LukeH

If you paid for that software - ask for your money back. 1.8m x 1.5m is 2.7m^2 and that's if you are a flying rectangle, the reality is there is less wing. 2 to 2.5m^2 is a more realistic number. Not close to 10 or even to 4.

The main driver for most of the shit is the continual barrage of false claims and neglect of safety from one manufacturer and their related vested interests, sponsored flyers etc. Others feel compelled to speak out about these false claims and safety concerns and an argument ensues. This is called 'brand wars' by some people to disguise it, but in fact it's got nothing to do with brand. Good for you if you've risen above!

Registering an anonymous account to post an attack on a jumper just to defend a product is pretty low, especially when most of what you posted is inaccurate. Why not identify yourself and stand over what you say? Some very experienced WS base jumpers have a different view here: http://www.basejumper.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=2948105;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25; I suggest you go over there and explain to James and Matt how wrong they are.

The benefits of Flysight over other GPS loggers as listed in the other thread... The main advantages of Flysight (other than the tone indication) are: 1) The chipset used (u-blox 6) is one of the most recent and best for our application. It can track lots of Sats, has fast acquire time and is very sensitive. 2) The methods used by Flysight to calculate various speeds are much more accurate than many other loggers as it's based on Doppler shift rather than lat/lon change. 3) The GPS model is set to Aviation out of the box which works better with the kind of data we get, it can be changed easily. 4) It can log data at up to 5hz, without any hacks. 5) Accuracy data is also recorded in the logs, so Paralog can filter the data recorded to exclude spurious data. 6) It's small, easy to mount and easy to download data from without special drivers or software. 7) The units software is open source, so people can add features to it specific to skydivers needs, e.g. navigation and competition specific modes. (BTW the navigation to a waypoint has been available for almost a year, this is not an official feature of the device but is being used by quite a few people, there is another thread all about this) You can find other GPS's with a couple of the features above in them or with complicated ways to achieve some of them, but I'm not aware of any other GPS that offers all of the above for a similar cost. When you add the ability to give audible indications is makes it a no-brainer if you are looking for a GPS for skydiving. Specific to Wintec WBT-201 items 1,2,4 & 5 apply. The Wintec would never connect by USB for me so I had to use Bluetooth, usb is quicker and easier for me. I think there is a hack for item 3 on the Wintec but I'm not sure (requires extra software and fiddling with it). If you don't have to spend $250 for a Flysight, Michael has made the schematic freely available. Head to RadioShack and break out your soldering iron

Did you stop following the other thread? It seems more likely that the issues encountered at the US comp were related to GPS jamming than a problem with the unit. Jamming is more common than you might think. GPS signal is very weak and easy to interfere with. There was an airport somewhere who's state of the art auto landing system used to go crazy a couple of times a day. It turned out to be a truck with a jammer installed to kill it's own GPS tracker that passed by on the highway! Another famous incident was when cell phone towers and atms in some costal city all stoped working because a navy ship was testing a jammer nearby. (Lots of things use GPS as an assurate time source) Did anyone ask the pilots on the day if they were having any problems with GPS? I've used the Wintec WBT-201 until mine stopped working. I bought a FlySight as soon as it was released and have been using it since, it's far superior.

GPS jamming does happen in Europe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-15242835 Don't know where you can find out in advance. Maybe sign up to a few sea fishing forums!

Various tweeks have been added since version 2. Some aparantly with significant performance improvement. Rather than do an Apple\Birdman on it, relaunch a new model every year and try and get everyone to upgrade, they just updated the production. They are always testing new stuff, but only release a new version when it's ready, not based on some arbritary amount of time since the last one.

Hi Scott, I wrote the software that can give directions to a waypoint, however I have no commercial involvment with FlySight. Micheal made the unit's software freely available, I just added a couple of things to it. I've used Flysight quite a bit, and have always found it to be very reliable. I was also part of a competition where it was used and the only problems were people forgetting to switch it on. I have also used two other units over the years, a Delorme BlueLogger and Wintec 201. The main advantages of Flysight (other than the tone indication) are: 1) The chipset used is one of the most recent, and best for our application. It can track lots of Sats, has fast aquire time, and is very sensitive. 2) The methods used by flysight to calculate various speeds are much more accurate than many other units as it's based on doppler shift rather than lat/lon change. 3) The GPS model is set to Avaition out of the box which works better with the kind of data we get, it can be canged easliy. 4) It's can log data at up to 5hz, without any hacks. 5) Accuracy data is also recorded in the logs, so Paralog can filter the data recorded to exclude suprious data. 6) It's small, easy to mount and easy to download data from without special drivers or software. 7) The units software is OpenSource, so people can add features to it specific to skydivers needs. You can find other GPS's with a couple of the features above in them or with complicated ways to achieve some of them, but I'm not aware of any other GPS that offers all of the above for a similar cost. When you add the ability to give audible indications is makes it a no-brainer if you are looking for a GPS for skydiving. There are lessons to be learned here for sure, and I'm sure the FlySight software and Paralog software will adapt to re-act better to such situations, but I doubt the result would have been better with any of the other common units.

