LukeH

i choose the the PC size based on intended delay, regardless of acrobatics or not and handheld or stowed. maybe i'm missing something... i also don't get why you would not go stowed for the flat and stable jump if you are prepared to to go stowed for the acrobatic jump..... (i know you need to for the arco that's not my point) BTW walking away from a jump un-injured is very cool edited to add... for a Velco rig i'd probably use a larger PC than for a pin rig if it was a

yo sam, i'm so confused.... there are two yellow ones!! what colours did you get?

I guess you are still only listening to what you want to hear. it's true that twists on an elliptical canopy have a higher chance of turning into a Malfunction than on a non-elliptical canopy. this is true whether you are wearing a wingsuit or not. the problem with the wingsuit is that you may be more likely to have a poor body position at pull time until you get used to the suit, and you can't grab your risers without doing anything (unless you are jumping an Access or Prodigy), so you may be a little slower to take corrective action it sounds like you would have been able to stop the dive if you have been straight on the toggles rather than faffing around with the zipper on an unfamiliar suit. i think that if you are familiar with a canopies opening characteristics, and are familiar with deploying in a wingsuit your chances of having a malfunction are fairly similar with or without the wingsuit. YMMV. change your canopy if you like, but you'll be doing yourself a much better service if you address the other issues first

a) How can you be sure you have horizontal separation if you aren't looking where you are going? b) Vertical separation is worthless in terms of safety. c) I assume you are practising for Max glide, but it doesn't take much to check where you are headed every now and again. You can't hold max glide all the way down to 3k anyway, so it would be safer to continue flying after 6k (even if it's fairly relaxed flying) and have a look at where the rest of the load is.

your canopy choice is the least of your problems. glad it all worked out for you but you really should have known better with the number of jumps you have. hard housings are a no brainer. as for all of the other preventable issues... i guess you were having a bad day - glad it didn't kill anyone (including you). plenty of other people have made similar mistakes, some didn't get so lucky. there really is no excuse for you not learning from the mistake that others have made.

interesting idea. however using a pressurised gas brings it's own problems because the air pressure we travel through varies from say 100 kPa to 50kPa. but perhaps some sort of mechanical arm support would help take the pressure off the shoulders....

hey fido, where did you get that from?

good argument....... "a guy i met one time told me he knew someone who's dogs cousin might have had a problem with a Neptune." thanks for pointing out to me that this wouldn't be a good basis to form an opinion, maybe i'll go ask my friends that actually own Neptunes..... you know the ones i told you about already! if you have a Neptune and are happy with it or are happy to live with/work around the quirks then good for you. i don't doubt there are many people in the same situation. however it is a fact that the majority of people that i know that own a neptune and i have asked - think they are great when they work, but find them to be very unreliable. it is on this basis that i have decided not to spend $250 on one. i laud Alti-2 for constantly updating the software, but about 3 years POST launch they shouldn't be still promising to fix long standing bugs!

Nope I haven't tried one, I'm not going to spend $250 to try it when i've heard predominantly bad stories. I'm talking about real experiences of people that I know very well that actually own Neptunes, in addition to various other people that I have met but don't know well. It's a good enough base for me. If everyone i knew than owned any product have bad experiences i would be highly unlikely to buy that product to see for myself, i don't think it's that crazy.

Sam, You are such a killjoy! He is clearly taking safety seriously he's wearing shades afterall. Have you any idea how harmful UV rays are!! Looks to me that he has watched Jebs videos too much. C-ya

i sold my ProTrack over two years ago with the plan of buying a Neptune (it sounded great at the time). then I started hearing about all of the problems they were having so I decided to hold off until they got the problems sorted out (i'm still freefall computerless). i know many people with Neptunes and they all have had or continue to have problems. there are a few people that i don't know that claim they are the best thing since sliced bread but they are far out numbered by the people with problems. i wonder how many of the people with nothing but good things to say are sponsored by Alti-2... i travel quite a bit, and on nearly every DZ i've been too, people crack jokes about how useless their Neptunes are! the usually response seems to be put in new batteries and the latest software with the latest bugs... er bug fixes. well i've been hearing for 2 years "yes we have had problems but it's all sorted out by the latest software" . we are up to version 2.6 and it's still not reliable. what a disaster!

