jerry81

He was a true OG, both on dz.com and in wingsuiting. I feel like I was probably checking his instructional videos when figuring out how to backfly my old BM Skyflyer... around 15 years ago.

Well, see, at least you had a shitty tandem to partially blame in that situation. Me, I just blanked on the 'deploy drogue' part in the whole exit-get stable-hold helmet down-do handcam sequence...

A few months before I got out of the tandem game (after 10 years and probably 5000+ tandems): I exit on a handcam jump that had outside video as well, and right out the door I realize I didn't buckle my full face helmet. So I'm flying the entire jump with my right hand on my head, filming with my left, and cursing the camera flyer who decided (not for the first time) to film everything while carving around us on his head. Apart from that helmet annoyance and the freeflying camera guy, we get to 6000' uneventfully, whereas I reach back with my left hand (wasn't going to sacrifice my helmet for the opening shot), pull, and nothing happens. I switch hands, hold down my helmet with my left, and pull the right handle. Nothing. Now we're getting to 5000', and everything I know about release blockages and drogues in tow on Sigmas flashes through my head. I give the left handle another go, then say a quick prayer and fire the reserve past the trailing drogue. It clears, and we have a brisk, but totally manageable deployment, and I fly us down, hoping the people on the ground aren't too freaked out by the drogue dragging behind us, trying to get some good canopy HC footage to make up for what would definitely be suboptimal freefall. We land, and I look back to locate my drogue. And it's not there. And that's when I realize it's still in the BOC, where it's been the entire time because I was too busy holding down my helmet and filming the jump, and the camera guy was just trying to keep up with us, and we went straight to reserve from drogueless terminal. And I was generally pretty proud of myself for not being one of those TIs who need the drogue to get them stable, but the dumbfuckery I managed to cram into this jump still makes me a bit sick to my stomach.

> 1. Can you/should you however use BASE gear when doing a low altitude heli jump? Or would there be specific gear for this. BASE gear would be fine, provided your characters don't care about the legality of it, have their asses covered or do it in a country that doesn't care that much about the rules. > 2. What is the lowest possible jump that you could do from a helicopter. (100ft, 200, 300, more?) Plenty of BASE jumps are done from 200-300ft. (Note - if you're having your character jump from 200ft, they'll want to deploy the parachute immediately. 300ft, you can give them a sec or two of freefall ) > 3. Could you/would you have a reserve to do another low altitude jump (350ft) immediately after doing the heli jump? If you're asking about landing on a 350ft bridge and jumping off it with another parachute, then no, not really. You could use the same parachute, but it would be an unpacked jump (hanging the parachute off the edge and doing a rollover, for example), which probably wouldn't work for #4. > 4. Would you be able to jump from a bridge right after someone jumped and catch up to them on a 350 ft. jump and still have time to open a reserve at 80-90ft. (I've seen online this is the lowest recorded) (I realize it’s pushing critical limits for deployment) – or is this beyond the realm of reality? This will be into a river. I expect one character to (likely) die and have no problem giving the other one broken bones. How about tackling them just as they let go and drop? If your character is the calculating type, he or she may then get a hold of them with one arm and wait 2-3 seconds before using their free hand to deploy the parachute, because they realize there's no way they'll be able to hold on to the other person through the opening, but they might just slow down their fall a little bit, and give them a chance of surviving. We've seen Hollywood do much worse than that...

When I worked in NZ, I noticed pretty much every dropzone was offering 'the most scenic skydive' in the country. Not quite the same thing, since your definition of 'scenic' might differ from mine, whereas the definition of 'highest' is less debatable, but the point is, it's just marketing. 18.000' is higher than most commercial tandem jumps. Not the highest in the world, as you've figured out, but calling it so doesn't really indicate the business is shady or that you should avoid it. Oxygen, on the other hand, is a good idea at that altitude. A requirement, too. I always told my customers that we had it to comply with the rules, and that a fast-climbing plane means you're not really spending enough time at altitude to feel the effects... but if you need to move around or put some effort into getting a student hooked up, having that hose to suck on definitely helps. If you want to do one of those jumps and are concerned about safety, call up the dz and ask if they provide oxygen in the plane... and don't worry about the claims of the 'world's highest tandem jump'. If it's your first skydive, your time perception will very likely be totally off, and you won't be able to tell the difference between freefalling from 13.5 or 18.000 feet, anyway.

