shveddy

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Everything posted by shveddy

  1. Katanas have relatively low toggle pressure compared to other models. If she's not standing up her landings she should switch to one of those, maybe it will help her.
  2. I've skydived a bunch with a CX100 a while ago and my parents happen to own a 150, and I can't really tell much of a difference other than size for most purposes. As is usually the case with newer models, the differences hardly ever come into play in normal use - both are totally adequate. But given the option I would prefer to use the 150 because it uses SD cards rather than sony's proprietary memory stick duo junk as is the case with the 100. If you're doing work jumps and need a memory card stat, it's usually easier to find an SD card lying around someplace. I also vaguely recall from last time I researched this that the 150 has slightly better night vision. Something to do with a backlit sensor. But that's just off the top of my head so you should verify that.
  3. I have a shattered L2, a titanium and bone-goo fusion from T12 down to L4 with a cage replacing the L2, and a respectable (but thankfully ever-decreasing) amount of paralysis (three and a half months stuck in a wheelchair). I did a hop and pop three days shy of the year anniversary, but I only started skydiving again in earnest about 19 months after the accident (up to six jumps in a day, packing them all myself). Once your fusion gets to a certain level of severity, any surgeon with a malpractice insurance bill will tell you not to jump - and you probably shouldn't - but if you're priorities are such that you are willing to take the risks, here are the factors involved. 1. If you're young and healthy and if Titanium is involved, the area that has been fused might technically be tougher than it was before the injury. 2. Unfortunately #1 means that if something does go wrong, it's extra bad for the following reasons a. Your spine absorbs shock by distributing it across 24 vertebrae. You now have 24-n vertebrae, so the each remaining vertebrae is going to receive more of the shock, meaning that they are more likely to break (particularly the vertebrae directly above and below the fusion). b. The fused area is now acting like a fairly long lever and it can multiply the force applied to the vertebrae and intervertebral body immediately above and below by a factor of however many vertebrae you have fused, again, meaning that they are more likely to break. c. If you have titanium and the impact is such that it breaks it loose, then your medical implant is now a very expensive titanium chisel. 3. Even if nothing catastrophic happens, factors 2a, 2b and 2c still apply to the every day wear and tear on your body, which means that you will drastically increase the rate at which you wear down the vertebrae directly above and below your fusion and of course you are more likely to throw your back out of whack and be in a lot of pain later in life. All of this can be mitigated somewhat (but not entirely) with yoga, a decision to NOT swoop, stretching, exercise, core strengthening, a good diet, good genetics, luck and lots of milk. Otherwise, your biggest problem will be packing. I haven't had any weird slammers from strange angles yet and it definitely doesn't hurt to have a soft opening parachute, but I've gone three seconds slider down a few times and the pack job afterwards was much more painful. Your results may vary - good luck!
  4. Thanks for the info. I have a CX150 for video so I couldn't care less about the video functionality, and it sounds like there is a way to make it work. I think I should change the title of the thread to mirrorless rather than 4/3. I'm really not paying attention to the latest and greatest enough to have realized that 4/3s is outdated and really I'm just looking to get rid of the whole mirror/bigger-lens aspect of dslrs, so it's all good.
  5. They seem to be catching up with the consumer level DSLRs - Is there any reason to not use a micro 4/3 setup for tandem video? From what I gather the autofocus isn't really up to DSLR quality, but I could just leave it at infinity. What about blow/bite/tongue switches? Is it difficult to deal with a more menu oriented interface? Are there any models that have more physical buttons for quick access to the important stuff? I'm guessing there must be some way to turn the screen off for free fall. A back injury dictates that I should probably get a lighter setup, and it seems like a really obvious way to shave some weight.
  6. why are you adding the velcro flap when you can just sew it closed?
  7. Flamthrower in a nylon ball is awesome, but it's still no 45 minute ride in narrow body 182 with four jumpers crammed on the floor. Very cosy and there is plenty of time to nap. On a serious note though - I haven't flown any megasuits so this comes from someone with phantom type experience, but on one of my exits I remember purposely going head-low in relation to the relative wind so that my back caught the air and it seemed to push me down and away from the plane with a decent amount of force (I was much lower than the other guys on the load immediately after exit). This was out of a 182. I guess there is a risk of over rotating and presenting too much drag, but if you have some experience with head down exits it shouldn't be much different and you can probably present less drag than a belly flyer. I'm not saying you should go out with your wings spread - do the exit the same, just try to go head low a little bit for maybe a bit more margin. So how reckless is that idea?
