StefB

Antje from Eisenach/Germany took some pictures during 8-way training... I'm really happy to have some picturrs after approx 2500 video jumps :-) Thank you Antje!!! add: background is german racewars - a 1/4 mile race event with a lot of campers on dropzone grounds

> With tailgate exits I usually coordinate with the floaters and > often take a spot in the middle (if I'm in a Casa) and also leave > a hair early. Use a camera helmet with solid chin protector / cup. With not so optimal timing, there is a fair chance that a floaters foot hit you on the sweet spot.

1) http://www.diverdriver.com/ 2) The Diverdriver closes the door. Sometimes by steering the plane (e.g. C182), or with a stick-with-loop (e.g. Porter), or with a rope attached to the door (e.g. C208, DO28) or sometimes with a helper (e.g. LET410)

Isn't Freefly part of AE (artistic events)? AE is november 3-5

Haha, funny these early attempts to do CRW. All but one missed to open the chute asap. after exit of the plane. Today we can better!

Thank you very much! Skydive-TV has videos: http://www.skydive-tv.com/uspa-national-skydiving-championships-2011

Morris, you are from Germany, right? Then the Fürstenberg Fallschirm Team might be a good source for information about stack formations. http://www.ff-team.de/

Thank you Bruno for sharing! Wish i was there...

Analog, wrist mounted. And i never had to change battery since i bought it in FJC :-)

Hello CRW-Dogs last week there was the German Nationals in Skydiving and one part was the CF 2-way sequential competition. I'll try to give you a short report from the event. The event took place in Kassel/Germany. The DZ has a Twin Otter and a (short) Cessna Caravan C208. The CF teams used both aircrafts for the jumps. In the Twin Otter there was mostly two 8-way FS teams for the high pass (4000m) and one CF team for the low pass (1800m). In the C208 were either 4-way FS teams or Freestyle teams or Freefly teams for the high pass and 1-2 CF teams for the low pass. There were only three CF teams in the competition, two less than DM 2009. The teams were: Airstep (Tom, Viktor and Video Peter), Team Berlin (Peti, Ralf and Video Seele) and Stack Attack (Peter, Björn and Video Volker). Volker is new to real skydiving - in former life he was freeflyer :-) Airstep had an unlucky start. In the original team Armin is the partner of Tom, but Armin drives motorcycle as well and... he left the bike during the ride and has some injuries now. They will heal but not in time for the nationals. But Airstep had some luck too - Viktor from Berlin was available as alternate jumper beginning with the second day of the competition. All CF teams agreed that Airstep can wait for Viktor and then start the competition one day later than the other teams. Meanwhile Stack Attack and Team Berlin jumped 5 rounds each on the first day. Stack Attack had a very good start with a new team record: 8 pts. This improvement is due to some 90 training jumps this year on DZ Schweighofen/Germany. And these training jumps are mostly done from 4000m (DZs standard drop altitude for the Porter) so the effective training time is increased. And Team Berlin had a new team - negative - record too: They briefed the wrong sequence in round 5 and got only one point, because the starting formation was correct. Next day Airstep started with its jumps and the first jump showed already some problems. Normally Tom and Armin jump PD Storms (107), but not Viktor. So they took PD Lightnings as well as the two other teams). Without training and unfamiliar canopy the building time for the first formation was longer than 30s from the rules and 5-10s working time was spend. But in the following jumps Airstep could speed up and improve. Stack Attack had an unlucky day as well - Peters canopy opened with a malfunction and he had to chop and draw silver. Short discussion with the judges... reserve ride is no cause for a rejump: 0 pts. Meanwhile the main canopy was found by a local truck driver but could be recovered from him after an intense discussion with the DZ manager Mausi. Last round Airstep could catch up to Team Berlin, but not to Stack Attack. First there was an option of a jump-off between rank 2 and 3, but then the highest score in previous rounds gave the result. 1. Stack Attack 2. Team Berlin 3. Airstep All teams are looking now forward to next nationals, which will be in northern Germany near Itzehoe in August 2012. CU Stefan

At least he gave you the video footage to make a good S&T video.

Tragic news. Blue Skies Pam, you'll be deeply missed and best wishes for Brian

In Germany fewer people attend the competitions (see discussion within DFV) and fewer people do CF. CF is not visible anymore on most dropzones and it became difficult to get CF introduction, training and funjumps. On the last German nationals there were four CF teams. In a short-term view, a newbie team which only does 2-way rotations should attend the nationals too (beginning of september in Kassel). Maybe they won't win a medal, but they'll have a lot of fun and get in contact with the dogs. For mid-term improvement Pro-Am might be a better idea. But i can't remember success or fail stories from US.

