FFAddict

I have an old cookie mxv cam helmet with a liquid flatlock. I have been using the flat lock for stills and a side mount video but im finally joining the gopro crowd for video and have a mounting question. If i still want to use the flatlock for stills whats the best way to mount the go pro? A side mount either sticks out too far or i have to turn the gopro side on which will give bad video... Ideally i would mount it just below the stills lens but the flat lock just doesnt give enough clearence to fit it in Would love to see how the rest of you are getting around this

The risk in doing handcam is just like doing your tandem rating in the first place. If you have the skill and experiance needed then getting a tandem rating is not an unmanagable risk. Likewise if you have the skill and experience needed doing handcam is not an unmanagable risk.

That is exactly what i wanted to hear, thanks mate :-) I have jumped a few wings befor that just didnt want to fly anything but flat and thats just no fun!

Thanks for your reply guys The most important thing is the ability to sit steep and freefly for me as i only really film tandems, does anyone have any feedback on whether the bev suit is suitable for that?

I am looking into buying a new camera suit and want some more opinions. I am looking at bev suits purely because of the great service and quality i got from the RW suit from them. How do the camera suits shape up compared to the rest? I film mainly tandems so like to sit very steep and being able to freefly (sit) with the wings is great, any body else have any experince filming tandems with a bev camera suit?

Please excuse me if this has been asked but i cant find it! Is it possible to automatically take pictures during recording? I know it has the auto smile pictures but i want it to take pictures of the entire video i record, scenery, smiles screaming the lot. Ideally it would take pictures every 3 seconds for example so i could simply delete the pics i dont want (much faster than taking pics) and use the rest. If not any advise on good software which will automatically take picture from the footage without me having to go through it blue skies

I have bought a few things from deepseed including a multispeed suit and lets just say i wont be buying anymore. They have some great ideas though that i might pay somebody else to include into my next jumpsuit.

I know this has been asked before so please resist the temptation to abuse me for asking! I am a relatively heavy skydiver at around 230pounds and as you can imagine i have always had to work on my slow fall. I have 2000+ jumps and am capable of slow falling with the best of them but i clearly will never beable to go as slow as smaller guys without a nice slow suit to help. I have tried lots of differnt FF suits and have never really found one that was very good. I dont want anything too fancy just a good solid suit that can deal with working in the industry without falling apart whilst still giving a good amount of drag so that i dont have to work too hard! What suits in your experince have been the best?

I did the course october 2006 and i loved it and would recommend it to anyone. There is no denying that the diploma itsself is not really worth anything to anyone but the skills that the diploma represents are priceless. If you work hard and have a good attitude then getting work after the course is not too hard. Most people are offered work by there work placement DZ. Personally i had a full time camera job straight off the course and had a tandem rating after about 10months of camera work. Im not saying everybody is as lucky as i was but it goes to show that you can certainly go a long way if you work at it. The staff at the school have changed since i was there so i cant comment on them but if they are even half as good as my instructors you will walk away with the skills to work, fun jump and most importanmtly stay safe. I hope you enjoy it as much as i did

We have two hop 330's at our dropzone, both have significantly differnt characteristics. The older one is a first generation hop, its openings are really nice and gentle but like a high performance sports canopy it is very twitchy and can spin up real fast. Once its open it flies way better than any other tandem canopy ive got myt hands on, its fast, responsive, has lots of flare power fpor landing. The second is the latest hop, just looking at it you can tell it has been totally redesigned, no longer does it have that paraglider shape it looks far more conventional. The openings are significantly better, still gentle but it is much more predictable now. Once it opens it flies really well, out performing the icarus with ease, but compared to the original its a bus! The biggest problem with both of the canopies is turbulance both generations hate turbulence. They do not react to turbulance like any other canopy tandem or sports that ive seen, the end cells regularly collapse folding under as if they are clapping (in my head that seems like a good description!). That in itsself is not so strange its the fact that you do not lose altitude when the canopy does it, infact if you dont look at it you can hardly tell there is so much movment going on above you. It will keep flying through most turbulence with no loss of performance it simply does not instill confidence, but it reaches a point when the canopy seems to give up totally and fully collapses which is clearly not desirable especially close to the ground. Over all a great canopy on good weather days that cant be beaten but if your jumping full time and 'income jumping' come into the equation you simply cannot beat the icarus with its good all around performance in all conditions.

