BigBUG

As far as I know, even in case of sudden and complete stop of the motor, the fan should stop gradually. There should be overruning clutch, I believe (sorry it may be wrong word, I have very limied practice in English :) )?

This is probably the only thisg that scares me as a engineer while I thinking about WT safety. But I never expected that the whole fan could be detached - I was thinking about destruction of the fan for some reason (stress issues, vibration, strange object hitting the fan) and parts of fan flying away like projectiles. Any details will be greately appreciated.

Yeah, I could do it but there is not enough lift to keep me up if I do it 'tight' and there is not enough room to do it more layout-like. When you do it backward you could just push yourself off the wall by arms and be sure you not land on you head (I did it once, did not like it :) ) not enough lift for it, at least for me :( maybe I am doing it wrong, but I go down in T position very fast. Thanks!

it i built here in Russia, driven by 500 hp intercooled diezel from truck. here is some old video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpogQiFbUVM&feature=autoplay&list=UUX9g9dwLd3ROcUWXR2-bNNw&lf=plcp&playnext=1 now its maybe 10% more powerful, have elastic wire net and the diameter is reduced so we do not have this scary no-wind zone at the walls. The guys who built it initially knows very little about windtunnels and how to make them safe :)

Hi everyone, We have a small (2.4 m dia) and quite slow (about 180-190 kph) diesel-drived windtunnel, built for amusement park. It is Ok for belly fly and back fly for a guy like me (185 cm and 92 kg) in a baggy suit. I work there as a part time instructor (it is great fun and good vibes anyway) so I thing maybe someone could come with some interesting or funny tricks ideas which we could learn and try. What we already leraned are belly/back transitions (all, front flip is quite risky so I do not like it), some 'booties' flying, back layout through HD to belly with some wall support, wall walking. We are wery eager to try something else and something new and to get maximum of this possibility. Thanks in advance, any ideas are greatly appreciated!

I have 1100 jumps now and I had one cutaway at my 994th jump. Still do not know what happened, progressive line twist on Safire with both toggles at place. Here is a video if you need it fore some reason :) http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=4414

Just my 2 cents. What quality of final video are you trying to achieve? I use Premiere to edit video, then make an DV AV non-compressed clip to store on archive DV cassette or DVD. If I want, for instance, to make a DVD, this file should be compressed - I use Canopus ProCoder for all purposes - compression for DVD, Web, VideoCD - anything I need. To compile and burn a final DVD I usually use DVDLab Pro. Premiere could be used for mpeg (DVD format) encoding itself, but I could not get satisfactory results with it. Only problem - I am in Russia and all this software costs me very little In Europe or USA it could cost you a fortune, I think... Hope this helps.

I'd love to, but it will be really difficult to send to Russia and get a payment from here... Once again, this pic rocks!!!

This July_8th_2006_Scotty.jpg is sometghing special! I wish I had a poster with this picture!

Not a my best shots, but may look interesting. There is a season of forest fires here, so you could see the airfield is actually burning below us. Look at the edge of black area and you could see fire :) My camera died that day so this is all I managed to shot, but the look of this thing was awesome.

I have exactly the same problem here. A month ago had the shutter replaced, yesterday it broke again. I jumped last year with the self-made remote button, this year bought a bite-swich - and this s...t starts to happen. I had no idea how bite-swich could affect a schutter mechanism, but it seems that it does. Damn.

Damn, this is a scary picture. It is great you are OK. Do you really need such big wings? It seems to me that if you have such gap in the wing, that it will not work properly anyway. Maybe it will be a good idea to change it to a smaller wing without this gap? Once again, you a lucky one :)

Thanks a lot!

Just started to take stills last automn. Here is one of my first. Couldn't attach it, here is a link: [http://a.photofile.ru/image.php?id=22905466] Slightly edited (decolored) for advertising. PS. How to insert a proper looking link into a message?

I just got wing jacket (small wings, my own design) and made a couple of jumps with it and regular FF pants (Russian made, looks very much like Matters). I am rather heavy (90 kilos) so I could keep up on my back only with heavy tandems. Had no problems on my belly, but probably there is a risk to lose lightweight tandems if I made a mistake estimating their speed and go too fast. My previous suit was a big winged suit with booties, sure legs helps a lot; but I like a new jacket because I can go in every position - belly, back, sit. I do not think that shorts will be good idea - with wings you probably need more to compensate backslide if you are already below and looking up trying to keep framing

The only problem I have with camera flying is the fact that I started freeflying after 400 jumps as a RW cameraman. So, I jump with video from the very beginning of my freefly jumps and this leads to current situation: I have no troubles to fly head up with almost every freeflyer from 200 to 300 kph, but have serious problems doing docks (since I flew like a vidiot for a team from the start). If I could start from the beginning again, I've learned to be a good 'all-purpose' freeflyer first and only then take a camera with me. I have an old suit with booties to film a RW team jumps, and a jacket with relatively small wings and freefly pants for all other purposes.

