in love with that song ever since.
Three months later, I run around the DZs tying to get people together to do 4ways RW jumps with me and instructors or very experience jumpers I fun jump with will compliment my "heads-up" during jumps when something doesn't go as planned. This is rewarding beyond words.

ChrisD

Give CPI a Call,

ask for Lindsay...

+1 on CPI. I'm having a blast there. They have AFFIs (call, ask, but I'm sure they'll arrange something, they're super nice), and you get to jump out of Cessnas for the winter, which to me - a member of the newer spoiled generation with huge Twin Otters- is so like... badass old days!

shoeless_wonder

councilman24 -I've come to the conclusion that it was nothing more than dumb luck and carelessness on my part that caused the PC to deploy. I will bring it up to the riggers though, have them inspect it just in case.

You don't know until a rigger or an expert skydiver inspects it. Did you care to look at the Spandex BOC after landing? If the flaps give enough protection to the bridle? If the PC handle is not coming out too lose? etc. etc.
True, student rigs are not "freefly" friendly but you weren't freeflying. You were doing barrel-rolls and loops. Those, are not freefly. Although they do change attitude from belly-down flying, they should be safe on ANY student rig. Otherwise why would they ask you to do them during your AFF dives? Because they are trying to figure out if the rig will have a premature or hold together? Ask the rigger to see that rig ASAP, just for your peace of mind.
And as somebody else mentioned, always "touch your handles in the order you would use them" prior to exit. All those annoying things your instructors asked you to do during AFF, those weren't to bother you during the plane ride, ideally you should continue doing them yourself now that they are not there to ask. YMVK.
:)

jclalor

You guys can laugh all you want, the truth of the matter is the Prince some how managed to turn that ball of shit into a controllable canopy and survive, not only did he save his own life, he also averted probable ground casualties in the process.

And averted a possible crisis, or worse a war, in the middle east following his death that would have costed many more lives. Yeah, just like so.

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PayPal @ [email protected]

LOL, ok, sorry. That was brilliant. Very well played.

mattjw916

oh man... more "tactical" gear...

I can just feel my tiny HMA lines half-hitching around one of those ridges on the edge of the sole... but at least I'll go in with my cool shoe pinned to my face so it'll be the last thing I see

Good point, the ridges are not so "aggressive" that this seems an immediate and present danger, however this plus this, which is less "deadly" but much more "likely":

airtwardo

The 'real' problem is the gripper soles grabbing the turf...that's what they're designed to do ~ but at 20 mpg it's a good way to blow out a knee..or two.

Smooth soles!

make for two good points toward the smooth soles.
My next pair of shoes will definitely look much more like those Nike Baseball shoes. I didn't know what I didn't know, I guess.

Thanks! :)

mahonie10

When he rolled during deployment the bridal of the main caught his cutaway handle and released the main and the RSL pulled the reserve.

It certainly looks like it.
Wow, just wow. If a guy with 10000 jumps TRIES to do that, he wouldn't be able to. LOL

DougH

But hey you are ahead of the curve, and you're avoiding the dreaded danger of an untied sneaker, the bane of all skydiving foot safety!!!

I recently bought these:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BDE2HDK/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The rationale was: they have the soil of a little boot, which helps when walking in the field especially this time of the year.
They have some decent reinforcement around the ankle, which helps with less than ideal landings.
The are, however, built on the top like a normal sport shoe, so that I don't risk hammering my buddys' heads off with a steel toe or the reinforced upper part of a "real" boots, while doing RW, and they also don't have any of the added tangle risks of normal boots.

I simply love them, I used them a few times in the tunnel and a few weekends in freefall. They're perfect for their purpose.

I wonder how many of those "elevator" deaths are for "a wrong maneuver while riding the elevator down, because of high wind landing attempt".

And, most important, it made for an awesome action shot! :D

Welcome!
Love your nickname. Take that whichever way you want. LOL.

No, absolutely not.
But then again, I also hate children.
However, to answer:

npgraphicdesign

And, how would you go around approaching such an arrangement?

http://topvodkabrands.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Russian-Vodka.jpg
I think would be my answer.

nigel99

It is a very funny perspective. I guess being a public figure turns a mundane story into something newsworthy, whether the person at the center of the story makes a big deal of it or not.