I am a relatively new tanddem master (400 tandems) and am actually surprised by the lack understanding by many about what a side spin is and how to get out of it if it develops. There are, as with all things skydiving, many different oppinions but here is mine. Side spin was covered endlessly in my TM ground training, i was tought and experience has now shown me that a side spin essentially develops when you are not presented to the wind correctly. Whether you are presenting your head, back, belly... it does not matter. A side spin will develop if the relative wind is allowed to hit the tandem pair from the side pulling the tandem passenger away from the TM. This will usually happen from a combination of poor presentation on exit and the tandem master arching hard whilst the passenger dearches (experienced tandem masters will im sure realise how few passengers actually arch). If the TM and passenger are essentially arching in opposite directions they act like opposing propellers trying to turn in opposite directions which causes a loss of control and in turn the side spin. The solution is simple, make a strong exit presenting into wind and follow the line of your passenger. If the passenger doesnt arch and you cant help them to do it then dont arch. Freefly has shown if nothing else that the hard arch rule isnt so important after all for solo jumping so why would it work for tandems? Im sure you will all have your own oppinions on this, i hope this is somewhat usefull to some of you

Im about 6'1 and 240lbs and just like you i naturally fall like a rock, fast fast fast When i started i went down the baggy jump suit route which works just fine, but what you will find out in the long run is that if you work on your weak areas enough (slow fall for me and you) you don't need equipment to help you anymore. I can now turn points and freefly with just about anybody i want without the need for a clown suit to slow me down. Your flying position will naturally change to compensate for your weight the more you jump, i have a very big flat body position all the time and just have to work my legs like mad if i actually need to slowfall some more. Dont give up trying and definately dont give up the cheese burgers, it will become easy with time and jumps

A much simpler solution and one that your dropzone is probably going to be happier with (people don't like when you attach ANYTHING to rigs) is buying yourself some padded cycling shorts. The padding should be more than enough and wont mean trying to attach padding to a rig that is bound to get lost in freefall eventually anyway Good luck

A really fantastic dropzone, just take a look at the comments in the dropzone section. I will be in E-B from the 8/09 - 08/10 fun jumping, if your gonna come out message me and we can jump Stephen

At a relatively low wingloading like yours you wont notice a huge performance change by changing the type of canopy and keeping the same wingloading. A differnce yes but even if you went fully eliptical it wont take long befor your again wanting more performance. If you look at all the higher performance canopies they have minimum as well as maximum wing loadings, if your under or close to the minimum you simply do not get the performance that the canopy was designed to give. Once your within the boundaried you will notice a much bigger change in performance between types of canopies Once you have squeezed every ounce of performance out of your canopy your best bet is to go smaller and increase your wing loading. Without seeing you jump i cant really comment about what you should/could jump so you really need to go get some good canopy coaching, Brian is about as good as it gets so do it if you can. As a rough rule (a little bit on the safe side i know) you need to beable to jump your current canopy downwind and or crosswind in a 10 - 15knot wind accurately and reliably the day after the longest layoff you are ever going to have (winter, work, whatever...). You should beable to make consistent accurate riser landing (more important at higher wingloadings than yours), by which i mean front riser turns and flaring with your rear risers in an emergency situation. Dont go practicing this at ground level without supervision but it is something you need to think about because you may well have a brake line snap on opening or at an altitude when you cant cut away and you still need to be able to land. This is like most things in skydiving an opinion and should be taken as exactly that, go get coaching from someone you trust and be carefull