DSE

Prolly woulda been funnier if it hadn't been staged?

Global warming has as much to do with ocean currents as it does with air currents. Maybe spend a little time talking to the folks up north; they'll be the first to tell you the weather patterns have changed. Whether you agree or not. the Inupiat are politically active for the first time in their history. The Saami's of norther Sweden, Finland, Russia are also very politically active on this issue, whereas they've never been much involved in the past. Mayvbe check out the Inuit Global Council website. They had a great series in Indian Country Today a while back. Or maybe the people living there just aren't educated enough to know what's happening.

Pilotdave, thanks for posting this info. Over the weekend, had a track-off with a tall, skinny kid with tracking pantz, I was wearing jeans and sweatshirt and outweigh him by 40lbs. He didn't have a prayer. I was farther out an significantly faster. surprised me that even with his pantz, I was roughly 200 yards ahead. rules were similar, gotta dump by 3K. Can't wait to try it again wearing *my* tracking pantz.

when you stow you brakes, do you not use a rubber band to stow excess at the slinks? or have some sort of keeper for the excess? I can see this happening, I guess, but the way I stow (keepers on one rig, small rubber bands on another) my excess is stowed to the inside and above where I grab my toggles, so my hands could never get caught. Definitely doesn't sound like a dull moment if it happens to you.

Laszlo, next time you have something like this, drop me a note. You know the Canon boyz sponsor VASST from time to time. I could never shoot what you're shooting, but I might be able to provide for a short time. See you at NAB, bro

that's OK, I always thought from your avatar, that you were a red and black Teenage Mutant Ninja turtle. Still gotta chuckle we were on a load together and didn't realize it. We measure by lux, but we can convert to FC. Lux is easier to describe for published results. Since you can see pix, I'm not permitted to share the measurements though, until after the cam we're shooting against is released. The HC7 is being used as a best-case benchmark. you can figure out what it is though, with around 20 c's. You'll hear more about a really sweet cam at NAB. Even though it's a back-room view only sort of launch...you'll hear about it here, and I'll see if begging gets me the license to shoot some stills. It's already been.....nah....can't say more.

No LANC on the HC46...you'd have to use a different kind of indicator.

smart a$$ Not bad for a 60 watt inky at 7'.

I'll get more serious about it when we're done, but at minimum a http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/articles/lens_tests.htm current view of HC7 with a wide. The coating on the Tokina is bad under SD, but horrid under HD, but the encoder in HDV smoothed out the nasties in the Tokina, so somewhat of a pleasant surprise.

nope

Wow! You actually *like* powder blue unicorns? IMO, that's an _ugly_ aircraft. I liked it better when it was just white with oil streaks. Now it's a weird conglomeration with oil streaks. But it is a comfortable jumpship. Forgot to mention, Noel (behind manifest) likes red wines; it'll probably help you get on those close loads if a bottle just falls out of your kit.

This probably should be in "places to jump?" Had good/bad experiences at both Pacific Coast and Skydive Hawaii. Went to Pacific Coast in May of 06, no one there wanted to speak to us when we walked into the lanai area. They had a lot of tandems. Walked over to Skydive Hawaii, and were immediately greeted by several. Did 7 jumps/two days. They're definitely a tandem company tho. Went back to both in December of 06, and Skydive Hawaii was really busy with tandems, so went to Pacific Coast. No one said a word, even after we stood around manifest and watched videos from a standing position in front of their manifest. There were people behind manifest, but they were talking about personal stuff. Determined to jump, I went to the car, got my rig, walked back in. I was immediately greeted and it was like they hadn't seen me the first time I was in there. Got on a couple loads, but tandems were busy that day. Got on 4 loads the next day before winds closed it down. Their King is very fast to altitude. I don't know if they offer rentals, I'd imagine they do. Went on New Year's Day, same story, kinda ignored. Skydive Hawaii wasn't as busy, and was greeted, and then invited on a 5 way. Did several loads that day, not too many tandems. Their caravan sure is ugly though. Skydive Hawaii does have some rentals. From my view? I like the people at Skydive Hawaii much better. I like the aircraft Pacific Coast operates. Landing areas are the same area, PCS tends to land slightly further west. Watch the rotors from the trees just north of the landing area. You'll love the North Shore, lots to do there, and no crowds of tourists by comparison to Waikiki. Don't miss Kua ii'naa' Burger in Haleiwa. Pirates Cove luau's are great. Not so impressed with the Polynesian Cultural Center Luau, by comparison it's like McHawaiian vs hand-cooked food. Check out Big Kahuna Rentals if you're into motorcycles, and plan on spending time in Sharks Cove near Sunset. Best fun water beach, IMO, is Waimea. This time of year is great because you can jump the rocks and get about 30' of air. Empty beaches, just 1 mile from Dillingham field, you'll find the Kenai Point area, beaches are mostly deserted, huge waves, very private, and lots of open space. You can walk around the point to the west side of the island. Keep your personals about you at all times. Oahu is famous for tourists "losing" belongings, including skydiving rigs. Can you tell I'm there a lot?

