jerry81

Thought I'd share this, especially since the ad is still up: ____________ Wanted: Jump pilots, Instructors and Videographers Price: We are setting up a drop zone here in Shenzhen China and we require full-time jump pilots,Tandem Instructors and Videographers to complete staff.Multiple ratings are always a plus but not necessary. Great pay with incentives and bonuses and free accommodation for our expatriate staff. Immediate start. Send resume, copy of DL, ratings and medical to [email protected] ____________ I sent them an inquiry, just for the hell of it. I mean, a commercial dz is bound to open in China sooner or later, and Shenzhen is a big financial hub, right next to Hong Kong... This is the reply I got: ____________ Hi Jerry Sever, After careful review your Resume/CV, Videos skydiving license, medical and tandem rating: we have decided to take it further. Pls find attached here the Application for Employment Form for you to fill and return to us. Just open it up, fill it out, and send it back to us by Email atachment. Also Include a scanned copy of your international passport (Front page and Photo page). Will appreciate it if you can do it within 48 hours. The position will start in 3 weeks, so there is really no time to waste. Our Planes: We have Cessna Caravans and DHC- 6 Twin Otters. We also have one brandnew brand-new Quest Kodiak. Salary: $49,000 minimum annual salary guaranteed plus any additional earned. On-DZ housing available. P.S: If you are not interested in the job please let me know no later than Wednesday so I can look at other candidates. Sincerely, Jin Ling Admin Manager CHANMING SKYDIVE CENTER 55 Fuhong Road, Futian District, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China 518000 Tel: +86-2229265518 Fax: +86-2289407895 ________________ Now, as if the first paragraph weren't suspicious enough, they also want a scan of my 'international passport'. Within 48 hours, because there's 'really no time to waste'! The payment is pretty awesome, as is the number of planes they have, especially since the dropzone is not even operational yet. Another big red flag right there - anything that sounds too good to be true probably isn't. The application form was either drawn up in MS paint or had the original business name replaced, I can't quite decide. Let's just say this Chanming Skydive Center is in desperate need of a logo. I exchanged some more emails with 'Mr Ling'. He never told me where exactly the skydive center is located, only that it's 'in Shenzhen China and it is yet to get off the ground and that is why we need to put the crew together asap to get it off the ground.' He also told me I'd be doing 10 jumps a day, 5 days a week with 2 months off each year and confirmed that they have 'a lot of reservations already'. I should also mention that the originating IPs of all his emails were on a dial-up server in Lagos, Nigeria. He did offer to pay the visa proceedings for me and my fiancee ('So you should send her intl passport too'), but I imagine sooner or later I'd be asked to deposit some money for 'license validation' or something similar. I reported the ad already and I really doubt anyone would actually fall for it, but anyway: we are apparently a target group now. I thought it was mostly basketball and golf coaches these guys were approaching. Here's my last email to Mr Ling: ____________ Hello Mr. Ling, I tried to call you today on your number but wasn't able to reach you. Then I noticed that all your emails are coming from Nigeria, so I guess you must be on a business trip... Please let me know when you get back to China so we can talk. Jerry ____________ I'm still waiting for his reply...

Those models have all been discontinued, so finding new ones will be difficult. I got a refurbished cx105 on eBay.co.uk last month for 200€. There were also some cx115s (used and new) for about 300€. If you don't mind NTSC and have someone who can bring stuff from the States, I'm sure you can find one even cheaper.

I've seen an improvised video handle made of webbing that was passed through a handle (wood, metal or a piece of plastic tubing) and then attached inside the plane, at the top back corner of the door. It makes it slightly easier for the vidiot to get in position with left foot in the door, right against the fuselage, one hand on the handle and the other on the door frame. Not much easier, but definitely easier than hanging onto the door frame with both hands.

Anyone ever tried or has the option of checking it? I'm looking at a used setup (online, otherwise I'd check it myself) that comes with a Tonfly cx110 box. If my cx105 fits into that it would be great, otherwise I need to find another one. I'll be top-mounting everything, but I'd still prefer the box to be as narrow as possible - I noticed that Tonfly's cx100 box, for instance, is much wider, while the width difference between the cx100 and the newer models is actually just 5mm.

As a law talking guy (that's "lawyer" for those of you who didn't see the Simpsons episode), I - unfortunately - would say "THIS". Thanks, but I don't think it's such an important issue at this stage. I also don't think the European society is anywhere near as lawsuit-happy as the USA, but I might mention this legal aspect in the final report anyway.

Thanks for the replies so far! I believe this can be done without increasing the risk too much. I'm not aiming for larger suits, but something like a Prodigy legwing should be docile enough. And like I wrote on the other thread, I want the system to have a neutral freefall position that would be easy to control in case of instabilities, as well as the option of pulling up the legs for canopy flight and landing. I have until April to design a few possible solutions and then evaluate their feasibility. I'll post what I come up with to get more feedback.

