Muffy

It's a professional level product - it should be built such that it will take a lot more abuse than the traditional consumer version handy cams. (Meaning it might last two seasons instead of a half of one!) Too bad they didn't have time to go with a disconnect on the first version - it would have been interesting to see the cost for replacing one part or the other.

The retailers are listing it now: Canada: $2,350 CAD - http://www.vistek.ca/store/ProVideoCamcorders/241923/sony-hxrmc1-full-hd-compact-pov-camcorder.aspx Anyone working on the cable and rigging yet?

Research and excessively documented experiences from those living next to them suggests it wouldn't be a lot of fun or healthy to live as close to that sort of continuous noise as the developers think you can. http://www.livinginnewyork.org/health_effects_of_wind_turbine_noise A "wind power plant tourist" wouldn't be exposed long enough to get really annoyed though. (Seriously - the industry suggests to small communities that an installation will attract tourists - they'll even offer to put up a cute observation deck and everything.) Not sure if a student under radio would be able to hear it in flight ("Jumper #3 - give me a left 90 left 90 to avoid the large spinning things"), so it probably would not much of a distriction unless you can perceive the low frequency noise - some people are more senstive to it than others though. The shadow flicker can cause seisures though... >>Jumper #3 This is funny but it also assumes Jumper #3's radio would even receive the transmission - moden wind power plants... they disrupt radio signals and RADAR...

>>reduce maximum winds along with increased in tubulence... Here's some shocking news about being downwind from "the farm": "For the first time, high-resolution SAR-derived wind speed images are utilized to identify regions of reduced wind speed and high turbulence intensity (i.e. wind wakes) downstream of wind turbine arrays" "A decrease of the mean wind speed is found as the wind flows through the wind farms, leaving a velocity deficit of 8–9% on average, immediately downstream of the wind turbine arrays. From this point, wind speed recovers to within 2% of the free stream velocity over a distance of 5–20 km depending on the ambient wind speed, the atmospheric stability and the number of turbines in operation" "The standard deviation of SAR-derived wind speeds is an indicator of turbulence intensity. Added turbulence intensity downstream of a wind farm is found for 7 of the 19 cases." I do believe I'll buy that paper: http://tinyurl.com/5gbbun

>>it would be rather stupid to put a drop zone in an area downwind of the turbines Agreed - but not a lot of new drop zones are being built around the world. What is being built however are an awful lot of industrial wind power plants and it's not stupidity that gets them built adjacent to an existing rural drop zone. It's just capitalism wearing the latest fashionably environmentally friendly disguise over greed. >>the 10:1 rule That's an interesting rule - how does that go? You need 10 feet of horizontal separation from an object for every foot in height of that obstacle to avoid potential wake turbulence. Where's that documented? Up until now the kind of objects we've had to factor in were largely stationary right? Does a 10:1 rule apply when the object is a big as a 747 with blades alone weighing in at 40 tons spinning around as fast as 19 times a minute. Say hello to one Vestas V90. Think 10:1 still applies? Who else knows about wake separation? There were some problems with big planes and that not so long ago. Check out what the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) says about wake vortex separation at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_turbulence for objects about that size and mass. If we could for a moment consider a single set of those 40 ton turbine blades as a Medium class "Maximum Take Off Mass" (MTOM), and someone landing under canopy as a Light class MTOM (hell, even someone landing the jump plane fits into that class), then should the landing separation from a single industrial wind turbine be…5 nautical miles? That's 30,380 feet - 76:1. But then again, the ICAO recommendations don't have to factor in that there might be 50 other Medium class preceding aircraft flying right next to each other in that wind power plant? So, do we really know what a safe distance from an industrial wind power plant is under canopy?

Someone said NIMBY about wind turbines in a skydiving forum - that caught my attention. One might not mind them in the backyard, but if they were in the front yard, would we have a problem landing into the downwind plume off of say, 25 Vesta V90's 4,000 feet off the landing area?

