pilotdave

The century .55 is a little wider than the waycool .45. It might be a good choice for you, depending how close you fly. Dave

Yeah, totally worth jumping at a skyride owned DZ for that. It's totally not like you can see that EVERYWHERE. Dave

I'd recommend something different. These are just my opinions... Lose the digital altimeter and replace it with a reliable analog altimeter. Once you're comfortable that you can do alright without an altimeter, go ahead and put the digital one back on if you want. The analog altimeter will be waiting in your gear bag for your batteries to die again. Also, lose the audible. I think relying on an audible altimeter to know when to break off and when to pull is a disaster waiting to happen. Or at least a low pull waiting to happen. Audibles make people lazy about altitude awareness. They don't provide altitude awareness except when they beep. When they don't beep, you aren't altitude aware if you're relying on an audible. Relying on your eyes is great... when your eyes are trained. That takes time to develop, which is why AFF students are taught to pull if they can't read their altimeter for any reason. No altimeter = no altitude awareness... at least at first. If you really want an audible, use it as a true backup. Set breakoff and pull altitudes 100 feet low. If you hear them before acting, you weren't altitude aware. But they reminded you before it was too late. If it happens often, its probably a sign that you should move that audible to your pocket for a while and work on altitude awareness. It's amazing how easy it is to become reliant on an audible. It happened to me a long time ago. I had an audible that stopped beeping at pull time sometimes. I'd break off and then track until it beeped. But one day it didn't beep. My track felt awfully long so I checked my altitude and found myself a little above 2000. Way below where I had planned to pull. After that, having an unreliable audible was a great thing. I learned not to rely on it. I personally suggest waiting until you have at least 200 jumps to add an audible. Develop good habbits before you destroy them. Dave

Last Saturday I shot this missing man formation and "ash" release for my friend Chico, who died in a skydiving accident earlier this year in Brazil. His old 4-way team performed the jump, which included reminding him to turn a block that he used to brain lock. Confetti and glitter substituted ashes... symbolic of his colorful and glittery personality I guess you could say. Dave

There are pros and cons to everything. I learned one hand per handle before my first jump, then two hands per handle before my second jump (different DZ). I would only teach two hands per handle though for the reasons you mentioned. I recently heard from another instructor about a guy that got recurrent after 20+ years... They asked him to demonstrate his emergency procedures. He used one hand per handle... left hand on cutaway and right hand on reserve... arms crossed. There's no way I would have let that continue, but apparently he did it well and they left him alone. He ended up having to pull his reserve soon after that because he couldn't find his main. Guess it worked ok for him. But just because something works doesn't make it a good idea. So are you only talking about which method gets taught to students, or do you think all skydivers should use two hands per handle? Which way do you practice yourself? Personally I choose two hands per handle for myself due to the number of horror stories I've heard about hard cutaways. Dave

I didn't think it was a special shot at the time I took it in 2007, but it's my first cover shot! Ok, not exactly a prestigious publication but it's still the cover! Just realized they chose that pic after they told me they might want to use it 6 months ago. Dave

Nope, regular brake lines. I went through hundreds of pictures I've taken of accuracy jumpers and only found one with brake lines like those. See attached... Dave

Sorry, sometimes I don't really think outside the box... which makes me miss the simple solution. Seriously though, I see so many poorly thought out cameye/hypeye and ringsight installations. I'm amazed some of them don't snag a riser on every jump. Most people don't want any advice though... especially after the helmet is finished. Dave

No, because I thought about that before installing my hypeye and put it in a spot where it can't get hit. I'm always surprised how many people mount them right on the sides of their helmets where they're so easy to bump or even get sheared right off. The solution is to move your hypeye. Dave

The one's I've seen have the brake line through the hole and then out the end of the toggle. I believe the brake line just gets knotted inside the toggle. But I'm not a rigger or accuracy expert. Dave

Except possibly all of his future children! Dave

Probably need to start with the panasonic remote switch (DMW-RSL1) and solder to the switch of your choice. Dave

Some non-tandems from last weekend. Dave

Yeah there was no fire walking or anything too crazy. Just a firefighter helping make s'mores because the fire was too hot for everyone else.