Had one of THOSE days on Oahu on New Year's day. Watched a cow and a calf during the entire ride to altitude, then watched them in freefall. Sight was so beautiful, I nearly watched it for the rest of my life. It's easy to forget what you are doing when it's that stunning.

Notice I didn't say anything about "cut." During climb to altitude, the aircraft at Perris, Eloy, and other DZ's I've been to follow a pattern, and I'd think this is particularly important during busy days. Deviating from the pattern likely costs more in fuel (again, maybe I'm wrong in my thinking) and that may be a part of the decision. At the end of the day, it only matters what the vendor offers. If you don't like it, don't buy it, but there is little point in standing toe to toe with him barking at him for not selling what you want. Either what you want is different than what others are willing to buy, or the vendor will go out of business. Either way, you're not affected.

How *could* it be economically viable? Multiple aircraft in the air, asking one to fly out of pattern, requiring additional attention to what loads are dropping when, concerns about simultaneous landing timing, not to mention fuel used. I don' entirely understand the dynamics of fuel consumption, but it seems that flying from point A-B-C, climbing the A-B routes, would consume less fuel than A-C-A-B-C, leveling out for the lower jump run. I'm probably wrong in that assumption, but at least it makes sense.

Hey, that was my line. I feel so insignificant. I'll wager 250 larger canopies are sold per every 1 crotch rocket. Larger canopy pilots swoop too. Not as effectively, not as far, But don't make it about the canopy size, it's about the pilot. And some pilots are making bad decisions. Isn't it taught in canopy control courses that one doesn't make radical/aggressive turns in traffic? Roethlisberger isn't a fuck bag; he's at the top of his game, bu he made bad decisions on a motorcycle and nearly killed himself. What about the other person that Dario Franchitti hurt in his motorcycle accident? He's a professional race-car driver. He's not a fuck bag, but he harmed someone else due to carelessness. If he'd have been riding at high speeds on a closed track, that's one thing. But he was riding high speeds in general traffic. It's illegal on the ground, I believe it should be regulated in the air. You can't even _drive_ a high performance, alcohol-fueled car on the city streets. How is flying an HP canopy in high traffic all that different? ~Mo Schmo, The Fuck Bag

.3 is pretty wide on this cam, I personally don't care for it. A .5 is plenty wide, IMO. I have a Royal and a Cookie, both are great. Royal has a slightly higher resolve, but at that width, only the center is truly sharp anyway.

nope, hasn't arrived here yet.

If it prevents one injury or death, it's at least a step in the right direction. It might not be _the_ solution, and probably isn't. At least it's action. The rest of it is just meaningless babble until someone takes some kind of action. Action will allow a measure or gauge to be used to determine the quality (or lack thereof) of the changes. Perhaps it will lead to new statistics, perhaps nothing will change. Bottom line though, right or wrong, SDA is at least leading the effort in making *some* kind of change towards better safety practices. I enjoy watching swoops, enjoy watching/filming HP pilots, BTW. The primary concern I see, is that competitors may find it more difficult to train, and as such, we may see a rise in the number of injuries to competitors due to lack of opportunity.

Because video glass doesn't need to resolve the same number of lines as still imagery glass in small formats. And, the sensors on vid cams are junk compared to the much larger and more sensitive sensors on still cams. This is changing, and as CMOS continues to develop...it will change, one day. But we're a long way off. The RED will be the first low-cost vid cam with a monster sensor that has decent sensitivity, and even at $80k (glass, storage, body) it won't be as good for stills than an XTi. that said, you can get great stills for the web from your vid cam, if it shoots true progressive frame modes.

it's not the .mov that's not supported, it's the codec within the .mov. You need an MJPEG/motion jpeg decoder. You can find one here or here, or google for one...There are a couple free on the VASST.com website too, but harder to find. HTH

Send me an MP4 QT, full rez, please? dse ]at[ vasst ]dot[ com

Laszlo, I wish you'd quit posting those images. My exwife makes me feel inadequate enough without you doing it too. yeah, I've kinda resigned that the King isn't the best place to learn this technique. In an Otter, how does your timing differ from the rear float timing?

The HC5 has the same system, just turned off. FWIW, there is a guy in Norway that has hacks for the HC1, FX1, HC5/7 to turn on all the 'missing' features. I've not done it, just see a lot of discussion and links to it on DVInfo.net. From you second post, are you finding you're only having the stabilization issues in a sit? Not head down or belly? Could you send me a short (5 secs) of raw m2t? I'd like to run PixelTrack on it to see if it can be pinpointed.

you dont' want a UV on the backside of a wide angle. If you're getting the judder on a belly fly/tandem, I'd definitely be taking the cam back. Whether mounted to the inside door of a King, wrist mounted, belly mounted, or headworn, I've yet to see judder out of 2 HC7's and 3 HC5's. Doesn't mean it's not happening, just that in belly flight, it absolutely shouldn't be happening.