I just posted this in the 'Skydivers with disabilities' section. I'm crossposting the link here if anyone wants to chime in on the original thread. Thanks

Hey all! I'm about to finish my bachelor's in mechanical engineering and I pitched the idea of designing some sort of system for leg wing/lower body control for paralyzed jumpers as a project for one of the subjects this semester. Just got a green light from the professor, so brainstorming starts this week. I saw there were some ideas being thrown around in this thread so I know even if there's not too much interest for wingsuit flying among paralyzed skydivers, anything I come up with could be modified for use in regular jumping as well. The way I see it, I'm aiming for a system that would allow control of a)the bend of the knees b)the leg stance (from wide open to closed) c)the arch It obviously wouldn't give the whole control range of the wingsuit, but it should be enough to fly base on a flocking dive, at least. I'm not quite sure whether turns would be tricky or not. Rolling the whole body might be hard, but small inputs with arms/shoulders could work. I also think it should have a sort of a neutral position built in that would allow a stable fall for exits and opening. I saw some pictures of Dale Elliott (I believe) experimenting with different leg positions that could be useful for this. Finally, I believe it would be useful to have the option of raising the legs into a semi-seated position after opening or get them up all the way for landing. I have until May to come up with a 3D model and possibly present some calculations. I'd really appreciate your input and suggestions, and if anyone has the possibility of actually building something or improving their own design based on what I do, they're more than welcome to it.

There should be enough rental rigs, yes. A lot of it is student gear with bigger canopies (200-240), but there were enough 170s when I was there as well.

They might make you do a checkout jump, but they're not that stringent on documents, don't worry. I worked there for nearly 4 years and I don't remember us ever turning a jumper away because of a missing piece of paper :)

I often tell my passengers to smile for the camera-now, two weeks ago, I told a girl who was getting a bit nervous on the ride up that she should grab the cameraman's nose if he comes close enough, just to loosen her up a bit. The look on his face when she actually did it in freefall was absolutely priceless!!

I was just looking at one at ebay.at. 400€ plus shipping, which is just about what you'd pay for a PAL model at B&H.

I did something similar, but only once or twice. The last and most memorable time that we all opted to go out with our tandems (3 or 4, all with cameras) the clouds had shifted and what was visibility between target and opening altitude before now became visibility between opening altitude and the ground. I freefell through one cloud and opened on top of another, decided to fly through a valley towards the only land visible rather than straight for the dropzone, into a cloud where others had opened before me, but after losing altitude over that hole I finally had to enter the cloud again to get over the LZ. I knew where I was all the time, but I only had visual contact with the other tandems in the air for the last 1500' or so. You can imagine I have no desire to repeat the experience...

Back when I had less than a year in the sport I once asked my instructor why I wasn't taught how to PLF or why he prefers not to teach it. His answer was similar - he prefers the students focus on landing well instead of expecting a PLF on every jump, dropping and rolling and possibly spraining limbs and getting gear dirty. Years later, I'm still not convinced by this reasoning, especially after having seen so many students and low-time jumpers come down on those not-so perfect landings with legs spread, butt-first, arms out to catch themselves...basically rolling, spraining and occasionally breaking limbs, because no one ever taught them how or when to PLF. So while I agree that emphasis should be given on learning how to fly and land the canopy properly, we should never forget that things can go bad and that coming down to earth too fast is what generally hurts people in this sport. Be it for your own mistake, someone else's or an external factor like turbulence, I believe that knowing how to distribute the forces in a hard landing is still an essential skill in parachuting.

Forgot to mention that we use a tailgate (An-28). The cameraman hangs over the 'hole' in the tail and the TI basically just steps out and lays a slow gainer. It's a pretty easy exit- about the only time we do a floater is with instructional tandems (levels 1&2 of our AFP program) and so far once or twice with a passenger that was too freaked looking out into the open air. The door on this plane is not big enough for the camera flyer to leave after us from his position (unless he's following us out from inside and missing the exit shot). If he's still hanging there as we jump, chances are we're taking him along... Now, when I'm doing video, I prefer to be dropping past the edge of the door just as the TI's feet leave it and if it's a light tandem or I know that the drogue will be coming out the moment they're belly to relative wind, I'll track up the hill to stay close. If it's a heavier load or I know that the TI takes his time after exit, I'll probably flip to hd for a few seconds, again to get as little separation as possible. The only time I was taken by surprise was with a TI new to the dz who basically just walked out without even looking at me...which once again shows the importance of discussing the exit timing, if you're unsure, whether you're the TI or the camera.