I wouldn't rely on any single mehod. How many GB do you expect to need to archive every month? Hard-drives can and do fail. I'd recommnd buying a large external hard-drive and setting up a properly structured repository. Then archive that onto DVDs (perhaps more than one copy). Use quality name brand DVDRs and store then in a cool dark place. Replace the DVDRs in 5 years by whatever the current technology is, probably HD-DVDRs. For really important pictures you could look into online storage. Multiple HDs in RAID array may be a good idea too, it depends how important the pictures are to you. C-ya

Nick, No need to play the persecuted guy here. I have no doubt that there was nil chance of you interfering with the Chopper. Perhaps the chopper pilot and crew thought that seeing you jump was totally rad. but they would have had no idea who was jumping or what their experience was, it could have been another shmuck that was going to pound in anywhere - like had been happening all week. The busted up dude has a point. I think it would be a good idea in future for jumpers to wait until the chopper has left the scene before re-commencing jumping. It's not much to ask. Perhaps not all chopper pilots are as cool at this guy, perhaps some of them would become a little uneasy by parachutes in the air 'near' them. Let's cut them some slack, it could be me or you that they are saving next time.

log book...nope gear tracking...no i only have 1 rig Google Earth 3D track displays...yes but my app does this. Analysis of jump profiles from Neptune/protrac...no i don't own freefall computer, if i did i would buy it for this alone. export functions etc.... my app exports in all formats i want(KML, GPX,SRT, CSV) i have no doubt that Paralog is a great piece of software and great value. i haven't used Paralog, but understand that the GPS features are a recent enhancement and not the primary purpose of the application. i also don't like the fact that to use multiple devices you must pay additional fees. i have some spare time and could use brushing up my programming skills, so for now i'm going to tinker with the app i have already created. i'll look at paralog at some stage and would switch to it if the features i'm interested in are too much hassle for me to develop myself. can Paralog take a GPS file, detect multiple jumps and separate out the WS and Canopy flights automatically? no, the GPS came with software that can do that. i want the software to detect multiple jumps and extract only that data (ditching all of the aircraft and post landing data), then i want it to process the data and add information such as vertical & horizontal speed, glide ratio etc. and then have the option to save all of this in the various file types i've already listed. that would be great, i've found quite a few, but i would be interested in seeing what else is out there. however i don't what to have a lot of different apps in the work flow, thats the original problem that i found. now i have 1 app to process the data into various forms and use CompeGPS Air, Google Earth or Excel to view the output, depending on what i want to do with it.

I'm using the Earthmate Bluelogger http://www.earthmate.com/prod_bluelogger.asp is the XML format GPX or a bespoke Garmin structure?

i started logging flights with a GPS a while ago and quickly found that managing the data was a royal pain. Paralog sounds like it may be good, but I don't really want to pay for it just to look at GPS data so i haven't tried it. I've found various useful applications for displaying, manipulating and analysing GPS data, but still found that i have to go through way too many tedious steps to achieve fairly basic things. so i've hacked together a horrible little application to take a GPS log file, identify one or more jumps in the data and allow output to KML, GPX, CSV or SRT file. the CSV file includes glide ratio between logged points, distance covered, v-speed h-speed etc. it is quite basic and probably quite buggy. it is working ok for my purposes but i don't have the time to test it fully. if anyone with a little experience in looking at WS GPS data logs is interested in giving it a try.. PM me. It is for Windows only, and currently only accepts GPL log files (as that is what my GPS uses) you can convert data to GPL format using GPSBabel if you are using some other format.

interesting point, by that rational is doing 4way RW in camera suits a better idea than regular RW suits? ***not having a go at you*** just making a point P.S. not sure if you were referring to me but i never said it was stupid. i reluctantly sold my GTi and Prodigy recently and have been trying to learn to fly my V1. if there is any flocking going on i'll be there in the V1. however i didn't buy the V1 for this purpose. if i was buying a suit primarily for skydiving (and i will be soon) i'd buy a Phantom or Acro. I don't know if you have ever tried the Phantom but it has phenomnial range and is easier to fly maxed out especially for extended periods when you are weedy like me! i believe it would be a FAR better choice for the majority of skydivers. i've never tried one but i'd guess the Firebird is in the same league. i do say that buying a Vampire is not the best choice if it's mainly to be used for skydiving. the suit is more expensive, the mylar is a hassle to fold (minor) it is much more demanding to fly and is less maneuverable. in return for putting up with all of this you get some extra performance at the top end only when flying to the MAX, something i reckon rarely happens in flocks. the obvious question then is why do people choose it? ignorance? ego? stupidity? call it what you like. but heh i've got the highest performing suit on the market! ... oh wait... damn you robi! if you cast your mind back to z-flock 1 the GTi's were flying well below maximum and staying with the flock of mainly S3s. there were prototype prodigys in there too. at the other end of the scale i've seen people in S3 and V1 suits that couldn't stay with a flock to save their lives! (in fact i was one when i first got the V1 and was trying to stay with flocks with a slow forward speed) i'm sure you have seen the same.

