damion75

Final episode the other night... and yes... they went to do their AFF L1... Personally I thought that the commentary was hilarious. Particularly how they pointed out on several occasions that after 'only' a days instruction the kids from the show would jump on their own... Then the jump that Jack did at the start of the show. Commentary along the lines of "Even though Jack is an experienced skydiver with over twenty jumps, he still has to get a jump in to prepare himself to be in the same plane as the kids on his show. Unsurprisingly, Jack piles in and fractures his foot (or something similar) which of course sets the other students up to feel really good about the jump they are about to make. Anyone else find this whole show amusing? *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

Tunnel tunnel tunnel. Once you have walked them through as mentioned above. Get a couple of good coaches and do 2 on 2 camps in the tunnel where you can work the block over and over without having to worry about your altitude. Having the two coaches flying with you, rather than one guy trying to tell the four of you what to do will give you the feel for how it should be and prevent the learning of bad habits! *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

Not entirely, since you would classify this as normal flight, I would then suggest that it is possible to create a streamer effect from a canopy stall in this way. I guess it depends on your definition of streamer, but if we go along the: Ball of shit with no flying characteristics, lift or wing shape and certainly no crossport venting going on Which is unwieldy but I think says what I want it to, then with that definition I would argue that you can stall a modern sport canopy into a streamer. Of course this doesn't answer the OP's question about gift wrapping from a stall, to which I would have to say not from the stall but possibly from the recovery... PS - Just as a matter of interest, I really don't think I could do it accidentally as it was necessary to work pretty hard to achieve the stall - which was the point of Shannon's exercise: To prove that it was not that easy. *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

I'm not sure that I understand your argument fully here, but I will say that with a toggle input of full arm length, pushing a fraction further (rolled shoulders) and holding for a few seconds, I most certainly could stall my last canopy (Vision 132) into a streamer like configuration. No turn of brake line around the hand required. I haven't tried it on my Katana because it scared the crap out of me even though it was an intentional exercise on a canopy piloting course and I was at 5k. Being able to intentionally toggle stall your canopy by pushing it like this surely just proves that the full flare of the canopy is available in normal use? I am not sure that this fits within your definition of 'normal flight and circumstances' since it had to be done intentionally. *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

Would it be safe to start shooting without AF at 50 photos if I take a camera control class? Only if you have MAD SKILLZ! *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

If you are talking about the Finist from Skydive Spain / Hib... as I am not sure that they are all set up the same way... It is pretty cramped on the ride to altitude and the door is not large (smaller than a caravan, maybe the same as an Islander) BUT... the long step set well below the bottom of the door makes a big difference as OC and Tail can get into good positions. We had no problems in launching good 4-way from it. There are probably some issues though - I wouldn't want to try a D type launch (with point stalking) but if you are doing more basic random and block launches you should be ok. If it is a serious 4-way training camp on the other hand, then I would be tempted to go to Empuria instead and use the otter... *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

Those are the settings I mean - which one you need I forget since I have not used the USB for about 2 years! I found out about those settings from the manual though - I'll try to have a peer when I break for lunch (UK!) and get back to you. I needed all these settings to work to capture in movie maker as well, so if you can capture in that, then camera settings are not your problem here. *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

You can capture video using USB 2.0 from the PC 109, but you have to change the 'streaming' settings in the playback menu to do this. You also have to switch on the USB port on the base (not the camera!) which has caught me out before. For details of this read the camera manual. Capturing the video using Movie maker will work (its how I started) but the quality will be significantly reduced - like the difference between VCR video and DVD video... You will also need to load your Sony driver if you haven't already done so. If all this doesn't work, sometimes the adobe stuff just drops out - I had premier elements refusing to see my (firewire connected) PC109 in spite of having done so previously. After trying everything else I uninstalled it, re-installed it and everything has been fine since then. *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

Slight tangent to the discussion, but I think that sometimes Instructors who are very experienced and used to flying small Xbraced canopies of their own can forget how things look from the less experienced end of the scale. For someone with 1000+ jumps on a Velocity 90, that Stilletto 120 is going to look very tame and manageable, and they may sub-consciously have that feeling in their mind when they make recommendations, not realising that to someone with 100 jumps who is used to a Spectre, that same Stilletto is going to be a very major high performance step. As someone else said, the Stilletto used to be the cutting edge. Just because the cutting edge has moved forwards, the Stilletto has not got any less high performance. People tend to forget that. *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