It's been only two years since I got my rating, but try as I might, I can't recall if we ever covered the event of the drogue/bridle entangling with another person in freefall. So I'm wondering; -how much will the drag of the entangled person slow down the tandem pair, considering the drogue does not inflate? -is the drag high enough to extract the bag on drogue release? -should you manually clear the risers after cutting away the main with the vidiot still entangled with the bridle? But now seriously, I had a scare last Saturday, jumping with a person new to flying camera but by all means qualified to do it (900+ jumps, AFF instructor). My mistake was to not emphasize the importance of exit timing to him in the plane, as he'd already gotten a foot in the face on a previous jump with me (and we'd discussed it afterwards). So out we went, with a ready-set-go and this time without contact. I took perhaps a second longer than usual to toss the drogue because the passenger went a bit fetal on me, and my first thought after throwing was that the thing did not inflate. I looked over my shoulder to check, just in time to see the camera flyer dropping away from the drogue and parking himself in front of me with a look on his face that said he knew exactly how bad he'd just screwed up. I wear a full-face on my tandems, so my own expression luckily did not appear on the client's video. Rest of the jump was uneventful. We had another discussion once we landed, starting with "This.Cannot.Happen!", followed by a bit of ass-chewing and plenty of advice on how to exit. Like I said, my one mistake was not reminding him once again to mind his timing- it went through my mind as we were getting up to jump, but at this point I feel that talk like that might (further) confuse/freak the passenger, plus I thought that at this level of experience and having covered the issue already, it wouldn't happen again.... Guess I know a little better now.

It might well not be, it's only being sold as such. A rip-off regardless.

Click here to get an un-airworthy container with no extra parts for only 750$!!! I'm amazed that this hasn't gone yet, since it's such a killer deal...

A tandem makes a nice base. It falls at a pretty constant speed and can hardly move around at all, giving the newbie a good idea of his own movements across the sky. A bit like the tunnel, only instead of bouncing off the walls, you can bump off the central reference point (or grab and hang on to it if you want to give the passenger an extra experience to remember). Now all sarcasm aside, as a TI I also can't see why it would be a good idea to be chased repeatedly by someone who obviously can't fly his body well enough. I don't need to worry about another person in freefall and they have plenty of other ways to improve their skills.

That's the 'older' design I was talking about, cover flap on the outside of the yoke and pocket on the inside. The newer one was reversed with the flap made smaller and fitting (what seemed) more securely into a pocket on the outside of the yoke...

When did you get your Vector? On the newest one I saw (made summer 2008) the magnetic flaps were redesigned and quite different than the ones UPT was offering when they introduced the option on their rigs. The owner, having recently returned from Spain, told me the freefliers at Empuria doing a lot of tracing jumps were complaining about the first design coming open in some flying modes (high speed with a lot of angle changes). That is 2nd hand info, though. 1st hand, I can tell you we have plenty of Vectors with the 'old' magnetic covers on our dz, and while the 'new' design did seem more secure, I have yet to see or hear about the flaps causing problems on a freefly, or any kind of dive for that matter.

Chalk up another one for motorbike accidents here (mine was May 1st last year). I had a non-union fracture with a small displaced 3rd fragment they only discovered once they opened me up, warranting a plate and 7 screws that are still in there. I started doing exercises 4 weeks after surgery, was jumping after 6 and doing tandems after 8. The shoulder hurt the first few weeks when I got back in the air, before I built up enough strength again, but funny enough, I hardly ever feel the plate when wearing a rig, although it's screwed right on top of the collarbone. Exercises definitely helped me a lot, although I wouldn't recommend rushing so much to get back in the air. Still, a friend with a very similar injury (6 screws, just on the right side, while mine were on the left) was cleared for jumping by his doctor after 7 weeks. I think in your case, the recovery time will depend more on the rib and puncured lung than the broken collarbone. Good luck!

You know, I've tried to talk people into doing this with a car and a tow-rope plenty of times when we were grounded for bad weather. No takers so far...

And this is a different and more extreme case of it: pin got stuck in the loop and the kill-line pulled apart the stitching up to the point where the bridle was routed under the right flap, causing a pc-in-tow. It's very likely related to the pin shape, though. I have no idea if the jumper bought this bridle/pc, got it with the container or if someone rigged it for him and welded together the pin as well.

I normally wear the full-face mtb helmet that I use for BASE jumping. The cameramen here hate it because it apparently makes my head look to big and obscures my face. Not that I really care how good I look on a tandem video- it should be about the passenger. I did switch to a Gath last weekend for a jump with some actor who was gonna use the footage for his show (so I had a reason to look good ) and sure enough, it was the first time in about 200 tandems that I got a face full of head on opening. Thought my nose might be broken for a second or two, but it was ok...no bleeding either, thankfully. But yeah, riser slaps notwithstanding, I definitely prefer some kind of head protection on a jump where I'm responsible for another person's life besides my own.