Yeah, that's exactly what happens. My thought was that ringsight will help me to concentrate on framing - it is easy to 'forget' about the dot on goggles, but it seems hard to ignore big ringsight in front of your eye. Another problem is the helmet - in my old custom made helmet I just need to look on something to film it right; in new Rawa if I do the same, I get only people's legs (or heads if they are in HD) on tape.

What kind of ringsights do you usually use? I always used a dot or frame-shaped color rectangle on the googles, but now, when I try to film some more fast moving guys like skysurfers and freeflyers, I am not happy with my performance (probably, I am too concentrated on just maintaining speed, position and distance and sometimes I do a badly wrong framing). What is your opinion - is ringsight better than mark on goggles? BTW, what is a Newton cross? There isn't a big market for ringsight in Russia so I need to order one from abroad and I do not want to spend 100$ just to get somethning I do not need at all. My helmet is Rawa Imagen and I would like to have ringsight to be somehow 'folded' out of the way and 'locked' in place when I need it

2 SBS Are you still there? You really working overtime!!! OK, I'm serious. Thanks guys, you've helped a lot. We need to think all this over a plan our training properly. BTW, is there a skysurfer's forum or something?

Thaks guys, you really helped a lot. One more question - what are you do when you want to go down real faster when the guy stands up on the board? You transit to sit or to head-down? My headdown is far from perfect :( and transit to sit is more slow. What usually happens is when he gained a little more speed, I collaps my wings. He getting faster, I keeping my sight on him and I ended in some kind of "track" position - half HD - half belly. It gives me needed fallrate, but I gain also horizontal speed and need to fly over his head (I know that not right ) or around him. This does not feel good and video is bullsh1t.

Take it easy, Saxboy :) You had been misunderstooded from the beginning - the idea of letting someone with 40 jumps go with still or video camera right now is still seems very revolutionary :) :) About you question - the most popular here in Russia are Canon 300D (EOS Rebel D in USA ) or 350D. If you are serious into photography, maybe you will need a 10D or 5D - but this is a lot of money :( Lenses here are mostly SIGMA or ZENITAR (Russian made, cheap but OK) wide-angle lenses. Remember that photography is more complicated and more dangerous (and expensive too! :) , that the video. You'll get a whole new set of problems you should worry about, beggining from additional weight (and believe me, it hurts a lot on the unproper opening) and ending with line entanglements and other ugly stuff. Anyway, get a training before jumping with still camera. I've personally seen some really ugly incidents with videomans caused only by something they should know about (and they don't due to inproper training) Take care!

>Keep the stories coming people! Just yesterday, trying to make a pics of my buddy skysurfing. Firs time had a perfect position with surfer and my Canon RebelD failed after 3-rd shot (and they could not find the malfunction yet). It should be very good photo-session: weather, position, smiles etc. and damn camera screwed it up completely. Last automn, had a midair collision with another vidiot while filming a freefly bigway. Got my rib broken, guy broke his camera's LCD screen. Not a good feeling, really, when you just can't inhale for a 30 seconds or something - he just kicked all air out of my lungs :)

Any help and suggestions greatly appreciated! I got an invitation to be a vidiot for a novice skysurfer and form a skysurfing team. We made four or five jumps together and I found out that this is damn hard job :) His fall rate changing dramatically and I could not keep up the level with him. He is a novice, but had no problems with standing on the board or making a transitions, but I have a lot. So, my questions: - what kind of suit could you reccomend? I've tried my regular freefly suit, it is OK when the guy standing or sitting on a board, but I gould not "cork" fast enough on my back when he transits to his belly and tried some horizontal loops and transitions. I've also tried my winged suit with booties, but I could not sit or stand-up in this. I am thinkin' about winged jacket... - any recommendations about training process itself? We found some info about skysurfer's training routines, but nothing useful about filming a skysurfer! - any safety issues? We understood the general safety measures, but there always are something that comes only with the experience. Thanks for your help! :)

Thanks Falko! This is exactly what I wanted to learn. Can't read German but I get the very idea. Thanks again.

Been there, thanks. Not much info in this review :( At least, it works... One point for Quick. I am interested in review or opinion about flying and controlling it with high wingload (95 kg with rig for 135) and ability to fly straight (most Deselerators I've seen just can't) and do a good flare. This reserve is just one available from stock here and now and I would like to know, should I stuck with it or wait a month or more trying to order Smart or smthng. Thanks!