Truth be said, he is a well known and kick-ass skydiver. He's probably laughing at this article as much as we are, it's hard to believe that he never had a line-twist before, but some Royal Press Office, Public Relations or some Personal Marketing Guru in Dubai must have though that this was a perfect chance to present him as a heroic and fearless sultan or something like that, maybe trying to build a little cult of the personality, with the video, a cooked interview, and everything else... don't forget that certain articles are aimed at a) the general public, not the skydiving community b) the people of Dubai, not the western audience with more often than not gives a flying shit about the Dubai Royal Family.

SEREJumper

They now have a 20 year life too right

you got me all pumped up for a second.

I got an adrenaline rush just by watching at that crazy video. Wow, close call, indeed! Can't wait to see this on Freakout Friday. Actually, this deserves its whole section. Freakout Dubai.

http://www.dineatdinos.com/images/visa-american-express-mastercard.jpg

Really, I'm not being sarcastic: I mean it. It's the naked truth.
If you really want to crank 200-300 in the shortest time possible, go to one of the most famous and busy DZ in the country: Eloy, Zhills, Deland, Lodi, and just dump as much money as you can in the fastest amount of time. If you're already experienced enough to decide whether to jump safely or not and if you're not interested in specific skills (I wanna do that RW camp, I want to learn this from that person, I want to perfect this ability in this way by getting specific coaching etc. etc.) all you have to find is time, money, an efficient DZ and good weather.
We can't tell you where to get the first two, and most of us are struggling with them as well, but the last twos, oh... yeah!

justinbaker27

I'm not looking to fight the system because I want very badly to be a licensed skydiver

I think you're looking at it wrong, you shouldn't be trying to "fight the system", the system in this case is there for the most part to protect you. And sometimes it means protect you from yourself.

Don't take it the wrong way, but you don't know what you don't know. I was in the exact same situation few months back, when I had a full-face and I wasn't licensed to use it yet, of course I asked why-why-why to every instructors around, hoping that somebody would have allowed me to use it at least on the solo jumps, after all I was only 3-4 jumps away from my license. And asking never hurt anybody. I probably wasn't even really trying to use it, I was more intrigued by why I couldn't use it for the sake of argument and because I needed to know what complications to expect WHEN I would have used in 3 or 4 jumps.

The set of reasons that they gave me made very good sense to me. First and foremost: already mentioned, a protek gives you the best impact protection. Since when you're a student, you're always under the responsibility of your instructors, even during solo jumps and even if you signed that scary waver, no instructor wants to see his students hurt. So they don't care how uncomfortable you might feel, or how much snort you spread around the sky, they only want to know that if you have that unlucky hard landing and you hit your head during your PLF, you noggin has the best protection possible, i.e. the standard, stupid looking, dorky protek.
Second, it can and it will fog. I didn't realize this until I had a few jumps with it and the weather became really cold. My visor doesn't flip and it became 100% fogged. I couldn't read the alti, I couldn't clearly see the landing area, I had to land blind, guess the turning altitude, flare blindly by only seeing a big green patch and a big blue patch. I turned low, I flared high at about 20 feet but I managed to get out of it without a bruise because I didn't panic, I had enough "muscle memory" to land without relying on the alti, I knew how to do only flat braked turns, I knew the landing area good enough to put the canopy in an empty area even without being able to clearly look at the ground, I knew how to hold a flare until impact without letting go and without stalling the canopy and I knew how to plf. Yes, I got talked to, yes, everybody got scared, yes, I totally fucked up a landing, but nobody got hurt because at that point I had few landings and I knew what to expect. An AFF student can do that? Maybe. Maybe not.
If your visor does flip open (that's the G3 case), then it might come open in freefall, it happened before and it will happen again. An AFF student is able to fix the visor while freefalling, while maintaining altitude awareness, not flipping out of control because he's using his hands on other tasks rather than flying the body, still focusing on the instructor and shutting back the visor in a reasonable time so that he doesn't completely throw the jump away trying to close a shield? Again, maybe. Maybe not.
And yes, a full face impedes communications, both verbal and non-verbal.

There are certainly advantages in using a full face: I love RW jumps and having a protection between my nose and my friend's shoe is very important. Also, especially in this time of the year, the wind blowing in your face is objectively a b*tch and it sucks. But that being said, for the most part using the protek is an unwritten rule in place for your best interest rather than something to make you feel bad about jumping.