  8. does the toronto mayor jail rape victims? ???? females in UAE have been put in prison for being raped. google it. Oh, I had a dyslexic moment there - I thought you said that the prince was raping jail victims. I will google your version.
  9. Stow your brakes the second you land if nothing else just because not stowing them gives them a chance to twist up. It takes less than ten seconds - the toggles are already in your hands and the risers just happen to be right within arms reach. Once you've done that, grab the slider from behind your neck, spend three seconds uncollapsing it, and then push it up towards the canopy while you gather up the lines. With a bit of practice the whole procedure takes less than twenty seconds and very rarely is anyone too busy to spare the time. It's so simple and useful that it should be a B license requirement. It's good for your gear, and it's a nice gesture to the packer, god knows they rip their hands apart enough as is. Back to the thread topic: Better to have a melodramatic Prince than a Crackhead Mayor, amiright Toronto?
  10. Every packer I know can't wait to get students out of the way and packing for themselves because the canopies they jump are huge and unwieldy, and they often come in with tangles. It's much easier and more lucrative to just pack a tandem or suck up to the guy who makes ten jumps in a day with two rigs and who always makes sure his brakes are set in the landing area and even puts his RDS on for you.
  11. You have way more contacts in the european BASE world than I do - get someone to try it. All you'd need is a five or six go pros, a bunch of tripods and someone willing to schlepp it all halfway up a mountain while you take the cable car ;) Settle the matter once and for all!
  12. Go to Brevent, hike up to the bottom of that rockslide you guys fly really close to all the time and set up a camera. Use a bubble level to make sure that the camera is completely horizontal and pointed along the line of flight towards the valley and then set up a string between two poles that runs across the frame at exactly that same level a few feet away. If you can manage to break the line the string makes across the video image twice in one jump then you have gone up. Set up multiple such camera angles at regular vertical intervals along the slope to find out how much.
  13. Bump. Have you been able to play with it in a skydiving environment yet? Any news on this thing?
  14. Yep, I paralyzed myself on the last jump of the season in 2011 after making like 400 jumps in the previous two months. I was very fixated on making the gates and making my last jump for the year perfect and memorable... It was. Stay safe out there
  15. Quit bickering in this thread. He was heavily involved with an impressive array of things that makes modern skydiving as safe as it is, end of story. Whether or not you include the skyhook in that list doesn't detract much from that legacy. The real question here is who can claim credit for landing in front of his car in the early sixties? That guy should take credit for the three rings, etc.
  16. Exactly, stick a base unit at some of the more popular jump sites around the world, and then with a big enough sample you can make a bell curve displaying the probability that you will be x feet away from the cliff at each increment of y vertical distance fallen and then you can know with 99.9% certainty whether you are ready for other more technical sites.
  17. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/swiftnav/piksi-the-rtk-gps-receiver Hey! Use this chip, charge $700 as a high end option and then you can really piss the cheapskates off. In all seriousness, I'd scrounge for the premium model of it is actually as accurate and responsive as the Piksi people claim. Though, I have no technical knowledge on the subject, so this could be a scam or it could be incredibly difficult for you to implement.
  18. *membership is 20 bucks and it's well worth it :)
  19. It's a result of the same principle that has been governing disposable razor design for the past decade or so.
  20. My surgeon blinked, blinked again and told me that it really wasn't a good idea. But then again she has the double whammy of liability considerations and that she doesn't really have a good sense of how dangerous or safe skydiving can be. After all, her only encounter with me is putting me back together... I then asked more conventional questions like "can I snowboard?" and "what about rock climbing?" She had no hesitations about these activities, and since skydiving done properly is probably less stressful on the body than these activities, I feel comfortable with my risks. Of course it would be über shitty if something really bad happens and there is enough force to turn the rods and screws into little chisels in your back, but thankfully the force necessary to do that seems to be on par with the force that it takes to break a normal back as well. Think about the people who do sit-skis and the like. They have like 40 pounds of stuff strapped to their lower half and they are torquing it back and forth all day as they carve down the mountain. I imagine that is far more stressful than a normal skydive, especially in terms of the number of repeats. So I think it's definitely more risky in the sense that a worst case scenario situation becomes even worse, but the odds of those sorts of scenarios seem to be fairly low as a general rule*. I'm fused T12 through L4. *only applicable to non-swoopers