BigBUG

This was a coach jump, you guys above are absolutely right. Both persons involved failed the jump big way. If I was person who make desicisons, both of the jumpers never jumped again at my DZ.

Here is a short video about the event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6LtqLf2wQ0&feature=youtu.be Funny guy in glasses running around is me :)

That's correct. On the other side, now in Russia we have same situation with American help - it is greatly misjudged. My grand dad was in fighter squadron - I still have some tools from Aircobra maintenance kit. Aircobras and Hurricanes planes made a great deal until Yak-3s and La-5s were in design stage and Russia does not have modern fighters at all. American and British planes, trucks, food and supplies saved thousands of lives and gave great support in time of need. So bad the history is corrupted and twisted by politicians from all sides.

Ok, here we go :) Today I organize funny event here in FlyStation in Saint-Petersburg, Russia and I would like to welcome everyone to watch it live. We are not Battle of Bottrop :) , but it should be fun to watch. We have a freefly meet with live stream, if interested, you could see love video here http://new.livestream.com/flystation/events/1753287 Broadcast will start in 23.30 local time (which is GMT +4 hours). There will be beginners (belly, back, sit) and intermediate (sit, headdown) classes. Each round every person flies with new partner so there will be plenty of improvisation :)

When I organize competitions like this I usually have separate prize for best video guy and do not ask vidiots to additional fees - just jump tickets. If their team wanted to cover this - great, also some guys hanging around become attracted to event. Also I usually go as 'side camera' if I am not sure in this vidiot. Just saying the team that I want outside video for further film. If their video sucks and this vidiot is not a member of their team (so they are not responsible for his mistakes) I give my video to judges. Actually this just happened once in 5 years :) This is how I do it, but our events are very in-formal and just fun ones.

It's not the ability of the TM (or the pax) that's the problem. It's taking the tandem rig to speeds for which it was never designed. Beyond that, you have to recognize that the industry as a whole has embraced the idea of 'freefly friendly' rigs for sport jumpers, in order to avoid the problems you could entounter with premature deployments at freefly speeds. I would hardly call a tandem rig 'freefly friendly', and I don't think any of the manufacturers would either. I am not a TM so I would like not to step further into this discussion. I just know that manufacturers of the rig were fully aware of what going on (since the tandem system was Russian-made and head designer jumped on the same DZ full-time). Also weights for TI and passenger both could be merely adequate to one normal american skydiver :) just kidding I do not want put this as a example to the whole industry. But personally I do not see it as a very bad thing, if done right and only professionals involved - just like any skydiving stunt, starting from your average Mr.Bill (our canopies aren't designed for double load on opening, are they?)

Deepes condolences to families and friends. As a father of two, I deeply mourn with you.

about 50 HD tandem jumps were done in Kolomna, Rusia few year ago. Passenger was a kid girl who had a lot of tunnel time and just wasn't old enough to jump solo. No emergencies, no problems. TM was one of the lead freeflyers in Russia.

Actually I recall my meeting with one of the aces of 2nd Navy Fighters Company (one of the most famous and productive fighter unit on Eastern front) and his story is showing the difference while looks quite the same than original story in this post... One day he was on a solo hunt mission (which were quite rare in URSS air forces and only real aces were allowed to fly like this) when he saw Ju-88 bomber with serious damages over the Baltic sea. Apparently it was damaged in dogfight before and lost his group while hiding in the clouds. Rear gunner was dead so it was no problem to shoot it down. Fighters of this 'ace' company wore special decals and paint schemes (red oil radiator panels, tips of the propeller etc) so crew of the bomber was wery well aware what will happen next. But what happen next is that Russian pilot just flew over the bomber, overlooking holes and blood mess in rear gunner turret, and waved hand to bomber's pilot, then just flew away. Crew of the bomber maybe considered this as a act of mercy, but he said to me : 'it was the worst moment for me in this war - I had to let it go because my ammo boxes were empty and ramming into the bomber was not in option so far over the sea'. I seriuosly doubt about much 'reunions' after the war here in Russia. Every family was affected by it and every family lost someone, most of them lost few family members. 29 millions of people were killed during the war in USSR.

