Liemberg

Truman Sparks would jump a rig like that!

He is looking forward to taking a firm bite out of 2014 "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Are video's of your pet's achievements allowed also? Cause conquering scary steel slides that are cold on your paws maybe a small step for mankind - but it was a giant leap for my dog Leo, nonetheless. Almost like starting to skydive...

Since modern handcams can be lighter and smaller than (analogue) altimeters and no one has ever seen an issue with TI's wearing that on the back of their left hand I find that exaggerated. Sure, getting carried away with aiming for the best shot can get you side spinning drogue side down seconds after exit but it is no more rocket science than the tandemjump itself. At least, with go-pro's (in a glove, not a case), contours and the likes. (Classic cams like Sony PC are a different beast of course...) After all, it is much more a mental thing, like 'don't think about elephants' than a technical issue. I think it should be part of the TI's training, just to make sure that all the possible issues are covered. With the right tool for the job (small, lightweight, wide-angle, one-click-operation, 'unsnaggable') and the right briefing (forget from exit till drogue throw, forget during opening / emergency, forget from 20 seconds prior to landing) it may be a lot smarter to train TI's from the get-go when they are about to get their rating and make a few more training jumps with an examiner who has like +500 handcam tandems and perhaps always carry the handcam when making the required familiarization jumps with trained skydivers. This has two advantages: 1. The obvious - the TI is more versatile and brings the skills the market requires nowadays 2. The TI is not 'left alone' when he tries to re-invent the wheel but instead will be trained from the get go by someone who knows what is real and what is not in terms of increased danger. In fact, the original poster illustrates this point when he asks about additional dangers and specifically seems to worry about interference with emergencies (no more than a big altimeter on the left hand) and fears several non-issues, yet doesn't speak of the real danger which is designating one limb for 'stable camera platform right in the passengers face' when all four limbs should be working exclusively to get the tandempair 'belly towards wind & under drogue'. If we think tandemjumping deserves specific training then why not build 'handcam jumping' into the training program? (Like f.i. make five solo jumps with the glove + cam before starting your TI training...) Yes, it may be true that several fatal tandem jumps had handcam as a common denominator, but like any other skill it can be teached. My idea is to do the teaching incorporated in the total package. Makes much more sense. My $ 0,02 "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Now what is incredibly funny about that list is that it sums up 5 acts of terrorism (and one failed attemp), commited by the militairy branch of the ANC between may 1983 and june 1988. From 1964 untill 1990 however, mr. Mandela was a prisonner of the 'apartheid'-regime in South Africa - which would have made it pretty difficult form him, if not downright impossible, to personally carry out these acts of terror. And, while we are at it - the 'Sharpeville massacres' happened in 1960, thus preceding the forming of Umkhonto we Sizwe in june 1961... Another thing that was to be found on the link you provided (that has expired since then) was the fact that a regional superpower like South -Africa, either under the leadership of mr. Mandela or that of mr. Botha, apparently buys tanks, jet-fighters and naval ships. Who would have thought that? Also, you seem to forget that there was a legitimate war going on there and then, or a revolution if you will. Ever since Guy Fawkes these revolutionairies do try to blow up stuff and cause collateral damage in the process. If the collateral damage is the problem than the good citizens of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would like to have a chat about their civilians, women and children with the governments of the UK and the USA. And throwing all this precious tea into the Boston harbour - what were you guys thinking?

As a former DZO: Ideally, that is how it should have been done. Except for the part where the TI carries on at your place. But video's where "the performance of your DZ is slightly under par" have a nasty habbit of showing up on youtube nowadays, resurfacing at the moment there's another unrelated incident. And however freakish, exceptional and outlandish said incident was, when that happens and the video 'gets viral on youtube' nobody is interested anymore in hundreds of other video's where your place and its co-workers did an excellent job in showing the customer a good time and returning him safely to his loved ones. There's always someone around with an axe to grind under the pretext of 'public safety' and the world is full of monday morning coaches. And how smallish all the dicks around you seem to be, running a DZ without stepping on one every now and then? Good luck with that!

