murrays

I can see the action of pulling back and yanking on the bridle to be very bad _if_ jumping a ROL throwout. I know there aren't many people still jumping them but pulling on a bridle that is misrouted under the harness or leg strap may have the undesirable effect of opening the main container, having the main come out and creating a huge mess that can't be fully released. I've always jumped a pullout which I liked because it removed the possibility of a misrouted bridle but I have always thought that opening your reserve without pulling the cutaway handle was the accepted wisdom for a pc in tow. Murray

Apple's iMovie .... excellent, easy to use program for DV editing. It integrates extremely well with Apple's Quicktime for creating web movies and for exporting to iDVD, Apple's consumer DVD burning program. It is free with all Macs, as is iDVD on Superdrive equipped Macs. Lots of plugins available from third parties at reasonable cost for transitions, special effects and titling. Murray

Here's the background to my questions...I have 2100+ skydives, starting in 1980. I pretty much took about 8-9 years off from 1992 to 2001, making very few skydives. In the last year I've managed to get in 50+ jumps and am feeling pretty decent and comfortable in the air. I made my first ZP jumps this year on a Stiletto 135 that I acquired over the winter. (I weigh about 190 out the door.) Landing it is fine but I've had a few exciting openings with it, the cause of which I am still investigating. I am planning on jumping with a video camera this spring...just for inside video doing 4-way, etc. I used to jump a still camera only from time to time in the past so having the extra weight, etc. isn't unfamiliar. What is very new to me are canopies that can spin up, and get very ugly on opening while jumping a camera. I have been reading and paying attention to posts regarding using a more docile canopy if you jump camera. I know that a lot of people do camera and jump small wings. I am looking for a better margin of safety due to the fact that I have two small sons aged 3 and 5, I'm an old bastard now (50) and I don't want to add more risk to skydiving than I have to. So, I am wondering which canopy out there offers the best combination of the following for camera jumping: 1 - Soft openings 2 - On heading openings 3 - Good glide 4 - Good swoops 5 - Landings that can be shut down without being a sprinter (I've lost a step or two) 6 - Turbulence resistance Is it the Triathlon? Spectre? Lotus? Samurai? Sabre2? Stiletto? or what? (The airlocks on the Lotus and Samurai intrigue me) I'd appreciate any advice you'd care to share. Thanks, blue skies, and Merry Christmas, Murray

`9{` the foot mount, it seems there are only a very few timited times that the footage from ther eis worth anything since aiming is so hard and a mis step on langing can break the camera running with it. And it taks a superwide angle lens to get a view of anything other then your knees. I took the attached shot with a 35mm still camera and a 16mm lens in about 1985. I wish we had today's technology back then as video of this double cutaway from this perspective would be very cool. (btw - I just duct taped my OM-1 to my running shoe and my cable release had a jack so that it would pull apart if I kicked my show off)

Being from the windy prairies, I learned early on how to jump in winds...otherwise I'd have never got any jumps in. As a student, I was dragged several times for a couple of hundred yards while jumping rounds with conventional gear...but, being young and stupid somehow protected me from harm. I have since been manifested on several loads over the years where the winds were high - not too high for me - but likely too high for others on the load....some of whom were obviously nervous about the winds but hesitant to scratch for fear the more experienced people might make fun of them. I have scratched several times and saved the less experienced people the razzing...or worse. Just a suggestion to keep in mind...sometimes the best thing for somebody else is for you to back down. Gale, I'm surprised, knowing the UH owner (I assume you were at UH because your profile says you are from Victoria), that these relatively inexperienced people were allowed to go in such high winds. Too bad about the broken ankle but it could have been worse.

Here is a link to a website in Germany that sells PAL versions of virtually everything including Masters of the Sky. I called to a local conversion place up here in Canada and the charge to convert 1 hour to mini-dv was $15 for dubbing plus $12 for the tape, total $27 Canadian or about $17 U.S. Anybody have any experience with PAL conversions...is the quality ok or are there problems due to the different frame rates of PAL (24 fps) to NTSC (29.97 fps)?

I just did some more searching to find a source for any of these videos...Masters of the Sky, Skydive, etc....as I would also like to make some additions to my video library. This time I came up with a listing on a High Time Skydiving website that has all of these films/videos listed but I don't know if they actually sell them. Here's the website I might give them a call in the am to see if they actually sell any of this stuff. Murray

Very Cool. Thank-you for posting this list. -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Now that CaTo mentions it, the ICE and GEM software was one of the main reasons I bought the Nikon. Saves lots of retouching time.

