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From what I know, on VKs you don't assist the stuck slider with rears, but with fronts. In fact, because of the design of the VK, you are pushing the slider back up by using rears. If the slider is installed correctly (?), then that was part of his problems, on both cutaway #4 and #5. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

1-2 weekends per month, generally speaking, is OK-ish. Sure, you won't progress fast, again generally speaking, and you won't be doing more advanced stuff that strictly requires very high currency, like big ways, swooping, wingsuiting, but that being said, if you keep up to it and don't let yourself drift away, take it easy and don't get in things beyond your level, it's a reasonable commitment to remain current and safe. Again, generally speaking, then your actual mileage might vary. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

As far as I know, PD, Sun Path and UPT all tested fully magnetic bags and decided it wasn't a good idea and they didn't offer good closing characteristics. That's more than enough for me, if it was a good idea, they'd be selling it and making money out of it, don't ya think? Semi-Stowless is good enough for me, it's a good compromise between a quicker packjob, less lines to stow, generally smooth opening, AND tested design approved by main manufacturers. I get payed to test stuff in my day job, I don't need to pay to test shit for my passion during my personal time. :) I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

Travel. Travel. Travel. Don't allow yourself to sit that long over your fear, your failure, your fear of failure. It will make getting back on the horse so much harder, trust me. Or not. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

Hypoxic gives us a little something to talk about. https://gethypoxic.com/blogs/technical/gopro-hero5-for-skydiving On the stabilization method: "Image Stabilization - [...]. The HERO5 lineup has a gyro assisted, electronic image stabilization (EIS) which apparently takes your "Pk-son's" away when flying head up. Remember EIS is a crop technique but their patented method looses phenomenally less than other EIS systems we've seen. On the Sony cameras, the EIS also killed the bitrate. From what we've seen, this is not the case. Just a note that image stabilization is limited to 2.7K as it needs some of the sensor to "Crop."" I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

Id' be really curious to know which one is (A) and only has a pulling force of 18 lbs for AAD-fire situations, compared to all others having 46 to 78. And if that could be a cause for problems (maybe it's a container with a completely different reserve tray design, like racers, with the two bottom pins, so the results have to be very different and can't be compared?). All other numbers across 7 manufacturers seem close enough to not make a difference under *most* situations. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

We can only hope, the more options the better for us all, for sure the sony fdr-X-3000 is a mighty camera and that lens stabilization seems to be pretty darn effective. A videographer at our DZ showed it to me and I was wowed. If it wasn't for the form factor, it'd be a no-brainer. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

I agree. One reason I'd like to stay with gopro (or rather, "gopro-shaped" cameras) is that I already have invested in an helmet that has the front mount for a "box" camera (I don't know how else to explain that shape), and a top mount for a DSLR camera. I love the helmet and I'd rather change cameras around it than the helmet to switch to Nikon or Sony. Meh. "Professional" grade means absolutely nothing, unfortunately unless it's either a physical stabilization on the lens or the sensor, I doubt it will be any better than what it is already achieved using editing software? Right now I am prone to consider this as a simple marketing gimmick. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

Hello Folks, so after the last year being underwhelming for GoPro, it seems they finally pulled the trigger and announced their new line of toys: their droid "Karma", and their HERO5 lineup. Specifically, a Black and a Session camera. They will be released on Oct. 2nd. Starting price for the Black will be $399, which is a nice price tag compared to the "old" black. Key features that might be relevant for skydiving are: - one button control, if done right, it could alleviate much of the pain of using a gopro on an helmet - 4K @ 30fps (some people might consider this a bit of a bummer, but I think it's actually quite reasonable for the size/price of the camera) - 2.7k @ 60fps, 1440P @ 80 fps - GPS - Video Stabilization (curios to see what's this about, if it's a software-only trickery, hence not that useful, or an actual real sensor stabilization, and how well it works) - better night performance and reasonably better overall video quality. - Video rate output at 60Mb/s Some people might criticize these new gopros for their lack of "innovation factor", but I think that's the normal hot-air critique than any big dog player gets on a new release (see Canon and their 5DmkIV), but on the long term their products generally seem to fare much better in the market, after the initial underwhelming reviews, and prove themselves to be much better "rounded" options than most competitors. I believe this GoPro to be no exception to the rule and, personally, for the price I think it offers a quite nice set of features, I don't see myself upgrading from my HERO4 immediately, but probably at the first price drop or good offer I find, yeah, it will be a nice addition to my current camera gear. Alright, uninformed discussion on, folks, what do you guys think while we wait for the first, actual, hands on reviews? I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

