FFlyer

Well done bro. Keep it up. Give me a shout if you're keen to do a jump at JSC sometime.

Anyone know if this is available yet? Or when it will be?

VFS4way FTW! What a great discipline. Here's hoping it continues to grow. Well done to the French. Arsenal looked unbeatable for a few years.

Just thought id add to this thread with the email response I got regarding the Vigil fires.

Yup. My wife just put brand new batteries into her Optima a few weeks ago and it immediatly showed as only having 1 bar when we switched it on. Then the next week we switched it on and it showed 50% battery. So who knows? Maybe the batteries are not of a very good quality or maybe they had been sitting in the store for months before we got them. Not sure if that would make a difference.

Yup, I agree as others have said. The original skydivingmovies.com just had a simplicity to it that made it work. Upload high quality files, categorise them, let everyone download those same high quality files, and then you have the file on your computer to watch whenever you want. I honestly dont like the idea of having to stream videos everytime I want to watch something. It's great to see people trying to make a good solution though. Keep up the good work.

Any idea when this is going to be available? COTC1 was awesome, im sure the 2nd installment will be too.

What online store si the headdown vid available from? I looked on paragear, square 1 and skydiveu and couldn't find it anywhere.

WOW! Talk about not sticking to the original topic. This thread is now 100% completely different to what the OP intended it to be. Advice to the OP: Maybe post a new thread with a different thread title so that those of us who would like to partipate in that thread instead of this mess of a thread can do so.

Cool thanks for the replies. I lived in London for about 18months back in 2002. I did a bit of skydiving at Headcorn dropzone. I WILL NOT be going back there again. The attitude and atmosphere is terrible. I have heard countless people say the same thing both in person and on here, so im not the only one to have had a bad experience. But thanks for the ideas about the other dropzones. Ill look them up online to find out a bit more detail.

Hey there, What dropzones exist around the Essex region of England? Within about 2 hours drive / train? Are there any big and busy dropzones around that area, particularly with a good freefly scene? Also, where are the Bedford and Airkix tunnels located? Are those within a reasonable distance from Essex? I know the weather in the UK is generally pretty terrible but what is the skydiving like year round with dropzones near to Essex? My geography of the UK in general is really cr@p. thanks!

hmmm, howabout Babylon? Heard of them before? Go onto the babylon website and look in their media section where there are pics of them on jumps. It's not that you cant launch certain exits without grippers, it's that grippers help. I doubt teams like Babylon would use them if they didn't have a benefit (specifically to freeflying) To each their own. We're moving away from the OP's actual question though. So feel free to pm me if you would like me to send you links to vids and pics showing freefly teams using grippers.

Freefly grippers on freefly suits are most definitly for taking grips while freeflying. Competition moves like the horizontal compressed, vertical compressed and brouette all lend themselves to using leg grippers. Especially when launching those moves from the door. That's not to say you have to use them, but those moves most definitly lend themselves to the use of grippers. But I guess if you've never competed then you probably wouldn't know that.

Hey there, Maybe this is an impossible question to answer, but how long do you think the sony cx100 will still be available for (when buying new that is). I've got my eye on this camera but dont have the spare cash to get it just yet. Also, can anyone recommend a good European online store to get this camera for a good deal? Ill be in Estonia (Tallinn) and Hungary (Budapest) in a couple months and im sure ill be able to buy it cheaper there than what I can here. The cheapest i've been able to find it here is around $730 which is way more than what I think it goes for in other countries. It might even be cheaper ordering it online from some european website and getting it shipped to Budapest or Tallinn while im there. Unless anyone here knows of a good place to look for electronics over there? thanks, cheers.

What I liked about skydivingmovies.com was that you could download the movies and watch them later. Personally I think whichever site is going to 'take over' from skydivingmovies.com needs to not only be a 'tube' type site but also allow for downloading of the movies. Not all of us have unlimited bandwidth to just stream movies whenever we want. So with that in mind it's much better to be able to download a movie and then watch it whenever you want.

Wow what a truely pathetic topic. I had to really put myself in your shoes to try and figure out what the huge issue was,...but even now I cant figure it out. It's just not that big of a deal, not in the slightest. Instead of getting what you ordered, you got much more than what you ordered. You contacted them and they apologised, then sorted out a way to get the product returned and cover all the costs involved. Plus they let you cut the roll instead of sending it back and waiting for the right length to be sent. That was really nice of them id say. I really fail to see the issue here other than they didn't apologise 3 times over to you (and thank you). Just to add, i've never had anything but good service from paragear. In fact I ordered a dvd from them a few months ago and it arrived scratched so it only played about half of the video. I contacted them and they apologised once (that is all that is needed, I dont need to be gushed over), and they promptly sent me another copy at their own cost. Keep in mind I live in South Africa so sending me something again at their own cost is a significant thing to do. Anyway, lame thread. Lame complaint.

