danwayland

Based on your self portrait icon, I don't think you'll have much trouble finding someone to jump you, hold you, and let you feel it. -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

I purchased the Panasonic DVD EMR-E30 Recorder with the intent of adding it to Skydive Orange's student video program. Dissappointment abounds. I burned two different brands of DVD-Rs and neither one played in my home DVD player, and neither one played in the hanger DVD player. They played in the Panasonic EMR30 that burned them, but as far as I could tell, not much else. Not to condusive to a student program. I searched the forum and found some specific model numbers for computer component burners as well some very helpful info on DVDs and their different formats and compatibilities as well. But it seems that not all DVD-R burners are created equally because a DVD-R from my friend's computer does play in both the hanger and my home. My forum search also provided some evidence that some people have standalone models that they are happy with as part of their student program, but I couldn't find any specific model #s for the standalones. Anybody know of any models that work a little better? P.S. Whilst I'm pooling the great unwashed masses for general information on my employers dime, let me ask yet another, related question. What the heck format are the DVDs at Blockbuster video? They seem to work in most everybody's player. Why can't we get a burner that burns DVDs just like those? back to the salt mines, -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

Thanks for all the tips. I will soon be the only camera flyer in the world with a nitrogen filled FXC calibration chamber coated in rainex and packed to the brim with silica gel mounted on my helmet. MAN WILL I EVER LOOK COOL!!!!! -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

Hot and humid on the ground, nice and cool up top. I land, pick up my crap, and get ready to film the tandem landing. I notice that my stupid lens is all fogged up. I take off the wide angle lens. Still foggy. I wipe the regular lens with my shirt. Still foggy. It's on the stupid inside of the stupid regular stupid permanant stupid lens. Other camera guys had the same problem that day. Anybody know any tricks to avoid or reduce such a problem? I've got a PC-1 if it matters. -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

I dunno. I just used small quantities of bondo to fill in any little line snagging grooves that were left at the end. Bondo looks like poopie, though, so I quit using it and just taped over the rest. You many notice that I am always striving to achieve a certain balance between my top two priorities. 1. Remaining unharmed 2. Looking $hit hot If there's more to life than those two things and getting laid every once in awhile, I don't wanna know about it. To protect from lines getting up under the still camera, I just put several coats of tape from the platform down to the helmet. They've held there for 3 years! -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

Ya want my Minolta Dimage Dual Scan III? It's a great dedicated negative/slide scanner. Brings them in at about 4000x2500 with much better detail than a flatbed + adapter. I just bought a 10D, so I probably won't be needing it anymore. -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

Here's mine. http://danwayland.com/me/12-8-02/FaceOff.jpg http://danwayland.com/me/12-8-02/CameraStep.jpg http://danwayland.com/me/12-8-02/MassiveSwoop.jpg I widened the still mount on my nvertigo x using a flat plate, bondo, and gaffer's tape, so that the still camera doesn't stick out on either side, and I feel that it was a worthwhile modification because it's less snaggy and cooler looking. -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

I just ordered my 10D doo dah, doo dah So excited I could pee oh, the doo dah day -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

Most of this is second hand info from a friend of mine who used to work in a photo lab, but I think it's reliable information. Developing of negatives depends on a clean machine and carefully monitored chemicals. I'm not aware of any way method other than trial an error that can determine whether or not a place is keeping their machine clean and chemically balanced. I guess you could ask them, but they'd all say yes. If your negatives come back scratched up, go someplace else. If you wanna get crazy, Fuji Frontier machines have a surprisingly good ability to guess exposures and color balance, something that required skilled human guessing in the past. You could ask around and see if anybody has one of those. hope that helps, -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

85% of the stuff on my site http://www.danwayland.com was shot with the Sigma 15mm fisheye for Canon autofocus. It's my favorite lens. Basically, if you see barrel distortion, it was shot with the Sigma 15mm fisheye. -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

