GraficO

I have been discussing cameras with a few folks and by looking at the spec on the Sony 330... it appears that the camera might be a good investment. Anyone jump one that can give some additonal feedback? Much appreciated GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

Lew Lew... Your Samurai 136 is heading your way.... GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

hell I bought 2 at WFFC and they arrived without ANY software installed on them at all... had to be sent back and I got them 3 weeks after I got back home. Needless to say I got rid of them... I wasn't pleased at all... the really fun part is when I got a bill for shipping them to me at home. Reluctantly I paid it as it was in no way shape or form Aerostore's fault. Been thinking about sending Alti-2 the bill for the shipping... comments? GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

Thank you... nice knowing that a shirt/saying I came up with gets a little attention GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

Hell Eddie... the whole video crew is still waiting for ours! See ya in 2004... and BTW... thanks for trusting me to go on your tandem with WFFC's girlfriend in a video slot... I thought it was kinda funny seeing as though the producer of the WFFC Official video got questioned if I was capable. Admire your integrity man.... fly with ya any day! GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

I like those and I like the Cmax "Designer" shoes... I have been jumping a pair of Airwalk skate shoes for quite awhile.... or at least until my accident last February. While I was down... I went searching for a Half-Top basketball shoe and found some Reeboks on sale at Just For Feet... I wanted to have more ankle support but not so much that it impaired flexing like full-on high-tops.... but more than just a skate sneaker... and certainly not as heavy as a hiking or military boot. The reeboks aren't heavy, good ankle support, BLACK, and the tread isn't so harsh that I can slide on landing if I need to and don't get too grabby. The tread is grippy enough to stay on the camera step as well... A mid or half-top B-Ball shoe would be my suggestion. GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

There ya go Bonnie! GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

from an inside the industry point-of-view, sponsorships in our small market regardless of level are quite unique. Because we have a small population of skydivers, sponsorships run rampant in our industry. Seems like every other person on the DZ "knows a guy" at XXX Company and can get you a deal on YYY for ZZZ or if you have either been around long enough and visible enough OR if you are talented enough you can get just about anything you want. Many times over I have been listening to my clients rail about how they dumped a chunk of money/product into a team or a indivual as a sponsor and got little or nothing in return. Many times teams put together decent sponsorship packages that they present to companies asking for some level of sponsorship. They boast their talents, jump numbers, previous competitions, ratings and previous teams... that is all fine and good except they usually don't follow through with what they started. I have been approached by countless teams and individuals about sponsorship for various entities over the years. They come on strong in the beginning and cool off a little bit while training for nationals or worlds or some other competition or event and even though they promise to keep the team going and continue training after their specified competiton final they dissappear only to reappear with another team the next spring. What advantage do the sponsors get in that? What is your goal and how much are you willing to give by getting a sponsorship deal? GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

and he even looks good in it! GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

Complacency in anything extreme will eventually kill you. Glad you walked out of it ok. GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

Javelins are great rigs... well worth the wait if you really want one. Don't cancel your order though... you've waited this long. GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

I have no hands in SHITE... just some really cool things happening around WFFC! But I will take it as a compliment!

As a former Instructor/Jumpmaster one of the things that I ran into with students that had a slow turn had nothing to do with their arms and legs. Had nothing to do with how relaxed they were and it only showed up in video... they had one hip lower than the other one. I saw this several times especially with women... but I did see it with men as well. The rest of their body was symetrical but with one hip cocked, it changes the presentation surface of the body just enough that it can induce a slow turn. On your next tunnel jaunt, you may want to mention that as something for your tunnel master to look for as well. Something to think about... GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

Just so you know... the new Time-Out is a far cry from the old ones. The new ones aren't as accurate and have different technology in them. Also the newer Time-Out is definitely not as loud... make sure that if you are going to get the Time-Out make sure it's one of the originals and not a new one or a Time-Out 2000. Those 2 models are worthless. My 2 cents... the comment about buying the Time-Out now and getting a Pro-Track later to have a backup audible is a good idea in my opinion. For at least a year, avoid the Neptune... waaay too many bugs and technology issues. GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

