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...

Do a test jump in Aperture priority mode and set the Fstop to whatever the lowest number is on your lens (ie. 2.8, 3.2) DO a test jump like that and if the spots are gone than you know it's just dirt on your lens/sensor. If they are still there than you have other problems. Or just do it on the ground. Take a frame @ f/2.8 and then another @ f/22. take a pic of a white wall or something and then compare the two frames.

That was awesome!!!!

I spent two weeks at Skydive Chicago this past summer for the first time and was blown away. That place is awesome!

A quote from the "about" page of Skydive Canyonlands website at www.goskydivemoab.com (not associated with Skydive Moab in any way, go figure!) "Skydive Canyonlands is owned and operated by Paul Gray, a USPA Certified instructor with over 10,000 jumps – all dedicated to the perfection of the sport and the safe enjoyment of skydiving. Most recently, Paul helped introduce the sport of skydiving in New Zealand." Thank goodness somebody traveled down under to enlighten those ass-backwards Kiwi's!!! ;P Does anybody know this chump???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hhd0paZeA0 hmmm... Somebody give these guys a wingsuit! how fast do you think they are traveling compared to a winguit's forward speed ?

either that or reincarnated as a bird laughing at the silly human with the funny wings!!!! oh yea! One can only hope.

whoa there cowboy! I just happened to click the "reply" button of your post but I was actually refering to the few previous posters pessimism. My post was directed towards don321 and Notsane. I was under the impression that my posts were actually pointing out the positive viewpoint of "anything is possible" to counter act the flat-out "THAT'S A STUPID IDEA" . go figure maybe it is you that needs some Acai chill time. right on. Have a good one then.

First off RobiBird is "THE MAN" and I have total and complete respect for his opinion. I'll say it again. YOUR MY HERO ROBI The simple point I am trying to make is to never say that anything is impossible. Things that were once believed to be impossible have time and again become possible through unforseeable advances in technology. Key word is unforseeable. Who knows, maybe it will never happen. Maybe it will. I never implied this at all. Maybe someday a super advanced $20,000,000 controllable "Flying Suit" will be built and landed by somebody somewhere let's say in the year 3009. and then again... maybe not.

exactly. Note that I said Technology/Design. You could say the exact same thing about Parachute design progression. Army surplus rounds made out of silk back in the day and a 27cell Xaos 83 are just fabrics sewn together to take advantage of simple aerodynamic concepts. yet... WOW! what a difference. Back in the 50's a parachutist would NEVER even imagine the things that we do today with our parachutes or our bodies in freefall for that matter. Read the history books. When skydiving was in it's infant stages people believed that you could not even control your body in freefall. That is, until they figured out how to do it. Now go to youtube and watch some BASE proximity flying videos and think about it. Or... Keep living in that tiny little box that you built inside your head.

Yes, this I believe as well. We are just waiting for the technology to catch up with the desire. The problem with our current perspective on the reality of a WS landing is the current design/technology limits our imagination. Nothing is impossible. Think outside the box. Now Jeb's little superslide look at me thing... That's not progress. That's just a gimmicky stunt to entertain the whuffo masses.