I dunno.... I heard through the grapevine that Yari (pardon me if that's misspelled, and pardon me if this is just gossip) has a little GPS thingy that has indicated he's actually been able to climb during freefall. That is, dive 300' to build up enough speed to climb a few feet. If that's possible at altitude, and if you 'hook turned' your Birdman suit to build up speed, and if the lift to drag coefficient was signifcantly improved by ground effect, and if you did it over water, and if you decreased your weight by not wearing a rig (man is that a no sissies allowed statement or what!)... never mind. Forget I mentioned it. I'm sorry I even brought it up. -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

Just my humble opinion: I think the key to a safe breakoff from a freefly dive starts in the plane. Look at the group, and if you're not sure that everybody in that group is going to be there at breakoff, then breakoff now. That is, break the group up into smaller groups. Then, make sure that you maintain fall rate for the first few seconds of your seperation. If you're in one of those situations that unfortunately happen from time to time where you've lost somebody during freefall because they were unable to stay with the group, then you're going to need to check the airspace above you and below you. I would say that starting with a steep back track to check the airspace above you first makes sense because during the first part of seperation, the danger comes from above (you're decelerating and nobody's deploying yet) and then flipping over to check the airspace below because after a couple of seconds, the danger comes from underneath in the form of deploying canopies. But that's stressful and alot to do. So let's keep the group sizes and skill levels such that there's always a 99.9% chance that everybody's going to be right there in front of you at break off. -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

1st of all, let me just say that I am not encouraging anybody to try and land a bird suit. However, I think it's interesting to discuss whether or not that might be possible. I heard about these "Ground Effects" from a glider pilot friend of mine who says they can use gound effects to get back to their runway if they've accidentally flown outside of the "wind cone." He said his instructor intentionally had him fly too far away from the airport to glide back given the winds that day, at which point he thought, "Great, now we're landing in a field somewhere, good idea." The apparently $hit hot instructor then took the controls, hook turned the glider, and zoomed very low across a field for a long ways using the efficiency of ground effects to maintain enough speed to climb up to 300', back into the "wind cone" at the end of the field. He was then able to land on the runway. Wing in Ground Effect is an aerodynamic principle which states that lift to drag ratio of a wing increases greatly when the wing is at an AGL altitude equal to approximately half its width. http://home.mira.net/~radacorp/ground_effect.html Would that perchance mean that a 6' tall bird man would have much more efficient lift at 3' than at 3000'? Maybe enough lift to stay aloft at a slow enough forward speed to land in water? Or on the ground? Again. Not encouraging anyone to try this. I just think it's interesting. -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

Breakoffs on freefly dives have new problems above and beyond those that the RW folks have already solved. Namely, at breakoff, if everybody doesn't maintain fall rate, then a serious or fatal vertical collision is possible. Therefore, we must maintain fallrate for the first few seconds of seperation until we're out of the party. Flopping flat on one's belly or flat on one's back the moment it's time to break is unwise. Neither belly or back is better, they both suck. What is the correct way to leave is still somewhat in debate and seems to depend a little bit on what the particular jumper can do. I've heard top notch freefliers recommend to RW people learning to freefly that they roll out of their sit and swoop away in a delta as if they are swooping a big way for the first few seconds. This keeps the fallrate pretty fast and seems to work ok so long as the student has sufficient skill at nailing a fast falling delta swoop. The top headdowners these days are turning 180 and staying on their heads for the first few seconds of break off as they seperate. This makes alot of sense to me since you're looking where you're going. The backflyers may be unsuccessfully trying to do this and flopping onto their backs instead. If someone does this, don't critisize them by saying "You shouldn't leave on your back, track normally instead." Rather, maybe mention to them that they need to work on being much steeper those first few seconds as they leave the campfire. But make sure you're not cork tracking out of your freefly dives first or otherwise you'll look like a big penis. -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

Wow did you get a lemon. I've got a Sony PC-1, and I've gone in three times while wearing it, shot it with a bazooka, and dunked it in acid. Still works fine. -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