Valentine's weekend 2003 Last jump of the day doing 2-way wing-suit I came in the exact same way, same winds, same direction as the previous 3 jumps I made that day... same amount of smash for a swoop... just the last one was a little different. Overall my landing wasn't anything spectacular... 110 degree front riser to final. Scooted across the ground on my Samurai 136 like normal but the first step was a doozie. I put my right foot down first thinking that this was going to be a normal run-out and I felt something go. 5 or 6 more steps and the right foot felt "squishy". I stopped and stood there knowing something was not right. No cartwheels, cloud of dust and certainly no high-ho-Silver! I sat down and drank a beer as it was sunset load and then got help back to the van and the DZ thinking that my next move was going to be to the emergency room. As it turns out I had completely crushed my right heel (calcaneous)... 9 screws and a plate later I thought I was on the road to recovery but I developed a staph infection. After 3 months of trying to treat it with oral antibiotics it was decided that I needed to take the next step and go through a ton of tests to decipher if it was in the bone or not. Test results came back that the staph had infected the bone severely and the only option was to go in surgically and remove the hardware. While the foot was open, also scrape off all the damaged bone/tissue from the staph and hopefully it wouldn't be so bad that the foot would have to be amputated. The ortho surgeon went in and lucky for me it wasn't bad that they would have to take the foot. Even after scraping of and cleaning all the areas that were infected I would still have to do daily IV antibiotics for 6+ weeks.... then rehab... then physical therapy... and hopefully back to jumping. The short of it is that I spent February through July doing various daily and weekly therapies, surgeries, pills, needles, tests, etc.... and my first jump back was at WFFC. I made 3 at the convention under a huge Triathlon. As of today I only have made 30 jumps this year... as compared to my normal 150-250. I still can't walk quite normal because the strength isn't fully recovered and PT has given me a good deal of my range of motion back. I have orthodic inserts in my shoes and slowly getting back to being somewhat normal now. Freek accidents suck…. GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

My bad... I didn't type out my complete thought... what I meant to say was have a disbelieving whuffo or jumper email Warren Miller... Anyone I've shown that clip to immediately asked me if it was possible. Seeing other footage of Loic and some stuff that Deug did way back... hell yeah it's possible. GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

Holt is one of the people I most admire in this world. He got me into skydiving.. we went to JM school together, partied like hell and still made it through all of the hard times with smirks on our faces. Holt takes teaching students very seriously and he's extremely good at it. He is definately an asset to The Point and we certainly miss his expertise here in NM. Hell... I was the best man at his wedding and we still like each other. Which reminds me... I need to call him. Have a great holiday and the next time you see him... ask him this... "Who are the hillbilly angels?" and you'll get another great story... GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

You are correct... it is Holt Durham... my old roommate. Jumps out at The Point now. GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