you are right about the internet connection not being fast enough, it was ISDN last year with little prospect of getting broadband. there is a PC at the BASE Klubb that probably has a CD burner, and you can be sure that there will be laptops around. if you have an iPod this might be an option for you http://www.ecost.com/ecost/shop/detail.asp?dpno=299431&store=ecost&source=ECOSTCNET&srccode=cii_5766179&cpncode=08-9459533-2&adcampaign=email,ECOSTCNET

hey matt, i guess i should have used lots of sarcastic emoticons in my post, it was not meant to be taken so seriously. although my post was a reply to yours, not all of the comments were directed at you, i know you didn't ask for a Vampire with backvents. my comments apply to any suit with very large wings regardless of what it is called. i don't think large wings and aerobatics are well suited to each other for many reasons. i'm not into brand wars. however i will call a spade a spade (i literally doubled over laughing when i first read about the Impact but that is a different story.) i doubt that wind tunnel testing of non-rigid wings is worth the effort and expense in terms of performance gains. that is not to say that data from other tests can't be put to good use in the design of non-rigid wings. i really believe that sticking a guy in a tunnel in a suit and posting the pictures and video benefitted the marketing much more than the suit design. while i was poking a little fun with those comments, i don't consider it talking shit. trotting out the same suit with 2 or 3 different names does drive sales of suits to the people that have more money than sense and have to have the latest thing (good business sense) but doesn't give a good impression of their innovation WS design abilities. at the end of the day the proof is in the flying. i've heard a lot about the Vampire killing Blade, i've yet to see one or fly one. for a while i thought it was Vaporware. perhaps it is a very good suit, we shall see whenever it gets released. apologies if i offended!

i tried to look at your shutterfly gallery but it's not working. could you post some samples taken with the 100mm under canopy? thanks.

when robi designs something he designs it to be the best at what it is for. not just for hype or marketing reasons. if he just stuck the bacvk vents on it it wouldn't fly well on the back, and people would be critical because it has back vents and doesn't fly well on the back. it would raise the retail cost and be little more than a marketing gimmick. kinda like sticking body armour into a suit true, and there are obvious limitations of the human form. however when you add a state of the art wingsuit we fly a LOT better than without it. so the suit is very effective at improving the airfoil. it's not a far stretch to see how 3D Cad could be very useful in the design process, probably more useful than wind tunnel testing of non- rigid wings! but definitely not as cool or useful for marketing

why is this a good thing? personally i'd prefer to wind out the zoom to say 20mm and shoot from a little distance. or a fairly long lens and shoot from further away. what is the advantage in being so close and shooting really wide? the picture looks unnatural, which may be the effect you are going for i guess. it can be a cool effect. obviously there is benefit if you are flying IN a formation so you can't use a longer lens. BTW i use a Canon EFS 10-22

you can't just stick back inlets onto the existing wing design. the shape of the wing must be altered to give a compromise between the best shape for belly to earth and back to earth. then the wing is no longer the maximum glide machine. the mylar ribs would also need to change, probably reducing their effectiveness. you end up with an expensive suit that doesn't have maximum performance, is difficult to aerobatically fly because of the large wing area, and very difficuly for your fellow flockers to keep up with when you fly on your back because you can't bend your knees! if you want a max performance suit buy the warbird - V2, if you want a good aerobatic suit buy the Acro. if you want a middle of the road, jack of all trades, try the Phantom with back inlets. if you want to have your cake, eat it and get jam on top... keep dreaming. many skydivers buy the V1/V2 just so they can be seen to have the 'BEST' suit, then they fly it mainly in flocks at a GR of

why are you using a PC that big? did you purposely go for that size or did you just happen to have one lying around? i use the standard PC that came with my Javelin but got the bridle extended to 3m from pin to PC. I also pack gromet up. for base jumping i use a vented 36" ZP with large hold mesh.

http://www.phoenix-fly.com/products/wingsuit_Phantom.htm or http://www.phoenix-fly.com/products/wingsuit_Acro.htm