oh, I know it very well. I did a major research in history of rock music. Actually working as a dj assistant on a rock radio station and even considering of writting the book (it was before wikipedia and there was not much information of American/English rock music in Russia back then). but I am talking about the style and mood, not about particular bands. Back then, if you are a lead guitar in a band, you must play solos. Yes, they produced a lot of awful solos, but also all the things that really inspire new guitarists were born in this period. People learned from each other, from first generation on geniuses like Hendrix or Paige who learned from old bluesmans, to SRV or Malmsteen or Bettencourt who leaned from Jimi or Ritchi and inspire thousands of new musicians. And now this tree is dead, no more fresh branches - all cut by Nirvana's 3-chord wannabees.

Interesting story. For the lot of Russian planes during the War such damages were quite typical. Especially for assault planes like Ilyushin 2 (Ils-2), they were seen returning without big sections of the wings, without ailerons, even without the whole vertical rudder and major part of the stabilizers. Average count of holes and damages after combat day was 100-300. Of course most of them was from infantry ground fire. For German fighters Il-2 flying solo (especially modification without tail gunner) could be an easy target but when they flew in special formation (i.e. 'defensive circle'), not much of the Germans risks their lives attacking them, because frontal salvo of this assault plane was devastating. here is a pic of a typical crash landing (gears were damaged during combat) of the Il-2, which made it to the airfield safely. Usually it took 1-3 days to get aircraft in this condition back to battle. http://waralbum.ru/wp-content/uploads/yapb_cache/il_2_001.d5c1fkyjtp4cgc8ok4040w48.ejcuplo1l0oo0sk8c40s8osc4.th.jpeg I was always interestet in air combat history of WWII. But never heard such stories about 'chivalry' here about Russian part of war. German fighters always tried to hunt down damaged aircrafts and usually tried to kill pilots who were forced to bailout.

FORTY ONE years ago!!! FUCK! I'm getting old... lol, 8 years before I was born and I could play solo note-to note and sometimes do this in a jam sessions :) DP was my biggest inspiration is music and reason why I pick up guitar. Later I discovered Led Zeppelin and my all-time favorite Mark Knopfler with Dire Straits and there was no way back :) I feel really jelous to older generations - you guys had all the best music inb the world and you had it live. And all we got crappy Nirvana (let the sh@tstorm begins :) and all these uninteresting nu-rock band where noone could really play guitar (please find me at least one really cool guitar solo from a popular rock song after the year 2000!)

hmm your description misses vodka in the samovar and bears walking on the streets while balalaikas playing on a radio. you make Russia looks like France! language, bad driving, awkward customer service :) just kidding :)

if there are cool instructors (I am sure they are) - then absolutely. If you could backfly in your tunnel - then you have all layouts and carve. When we started to fly our tunnel, everyone fly on 90+ percent (250+ kph). Now we fly at 72-80% and do same routines much better, they looks beatiful and they are super controlled. Our great guests, Ramsy from Bottrop/Voss and Alex from Skywalkers showed us how to do it right.

