980

I don't know if it would be appropriate to mention the guy's name, but here's a picture of the landing. The pole with the orange flag he is about to snag his lines on and get swung around is a beerline marker.

I voted 200 in 18 months. I have a simple procedure when someone with less experience/currency than that wants to really, really get into wingsuit flying: I tell them what the manufacturer and association(s) recommendations are. Then I tell them about the PF pants and jacket. I tell them that if they think they are ready, I will train them and we will do a first flight, but we will be using PF pants and jackets instead of my training Prodigy(s). It will be a coach jump and I will be shooting video, mainly observing. They have the normal WS tasks: stable exit correct flightpath heading control and awareness stable practice pulls good recovery of stability pull at correct altitude I tell them that if they manage these seemingly basic tasks, we move straight onto the Prodigy, but if they have trouble with some of these tasks, they are welcome to use the pants the jacket to work on them (if they were at least safe to send out on their own) and let me know when they think they are ready. This works great, as the pants and jacket are a little more twitchy than a Prodigy, but without the added complications of wing areas and restriction of movement. I haven't had one sub 200 jump candidate pass themselves on their initial jump. (I ask them after the jump if they think they are ready to move on) that's my 2 cents

A - bummer B - good point standards - it would be better if there were more standards everywhere!

bump so it's a year since this thread happened and a lot more jvx canopies are out there being jumped... I have been jumping a friend's hybrid 84 JVX @ 2.2 for a few weekends of 'vidioting' and really liked it! For comparison I usually jump a Xaos27-86 and a Xaos21-100. Anyone out there been using a jvx for video work? ZP, hybrid or sail? (a different friend of mine uses his sail jvx for video) How has it been treating you? How many jumps did you get per lineset?

Why not just pay $65 for the tongue switch with an N3 plug from paragear? I have one I use with my 20D and it has been working fine, I did have to replace the heat shrink on the switch once already, but once you do that you realize how simple these things are to make.

me at 'work'

Hello everyone. I don't visit this forum much as my main interests lie in other parts. The subject pretty much says it all. What would you consider inappropriate behaviour for a big-way organizer when they are at a dropzone who paid them for their services? We recently had a big-way event at a DZ I jump at and I saw an (in)famous big-way organizer bust the beer line twice on one day to hot-dog it for the spectators. The second time he turned too low, stabbed too late, bounced off the ground in his carve, lost control of his parachute and while he was sliding along his ass on the ground (across the beerline), his canopy flew into a picnic bench and the tandem students sitting on it, who were waiting to jump. Luckiliy no-one was hurt, but when the DZO asked what that was about and mentioned that was the 2nd time that day for a beerline infraction, he blamed it on windshear. I couldn't believe the nerve of this guy and how inconsiderate he was to everyone else, even the people paying him! Has anyone else seen anything like this? cya sam

the way around that is to use the 'spot-focus' feature in the menus you then touch the spot on the screen that corresponds to where you want to focus and it will autofocus on that spot

I take offense at that statement.

I think these guys make more protective helmets than the 'standard' skydiving protec (which had no expanded foam): TSG

you are not mistaken I would like to know if Ned took the opportunity to demo an Optimum at the event. I put 2 jumps on the 143 and 1 on the 113. All at terminal, doing tandem video, so now I have some nice video and stills (20D) of the openings and I know the glide is good enough to get you home from being the last tandem out of an Otter. The openings were not hard. They were very comfortable, even with a PC9 and 20D on my head. The flights were amazing, these reserves have incredible range. Packing them is super easy too, I have packed one as a reserve. cya sam

thanks! I got it. That is the one I was looking for.

no. it's a piggyback sport rig that looks a bit like a Wonderhog. DOM October 1982 by GQ Security of California.

Hi. I am looking for manuals for a GQ Security System III and GQ Security 26' canopy. I know where I can get a hard-copy mailed, but I am hoping someone has an electronic copy I can get sooner. thanks sam

I think you mean Hydrogen Peroxide. ek dink jy spreek 'n gek taal en u denk ek spreek eine gekke taal..

I went through this when I wanted something faster than my Nitro120 that I could comfortably fly with a big wingsuit (Vampire2). I demo'd a few canopies and ended up with a few jumps on: Crossfire2-109 at 1.7 Crossfire2-99 at 1.9 Katana-107 at 1.7 Katana-97 at 1.9 Samurai-105 at 1.8 I have since started doing tandem video and from the start of this year added a digital still camera. The openings on both the Katana and Crossfire2 were comfortable and they are fun canopies to fly and land well. The canopy I ended up with though was a Xaos21-100 (at 1.9) because it has the nicest openings of any canopy I have jumped so far. (yes, I have jumped a Spectre and a Pilot) I know you said you didn't want to consider going crossbraced due to cost and pack volume, but I will offer this: even for a 'light' loading of 1.8 to 1.9 you would be looking for a pretty small Xaos21 and since the 21/7 cells aren't that popular anymore and the 27/9 cells take higher loadings better, small Xaos21s don't hold their value very well and you can score a good deal on a used one, better than what you are likely to get a Crossfire2 for. Which just leaves you with pack volume. If you were going to get a Crossfire loaded at 1.8, you would want to load a Xaos a bit higher, so there's a real possibility you would fit it in the same container that would fit a little bigger Crossfire2. So I am suggesting you try and do a few jumps on Xaos21s because you will love the openings and there's no comparison in flight between crossbraced and non-crossbraced.

