RMK

I’ve just returned from a large boogie that I thought would be one of the best of the year. I had fun, but I have to be honest and say it was a bit of a disappointment from what I expected. With an 8hr flight, rental cars and hotels I wish to avoid the crap boogies. Admittedly, this one seemed great in prior years, but 2009 seemed a half-assed attempt. What boogies would people suggest for: - Unique location and/or scenery - Speciality jumps (balloons, helis, biplanes etc) - Fun focused with mix of disciplines - Not record/big-way focused (I couldn’t really give a damn about those; I come to enjoy myself not to spend all my time in dirt dives and chasing after load calls) From looking into some upcoming trips, Moab looks great and Perris Valley’s Christmas boogie looks interesting. I’m OK to fly to the Americas, Continental Europe, Mid East or Africa if it looks good. Let me now some feedback on what's a best pick or an avoid. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Good Catch. I meant to say Holiday Inn & Hampton Inn are best and that Comfort Inn was described, by several locals, as quite bad. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

I just called SDC and no pre-registration is required. Holiday Inn & Comfort seem to be the best places, Super 8 a step down and cheaper and Comfort Inn an “Avoid”. One person described Comfort Inn as having rooms where you wouldn’t want to take your shoes off let alone sleep in the bed. As for extra stuff (balloons, biplanes, etc), I was just told by SDC that they have none of the above for this year. I hope this doesn’t turn out to be a “poor man’s” version of Summfest compared to previous years, I can jump Otters and Skyvans without the need of an international flight. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

As noted above and in all training threads, listen to all that your instructor says. However, knowing a couple items may help. Aerodynamics: If you threw a cereal bowl out of the door of the plane, it naturally wants to come down with the convex side (outer curve) down – so no matter what happens just arch! Psychology: when people are scared, the innate tendency is to go smaller and into a ball (foetal position). This is not aerodynamically stable and you will tumble like rag doll, so as said above just arch! Relax: My example cereal bowl will come down with a bottom down tendency, however it will oscillate wildly because it is stiff (what you are if you don’t relax). Think of your arms and legs as your shock absorbers – a little give in your shoulders and hips will keep everything smooth. Stop stressing and just go do it: You see many posts on here re problems with AFF levels and see YouTube videos of varying idiots doing it poorly. These are exceptions. I don’t personally someone who has had to repeat an AFF level in training. Myself and most friends of mine just went and knocked AFF out in 4 days with no problems and so can you. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Flying in from London for 6 days to wingsuit, freefly and novelty jumps. In Europe, we never get to throw anything out the plane other than ourselves, so I want to try some raft jumps etc. Re jumpships, I see they have 4 Otters & 1 Skyvan. I’m told they’ll have balloons over the weekend and possibly some helicopters. Does anyone know what other specialty stuff they’ll have such as “Pitts Special” biplane jumps etc? The website says to keep checking back, but they never change it. Also, would any of the SDC locals know if there is a helicopter school nearby where I could rent (self-fly hire) a R22 or R44 helicopter? "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Excellent video; great work. You've got to want to wingsuit after watching that. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

I’ve recently looked into this and following are my findings. This is for life insurance from UK providers, utilising four differing underwriters. However, the percentages generally apply to other countries/currencies. Remember, Bermuda and London account for the greatest concentration of reinsurers and underwriters: General Example: general “man on the street” pays £65-70/month per £500K of coverage; so that equates to about £130/month per 1 million of cover. My Personal Example: I note that I’m a skydiver, private helicopter pilot and do some offshore yacht racing. My extra weightings yield a rate of approx £220/month for £500K cover (three times the price and equates to what “NovaTTT” said above). In the end they didn’t weight for yacht racing so long as you don’t do “round the world” racing. However, both airsports are weighted individually. I found they had a better understanding of risk for being a pilot, but the queries I got re skydiving were laughable. For the most part, mainly based on jump numbers and frequency. I’m also looking into possible policies from other countries and offshore variants and would welcome any ideas from persons who have arranged larger scale policies. After seeing how poorly they (the insurers) understand skydiving, I think it would be useful for USPA, BPA, etc to provide them some general guidance on the “real” risks in our sport. One example would be to ask what wing loading you jump or to understand that more regular jumping actually makes you a safer jumper. Oddly, I found for all insurers, that they equally weighted for “high risk” activities. Which is silly as even if you have five dangerous hobbies, you can only do one of them at a time. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