Ok... here we go... "GRIP" As fledgling jumpmasters, we were taught to be encouraging, supportive and informative… so when we had a student that needed help or was struggling to accomplish a certain task we all did whatever was necessary to help the student through it. Such was the scenario with a young airman named Steve. Steve was an "almost"… He was "almost" as good looking as a low-end Tom Cruise, "almost" as sharp a dresser as stand-in for Gary Cooper, drove a car that was "almost" a sports car and in the end Steve was "almost" a skydiver. It was obvious that when he walked onto the DZ he was there to prove something… mostly to prove something to himself. The way he carried himself, it was obvious that this guy was practically scared of his own skinny shadow and that if he drove the right car, and wore the same clothes as Tom Cruise in Top Gun and did all the cool things like "Mav" he might even be able to find himself a girl like Kelly McGillis. Therefore… he "almost" had a clue… Let's stop here and do a bit of background that will come into play later. Our little DZ in Eastern New Mexico was backed by two people, Glenn (a leather faced skydiving instructor from the mid-west with 6 old Wonderhogs and a student radio system) and Bill (he owned 4 newer student rigs, the airplane and was the pilot). Bill and Glenn would show up at the small airport and we all would get together and skydive on the weekends using their gear because at that time we were poor college students and we didn't have our own. The only way we were able to pay for our jumps was jump-mastering students and packing rigs. Bill was a retired Air Force type and resembled a version of Archie Bunker. The things that set Bill apart from Archie was that he was even tempered, very quiet, not so opinionated and had super thick glasses for a slight impairment to his vision that caused him to blink incessantly… hence we called him "Blinky". Other than those things… he looked just like Archie. Now back to our story… Steve showed up to the hangar we were using and slipped his Ray-Ban aviator shades down onto his nose as he rose out of his Saturn wearing a knockoff vintage bomber jacket and strolled over to us pretending to be cool and said "Hi, I'm Steve and I want to make one of those parachute jumps." It was a slow day and Glenn sat him down and started teaching him immediately. The rest of us, Gary, Holt and myself sat in and helped teach young Steve about making his "parachute jump". After 6 or so hours of classes, hanging harness training, PLFs in the weeds off the tailgate of Glenn's S-10 pickup… Steve was "ready". Now Steve's little frame was wearing a beat up old Pro-Tec, a military surplus olive green flightsuit and this HUGE rust and tan colored Wonderhog that seemed to swallow him, topped off with a pair of Kroops goggles. He looked like something right out of the Kevin Costner flick "Fandango"… he even had the "What the f&@# am I doing?!" displaced look on his face as he, Gary and 3 other students waddled over to the airplane. Gary decided that the best thing for this kid was to send him out first because he was the smallest, the most nervous and obviously by his gait to the airplane… the most uncomfortable one there. After a quick radio check, they loaded the 206 we had at the time with Blinky at the helm, 3 students in the back, Gary in the JM position and poor Steve in the "#1 slot". Holt was designated the radio guy and off they went down the runway. About 10 minutes later Blinky announced that they were 5 minutes out and as was relayed to me later Gary got Steve ready and hooked up his static-line. Gary spotted the plane over the big grassy landing field and called "DOOR!!!" Gary then proceeded to give his exit commands to Steve… "Put your feet out and stop!"… and Steve did it. Gary then barked "All the way out!" pointing towards the abyss that had have been closing around Steve like a vice. Steve sat there for a minute and then shook his head briskly "NUH UH"…"NUH UH"…"NUH UH". At this point Gary knew trying to get him any further out was going to be impossible. Steve was petrified. So Gary closed the door, told Blinky to make a long go-around and proceeded to figure out how to move Steve from the #1 position back to the back with a full load of students and get the next jumper into position to go. Anyone who has ever jumped a small Cessna knows that there isn't much room left for anything larger than a shoe horn. Gary eventually got everyone in the right place but said it was like those little picture puzzles with one square missing and you have to line them all up. The other 3 students all jumped successfully and Gary had to ride the plane down with Steve and Blinky… not something he liked to do. They taxied up to the hanger and without a word, Steve got out, dropped his gear and for all practical purposes sprinted toward his car and took off… embarrassed. STRIKE TWO The next weekend we were surprised to see Steve's Saturn pull up to the hangar. Blinky almost spit out his coffee. In that "I'm cool" strut of his he sundered up to the hangar pushed his Ray-Ban Aviators up onto his head and said "Ok… I'm ready to do it this time." Being the eager