Thanks! I like Davids pic http://www.flickr.com/photos/daverhea/5368224317/in/set-72157625731139337/ very much. Greetings from cold old Germany Stefan

http://www.schweizmagazin.ch/news/regional/bern/4956-Kandersteg-Fallschirmspringer-schwer-verletzt.html (German language)

Cool, like it. The best feature - it's not about a specific DZ. It could by your/my DZ (OK, we have cooler student jump suits :)

Same opinion here. We did a CRW beginner camp last month and i was "coach" and videot. The objective for the first jump was contact to fabric and safe CF . Nothing too fancy. Teacher pins beginner to a stack. Beginner is pilot of the stack. Then plane and stack in exchange. Maybe some runback and sashays practice. This first jump was very important for the good spirit in our camp. Our briefing for the next jumps was: Beginner is base and teacher pins him for a 2 way stack. Then beginner rotates and tries to pin the teacher (up and sideways, fall behind, slip sideways back, then frontriser to touchdown). One try, if beginner come out of the move to low or behind no long approach, but the teacher rotates down to stack and the beginner has a new setup. It helped to start with 4000m (4000m because the DZ offered no lower exit altitudes). But this altitude may exhaust the jumpers more and in our camp 3 jumps a day was almost the physical limit for the puppies. The participants said it was very helpful to see the wrong/right movements in a teaching video before the jump and afterwards in the debrief videos. I think even the first non-successful attempts are a good learning tool for the next group. Stefan Photos from 3rd-5th jumps are on http://www.stefb.de/fsvsaar/2010crw/index.htm

Let me start off by saying I am no hurry to kill myself and will follow the recommendation of 200 jumps. However, I have yet to read a single incident involving injury or death that was directly involved with the distraction of wearing a camera too soon. It makes sense to me not to do it, but I don't believe it can be proven that there is a much higher chance of getting hurt or killed. Everybody in this sport was a Whuffo once. We all had to evaluate risks and overcome common misconceptions about the danger of skydiving. I think that as a group we are people who don't accept anectdotal evidence over empirical evidence. Show me the statistics. Good, that you don't want to be the first injury or fatality to prove our arguments valid :-) IMHO "Statistics" is the wrong way here. A whuffo human (aka child) is protected by experienced humans (aka parents) by anectdotal and not by empirical evidence. Some children understand that they might burn their hand on a hot plate (hot+hand=ouch). Other children don't, but usually is sufficient to talk about "someone" who burned his hand. You don't need to know some victim by name or have to show actual cases of burn marks or statistics of burned hands vs. male childs between 3 and 7 in southern USA. I think you understand the higher risk of cameras in skydiving and that a little more skydiving experience might be useful. Luckily i can not give you a name of a victim (but DSE has a list of some sort). And statistics work with a large number of cases only. Larger numbers..., yes, there is an increasing number of wannabe camera flyers IMHO because the video gadgets are smaller and cheaper than before. And in Web 2.0 age there is a new strong urge to create cool video content. But we don't have a large number of low jump camera flyers, yet, luckily. Because we (read more experienced jumpers) have some 200-jump-rules to protect them and we try to educate them. I don't know how efficient this is and how long we can hold the fence high enough. Even from the larger pool of regular camera flyers we have few reports about the specific dangers of camera flying. And even these numbers are not sufficient for statistics. I myself read them as "anectdotal evidence" and still learn a lot for my camera flying safety. IMHO old cameraflyers can and should also reduce the urge. Help the new guy to show the joy of his new skydiving passion to his friends. Take a break from tandem video and do some video for the newbies. Give them footage to edit and to publish, you might be surprised by the results. Some "200" jumps later they might be ready to become a camera flyer themselves or they forgot about being a lonesome videot and play with regular jump buddies.

Found on Youtube: BIRD DOG DIVE.mpg Skydiver CReW Dogs and Birdmen combine for a Bird Dog Dive. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cksiGiLKs5U

Just some suggestions... "Camera setup and canopy flight procedures" Bryan Scotts Website CReW photography http://www.crwphoto.com/ "lenses" I would try camera setup without wide angle lens first. With wide angle lens you have to be closer to the formation and may cross the flight path of the rotating guy. "position" Look which angles are used in other teams http://www.skyclub.ru/wolf.avi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZYtJfHBEPY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JiO9SDJvsQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5HN0TwObBk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKqvH_YtX7w ...

See @ www.pureskydive.com Red Bull Video reveals next-gen space suit and pressure helmet designed specifically for Red Bull Stratos mission March 31st, 2010 @ darklow http://www.pureskydive.com/2010/03/red-bull-video-reveals-next-gen-space-suit-and-pressure-helmet-designed-specifically-for-red-bull-stratos-mission/ There is a jump from a helicopter N340PM @ clock 0:59 and 2:20 in the video. But this might be another jump than in the photo, because the service ceiling of this heli is way lower then 26000 ft (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocopter_AS350)

This year i'll miss the Cumulus Convention :-( I have another job (video 16way RW competition) that was planned before the CC date.

Please post important data here as well. I'm not at Facebook and the bait CReWDogs is not enough :-) Thanx!

Speed Is Life[/B] Never underestimate the importance of an instrument cross-check By Brian Shul http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message949632/pg1

Be careful with this "entanglement thing". Friends of mine had a chinese fingertrap situation with their legs during downplane... and they were scared shitless.