Also, every student I met at some point will go into Full-Face frenzy and cannot wait until he/she gets off student status to wear the full face. I hear your pain, we all shared it, it's normal and, if anything, it makes getting off student status even more rewarding. :D
Second, you now deleted it, but I was able to read your experience that was far from ideal for a bunch of other reasons. So, I can see how this denial might add on top of your frustration, it makes sense. But for what I know, this is a "standard" routine, a non-issue, what you discussed in the other topic and you clearly don't want to discuss openly anymore since you deleted, is a much more delicate business and I won't go into details unless you want to, BUT the helmet thing is standard limitation for students and I wouldn't lose sleep on it too much.

Also consider that, varying from person to person, doing 4-5 jumps a day when you just started, might be quite tiring.
I don't know about other experiences, but when I first started after 2 jumps I was completely worn out, and sometimes even the second jump of the day was happening only because the instructors talked me into it, but I used to really feel "empty" after one jump, maybe because the stress before it and the adrenaline release, I just didn't want to start another "cycle".

Some people on the other hand just go up&down all day without any problem since day 1. Who knows!
Good news now I got over that phase and I can do 4-5 jumps in a day and be like "daaaamn, sunset already?!?". So yeah, I would pace your progress based on how you feel, but trying to rush trough it just to say "I DID IT!!" might not be the most fun and enjoyable experience.
My 2c.

Thanks all for the detailed explanation. I am indeed buying (actaully, I just bought) a G3 that is Cypres equiped, therefore with the "new" 1pin design. As for the effective conditions, well, I'll see when I get it and I go through it with a master rigger. But thanks for the info.
Just for the sake of curiosity, was the G2 a 2pin design? And what exactly does 1pin vs 2 pin mean? I want to understand these problematic better because I like to understand how gear evolved and how it works nowadays and why certain choices were made over the years.

Thank you!!!

That's what I thought. So I did right to ask (I'm kinda old by the way!).

I'm about to buy a '99 Mirage G3 and I was wondering if that classify as "modern" or "vintage".

RiggerLee

In comparison to the Modern rigs of today it was just so wide open with nothing stiff or heavy in the way.

Lee

What time frame are we talking about here when you say "modern" and "old"?

Sorry, but I've been in the sport for 4-5 months, so to me a 15 years old design is "old", but probably others think in a different way.

Thanks!

Another way to see it, it wasn't your first "2 way", you've doing 2 ways for the biggest part of your A-license jumps.
If the guy is experienced enough, don't be worried to jump with him/her, they know what they're doing, your focus should always be to fly your body and your spot, let the other experienced guy worry about matching fallrate and stuff (to a certain extent of course, and remember the eyecontact!).
Make sure you discuss contingency plans if (when) the formation goes to shit. always call for a break off altitude that makes you comfortable and lets you enough time to deal with things like that: the bigger the group, the more inexperience jumpers, the higher you should ask to break off. Don't be afraid to say something if they plan to break off too low, so that you don't look cool enough. Those are all things that might contribute to make you nervous and aggravate poor body positions and/or techniques, more thatn the fact it was a "2 way".
My advice is: think what were you doing for your coach jumps, why were your coaches deciding certain altitude, certain maneuvres, certain "limitation" to the task in the jumps? try to impose the same restraints on yourself when you start.
Personally, I don't think more solos would help (from a newb to a newb), out of my 44 jumps, I might have don 5 high solo, if that. I try to jump with people as much as I can. Because it's fun and because it's the best way to learn. Just be smart about it (like evrything else), relax (but not too much), smile. You know what you're doing, you've done it 20-something times already, you just need to start thinking about it now instead of relying on a coach telling you what to do.

PixieUK

first

WAIT?!? WHAT?!? BEER!




Congratulation for dealing with your mal! :)

Thank you, pchapman.
Your assumption is correct, I use it on a wrist mount and I didn't think about the possible influence of dynamic pressure (you'd think that altis are more resilient to those changes and measure only static pressure more effectively?).

My problem is that every single jump I make (plain belly, right, some beginner's RW), is full to those spike, and as you say there isn't much data left. They're ALL very wide continuous oscillations between super-slow speeds and super-fast speed.
I'd like to answer the simple question "what is my freefall average speed?" but go figure with those very noisy charts.

The problem of relative wind, I didn't consider. This weekend I'll give it a try and use it in my helmet as audible, to see if it logs cleaner data. I barely look at it in freefall anyway, but I'm really going to miss it under canopy. Or maybe see if I can stick it under the sleeve of my jumpsuit and uncover it once under canopy. FOR SCIENCE!!:D

Hopefully Alti-2 will tell me if those noisy charts are somehow normal, I'll post the answer if/when I get one.