azureriders

what kind of jumps? I get shin splints from tracking. Just a thought, if you are doing tracking jumps or large formations.

We are no longer in Moss Point, but we are still in Mississippi and we still have the gear that Atsaubrey trained on. It is still in service and we average 1 or 2 students a year jumping it. If you are physically fit to make a jump, I would be glad to start your AFF training at Gold Coast

Obituary I will ubdate when I know a date

As many of you know, Mike has been fighting lung cancer for the past few months. I regret to inform you that he passed away just before midnight last night, 4-21-2010. Mike wanted to be cremated and a service to be held at the DZ to celebrate his life. It will be at least a few weeks before this takes place. I will forward any arrangements as soon as I have them. A friend who will be missed.

Outsourcing to a Master Rigger, or that Master Rigger working in your loft on your machines, are two entirely different things. Not a rigger at all here, just commenting as a contractor who both employees other qualified personell and also outsources work.

!! NO !!

In my opinion, a 'break away' snag point is simply a last resort, a 'fix' for a problem that is not easily avoided. It is not a 100% satisfaction guaranteed situation (nothing is of course), and would still be better handled by avoiding the situation in the first place. I have two video helmets: #1 I use for most dedicated video jumps. It has a ring sight that is *virtually* snag proof, yet very firmly mounted and if it ever did snag a line, the only hope that I may have would be jettisoning the helmet all together. #2 is mostly used for POV and inside video. This one has a still camera mount and a removable shumacher ring sight bracket. This allows me to use it as a back up video helmet and for H.A.L.O. videos. (no way to wear an O2 mask with #1). The ring sight bracket is mounted with three small Teflon screws as a break away point to the huge snag point that it creates. The point to all this is that I am much more comfortable with helmet #1 when considering the ring sight snag points of the two helmets. The 'break away' screws on #2 *may* fix an existing problem, while #1 *virtually* does not have such a problem. So my conclusion is that a snag point is a snag point, and that The line snags may not be are such a big deal when the camera and base are kept in its place by 2 sided tape. This is just my opinion of course. Now I feel like my reply is drifting away from the main point of my opinion of the thread title. I still feel that snag points are the least of our concern. I also feel that the SIM should be updated to a verbiage that obviously includes any and all cameras.

I am going to try and keep my reply short as everyone else seems to be covering most aspects very well, and they have also been discussed repeatedly before. With over 1000 video jumps I will say that snag points are the very LEAST points of concern when a young jumper adds a camera to their head. Any other point already being addressed in this thread, as well as many other threads, or more likely to get a new videoit hurt or killed. Further more, if snag points were the big concern, I have yet to see a snag less go pro set up. Some of them are just plane scary looking, and I would not jump them with out a helmet cut away system, yet 50 jump wonders are straping them to protecs. In the past two months, I have stopped three such would be camera fliers. One was similiar to the one mentioned up thread, had permission from another DZ, or so he said. The other two thankfully both had the common sense to seek out advice before hand, although one had already bought all his gear because he just knew I was going to be ok with it, after all, he is so much more aware than any one else around, right? This is a scary subject to me, and young jumpers need to back up and try and find out why the older guys are so concerned. If you are that dead set to learn to fly camera right now, then get with an experienced camera flier and will bet he can give you some drills to go work on, with out the camera, that will improve your skills and prepare you more for when you are ready.

I do not run a video concession and I am not a lawyer, which is indeed who you need to be talking to. However, I own/operate a couple LLCs (for many years now) as well as being associated with several others. The first bit of advice I can give you is to get your terminology right. You say you plan on giving out 1099s at the end of the year, which would make those receiving them CONTRACTORS, not employees. Employees fill out I9s when hiring on and receive W2s at the end of the year. Sub contractors fill out W9s and receive 1099s. Knowing the difference between sub contractors and employees, and keeping the appropriate tax documents in order for both, is more important than you can possible dream if you ever get audited. Talk to a lawyer, and more specifically, a tax lawyer.

I voted Yes HOWEVER, as JP has clearly pointed out: History, which should never be ignored, suggests that we should all wear RSLs. I still hang on to the belief that I want to be the one activating things in a less than optimum situation, such as a helmet entanglement. My procedures are: Hands on Handles, Cut Away, Check for Separation, (if entangled, drop the cut away handle and release the helmet, while keeping my left hand on the reserve handle), Reserve As you can see I am expecting an entanglement after cutaway, rather than after deployment as earlier described. I do agree that a deployment snap would probably break your neck. My experience and reason for hanging on to these procedures: I broke six supension lines on deployment after filming a tandem. My right front riser had NO lines left on it at all and was bouncing around off my helmet and face along with a couple more lines from other risers. I cut away as described above, thinking this was it, my helmet is gone, no way this is clearing, and although it did clear and I did fire my reserve with helmet still firmly attached to my head, I believe there was a probability of entanglement in that situation. After that is hard fo me to wear an RSL on a video jump. I think your poll results are including people jumping point of view cameras on their normal skydives. This may be the result you were looking for, but I think you will find far more dedicated camera fliers that do not use an RSL, although I do know some that do. and as always, I could be wrong,

Wrong. If you toss 1 quarter a year, your chances of having a head come up on all of your combined tosses is 1 in 2 raised to the x power, 2 being the number of sides on the coin and x being the number of years that you have tossed the coin. Wrong. This answer would be 1 in 2 raised to the 5000th power. Try taking just 5 coins and tossing them over and over until they all land on heads on the same toss. If your reasoning was correct this would happen half the time. I think you will find that it will only happen about 1 out of every 32 times. QuoteThe risk is independent of the number of jumps you make, all other things being equal. *** Wrong again. It has already been said up post, but all things being equal, the number of jumps one makes is the single biggest factor in the risk one takes.