The cameraman below the formation in the yellow jumpsuit (Norm Kent I am guessing) is in a very...interesting....spot. I'd take any other slot before I'd take that one! But I bet he has some fabulous video and stills from down there! Murray

Bill, Thank-you for taking the time to post and keeping us all updated on the attempts throughout the week. Congratulations on the record and the unofficial records set. Do you have any idea whether any of the following information is available? Highest number of jumps by a participant? Lowest number of jumps? Average number of jumps? Median number of jumps? Total number on jumps by on the record? Million plus?? Murray

Well, you ARE a sweetheart! He's a lucky guy. Murray

Congratulations and well done Bill! Absolutely awesome feat of planning and execution. Kudos to all. Tell all the Canucks on the load we're real proud of them. Blue skies, -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

If Fedex will do a COD shipment, that's a pretty good alternative for you. Really, the buyer is the only one at risk if the goods aren't what he thinks they should be. This is really a situation where an escrow arrangement would work for both parties. Is there any way you can have a third party let him know the canopy is in the condition you say it is? I'm thinking DZ owner, well known jumper, person known to both of you. In general, jumpers are pretty honest and won't rip off another skydiver but...there are exceptions to the rule. As far as shipping it off, you will have to fill out a couple of forms declaring value and contents but that should be it. Fedex is the best. We use them all the time at work and I am impressed with their consistency. The recipient, up here in Canada, should be ready to pay a customs broker a fee for processing the package and assessing the import taxes. make sure he's aware this will happen and that it is his responsibility, not yours. They usually slow delivery down by a day or two.

Hayley, I think you're getting lots of good advice from everybody about getting coaching and help with your body position. All that I would add is...make more skydives, relax and have fun! As you get more jumps in, you will be more comfortable in the air and everything will come a little easier. Hang loose! Murray

Bill, Thank-you so much for taking the time to post and upload these photos. It is very much appreciated. Blue skies, Murray

And, it's worth _every_ penny!

The old joke is: "$175 bucks for your first jump and half your income for the rest of your life." Cheers,

Deuce/Phree, anybody else.. Could you give an idea of your height/weight and wings used for those of us just getting into video? It would be very helpful. Thanks, Murray

No 2 goes fantastic with your canopy. I like No 2 best, regardless.

I have a Nikon Coolscan IV and it's great but I think that there are some pretty good alternatives these days. I took a look at the scanner reviews at Imaging Resource but they don't have one of the scanner you're interested in. Perhaps search for some other on-line reviews of it or wait until Imaging Resource does one as they are very thorough and quite fair-minded.

My reserve rides thus far: 1 - 1981 - Jump #69 CRW wrap at 2000' on first CRW attempt. Under my 26' Navy Conical at 1000'. My Navy Conical still had sea pockets sewn onto it. This ended my interest in CRW for about 4 years and kindled my interest in buying a square reserve...which I got in time for reserve ride number.... 2 - 1982 - Chopped my Pegasus in my brand new Racer that had come from Jump Shack with the reserve already packed, while thinking, "I don't even know if there's a reserve in this container." Nice landing under my Swift reserve. Looked for my main for about 5 hours in a corn field before finding it. 3 - 1982 - Chopped my Pegasus again. This time I knew there was a reserve on my back. Another good landing under my Swift. Fixed the steering line problem after this jump and this canopy never mal'd again for me or anybody else that owned it. 4 - Intentional chop from a biplane. Good Swift landing. 5 - New Gear! Double intentional chop from a side by side with my 300-way buddy, Angus Smith. Great downplane on our Phantom 145 reserves, broke off, swooped the bowl and got about 5 centimeters on the electronic pad. It is the photo titled Ka-Ching 6 - Tandem malfunction with a blind woman, cut away and opened Hi-Lifter Reserve. When asked by a reporter, who was there to watch the jump, how she knew there was something wrong, she replied, "Well, Murray was saying 'shit' a lot." Another attempt at good PR gone wrong. 7 - CRW wrap with a guy on his first CRW jump...I'd gotten over my CRW phobia by then....for the brief moments between cutting away and getting his reserve open, all he heard was laughter from the other two guys who were planning on jumping 3rd and 4th...his first reserve ride. His main was tangled around my risers and started inflating so I waited until I was right over the packing area and chopped at about 2,000'. Phantom 145. Well, that's it so far. 7 Rides in 2150 jumps. I haven't chopped a malfunction on my personal gear since 1982, nearly 2000 jumps ago. There's nothing like using your last chance. Scary and exhilarating at the same time.

Jay, Thank you for the voice of experience! Glad you're here to share. Murray -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Carrying a flotation device of some sort would then be a pretty good idea whenever you're jumping near a body of water you could land in. I knew a jumper that drowned in Lake Erie sixteen years ago. They jumped over clouds and were way out over the lake when they opened. Three of the four on the load landed in the water. Two were saved by two guys that were just about to take their boat out of the water for the winter (it was November) but the third fellow didn't make it to shore. In this case, hypothermia likely prevented him from swimming very far. I spoke to one of the guys that was saved and he said that everything was going black when the guys in the boat grabbed him. The thing is, in cold water, you chill faster by swimming as it increases the flow of water over your body. You're better off curling into a ball and floating as long as you can....but you need flotation to do that. Jumpers have saved themselves in the past by using hard helmets to trap air or using old front mount reserves as flotation..they would float for a while before filling with water. You just have to use whatever you can to save yourself. I would think that a wingsuit has some potential to trap air. You don't have to displace very much water to give you a lot of buoyancy. If you're worried about this potentiality, see whether you can inflate it in a pool or warm lake with a safety boat there to help you. Don't take your rig in though...I assume you have a Cypres. Explore the possibilities and be prepared! -- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

Land it inflated! it would be like a large air mattress ;-) Seriously, could you keep a bunch of air trapped somehow? If you could use it to provide flotation it could be an asset on an unintentional water landing....btw - I've only seen pictures of wingsuits so I don't know how difficult this may be to accomplish. oh yeah - Don't land in the water!