What I actually am trying to say is this: Don't go complicate your skydiving without the basic notion of the principle behind permutation. This goes in a nutshell like: "for n objects there are n! possible combinations / ways to arrange the objects" When n=1 then n!=1 When n=2 then n!=2 (1x2) When n=3 then n!=6 (1x2x3) When n=4 then n!=24 (1x2x3x4) When n=5 then n!=120 (1x2x3x4x5) Translated to a skydiving environment you get: First jump with new canopy (1) First jump with new canopy AND booties (2) First jump with new canopy AND booties AND Gopro (6) First jump with new canopy AND booties AND Gopro AND new DZ (24) First jump with new canopy AND booties AND Gopro AND new DZ AND simple tracking dive with a new friend (120) And, to be completely clear, in the incident discussed above there was a Main Canopy that had been jumped before on a wingsuitdive while wearing that camera-helmet... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

I don't. From the top of my head though: Questionable choise of main canopy (smallish, fast and a tendency to turn, don't remember the brand right now but not the docile main you would want on wingsuitjumps) Main canopy started to spin on opening, he chopped it, opened the reserve on his back, and one line of the reserve interfered with the side mounted camera. There's some speculation that it broke his neck there and then, paralysing him. "so much younger than today" (Me, + 25 years ago) "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Well, there's this video of this parapente pilot with a GOPRO on his belly and a GOPRO on top of his helmet. He does some maneuvring trying to gain enough speed to go over the top but fails and falls into his lines and one line snags on the helmet GOPRO (standard tape attachment) He get's spun around for several revolutions with a very unhappy "strangulation" face (footage caught on the belly camera) and it takes ten seconds of 'full swing' before it breaks free. Video has been published on this website, in basically the same discussion we have here, in the Photo and Video section. YMMV - but with Mad Skilz and supernatural powers it will be a walk in the park at any altitude below 2000ft, I'm sure of that. "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

When you solely depend on DZ.com / internet fatality lists and want to get some meaningful statistics out of them you should remember that no one is under any obligation to report anything there. This is especially true for the people that do the actual / official investigations. First there's all sorts of legal considerations when it comes to accident reporting and secondly their scope is more often national than international. This means for instance that the BPA reports to the BPA board and or BPA members, the French FFP do the same for France, the German DFV does the same for Germany etcetera. Sometimes an internet-volunteer translates- or sums up the official report/findings, and puts in on those website(s) the 'internet staticians' like you scan - but there is no guarantee that this happens or that the data found there are accurate. In this case, where you apparently did scan the DZ.com 'incident forum' it indeed does not mention anything about a camera. However, the official 'Cone Lock' article about this incident as published in the Dutch 'Sportparachutist' magazine for sure mentioned the camera snag that was a prime contributor to the fatal outcome. So beware of the source of your statistics. For these data contain more often than not "just what some guy on the ground with internet access found worthwhile to write down..." "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Well, there's recent video evidence that would suggest otherwise, at least not all of them spin that fast...

You'r a SISSY!

In a heartbeat - provided your dad lets you pack for him.

I did 'college preparation math' later in life. Had 101 tuition from someone who was really good at it and wanted to learn how to play chess. Twice a week during one year we had a math/chess evening being eachothers teacher/student. It worked for me since I passed the exam which was equivalent to 5 years of high school math with a rating slightly above average and 'stood my ground' with the subject in college. However, nowadays my mind turns blank at first when reading a formula. I always wonder if that is caused by learning all this stuff as an adult (+27) while others did it when they were more than 10 years younger... Anybody has any idea what is going on there? For some reason I would think that 'Skill Decay' is worse when you start out late but I'm not really sure about it. "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Actually - I think it was an amazing video. Handcams and outside camera are 'a dime a dozen' all over youtube. This was in fact the first one I ever saw that was all the way from the passengers perspective. Pretty Cool IMHO... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Everybody here automatically asumes that the pole is somehow attached to the TI (which indeed would be a bad idea) and not really 'hand held' - in which one can let it go in an instant if the situation requires it. My guess is you could even build a small round parachute inside the pole which would deploy when you let it go. But even if you haven't chances are the pole + gopro would start to autorotate so it wouldn't be much of a danger to people on the ground either. By the way - if it behaved like my wrist-watch did when I lost it during a tandem exit it would move UPWARDS from the tandempair... Though I'm a big fan of a conservative approach and see problems and pitfalls as well as the next person - please dare to think 'out of the box' every now and then, because if we wouldn't there would not be a skydiving industry to speak of in the first place... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Usually, when a complete noob walks into a group of trained professionals with his so called 'fresh perspective on things' the standard 99,9% right answer to his suggestion (any suggestion) is 'we thought about that so long ago that we actually can't remember why this wasn't such a good idea'. Like when someone walked in here with the 'smart' idea that skydiving planes should stay at altitude till the last skydiver had landed after the news of a freak 'cat and mouse game' accident with a highly experienced cameraflyer and a highly experienced twin-otter pilot. However, padding on the 'landing area' back part of tandem-passengers jumpsuits or built / retrofit into the passengers harness is actually an excellent idea. It would be better of course to not jump too heavy passengers in no wind or turbulent conditions but in the balancing act between safety and commercial pressure we know what happens every now and then. So anybody out there running a tandem operation who is about to replace the passenger jumpsuits ought to give this some thought like 'one / a few passenger(s) per year complaining about lower back injuries or even worse - letters from their insurance lawyer, versus only happy customers that had a 100% blast and send all their friends....' Just my $0,02 "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