Revive: Wow - colectively ya'll have about 17,000 jumps. How many of those were directly downwind of an industrial wind power installation?

What is all this in the papers about his reserve chute being sewn shut. Wikipedia: "Authorities inadvertently supplied Cooper with a "dummy" reserve chute" FBI: "He also missed that his reserve chute was only for training and had been sewn shut—something a skilled skydiver would have checked"

Neptune II really makes much better use of the device's capabilities - I'm impressed - Alti-2 did a great job squeezing more out of the device - equally impressive is that older units can be updated with the new Neptune II OS. Best way to retain your logs through this upgrade is to license http://www.paralog.net and download your logs into it before you upgrade to Neptune II. It's effortless and as a bonus you can backup up your Paralog files on the PC - that's something you can't do with your Neptune alone. If you're the kind of skydiver that never has time to log and you're relying on your Neptune to do it for you, then you should really back that up with Paralog. My first Neptune went 'sailing away in freefall' and because of Paralog I only lost that days jump records.

um, how about some 3D Google tracks of skydiving at SkydiveToronto.com in Ontario Canada? http://tinyurl.com/277okc

Neat - thanks. What kind of plane/ GPS? What software did you use to plot it? Something funky about the way dropzone.com hosts the attachment - Google Earth (beta 4) complained about not being able to read the file initially - but when I saved it locally it opened just fine.

I like the competitive idea behind tracking derby, and they do have nice some color and icons on what it sends out to Google. Can you use it offline though? >>graphs & speed data Yea the Google Earth track Paralog outputs includes very detailed datapoints that will show you Altitude, Speed (vV, vH and v), pitch, turn rate. You can see all that in Google Earth in 3D - makes it real easy to study the numbers in context to where you were physically in the jump. If you didn't notice those details before, jump back up to the beginning of this thread and click the hyperlink to the KML file, when Google Earth displays the tracks, look at the list of jumps that appears in the Places list (left side of screen), expand one of the jumps (Jump 41 is pretty clean), click to turn on the Datapoints folder and/or expand that node to see individual points. I attached an image of that but you really should see it through Google Earth - so much more interactive.

Lou, Do you have some KMZ files of those tracks on a web site somewhere?

Just in case there is someone out there that still doesn't know... Google Earth is free right... http://Earth.Google.com. Attached are a couple of static images of the tracks look for those without the earth. It's lots more fun to see them in 3D though.

This is the first track we've recorded (with this gear) of a swoop by Thumper: http://www.playday.com/activity/skydive/Thumper_20060904_1431.kmz. I know a lot of DZs don't have Internet access...we didn't this weekend...but if you increase the disk cache in Google Earth (say 2gb) ... and the RAM (say 512 mb - not sure if this really matters) and fill the cache by viewing the entire area surrounding the DZ before you go offline (this really matters) - you will actually be able to use Google Earth offline to see at least that area. Which is damn handy if you want see the tracks right after they are made at an offline DZ.

Who's tracking jumps with a GPS? I know it's popular with wingsuits, but who else is jumping them? What are you using? What are you analyzing your tracks with? Are you posting your tracks somewhere? Here are some recent GPS tracks of freefall & canopy flight plotted over Google Earth: http://www.playday.com/activity/skydive/MuffyJumps.kmz I'm recording using a Garmin ForeTrex 101 (http://www.garmin.com/products/foretrex101/) and Paralog (www.paralog.net) does a very elegant job of downloading and processing the raw tracks.

And here I was thinking all this time it was Craig with the bucket... She'll be solo next weekend if the sky ever opens back up. Think I'll start gift wrapping some water to reciprocate today.

Well that explains the not so faint combo of whip cream and swamp water that seriously impaired my mess test later that day; my eyes were watering so badly I had to don googles! Honestly, I believed you when you said some wuffo bidch from the city spilt a latte on that rig. Once again, I'm disappointed a duckie wasn't sacrificed. That pond is gonna make a claim if one isn't made soon.