It's true that 'nearly' every question about any skydiving related topic has probably already been asked on dropzone.com. So there is a lot to be found by searching, but that definitly doesn't mean people shouldn't ask a question just because it's been asked before. Then as someone has already pointed out, you may as well shut down this site and have it purely here for reference sake so people can search without any conversation going on. New people come into the sport all the time and the sport progresses. A question that has been asked before may get different responses each time it gets asked because different people are replying, different experiences are being conveyed, different technology is being used, and all in a sport that grows and changes constantly. Hence the need to re-ask previous questions. Maybe what would be more helpful is to tell the person to use the search function as well as giving your opinion on the subject so something constructive is added. Just my 2c Anyway, back to the OP's question. Even though im a freeflyer and generally only use an open faced helmet I agree with what others have said in that both have their pro's and con's. Open face helmets often provide more visability and a better field of view. Full faced helmets on the other hand may provide slightly better protection from a possible kick to the face on fs jumps (come to think of it that can happen of freefly jumps from time to time to ). They're also quiter (not sure if that's a good or bad thing?) In my opinion it's better for new jumpers to use open face helmets because coaches are able to read more from their expressions. This is true for coaches wearing open face helmets too imo because of how much can get communicated back and forth in the sky through nothing more than a persons expression or lip synching. Perhaps you could ask around to borrow one of each type to see for yourself which you like best. Obviously it wont fit as well as one made for you, but it will at least give you an idea of the two styles.

That's exactly the sort of potential problem the ENT specialist I went to was referring to. Defintly not a good idea to wear ear plugs on the way down. If anyone does it safely on a regular basis then just count yourself lucky,...but still very much at risk of it hapenning at some point. If you just think of it logically, why would you want to block off your ears ability to easily and naturally clear themselves while in freefall? Sure you can unblock them under canopy by conciously thinking about doing it, but you definitly dont do that in freefall so you end up having a huge change in pressure in a very short amount of time without your ears clearing themselves. If it's an issue of protecting your ears from the noise, then using them in the plane is a great idea, but in freefall just take them out and having your helmet on will aid in reducing the noise.

I ruptured both ear drums on a skydive about 3 years back. One ear if I recall right is what they call a level 1 rupture, and the other was a level 3 (quite bad apparently. I was lucky it didn't burst). Hurt like hell and I couldn't hear for a couple days. I was out of skydiving for 2 months because of it. Anyway, I went to an ENT specialist after that to get treated and he basically said that wearing ear plugs on the way up in the plane is ok because you can still unblock your ears when you want to. But you should never jump with earplugs in because there's a very good chance your ears wont equalize during freefall. Your ears need free flowing air to equalise and the ear plugs prevent this. That means a drop in altitude from 13000ft to 3000ft (or whatever altitude you jump at) in under 60 seconds, during which time the pressure build up in your ears isn't released. So basically he said wear ear plugs in the plane on the way up if you want but keeping them in during freefall is a bad idea.

The problem I think is that it takes huge skill to even do the most basic of VFS jumps (and normal freefly), whereas to do a 4way belly jump,...well you can do that with 100 jumps. That's not to say 4way belly doesn't require skill to get good at, because it certainly does. But for example to be able to score 10 points on a VFS 4 way jump requires far more skill than to be able to turn 10 points on a belly 4way jump. So the problem I see is that a lot of freeflyers (and belly flyers) would love to take part in VFS4way but simply dont have the skill yet. What I think would help is to have a 2way VFS competition format that has no artistic element to it. So instead of having your normal 2 speed rounds and 5 artistic rounds, you instead have all 7 being speed rounds. I think that would appeal to a lot of freeflyers who are aiming to one day do VFS4way and who like being scored more objectivly than the current artistic format. Having a 2way purely speed freefly competition would also be a great stepping stone towards VFS4way in my opinion. I think there's still a definite place for the artistic side and that shouldn't be completly lost, but I think there are a lot of people out there who have a competition 4way belly mind set who would like to compete in freefly,...but who dont like the artistic and very subjective judging criterea. So getting to the point, I dont think freeflying is dying off, I just think that it takes a lot longer to get good at than what belly does, esspecially with VFS4way which so many people would love to do but who just dont have the skill yet. I think a purely speed based 2way VFS competition with no artistic component would go a long way both in getting more skydivers involved in competitive freeflying as well as being a stepping stone to VFS4way. Well that's what I think anyway.

Awesome stuff. Welll done!

I definitly agree with the previous posts mentioning saving up and banging out all your jumps in a short period of time to get your A. It might take you a little longer to do your next jump, but then you'll have your A in no time and you can jump anywhere you want. There are several big dropzones around which are open every day of the week where getting your A in a week will be possible. Make sure you go to a place that has farely good weather over the time you're there since you will have such a short period of time to get everything done. Somewhere like Skydive Arizona (Eloy) would be a good option. Good luck! And welcome

Sweet! I've just gotten back from the post office and my copy arrived this morning. Now im counting the hours till after work to watch it

I've just ordered "Children of the Corn" which has footage from the 69way, project horizon etc. It hasn't arrived yet so I cant tell you if it's any good. It sounds like it's going to be similar to the Remedy (which is a kick ass dvd if you like big way sequential freefly stuff!!)

I haven't bought anything from the classifieds but I have sold quite a lot. I also have friends who have purchased using the classifieds without a problem. Just try and get as much info as you can from the seller. Make sure they give you serial numbers so you can check with the manufacturers if the gear has been reported stolen. If they are not willing to provide you with serial numbers, or any other info you request id be wary. I would also check how long they've been a member on dz.com and read through their posts. If they're a long time poster you can get a feeling for if they're legit or not. If they're someone who has never posted anything and has only been a member for a week I would also be wary.