IMHO 2 seconds out of the door for some passengers there's no such thing as an easy concept to grasp. "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

That's a give away... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BPjX9kGCYAA4uXT.jpg:large "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

On checking stuff: Once upon a time I found myself cheking a Strong Dual Hawk tandem rig that has a strickt set of rules 'what to do in what order'. On reaching opening altitude you must: 1) release drogue with Master ripcord 2) If drogue not released pull passenger ripcord 3) If drogue still not released pull silver/reserve As it happened. someone called my name and asked me a question right in the middle of that check. Later on in the narrative I pulled the Master drogue release but kept speeding towards 'terra firma' - the drogue would not release. Faster than I am able to write this down i said to myself: 'both loops on the passengers ripcord in stead of one loop on each ripcord cannot possibly be the problem for I distinctly remember pulling the drogue attachment out and visualy checking it -so there's no need to go for the passengers ripcord!' I DEVIATED FROM PRESCRIBED PROCEDURES,SINCE I WAS ABSOLUTLY SURE ABOUT WHAT COULD AND COULD NOT BE HAPPENING. In stead I went directly for silver (duh...) Guess what... The trouble with routinely checking the same thing again and again and again is that you tend to not actually observe what is right in front of your eyes but see (or should I say 'halucinate'?) what you are expecting to see... There is a lesson somewhere in the above... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Though it is a good idea to perform a complete check before boarding the aircraft and to board it 'ready to jump', it is an equally good idea to spend another few seconds on jump run to repeat (part of) the proces. While not everything is always readily accesible in every aircraft (it can get cramped sometimes - see the discussion about the thrilling action packed video of the d-bag falling out of the helicopter elswhere on this site) all your handles (3) and all your straps (3) can and should be touched by YOU before you actually jump out - like when the plane begins its jumprun and you start to leave its comfortable seat or floor. This realy beats correcting the situation in free fall... Correcting the situation in freefall - if performed in the wrong manner - can quickly deteriorate into almost or actually dying. "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

The practice of checking your handles under drogue by phisically touching always reminded me a bit of demonstrably checking the rear view mirrors of the car during a driving licence test (i.e. in the Netherlands, if the examinator doesn't SEE you move your head towards the rear view mirrors before driving off you tend to fail the test - so every driving instructor trains all his students to move their head towards them mirrors whereas licenced drivers after a while just look in the mirrors) Since most 'meat haulers' you see on youtube are actually at work they don't bother to demonstrate anyone that the possibility of floating handles and the merit of finding out about it early in the jump are an integral part of their 'situational awareness' But that doesn't mean it isn't. Just my $ 0,02 "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Don't think so. looks like the youtube account thingy is owned by the guy up front, the one with his own definition of 'Arch you Maggot' So even if this tandemjump was questionable in planning and execution (Camera point of view? You gotta be kidding me!), it is HIS proof of true heroism on youtube. Then again, one could complain about the music...

Obviously. After all, he lived to tell the tale

Nah, excellent tracking technique... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...