People are telling you to leave earlier, but when I first started flying student camera, I wanted to stay tight, but the pre drogue tandem fall rate was sometimes very challenging. If that's your problem, then what worked for me was this: As soon as you exit, reach back with both hands, grab your own ass, and shove it forward arching like mad. This helps you arch much harder than you previously imagined possible and takes your camera suit wings out of the wind. It also looks surprisingly cool, and it's all about looking cool. With a little practice, you should be able to leave right with them and stay tight, steep and deep. Try to keep the plane in the shot because: A - that's a cool shot and B - if the plane's in the shot then there's no way you're getting hit by the drogue. Later on, if you get to be a good headdowner, just roll onto your head when things get fast. However, do not consider that an option until you're consistently able to make controlled docks headdown. You don't want to risk zooming right into the tandem pair or the drogue. Wait till you do some AFF videos and find out what kind of counts those cats give you! check out, check in, up, out, leg, ready, out, hot, shackedy, in, go! Dan http://www.danwayland.com -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

Any tunnel rats or experienced back flyers out there wanna give us some tips on backflying with some precision. I've recently made several jumps with really slow sitflyers. Usually attractive girls with few freefly jumps, but I digress. Seems like I currently have two options: I can go to my belly which has been very successful (I'm talking about some thin girls and some slow sits here). From my belly I'm easily able to dock on the feet or hands of a slow sit flyer. Or: I can challenge myself and go to my back. This is fun, and I stay near my target, but I end up carving around in circles with my legs out straight and my arms swept back like I'm leading a tracking dive or carving around a four way. I would like to increase the precision of my backflying such that I could dock a slow sit flyer or belly flyer from that position in a controlled manner. I'm imagining that it would be something like put your arms in the box man position, bend your knees and spread your legs outward against the wind, but I'm not sure. Any tips would be appreciated. -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

Try taping down the focus ring around the camcorder lens. Moving this ring while wiping the wide angle lens or shuffling around will cause the camcorder to go from infinity to manual focus. With mine taped down, it stays focused to infinity. -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

Anybody ever hear any stories about somebody actually getting sued for using copyrighted music? I have occasionally heard people mention that a camera flyer doing this could get nailed for copyright infringement, but every dropzone I've ever been to uses whatever music they want on their tandem vids. I also have several boogie tapes that I've purchased which have the same music on them that I hear on the radio. However, I've never heard of anyone actually encountering a problem from the music industry. I know it's wrong, blah blah blah, but has anybody ever heard of somebody actually getting busted? I think the music industry has much bigger fish to fry right now. -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

Fantastic medium sized DZ. I spent a year going out there nearly every weekend. Consistently a fun place to be. It was difficult to think of a con but, upon mental review, I realized that despite the plethora of attractive women who frequent this DZ, I never saw any boobies. None. Zero. Zippy. This, I feel, is unacceptable, and I shall be forced to return soon in order to rectify the situation.

Orange is a fun jumper friendly DZ. As of right now (01-2003), there are alot of friendly, moderately talented freefliers to jump with as well as a couple of really good ones. Same with RW, and there's a small group of bird men forming, plus a new high performance canopy school. The regular night life is the best I've ever experienced at any DZ, period, bar none. There's not always a bunch of naked people dancing around a bonfire drinking beer with their pants on their heads, but sometimes there are. What's more important to me, though, is that every single Friday and/or Saturday night that I've ever felt like having a couple of beers, playing foosball, watching skydiving videos, and having a few laughs with some friends, I have always found this at Skydive Orange. That's what's remarkable to me. Not how wild and crazy the big parties are, they're par for the course plus nudity really, instead, I'm more pleased by the fact that it's never completely dead, so I can always find a party, even if it's just a little one.

Yes, please let us know how that works out. Looks like that Olympus is spec'd out to be alot faster than the coolpix. Especially, please let us know if you're building your switch with something like the digisnap, or if you're doing some serious engineering. thanks, Dan Wayland -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com

Did you end up getting the camera? Did it shoot fast enough with a high speed compact flash card. I'd like to go digital myself, but I'm on a budget. Any info on this camera would be appreciated. -- Dan Wayland http://www.danwayland.com