That will really depend on the weight of the tandem and how it's flown. Most of the ones I've filmed where they were deliberately taken to terminal, I could keep up on my head. About 160mph, tops. Deliberately taking a tandem to terminal is not a good idea, to be clear. I'm sure they can go a lot faster, though...

This is from the TI's handicam. Since all my jumps are video+photos, different angles are a must. I'll normally do half the jump on my back/head, half on belly to get some shots from above and from in real close. Still, backflying is nice for people with ground fixation and for really light passengers, since you're dearching the right way to keep things in frame. It just doesn't work on overcast days...

Here's my question: have you ever messed up on that 150? Or anything larger? Like seriously, ground-rushing, toggle-stabbing-to-save-your-ass messed up? Because you will mess up eventually. Everyone does, even the guys with 1000s of jumps and the pro-level swoopers. The smaller you go, the lower your margin for error. I had a very similar progression to yours... 150 followed by a new rig and 135 at

Don't know what problems you were having, but you can actually fit a GoPro 2 battery pack on the 3+ as well, did you know that? I really love the Pivot Pad, the ease of use and the protection it gives. My only gripe is the sound level (related to changed microphone location on the 3+ that requires another hole to be drilled). I would also love for the camera to be sitting more forward on the base so it wouldn't capture as much of my hand and arm (especially in superview), but there's not much that can be done there, considering the design.

I've had that happen once or twice when I turned it on and immediately pressed the shutter button - it looked like it was taking the shots, but it wasn't counting the pictures and froze with the red light flashing. Had to take the battery out to get it functional again.

I use a pair of cheap cold storage double-knit, rubber-coated gloves called Ninja Ice. We jump the year round and the temperatures at 15.000 are often in the negative 20s. Numb hands are only a problem on the very coldest of days. I reckon I can get up to 500 jumps out of a pair. I've tried the latex glove trick this past winter... didn't work for me, plus it made putting on the regular gloves a lot harder. I'm getting some thin glove liners for next season to see how they hold up.

Possibly, but I've also had mixed results. Pictures are usually not a problem. I've recovered video files before, but they were corrupted. I could actually fix a few of them with a gopro video fixer script of a sort (basically it checks and rewrites the file header), but if I remember correctly, sound was missing from all videos longer than a few seconds, and the 1minute+ files were either completely unrecoverable, full of artefacts, or randomly freezing up. Have a go at the card with a recovery software, and best of luck to you! :)

I wanted to go there when I was in Malaysia in August - unfortunately, the theme park is undergoing some major works and the wind tunnel is one of the rides that are closed at the moment. A local told me it would be reopening next year, but that's just hearsay.

Yes. One of the reasons I just upgraded my handicam glove (I was using a GP2 before). I think it looks great in freefall. I'm not a big fan of sticking the handicam in front of the passenger's face and keeping it there the entire time, and the superview let's me get even more creative, since I can capture the entire body even jumping with people taller than me. It does distort the image more, so I tend to look weirder on these videos, but I don't think that matters much. I do change the settings around, though - interview and plane shots are done on 720 wide, then I might switch to 720 medium for scenery shots and change to 720 superview before exit. Ideally, the landing interview would be done with 720 wide, but that would mean fiddling around with the settings under the canopy (can be done, but I much rather look where I'm going). I was a bit apprehensive switching to the GP3+ Black for outside video last year, but (knock on wood) I've never had any issues with it so far.

It had an issue with the exposure at that setting - it would lock it on the first shot, meaning if you turned the camera on inside the plane before exiting, all the freefall shots would be overexposed. To the best of my knowledge, this has been fixed. Some GoPro3+ models had focus issues, which was acknowledged by the company and the faulty cameras replaced. I'm currently using my Balck+ for video, but I've also tested it a few times in photo mode and was quite satisfied with how the pictures turned out.