Hi, I think there is a way to do it from a Mac, but I don't have any experience with it. A quick search found this: http://dfu-programmer.sourceforge.net/ Otherwise, you may be able to use a Virtual Machine or set up dual boot with Windows.

What was the average vertical speed before breakoff? Was the base a low experience jumper? There is a tendency in some places to put the least experienced guy as the base and have everyone else fly to them.

Navigating by the sun can work well some of the time, but can be problematic, depending on the time of day, if there are multiple layers of cloud and how sure you are of where you are dropped by the pilot. Picking a heading on exit, or taking a bearing from the plane also assumes you are where you expect to be. A couple of degrees out can put you quite a bit away from the LZ, and you may not be aware if you fly too far downwind. NOTE: FlyBlind is not intended as a substitute for visual navigation, you still need conditions that are good enough to ensure you avoid other jumpers and canopies.

Not with Flysight. There is possibly scope for someone to write a smart phone app that could do this, however it's usefullness will be limited by how well the phone's GPS works for skydiving and where it is placed. I'd guess they are ok for navigation if they had a resonably quick warm fix time. The accuracy of FlySight is more important for performance data than navigation. In real use the beeps provide quite a clear indication of direction, I'd say it's distance that is less clear, alhtough I haven't used distance much (just a couple of test jumps). I find it's not really necessary if you have accurate direction indication.

2-5% improvement when switching from "fat rig" to low profile container with low volume canopy seems reasonable. I think the question was, what % improvement could one expect to switch from low profile container with low volume canopy to suit integrated container with the same canopy. The only figures I've seem were calims of about 5%, however this seems excessive. The improvement is probably not worth the other drawbacks of such a design for people who have to pay for their own gear. Another interesting question is how much does each gopro reduce performance? Do 3-4 gopros take more performance than is gained by integrated containers?

The quality of many skydivers with 200 jump today seems lower than it was 10 years ago. The way new skydivers approach wingsuiting today is often much less considered than those of the early years because wingsuits are more common and less scary. The size of the wings is generally bigger and it's easier to get your hands on a suit. While some people would be fine with your recommendation, some people would not. Hitting the tail could be bad for them and others, flying over the jump run, etc etc.. There are enough people around to give proper advice these days, it's not necessary to learn from their own mistakes.

Hi, It doesn't do that automatically. I suggest you put a text file on the device with a list of DZs containing Name, Lat, Lon and landing Elevation for each. It's just a single copy and paste of the DZ setting to the Config.txt file before visiting a different DZ, but will require access to a PC to make that change.

It might for you, because you appear to be on version 1.0 Version 1.1 added the option to use SAS and chirp. You can check which version you have by renaming your Config.Txt file to something like oldConfig.txt and turning your device on for a few seconds. A new config file will be created with the version at the top of it. Leaving the Max_Dist set to zero is not recommended as a long term solution. Setting it to about 10,000 is a safety measure to prevent you from being directed to an incorrect/invalid location. It's so easy to update I'd recommend installing the latest.

I think this problem is now fixed. Latest version is 1.1e and can be downloaded from this link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13230955/Main.hex

The region that seems to have this problem is further west than 90W and further East than 90E. In the US, that would be anywhere west of about Lake Michigan. If you want to use the direction indication (Mode 5) in this area set the Max_Dist value to 0 and do not use Mode 6. Hopefully it'll be fixed soon.

You can't put a decimal point in the Lat / Lon. Leave the decimal point out, and make sure you have 7 dights that would normally be to the right of the decimal point e.g. 460609520 . If you Longitude is West, then it should have a minus sign in front of it. There is also a know issue in some areas (North America) with the distance calculation. So if everything else is correct and you are getting no tones, set the Max_Dist = 0.

It shouldn't take much effort. Just add a new field to the config file and if it's present use that instead of working out the heading to the destination Lat\Lon. Depending on how accurately you want to follow the heading you may need to adjust the tone settings as it's silent if you are +/- 5 degrees.

Some were killed. Is there an acceptable number of needless fatalities or near misses? For me the acceptable number is 0 so what has gone heretofore just wasn't good enough. How many more fatalities do you think should be ignored before someone tries to improve the standard of instruction?

You shouldn't need to do anything else. However there does appear to be a bug in the distance calculation when used in parts of North America (and possibly other places). I won't be able to look into that until next week, so in the mean time set the Max distance to destination = 0. Testing on the ground is strongly recommended. You'll need to tweak a few other settings like min vertical speed for tone when testing on the ground.

I was too busy looking for the upward flying to enjoy it. Pity.

Straw man fallacy No evidence of upward flying in this video or GPS plot. It doesn't even look likely. At this stage with such a litany of grossly false claims you really should be sure of your data before making more. Unless misleading your potential customers is the point?

The future isn't just add as much surface area as possible! Progress will require thinking outside the box, I think the video itself shows that this is not a problem. Flights in this video are possible with the drag of a chest strap, just imagine what's possible when they wake up and address this pressing issue!