980

looks like another one who drank the PC1000 Kool-Aid... The PC1000 is the flimsiest PC camera that Sony built. It's no closer to HD than the PC330 and it's lowlight performance blows big hairy dogs. It's a royal pain in the ass for firewiring at the DZ since it has no firewire port on the camera, only on the docking station and those seem to break more often than even the PC1000 does! Why fight topmount? It's the way forward. Sidemount is a dead-end road. Finally to answer your question, the 'next best' PC is probably the PC105 or PC9, since I rate the PC330 as a better camera overall than the PC1000.

Anybody know a good source in the states for the switch/es used for tongue and/or bite switches? any info appreciated thanks

I had a Nitro 120 @ 1.6 for about 350 wingsuit (S3) jumps (this was after I already had about 100 wingsuit jumps on a 'square' 150). I really liked how it opened, flew and landed. I downsized to a Xaos21-100 @ 1.9 and did maybe another 50-75 wingsuit (V2) jumps with that and about 150 non-wingsuit jumps. Now I have a Xaos27-94 @ 2.1 which I use when I jump wingsuit (V2) and I have maybe 20 wingsuit jumps with it so far and I really like it for that. For most of my non-wingsuit skydives I use my small canopy; Xaos27-86 @ 2.3, so the 94 seems a lot more docile on openings. Your mileage might vary. I love swooping and I also love flying my wingsuit. The Nitro was great for letting me learn how to swoop while being an easy entry into elliptical openings, even with a wingsuit. The Xaos21's openings simply blew me away. Beautiful. Then I flew the Xaos27 and the landings sold me on them.

To add to the post above.. I have been using one of these since spring for tandem videos and I like it. Here's what you need to know, though: It writes to the disc as it records, so if you mess up, the mistake is already burned on the disc. If you are using -R discs, you can't erase what you recorded either. It is very fast. I use a mixing board/titler with it, so I get my 2 audio inputs, headphones and additional video out in case you want to use a larger screen while editing. it's a nice little unit cya sam

HK-60 Hot Knife Clicky!

I drove by a camera store today and had a quick look, they had a 3032. I didn't have my lens or a 3031 to compare, so I can't say if it's any wider than the 3031, but the one I saw also had a plastic frame, just like the 3031. The ring around the big element in front is metal, but the body of the frame itself is plastic. I have no issue with that, as it seems plenty sturdy and this keeps the weight low. I don't know if Raynox made metal and plastic frame versions, if they did, I haven't seen a metal frame version yet.

I guess the difference between the 3031 and the 3032 is all metal frame vs. plastic. DSE: I did look at these lens tests and by the looks of it, the only lens with a wider field of view than my current lens (which is equivalent to the Raynox 3031) is the Royal 0.3 and that is much better than the Cookie as far as picture quality goes. Does anyone know if the Raynox 3032 has a wider field of view than the 3031? freeasabird: is the Raynox 3032 as wide (field of view) as your Liquid 0.3 ? The 3031 is not. Size isn't a major issue. Weight is of more concern to me, do you have a weight for the 3032?

Any news on this front? I am currently using a Century 0.5 W/A converter on a HC5. The problem is that I want something a little wider, without sacrifing a lot of sharpness or gaining crazy distortion. I have a Cookie 0.3 and it has acceptable distortion in my opinion, but when shooting HDV and watching it on a HD TV there is very noticeable loss of picture quality. My friend just got a Raynox 3031 (which is optically identical to the 3032 according to the Raynox site). The sharpness is nice, hard to see a difference between that and the Century, but it's field of view is almost exactly the same as the 0.5 Century Converter! It is also slightly bigger physically, albeit lighter due to a plastic frame where the Century is all metal. Are there any other options out there that are lower cost and lower distortion than the 0.3 Century Fisheye?

Thank you for doing this.

Airtec seems to differ with you on that. Here they specify 450lbs for the breaking strength of a loop and anyone who has ever broken one with a leverage device would agree that 800lbs is a ridiculous number. Your method uses a loop that is different to the Airtec supplied one, so I would suggest this means your method is not correct either. Try making the loop like Airtec does, with the inside line sticking out from the outside line or equal at the end. Then use a length of seal thread (the same length you need to seal the container works great) as a pull-up cord to thread the loop through washer, loop side first. After you have then stretched and knotted the loop to the correct length, you can trim the excess tail down to 2" or so. Do you use this on Cypres equipped rigs? Is it approved for such use?