I like those checklist but I always tell people that are more toward the "am I qualified to fly the current canopy?" then a "am I ready to downsize?" checklist. If you wish, it's a necessary set of skills, but not sufficient. Realistically, with the exceptions of 5 and 7, those are maneuvers you should try as soon as you get a new canopy, in the first 5-10 practice hop and pops with it, and depending on what your goals are, 5 and 7 should be attempted too. They have nothing to do with downsizing per-se, adjusting the flare direction and being able to flat turn decently are basic survival skills on your present canopy. If you're not comfortable with those skills, you should get coaching on your current canopy asap. Ok, 5 and 7 are part of the "inducing speed" process, so they're kind of a set of their own, but if you don't want to induce speed then why do you even bother downsizing beyond a certain point (this is not aimed at the OP, more of loud thinking in general)? I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

Around that WL, I have a couple of hundreds jumps on a XF2 and maybe 100 jumps on a KA (at around 1.9). Great elliptical canopies. KA is more geared toward landing performances, but it's more "high maintenance" when it comes to everything else: packing, openings, very steep trim, extremely sensitive to harness when flown in brakes are all things to keep in mind. The XF2 still offers a good amount of performance but it's a more all around, balanced canopy. You can trash pack, it will open fine, a bit of rear risers will make that thing glide forever, harness is still usable but a lot less touchy, especially when in brakes. It all depends on what you want to focus more on, if you want to just have something a little more fun but you want to dedicate yourself to freefall, go with the XF2. If you want a canopy to develop advanced techniques and progress toward xbraced stuff, get a KA. That being said, I think this is just how the canopies are "tailored": you can still do those things with either canopy. +1 for proper coaching. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

First time being released, yup, it happens. I have repeated my level 3 (or 4? Can't remember) 3 times (if not 4 times). You'll click and be just fine (or not, who knows). I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

Spectre seems a safe bet. Storm if you want a steeper trim. Try the new Pilot7, they came out less than a year ago and people seem to like them, but that's coming from the people that are somewhat "aerodyne-related". Not to say that it's not a good canopy, absolutely, just the regular caveat with "new stuff". Demo it if you can. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

So what. You want this? Go get it. Usually it's a bad idea to split AFF training among different DZs, for obvious reasons, but your case might be the exception that makes it worth a shot. You can even ask your instructors, if the step is your fear, go a DZ with an Otter, plan to stay there for a couple of days and get 4-5 AFF jumps done. That should be enough to get you over the fear of "release", and by the time you come back to your home DZ you should be confident and comfortable enough to get over that stopping fear and push yourself away from the damn step. It's pretty incredible what those 4 or 5 jumps might do to you. My 2c. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

In all honesty, I am too. I love everything flight-mechanics related. I only have a fancy piece of paper which certifies that. LoL I learned/relearned a lot that I had forgot or overlooked since I started skydivibng. AMEN. I couldn't agree more. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

Exactly! :) That's why I mentioned it, because a lot of people don't really understand how that works or what affect your glide ratio. It helps that I'm an aerospace engineer, so I knew what's behind it before I even started skydiving. Skydiving is finally giving me a chance to merge my academic background with my passions, I couldn't ask for anything better honestly. As for the CG of a plane, the only real reason a pilot would want weight shifted toward the front of the plane is during take-off and slow jumpruns, because it reduces the possibility of a stall when the control margin is reduced. But during climb up, as airplanes are designed to have a natural pitch-down momentum, there is no reason to shift people forward (again, unless you're planning on approaching stall speeds, which would only happen in the STEEPEST climb configuration, but not during FASTEST climb configuration). Ideally, a plane would climb the fastest and in the most efficient way with the smallest control margin (defined as the distance between the CG and the Center of pressure possible), even though of course this would introduce a whole new set of problems, like pilots not being able to fly the plane unless they have a military jet background and/or we introduce a SAS on jump-planes. LoL. Which, eventually, we will. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