jumpmasters that we were, we gave him a slue of encouragement, went over the basic safety procedures, got him set up with all his gear, and he, 3 more students and Holt as jumpmaster headed for the plane. Thinking that he wouldn't do the same thing twice in a row Holt put him in #1 slot again and away they went. That was a mistake. To keep a long story short, Steve did exactly the same thing he did to Gary… froze in the door shaking his head like a wet dog mumbling the same "NUH UH" and everyone had to play puzzle again to get him to the back and another student up into #1 position. Needless to say Holt wasn't too crazy about riding the plane down with Steve… The big difference this time was that he didn't bolt to the car and take off. He was extremely apologetic and vowed he would make his "parachute jump" that day. Gary, Holt and I then decided that we would have to play cheerleaders in order to get him to go. The very next load was going to be Blinky, all the jumpmasters (Gary, Holt and I) and Steve and by George he was going to do it this time. BALL ONE We all packed up the rigs from the last jumps as Steve sat there with all of his gear on… his goggles fogged over with sweat. We donned our gear and shuffled Steve to the airplane. THIS TIME, we knew that the pressure of Gary being a senior Air Force Officer, Holt as his previous jumpmaster and myself was going to give Steve the balls to make that jump so we put him in the #1 slot again. We cruised up to altitude and Gary got Steve ready and hooked up a little early in case his climb out was slow. Little did we know what an entertaining treat from several different angles we were going to get. Gary called for the door and told Steve to "Put your feet out and stop!" … Steve hesitated a moment and did what he was told. Holt, Gary and I glanced at each other briefly and small grins began to dance across our faces. Gary then barked "All the way out!" and to all of our amazement he got up and started inching out across the jump step and out onto the wing strut. All this time, Blinky was staring straight ahead without a lick of emotion on his face. Gary moved up closer to the instrument panel so that Holt and I could poke our bright, smiling faces of encouragement out the door for Steve. By this point Steve was as far out as he could go on the strut and had one foot left on the step. Gingerly he let himself dangle as he took his foot off and looked back at us meatballs geeking him in the door. Gary then commanded with a triumphant grin and a thumb jab backwards… "GO!"… the rest was like something from a comedy… Steve then briskly started shaking his head and dabbing his foot to get back on the step. Fearing that it was waaay more dangerous to bring him back inside the plane Gary turned around to Blinky was still facing forward, blinking emotionless and said "Bill! Get rid of him!" The next thing I saw was Blinky, the mild, soft spoken pilot slowly turn his head to Gary as his face turned into the same face as the evil plotting Grinch. His eyes squinted together behind his thick glasses and the most snarled, evil grin sprang from Blinky's face. Steve is still dabbing his foot and Blinky faces forward in slo-mo and starts jamming the yoke of the airplane back and forth, up and down. Poor Steve is out on the strut flailing around like a rag doll and the 3 of us are grabbing for hand holds so we don't fall out of the plane. For what seemed like forever, Steve hung on for dear life. This guy had a death grip on that strut and it didn't seem like he was ever going to let go. Eventually gravity, a 30lb. rig and being bounced around like a ping-pong ball in a mason jar took its toll and Steve safely released and opened under a great big Manta. Glenn guided him to a flawless landing by radio as we climbed to full altitude for a little 3-way "Horny Gorilla" action. STRIKE THREE… YOU'RE OUT! When we landed, we were greeted by the most ecstatic individual that ever walked the earth. Steve was on Cloud 9. "I can't believe I did it!" he said gleaming with excitement. Steve continued… "That jump was almost perfect except for the part when I fell off the strut." Gary, Holt and I nearly died laughing… Steve had completely erased the whole flailing on the wing strut scene and actually believed it! He was so excited that he wanted to go back up immediately! So we thought… "OK… he's overcome his fear and he should be ready to go"… heh… yeah right. Same scenario, him, a jumpmaster and 3 other students with him in #1 slot… he got to the door and froze and Holt had to bring him down again. Like Strike One… he got into his car and bolted. We never saw Steve again. We think he was transferred to another Air Force Base somewhere. But the true ending to the story in that after Steve or "Grip", as we now called him amongst ourselves, left we happened to look at the wing strut where he had been hanging… literally he scraped the paint off of it with his fingernails as he left… WOW… what a "Grip". In all of my jumpmastering and instructing years, I have never since had a student who went up in the plane 4 times and only jumped once. Hope the story was worth it... GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