on my sidemount it was maybe 5mm from my sunglasses/goggles on the FTP I jump now it is more like 15-20mm I wear modified sunglasses that are very low profile. Not very difficult, maybe a little tricky at first, but you get the hang of it quickly. I guess it will depend on what you want to sight it for, I mainly do tandem video, so it was a pretty easy thing to sight for. Walk around with the camera on your head once you think you have it sighted, shoot video and pics of various objects at the relevant distances for your intended use, then compare the video and stills with what you saw in the sight and adjust accordingly. good old 1/4-20 capscrew (topmount) or thumbscrew (front mount) I used to have a stroboframe on the sidemount helmet, but don't see the need anymore. No. For what I do, I don't see the point of quick releases. If you do want one, I think the Liquid Flatlock is way nicer for just a little more money. I prefer top. most likely not any reputable brand that is on sale a $15 1GB backup CF card in your jumpsuit pocket is worth way more than that when you have forgotten to put your card back in before boarding the plane (seen it happen) buy whatever is on sale at Staples or similar, rather get 2 or 3 1GB cards for Like $12-$15 each than spend a silly amount of money on a superfast 4GB or more monstrosity when 1GB holds around 250 pics on your XT and most people's workflow will have them dump the pics after every jump. This way you can keep one spare somewhere in your helmet or jumpsuit pocket, another at your editing station and a 3rd in the camera. I have Lexar, Sandisk and Rocketfish cards and they all work fine. cya sam

it won't fly differently, but they way you control it will feel different the most common reason to do this is so that you do not pull down brakeline when reaching up past the guide ring to grip your rear risers for rear riser landings some feel it also makes for a cleaner grip on the rears it allows you use more rear siser input before deflecting the tail through the brakelines if your slider comes down fast and/or you don't pull it down soon after opening, these rings will beat up your slider grommets, leading to all kinds of bad things the transition from rear risers to toggles feels very different when you do this, as you will probably have some slack in the brakelines you need to take up before your toggle input does anything I don't feel that it affects the flare. I would say it has less of a chance, because the additional guide ring (at the slinks) will provide some friction and ensures a straighter pull on the original guide ring. Add to this that you now have to stick the brakesetting catseye and some line above and below it through the guide ring, this looks to be a more secure configuration as far as the chances of the toggle being ripped off goes. This is true only when you are configured slider-off or slider down. Then you use a loop-ring-toggle system, as on the Strong tandem risers. When you jump slider up on BASE gear, the brakeline goes through the guide ring.

actually my first priority would be to mount it in a position that minimizes snag potential this means: -all posts as short as possible -sight, clamps and brackets as close to helmet/your face as possible -all excess posts trimmed off real short and rounded to remove edges then I would ensure good contact by adding some form of spacer that does not bind the bracket to the helmet of course, use plastic screws get an experienced camera flyer who has a clean setup help you out or at least look at your setup and give you their opinion

that's not even neccessary, just look at the standard ringsight setup on the FTP, where the factory drilled hole has the stem at an angle that is closer to 45/135 degrees relative to the helmet's flat top surface here's a swivel clamp fitted to a FTP

in my experience with trying to convince people of this very same situation applied to break cord arrangements used to static line in basejumping: it's no use to show people the theory, pictures, logic, etc. if they refuse to let go of the notion of the single line at the pulley point easiest is to get them to do a little experiment themselves and that quickly settles it so rig yourself up your little 10lb thread setup or similar and let us know what the results are ...

Why give eyespy a hard time? Why are you so quick to defend a business you know nothing about? I will venture a guess that it is because you could not imagine what this business is run like. You live and work in England, you would not believe how things run in North America and this establisment specifically could not operate the way it does in the UK because of better labour laws and their enforcement and better health and safety regulations and their enforcement. Let me answer some of eyespy's questions which Andrew conveniently ignored... to the best of my knowledge only one person who underwent the initial training (given by experienced and qualified instructors from the U.S.) holds a USPA (or CSPA) instructional rating and he is very rarely at the tunnel try emailing the tunnel and asking them as mentioned before an initial group of instructors were trained by very experienced and qualified instructors from a Fly-away tunnel in the U.S. practically all of these quit (5 out of 7 who were on the approved operator list required by the TSSA) apparently some more instructors were then trained by Andrew and Atilla (who themselves never underwent the initial training course) I have heard the trend was to minimize training time and almost completely eliminate tunnel time from the training. Who oversees it? are you kidding? I call bullshit on both counts. Show me 4 normal size people in that tunnel in freefly suits and I would be very impressed. The tunnel is too small for 4-way and not powerful enough for most people to even be able to belly fly their freefly suits easily. what it means is that you should be a qualified instructor to operate the tunnel and apparently they have had persons that are not qualified instructors operate the controls and this scared the qualified instructors that saw it I hear it is because they treat them badly. Feel any better now? If anyone needs lube here, it is the employees (and ex-employees) and customers. Don't make the mistake of thinking this windtunnel has anything to do with skydiving or the skydiving community, it does not. It is purely an overpriced carnival ride, like many others in Niagara Falls.

oops, I meant Jason, not Ted. thread here: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2173636#2173636

none of the ex-employees I am talking about were let go, they either never accepted the employment offer or they quit the only pattern of incidents at this establishment is one of employees quitting because of how the owners treated them Good idea about saving your money and waiting for Montreal, the only reason for a skydiver to make the trip to this area is to jump from a Twin Otter.