For me it was about 5 months, but I was newly qual at the time and jumping a Fury 220... anything smaller might have hurt. Of course I may also have slowed down my recovery by going to a party 3 weeks after it happened, getting drunk (to dull the pain) and dancing like a lunatic... I'm not sure that these activities are recommended by medical professionals! *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

I'm sorry, but I don't think that is reasonable. How can you plan to stay away from someone if you don't know where they are going to land or that they are likely to cause a problem? Your approach would work if the OP's canopy were abnormally large or small, or if they were jumping at a tiny piston DZ, but for a load of 10+ jumpers all landing in a mid-sized or small area with a Pilot 150, the OP is always likely to be in the middle of the pack. Staying heads up and keeping an eye on the other canopies - adjusting as necessary is the best you can do. IMHO. I think the OP sounds to have done the right thing, and the other jumper needs educating about landing patterns, canopy control and general awareness. *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

Great shot! The student clearly doesn't understand the importance of landing so close to the beer... *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

Since you mention FS1, I assume you are in the UK? In which case I recommend that as you are planning 'lots of jumps' this year you get a second hand main (which are fine!) so that you have enough dosh left over for a plane ticket to Spain or the US as it doesn't look like we are going to get a lot of jumps in in this country this year!

Isiah? I thought that the DZO at Skydive Miami was Redline? He'd love you jumping that canopy - you and he could do some HP CRW... *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

Hang on a minute, surely you have that backwards? I would struggle to see the logic in demanding greater vertical seperation than horizontal. I'm going to go out on a limb here, not being a member of the CSPA council etc... but I am guessing it has something to do with most skydivers going faster vertically in freefall than they are travelling horizontally. *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

Hey Vinny, Langar is a very friendly DZ - make use of some of the crap weather days we are having at the moment and ask someone there to show you. As the guy above said, its something which is quite difficult to describe. There are videos / DVDs on sale (pack like a pro or some such) but nothing beats someone showing you and then correcting your mistakes as you do it again, and again, and again!

I want me one of those!!! Any good results with that so far?

Manual focus, auto exposure. Although I have had some video (canopy stuff - filming a primarily white canopy) which ended up quite blown out using the auto settings. Funnily enough I have just started getting into stills - including doing a class - and I now reckon I know why it did that! Strange that there is so much instruction out there on how to do good stills photography and so little on the video side, which is essentially similar in many basic ways. *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

From my experience with them (I had one on loan for about 6 months), that is just a fact of life. I never liked their openings which is one reason why I never got one. The on heading from the packer may have been a fluke. Sorry! *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

I'm just tickled that they are listed in that article as ex-military... AFAIK all of the RAF Falcons are serving... in the Air Force strangely enough. Although many of us have thought for years that Air Force types aren't really military.

Given that it has been more than 30 days, they will need to refresh your EPs etc. They may also want you to have a check jump with an AFFI or possibly an FS Coach. But I think that most CCIs will be sympathetic to your cause given the state of the weather here for the last month...

As someone else mentioned, if you have a recent camera (I have a 400d / Xti) and Photoshop CS2 or earlier, your RAW plugin will not be up to date. I downloaded Camera RAW 3.6 from the Adobe website (for nothing), replaced the previous plugin with the unzipped file (about 5.3MB) and was good to go. *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

Hey Matt, People are going to need a lot more info about where you are with your skydiving before giving you any recommendations - they won't want to point you in the wrong direction! The main things will be: Your previous canopy experience Your jump numbers DZ location and altitude above sea level That said, there are a couple of 'big guy canopy' threads in this forum already, and doubtless you will be told that the best recommendations will come from the instructors at your DZ who have trained you (?) and seen you land... Good luck!

Your hands... Although maybe I'm being narrow minded, there may be other places that you can wear them... *************** Not one shred of evidence supports the theory that life is serious - look at the platypus.

Boogies... no-one says that you have to jump at your local DZ - many jumpers probably get more jumps in annually at Boogies than at home. There are some related issues with currency etc, but provided that you bear those in mind and adjust your risk levels (jump type, canopy choice etc) accordingly, there is no reason why you cannot travel to jump.