Krishan... First thing to do is buy the bible of photography... "The Joy of Photography" That book alone will take away a ton of questions. GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

I was just informed that I miss quoted the name of the twin... twasn't a Bonanza... it was a Twin Senneca. I couldn't edit the post from before... so this will have to do. GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

I will post the "Grip" story later this evening... gotta get some work done. In the meantime... you can read this for a laugh http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=795355#795355 GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

If you're interested... I'll relay the story about "Grip"... he was another student that will remain burned into my skull... But only if ya ask nicely I should I wait a couple of days while the dust settles on the last story? GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

Sorry for the length... My Favorite Student Many years ago I was a static line instructor at a small dropzone in West Texas. One of my students was a gentleman by the name of Ira. Now Ira was a very simple military man with an average build, a stout belly, coke-bottle thick glasses and a stereotypical New York Jewish accent. Needless to say Ira wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer but come hell or high-water this man wanted to be a skydiver. He even bought an old Wonderhog student rig for himself with a HUGE 300sq ft. canopy in it. The rig was all set up for either static line (direct bag) or for rip-cord (when he got to freefalling). It always amazed me and the other jumpmasters/instructors that no matter how much training we did with Ira on the ground that as soon as he got to the door to begin his climb out he would always ask "where's the dropzone?" even though it was initially smack-dab below us. The next most amazing thing was that no matter where the actual landing site was, he would leave the plane, fly whichever direction he ended up going after deployment, get down to 500 feet and make a base leg turn and then at 250 feet he would make a turn to final. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. Keep in mind here that even if he was 90 degrees off wind line he would go the direction he was facing, make his base, and then turn to final… even if it was putting him downwind in the middle of nowhere. Knowing that Ira was going to do the same thing each and every jump, it became a challenge for all of us jumpmasters/instructors to try and guess which way his canopy was going to open and based on his normal flight pattern try to see who could get him to land closest to the target. Talk about superior spotting skills and using Zen to get this man to the spot! Since this was West Texas, there really wasn't much out there as far as obstacles to hit. Sometimes we would have the plane going downwind, 1 mile to the left of the DZ because Zen was telling us that his canopy would open in such a way that he would have a dead-on-site landing based on upper winds, ground winds and on his canopy piloting. We, as jumpmasters, loved the challenge and we usually got a lot closer than if we spotted for a normal student using normal spotting techniques. "POW! HERE!": Ira Does a Hop-N-Pop Ira finally felt he had the confidence to make his first hop-n-pop. We set up his rig for ripcord, checked and re-checked his AAD and drilled him on everything to prepare and try to get his brain engaged to what he was about to do. It was getting late in the day and Ira, 2 other students and myself took off for Ira's first hop-n-pop in our little 206. I sent the 2 students out first so that we could climb a little more and give Ira a little more breathing room, expecting that his slow demeanor was going to transfer to his first non-static line jump…. And I wanted a little more time to prepare myself if anything went wrong and he locked up or something. We climbed to about 5000 ft. and I started my normal "Ira Spotting" technique (which had to be adjusted because he was getting out 2000 ft. higher than normal). I gave him a long final and had him move to the door. Like clockwork he asked in his loud accent over the hum of the prop and open door, "Where's the dropzone?!?" I pointed straight down and said "there it is Ira!" and he happily but nervously replied "O-kay…O-kay…O-kay" moving his head with slow overemphasized nods. We went a little further, based on my "Ira-Zen-Spot" calculations and I told him "Put your feet out and stop!" and he did. "All the way out!"… and he did cautiously and slowly. At this point I was thinking that the time he spent inching out on the strut was going to kill my perfect Zen-Spot I had determined for him. Eventually he got all the way out and was hanging on the strut, belly to the prop-blast, stiffly half arched and finally looked back at me for his final command. What happens next was beyond comprehension. From that point on, everything was going on in slo-motion. He looked at me and I jammed my thumb through the air towards the tail of the plane yelling "GO!" Ira looked up, took a deep breath and in what seemed to be a millisecond, he let go, grabbed the rip-cord and basically tried to hand it to me… ALL BEFORE HE EVEN PASSED THE STEP! I had never seen ANYONE move that fast. Still in this weird slo-mo chain of events, my first thought was that the spring-loaded pilot chute was going to go over the tail and the pilot and I were going to have to bail. Lucky for us it didn't happen. Ira's chute opened exactly where in thought it was going to, he did his normal piloting and believe it or not, he ended up landing just outside the target circle in the deep grass out on the plains. Ira ended up making about 3 or 4 more jumps on a static-line after that one hop-n-pop. I never saw him again. To the best of my knowledge he and his wife ended up buying a pub in England and moving there to run it when he got out of the military. That event will be burned into my head as long as I live and I wouldn't trade it for the world. There is a moral to the story though… even when you are convinced that a student will do exactly the same thing, the same way every time… they won't. Student jumpers (AFF, IAD, SL or Tandem) never exactly do what you think they're going to do. I have said it for a very long time since I let my instructor rating lapse…"Students are like rabid badgers… why in the hell would I want to take one in a small confined space, strap it to my chest and then scare the hell out of it?" Let your mind take care of the visual there folks… enjoy! GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."

The Loic footage is part of the new Warren Miller Ski film Journey. http://www.warrenmiller.com Why don't you email Warren Miller productions directly and ask about the footage? GraficO GraficO "A Mind is a terrible thing to taste."