My wife has an alti-2 custom face with a copy writed image. I sent in a letter from the owner giving me permision and alti had no problem doing the work. Of course the copy write owner was bill booth so it was no where near the "too hard to do" catergory

Adding in my jumps: 67,217 + 2,500 = 69,717 127 + 6 = 133 69,717 / 133 = 524.2 Adding in Mrs. Azureriders jumps: 69,717 + 496 = 70,213 133 + 0 = 133 70,213 / 133 = 527.9 So Mitch (DontPanic), it looks like you and Red (Mrs. Azureriders) should expect a fun ride within the next fifty or so jumps........

Your being sarcastic, right?. I could make you a list of experiences that would argue the fact, but there may not be enough available band width to handle it.

I get AFF tips fairly often, however it is normally after a graduation jump of a student I have taken all the way through, or from the father of a daughter that I made feel safe, or some ofther similiar situation. It is never expected and for sure not after each jump, as others have already said, we would rather you spend you money on more jumps.

I would be guessing as to give any advice on the performance of this camera. As for mounting, all I can say is yes it can be done and should not be a big deal. The best thing you can do now is sit down with video flyer and get some first hand help. In my opinion, although we can tweak and advise each other on techniques that we are already familiar with, it is extremely difficult to get first time mounting advice over the internet.

Camera flyers should add one thing at a time to their jumps. Tell me what you plan to add today and we can talk about the specifics of that one thing. This evening after jumping, we can discuss where you are going and some of the broader topics of what a camera flyer needs to know. Tomorrow, we can discuss the specifics of the next thing you would like to add to your camera jumps. ********* A good over all briefing is great, but I think new camera guys need a bit of mentoring. I also believe that the specifics of each skill and piece of equipment that they will be using is way more than they can consume at one time.

jump numbers? have you read the sticky at the top of the photography forum?

Any one has my permision to use these for what ever they like. One condition, give me credit "Joe Courtney - CC Drafting and Design" when appropriate, and if on the internet, send me a link so that I can check them out. If any one is looking for other positions, I can accomodate. In which case I will have to remember that I am a proffesional draftsman and have a family to feed, but it will be reasonable for sure. I can normally publish to most any file format that I like, but I am currently rebuilding my pc and opperating from a spare, so not at this time. Would someone please convert these doc files to pdf and send them to the guy that was asking. The Arch graphics or free use. Thanks for the compliments.

Something I have been wanting to do for a while. I now have a 3d model of the little wooden man that so many of use for teaching body position, drawn in Auto Cad. If any one using Auto Cad would like a copy I would be glad to share. The model is fully movable on screen and can be exported for use in other programs.

I agree with any effort to get the pilot chute out of the burble and fast. To me a pilot chute bouncing around no my back would for sure be likely to entangle with my main bridle. I dont know about the dive though. This has been discussed here before. Pitching your body in either direction (diving or back sliding) only brings the main pc and the deploying reserve free bag closer together. Personally I would prefer to keep these two as far apart as possible by keeping my body flat on the pitch axes. A bit of bank (droping one shoulder) sounds like sound reasoning to me.

A few thoughts, points, and hopefully a conclusion that may help: I work at a DZ using the old 7 level AFF with the two page card. This DZ does a ton of AFF and has been doing so before the ISP was around. The program in use works very well and the DZO has never seen a reason to change over. We issue the student a two page card as part of their AFF graduation after level 7. I am an active coach examiner. When teaching a coach course I always teach two systems. First is the ISP. Even though I think there are other good programs, as a means of standardization, all instructional rating holders should know the ISP. Second I try to teach what ever system the DZ that is hosting the course uses. Point is so far, there is more than one system that works and they all seem to have pros and cons. I picked up something from Bram Clement while getting my AFF-I, and now I pass on to all my coach candidates “Just because it is different, does not mean it is wrong". I don’t think you are taking the "it is wrong" approach, just asking for advice on how to handle it, but some people really do think any thing other than the ISP is just wrong. Not so in my opinion. How do you handle military cross over students? Maybe you don’t see any of these but we do A LOT of them. The show up with 20 - 35 jumps and *most* all the requirements for an A license, and more often than not, no A card at all. Their training seems to be very thorough but no where near anything resembling the ISP. IMO, the two page card is the only way to go here. The two page is designed for just that, anything other than the ISP. So for my conclusion, if the student is far enough along that catching a four page up for him would be difficult, why not just use the two page and mold your program around this particular students needs. I personally find more traveling students with out cards than I do with, however some do show up with a four page. Although that is not what we use, we do continue with their card and mold what we need to around them. I am in no way suggesting one card is better than the other, just that there is a time and place to use the other one. As for the other poster that mentioned recreating lost cards being a problem, I am an Instructor, not a baby sitter. We approach our students that way and I have never had to recreate a lost card. The fact that we give them the card after level 7 however may be a factor in that.

I still think that every time a pretty redhead walks by, and I am still married to one from my first marriage

Ha, I hate it when I double book. You know, schedule two things for one block of time, normally with out realizing that you have done it. Some how or an other I managed start my AFF program just weeks before Hurricane Katrina made land fall and shut down the airport, knocked out my power, and flooded me with more work than I could pass up for a while.