cloudtramp

^^^ Touche!

Your right. BASE is far more expensive than skydiving if you do the math properly. For example, last I checked a ticket to Thailand is pretty expensive. Much more than a weekend at the local DZ. Off topic I know. Carry on...

Not to get off topic but every waiver I've seen has included negligence as a possible scenario in order to cover all bases. One could argue that allowing an instructor who did a tandem at 15 in NZ and then started AFF on his 18th birthday in the states, completed 500 jumps in six months, got his tandem rating, and is now taking a paying passenger on a skydive would be completely negligent. Yet, the USPA allows this as standard industry practice. Most jumpers know better but the student doesn't.

Yes they did. They accepted the risk before they jumped. They may only understand a tiny portion of the extent of the risks they take but they accept it ALL regardless. It's all spelled out in the waiver and comment's like the above bother me because I feel like it just opens us all up to lawsuits by saying that student's accepted this risk but not that one. Shit happens, people die and get injured, it's part of this sport. [btw: I DO agree with you that a camera flyer should never ever fly below a tandem or be anywhere close to the trapdoor on opening.]

A DZ that doesn't allow naked jumping? What is this world coming too!?!

Depends what country your in.

No Doubt. The problem is that a lot of I/E's teaching people from other DZ's have no sense of who people are and when they r done with the course they are done with the student.

Not to get off-topic but what do you mean by that? Genuinely curious. Can it transmit a live video feed to a remote viewing station or something? I am ignorant on Canon specs.

I can't imagine a single practical purpose for a feature like that. What's the point?

Never been able to find one for the 10 pin connectors. Never tried too hard either since it's pretty easy to do it yourself. I stand corrected. Nikon Rules.

Yes, as long as you have two of them on your head. I've put my Nikon's through the ringer and they keep on ticking! Generally the more expensive a body is the more robust it will be in it's construction. For Nikon It's a simple procedure to splice/solder the shutter release cable into a blow/bite switch. As far as I know there are no "plug-n-play" switches available for Nikon.

I knew a guy who did his first tandem at 64, went through AFF and now has well over 500 jumps. Never too old!

Commercial balloon pilots who fly passengers do indeed need a medical. Ballooning is overseen by the FAA as well.

I personally took a longer road than most. I began shooting tandem videos at about 200 jumps at a small cessna DZ. When I had about 650 jumps I broke my back during a landing accident, I had over 400 "work" jumps over 600 total jumps and was a total bad-ass (at least in my head). I personally believe that the most dangerous time in a jumpers career are between 600-1200 jumps. That's when skill level has not caught up with ego. After healing from my injury I moved on to a busy year-round DZ where I did another 7000 video jumps almost all filming Tandems. I personally witnessed two tandem fatalities, at least six other fatalities, countless broken students and bad tandem landings, side-spins, bad drogue throws, bad students, poor instructor techniques, and too many major (experiences jumper) injuries to count. I became extremely proficient at spotting and flying a parachute in every condition imaginable. I had a few close calls myself during that time and three cutaways before I personally felt ready to take someone's life in my hands. SO the short answer is about 7600 skydives and 200 BASE jumps before I took my tandem rating course and tandems were still scary as shit in the beginning. Probably because I knew more than most what could go wrong. I don't think it is necessary for someone to do that many jumps before getting a tandem rating but I do believe that shooting video for at least 500 jumps before taking on the responsibility of someones life is a very important prerequisite. There is ALOT of shit that can go wrong up there and somebody with 500-600 jumps who counts 3 years from the first tandem jump they did just cannot truly know and understand what they are getting into. Just my humble opinion...

I did 700 jumps at a seasonal cessna dropzone in one summer last year. Just sayin...