Ha! No such thing as too much fun! Nobody even lost an eye! Just came close to a few minor 3rd degree burns... Dave

Around 150 gigs I believe... 7000+ videos. Bandwidth was limited by forcing users to register and closing accounts that shared passwords publicly. Never had any issues with a video getting linked from a popular site that way. Dave

I don't know much about what the costs would have been. I didn't have access to server logs when the site was up, so I don't know what the server was doing in terms of bandwidth and throughput. The server host would have charged over $1000/month for the service if it wasn't donated. Don't know exactly how much, but that's what they charged for a dedicated server. Ad revenue was basically nothing. Didn't put a dent in covering costs. It'll be back in one form or another at some point. Dave

I know this story is BS... nobody would ever accuse you of jumping every couple weeks! I'd believe your story if it was every couple months! Dave

The importance of maintenance has nothing to do with personal opinion. If I'm sharing a plane with someone with an AAD, I'd prefer that it's been checked out. Maybe vigil's manufacturer was willing to take a little more risk than cypres' when it comes to inspecting units. That doesn't necessarily mean the need is any less. I don't know how many cypreses fail inspection at 4 or 8 years. Hopefully very few. But would vigils fail less often at 4 or 8 years? We probably don't know. And how many failure modes are likely to cause a misfire vs. how many are likely to cause the unit to not fire when needed? But why worry about failures when perfectly working units misfire due to poorly thought out activation algorithms?

Maybe you should read my post... I said exactly that. My thought is that the student cypres doesn't really have dual firing altitudes... or at least they don't particularly matter if they are really programmed in. As I said, we could just as easily say an expert cypres has dual firing altitudes. Either 750 feet in freefall, belly to earth, or up to 1200 feet or so upright or in clean air (no burble). If a student cypres was designed to activate in a burble at 29 mph at 750 feet, it'd probably fire a bit higher than that (1000 feet?) in clean air. On the other hand, it wouldn't fire that high in a belly to earth position at higher speeds because of the burble. But for the purpose of this thread, we shouldn't assume there'll be a burble behind the jumper since he's sitting in a plane. We shouldn't assume the advertised firing parameters apply. It would be more conservative to assume a student cypres enters its danger zone around 1000 feet (or even higher) and above 29 mph. I don't think we need to worry about speeds higher than 78 mph in a descent below 1000 feet, but I do wonder if a student cypres would fire at 100 mph at 1000 feet when inside a plane (no burble). So I'm just saying that your very specific answer about activation altitudes of the expert and student cypres might not be quite correct when it comes to a descending aircraft. Thoughts? Dave

I still don't know what it means that the student cypres fires at 1000 feet between 29 and 78 mph. If the student is doing 40 mph, it'll MAYBE fire? It just kinda fires when it feels like it? Today it'll pick 32 mph and tomorrow maybe 75? Why are the expert firing parameters so exact and the student parameters so broad? Seems to be that "between 29 mph and 78 mph" means pretty much the same thing as just "as low as 29 mph." If you're burning through 1000 feet at 120 mph, it won't fire? Since we know cypreses are calibrated for sitting in a burble behind a jumper, we're aware that even an expert cypres can fire as high as 1200 feet or so. Is a student cypres actually set to fire at a different altitude, or is it just that under a partial malfunction a student cypres set for 750 feet might fire as high as 1000? Is that why it won't fire at 1000 feet above 78 mph but will wait for 750 feet at that high a speed? So is it wrong to say an expert cypres fires at 750 feet and 78 mph? Is it wrong to say a student cypres fires at 750 feet and 29 mph? I think we should think of them both firing around 1000 feet. And as far as speeds, 78 and 29 mph seem to be the numbers to stick with. Dave

Some 2-seat powered parachutes have been upgraded to LSA status. They require a sport pilot license and are not flown under part 103. Dave

There's no official list of planes approved for flight with the door removed. That information goes into the flight manual or POH. USPA put a list in the SIM, but it's far from complete. Many LSAs have open cockpits... no doors need to be removed. I know of one that is approved for flight with the doors open or removed... and I'm hoping to get to jump it sometime. I'm not sure what you mean when you talk about FAA demo approvals. Here in CT, paperwork needs to be filed with the state for all off-dropzone jumps. They're all considered demos, regardless of who is watching. Bandit jumps are the alternative... just doing it without following the rules. You're not much of a bandit if you do it legally. Dave

Light Sport is not the same an an ultralight. I don't know why it wouldn't be legal to jump from a legal 2-place light sport plane. And it's not a bandit jump if you follow the rules. It's a demo jump. Dave

At Pepperell we did one jump with the Otter in lead. That didn't work well at all since the people on the CASA tailgate couldn't see the lead plane without laying down on the ramp. It works great with the CASA in lead. Dave