I have to say, I am not surprised at all to see this post. It is no wonder that most of the people who did the initial training there are not only not working there, but have filed claims against the owners with the Labour board. I have also heard very recently from some ex-employees that they were operating outside of the TSSA guidelines and it was just a matter of time until there is bound to be an injury. You certainly have a very valid complaint and should share your experience with someone in the Niagara Falls city council or similar so that they may be made aware of how these actions are reflecting badly on the city.

mine begins before deployment -6000ft beep goes off: check where we are, remember DZ heading -after track (tandem) or break-off (RW), throw PC while facing DZ heading -when I am sat upright by the canopy being out of the bag and the snivel is starting normally, I look up and also grip my risers just below the links(front and rear together in each hand with my thumbs pointing down) - I hold my risers about shoulder width apart, keeping my feet and knees together and keeping track of my heading while watching my slider make its way down the lines. During this I may correct for heading deviation if it seems appropriate. -When my slider reaches my links, I complete the turn towads the DZ if needed, I let go of my risers and grip my slider ASAP to stop the grommets banging my lines at the links and pull the slider down over the toggles. -turn off video -collapse slider and roll slider -loosen chest strap -release brakes I am tall and light enough to not wear any wings, so swoop cords, wingclips etc, are things I do not have to worry about. As for a toggle hang-up or a brakeline tension knot after brake release, I have had one which I managed to clear and two which I landed, so I do not consider loosening my chest strap before brake release as potentially dangerous. One brake hang-up I landed was on a Nitro 120 @ 1.6 which I stood up as there was a nice amount of wind and the other was on a Xaos27-86 @ 2.2, which I slid in, as I did not have the height to make the DZ and turn into the wind, so I opted for the smooth grass and a downwinder. For me personally as a camera flyer if I don't feel I can safely land a hung-up toggle, I should reconsider my canopy choice.

I am not sure if they offer colours, but one year at Flock'nDock, Ted from Texas was selling wingsuit friendly smoke brackets and also smoke by Superior Signal, I believe it was the 2 minute skydiver smoke. I bought one of the brackets and a canister of the 2 minute smoke, which is a cold burning smoke and it was white. We then did a wingsuit flock of about 6 people with two of us wearing smoke and it was clearly visible to all on the ground from exit until well after landing. All in all the canister lasted for 3-4 minutes, never got too hot and seemed to generate loads of smoke.

a client of mine with a new Javelin has lost his card twice and he mostly flies headdown...

this is true this is not I will tell you why I say that: -I have flown old style F111 7 cells and they do not open or fly as well as modern BASE canopies. -I have seen many people BASEjump old style F111 7 cells, both slider off and slider up, all kinds of delays and they regularly take way longer to pressurize and start flying. Now these may not seem like big differences to the average skydiver, but believe me, the BASE manufacturers have put a lot of work into developing their products and it shows if you try them out. Sure, they are still low aspect ratio 7 cells made from low-porosity ripstop nylon, but the linetrims have evolved and so have the nose angles, the airfoils, the nose shapes, the control line configurations, the construction techniques, the reefing systems etc. The vents have gotten more and bigger as well as being covered by one-way valves these days, to maintain your flare power. Most companies also offer a full or partial ZP tospskin. One company offers a low pack volume version intended for streamlined low profile containers that push tracking and wingsuiting to new levels of performance. For example, I had a 252 Parafoil and did about 50 jumps on it and believe me, my Blackjack 260 does everything better than the Parafoil in addition to being better constructed(in my opinion as a rigger).

wow. what's up with assuming the all canopies have the same pack volume for the same size? Speed 2000 technical data 266 cubic inch PD reserve manual, see page 57 296 cubic inch so the Speed 2000 - 150 packs smaller than the PD126R according to the manufacturers what kind of 120? maybe the other guy is just a more talented packer?

What lines/stows combinations were tested? What elastic length and configuration (single or double wrapped)? What lengths of line from the last stow to the links? I would think these factors would all influence the force needed to unstow the lines. By what mechanism do you think this causes hard openings?