my bad I had a quick surf around the apex site and didn't find it there I was looking for something like this: http://www.crmojo.com/adobepdf/tailgate.pdf I did find tailgate here on the apex site http://www.basicresearch.com/basic_research_owner.htm#tailgate

wrong that is a very useful trait of the tailgate but it is not the reason it was invented or it's primary function I think you will find more info on the tailgate at www.apexbase.com

that's an interesting theory but many peoples' practical experience have shown it to not be accurate it may be dependant on the type of canopy, as the experiences I talk about are mostly BASE jumpers theory is a good place to start, but we always have to test it with observations from reality to check for accuracy

no real surprise, as 180s have far more of a blindspot than 270s and they have people fly in other people's blind spot (the area above you obscured by your canopy) they also have people fly toward each other with little or no horizontal separation, especially if setting up a tight 180 landing area restrictions only make sense if they restrict everyone in the pattern to 90 degree turns or less and everyone flies the same handed pattern my 2 cents. give me 270s (where you only ever fly perpendicular to other traffic nearby) or 90s. 180s just make too little sense

that is not ture maybe my perception is clouded by the frame of reference of having jumped that size canopy or smaller for more than 600 jumps now, but let me assure you that a Nitro 120 at 1.6 is not twitchy a Diablo 135 at like 1.3 or something is twitchy, however a Xaos21-100 at 1.9 is not twitchy feet and knees together after pitch until the slider is down and don't fight it because it will win just about every time that's my opinion based on my experiences so far your mileage may vary but I still don't think it's fair to call any 120 loaded at 1.45 twitchy

OK, firstly, I apologize for these pics not being in focus, but my camera lens is focused and taped for tandem video, so you get what you get when shooting this close inside. here's the link The first setup is just the toggle mated to the velcro and pulled at what I felt the correct angle would be to simulate real flying. The riser and toggle has about 150 jumps with no velcro replacement on them. They are Paratech risers and toggles. The first setup released at 26lbs, which needed to be applied for 5-10 seconds continuously to achieve release, during which time the velcro shearing is audible. The second setup is what I was suggesting. The toggle stub is in the keeper loop on the riser and that is what is taking a lot of the force now. This setup released at 38lbs which had to be applied continuously for 8-12 seconds with audible velcro shearing and after the velcro sheared completely, the cloth stub still took about 2 seconds to bend back on itself far enough to be pulled out. I don't see there being 38lbs of force on a single brakeline during canopy flight with no toggle input. Especially on a canopy ride where you have such a long flight after a slider down/off deployment that you want to fly without holding onto the toggles. For extra security and peace of mind, you can grab your rear risers around the toggle stub keeper loop while steering on the rear risers. If you have any doubts please do these ground tests yourself followed by a test skydive into a large forgiving landing area before trying this on a BASE jump.

totally unneccessary just stick the toggle stubs back into the keepers on the risers and mate your velcro if this doesn't hold, you have shitty risers/toggles and/or need to replace your velcro if you don't have the manual dexterity to do that quickly and cleanly, mash the keypad twice.. YES, I'm being serious.

It seems there are a few different approaches to dealing with DVD/video and stills. I am curious how different DZs handle this. Please post how your DZ handles this and what country/province/state they are. If you do not think it appropriate to post all this info, please PM me instead and you can be assured I will keep it confidential. One DZ I know of: country: Canada province: Ontario price for DVD only or digital stills only: $100 CAD price for DVD & digital stills: $130 CAD pay for DVD only or digital stills only: $35 pay for DVD & digital stills: $55 DZ provides for DVD: all editing equipment and media DZ provides for stills: media readers/CD burners and media videographer provides/does for DVD: video camera equipment, edit & burn DVD, own packjob videographer provides/does for stills: camera equipment, download & burn CD, own packjob thanks PS - when do we get a smiley with some cameras on it's head?

the saying refers to doing three 90 degree left turns having the same effect as doing one 90 degree right turn it is a saying from everyday life, not skydiving or aviation and has nothing to do with the pattern I just included it because it shows that most people understand that turning left for 270 degrees from a specfific heading has the same end effect as turning right for 90 degrees from that same heading!!! They did fly the same pattern. Draw it out on some paper from above and you will realize that. Why are you the only one here having trouble seeing that? Maybe it's no coincidence that you always end up having asinine arguments by making contrary statements with no factual backup in most of your posts??