In fact, in 0-winds, they generally speaking don't. Glide Ratio being a function of aerodynamic parameters (L/D), at least as a first order approximation, is not affected by wing loading. Yes, you will fall faster, but covering the same path. Also yes, therefore when wind comes into play, your glide ration will be affected. Also, yes, this is strictly true for rigid wings, but canopies don't exactly follow this rule because a higher the W/L will also change other parameters of the canopy, like trim, shape, curvature and angle of attack, hence this is true only as a first order approximation for non rigid wings. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

Pretty sure it's a typo, and he meant [email protected] I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

Silhouette is an hybrid construction, top skin is ZP, bottom skin is F-111, hence it is less recommended to push the WL envelope in the higher spectrum. It is designed to be flown conservatively at lower wingloadings, so it might not play nice and scale progressively above 1.4ish (in fact, 1.2, according to PD, but PD WL charts are too conservative to be taken seriously). At moderate to high WLoadings, full ZP constructions are the only way to go. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

Find a DZ that flies an Otter, or a Caravan. No steps to hit there. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

Dougg was running a course and he had ~10 students he was taking care of. Those were his responsibility, granted in base jumping anyone is responsibly for himself, but those are the people he was looking after. Random guy shows up, gears up in a hurry and tries to sneak a jump in between, how is Doug responsibility to gear check him? He could have asked Doug, he'd probably been happy to help, but Doug is not the owner, the manager or even a "special figure" on the bridge. He's there to teach and help HIS students, stop. He's not there to be a jumpmaster or a "load organizer", his only authority comes from his experience and the respect he earned, but if this idiot doesn't acknowledge those, then there is nothing anyone can do for him. It would be like a guy that boards the plane on a now-call, after everybody is already in, forgets to put his legstraps on, and then blaming it on the most experienced AFF-Is sitting in the back of the plane and giving 100% of their focus to their first-time student. And alike a "regular" DZ where an ST&A or a DZO can rightfully stop a jumper from getting in a plane for many reasons, which can go from "you are unsafe to jump" to "I don't like your face", since they own and operate it, there is nothing that can be done on a bridge, short of hogtying a guy. TL;DR: This mishap is 100% the guy's fault, no one else is to blame but him. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

Siiiigh. Change in line trims between SA2 190 and SA2 170 is about 24cm, probably one of the biggest difference I can think of, in terms of line trims, between two adjacent canopy sizes, in any model of canopy. We usually have 3-4cm differences. Long story short, a 190 and 1 70 are two very different animals, much more than two canopies of slightly different sizes usually are. So all these discussions about adding weight, trying a 190 first, etc. etc. while not bad ideas, they'll only give you half the picture when you're stepping down. If your instructors say it's ok to go to a 170 do it, it's certainly not unreasonable, but please, dedicate a couple of weekends to do just hop and pops, because you'll find more differences than you probably expect, even after considering the 40sqft you're losing. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

that's insane. I kinda want to do it once! :) Also why passport? You're not leaving the country? I would expect a normal ID to be sufficient, I'd hate to take my passport while skydiving and risking losing it. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

Right, in fact I think even a coach can sign some more rigger specific part of the proficiency card (I'm thinking of 3 rings assembly and main closing loop replacement, basically everything that ANY skydiver should be able to know, do, and if you're a coach, show and teach). At my DZ we have the master rigger teach most of the packing classes and I love them, if we are weathered out I sometime sit down and listen just because I love to listen to him (ok, and see young jumpers struggle lol). But I know that in the off week days, the most experienced packers also teach packing classes, which I think is perfectly fine too (also because I know he makes sure that the packers communicate things the way he wants etc. and really takes time to even instruct the coaches on these things, to make sure that the teaching is as standardized and good as possible, we show right techniques etc.). I am sure most fun jumpers don't even know that he does it. That's OK. There is more than it meets the eyes at a DZ. And there is certainly more to safety than just blindly following "The Rules", although that's certainly a part of it. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.

Incorrect. I'm standing on the edge With a vision in my head My body screams release me My dreams they must be fed... You're in flight.