Thats ok. Really. I could tell you so as a WT instructor. Do not worry, your air experience will get your learning curve steeper and easier, just get yourself some time. What actually happens when cool flyer gets in WT for the first time? He knows he could fly good, ok. But then he see the walls, the net, feel this hard wind and his body begin to tense. And voila - he starts to drift around. The more you drift, the less relaxed you get (I am a cool skydiver, why the hell I could not stay in the center?) and the more you drift. Done. Also, freefly in the tunnel is something really different. In air you do not create lift. You just gain stability. There is a plenty of wind when you needed. In WT you start to fly in low speed. So you will need lot of extra efforts to get off the net. That's why you always recognize tunnel flyer in the air - his posture is different because he uses every surface he have, legs, back, arms - everything. '90 degree sit' could be learned in the tunnel, no problem. But is much easier to start with more 'tunnel specific' headup positions and work a lot on transit and layouts - actually you learn to fly when you move, not when you trying to lift some 'static' posture off the net. Freefly in the tunnel will require some serious 'back to school'. But then you will be rewarded by fantastic control and possibilities in the air, and you'll get them pretty fast, using previous experience :) Start slow, fly a lot at slow speed - and you'll be supercool when you go faster later on.

will do yes, he rocks :) we are lucky to have him here for the whole month :) speaking back to subject and this cool vid, I noticed that you Americans use kind of different approach, like 'first you do all the static like backfly, sitfly, headdown on normal speeds and then will be transitions'. Europeans guys here are more like dynamic flyers, they do not teach postures and positions much, but make heavy accent on movements and transitions, even from the very begining. Both schools give great flyers, I just wonder which is more effective.

Proper instructors are a blast :) We have here in S-Pete Fabian (Ramsey) and Alex from Skywalkers for a visit, and their students just rocks! I could say that they are like 20-40% effective than 'avegage' student flyer. Awesome clip, thanks for sharing!

>Skydive Sebastian Invasion Boogie! could you state exact dates pleeeease? we are planning skydiving trip to USA and I will gladly change the schedule to get back to Sebastian!

This book has both stories - Cat Chasing and Cat Stacking. I made an amateur translations to Russian for my friends of some of the stories from this fantastic book, but never touched these Cat stories - I didn't want the outrage:) Ppl sometimes just loses their minds while discussing about pets. Sense of humor goes off first.

LMAO especially on a big-way belly hive :) how many people you could put inside without chocking the tunnel? in our tunnel if we have more than 7 flyers inside, we got stall on the blades and wt looses power pretty quick (with side effects like motors overheat and increased vibration)

Thanks for info! It seems that we could not take part in the event, but I will try to stop by and at least look at it.

Hi, We are planning a skydiving trip to California in March 2013 (We planned to visit Perris, Elsinore and Lodi). I just thought that it could be cool to participate in some freefly activity in this period. So, if there is any boogies or other events in California, we will be glad to join. Thanks!

Final standings with video http://tunnelflight.com/pages/competition/onlineCompetition.php Congrats to all winners, especially to our friend Michail Razomazov, who is 1st in neo-freestyle :) Sick flying :)

Quite a difficult question and decision... I am sorry for my limited English so maybe I could not express my thoughts properly. Me and my wife, we have same dilemma. We have two children (3 and 1.5 years), we are both skydivers. She has a big incident in the past which ended with broken spine (T5 to T7), two surgeries and metal implant installation and removal. The incident happened before first pregnancy. Now she recovered, but still have periodical pains. I never quit skydiving, but seriously (I mean seriously) reconsider my safety margins. Actually I changed them completely and now I could be consider as a chicken :) but I am happy with this. My wife is eager to get back to the sky, for now I managed to use windtunnel as a substitute, but the problem is still here. Once children grow older, she will be in the sky again, even against my will. I try to do everything to have her changed her mind, but I will never say a direct word against her wishes - I do not have rights for it while I am still jumping myself. Our wishes, thoughts and feelings is what makes us what we are. If our beloved ones loves us - that's because we are what we are. Remove skydiving (or any other part of our lives that is so significant) - and you'll get a different person. And I am not sure that this new person will be loved as you were, and will be capable to love the person who changed his/hers life that way and removed something so big out of it. Just my thoughts. Be careful, be wise, be thoughtful. But do not quit or you both could regret it.

I once found a gig hawk just next to me after opening. The bird looks real angry so I flew away real quick. And, even this is not skydiving, I believe this video belongs to this thread. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RriaXGMH7g