I didn’t realise this thread was still going. Yes, I got VLC to open and view .mts, but it is quite poor (I get “combing” repeatedly in the video). Re computer specs, I'm running this on what would be a Geek’s dream computer, with fast chip, high-end graphics card and multiple 10,000 rpm disks in a RAID array. Quite disappointing, to still have to open VegasPro8 just to see what the files are. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

In Sony Vegas Pro, upon choosing “save as” (for .veg file) there are boxes at the bottom to tick to include the source files either trimmed or whole. However, this places the media in the same folder, not actually in the .veg file. So be careful, to make a new folder for the new veg file, otherwise it will drop a load of .sfk files into your main projects folder maybe DSE will be on here soon with a way to put it in one file. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Yes, VLC does work with .mts files. Thanks for the replies. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Thanks. That was the first place I looked, but unfortunately though it lists a page of files it can view, there’s no mention of it reading .mts files. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Does anyone have any suggestions for Viewer/Player software for .mts files (AVCHD)? Of course you can view the files if you open them in editing software like Sony VegasPro, but I’m still looking for a basic viewer that can open them from the file explorer. Searching around I see a few possibilities, but am not a fan of downloading freeware from companies I’ve never heard of without any prior recommendation. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

I’ve been learning as I go, but haven’t found a magic “fix-it” button for this... For footage where you want the colours to be more vibrant/opaque and have blacker blacks is it better to lower the Gamma correction or increase the colour saturation? I’m using VegasPro8c with footage from a Sony CX6. Secondly, if (on the camera) you set your white balance to manual/outdoor would it have looked much better in the first place or is it better to leave it on auto? "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Thanks for that. If you plan a webinar on Vegas Pro, please post dates/times and I'd gladly pay & join. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

While on the subject of VegasPro rendering setup, I’ve got two quick queries: 1. For mp4 (iPod format) there are two choices: Main Concept or Sony AVC. Is one really better? 2. For “Project Properties” what’s the best setting for a UK PAL-M user with Sony CX6 (PAL). My output uses are either a. iPod b. best quality web format c. highest quality to store/archive a vid for future use d. burn to Blu-ray Also, I’ve got the VASST discs and on the first one it says for the “good” or “best” setting it’s not always better to choose the “best”. I haven’t found the answer on the other discs. Thanks for the help. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

add: - great views - packers - mix of disciplines (not just an FS comp training location) to Reznor's list and you have it "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Zune & Babylon have a wingsuit camp at Empuriabrava 7-10 May. Would be worth the trip. I was using an M+ size Access (have recently bought an S-Fly Expert). Re forward speed, all of the S-Fly products are quite clean aerodynamically whereas a lot of other brand wingsuits out there have a "world of drag" built in. I like their approach; if you want to slow down learn how to do it with your body. Re the grips, do more tensioning with the back of your upper arms. Tugging too hard on the grips kills your wing shape. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

My picks: Best in Europe: - Empuriabrava (Spain) - Gap Tallard (France) Unique & Great Views: - Skydive Cape Town (South Africa) - Skydive Swakopmund (Namibia) - Umm Al Quwain (UAE, north of Dubai) "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

This "chemicals & sanding" talk sounds like hard work. 3M make Velcro in an “industrial grade”. I’d say it sticks 3-4x better than the standard stuff. Find some on the net. I’ve actually had trouble removing it from some items I’ve put it on. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Agree. I did my AFF there back in 2002; it is a great place to jump. Catch a period with the South African Rand at a weak exchange rate and it can be one of the best values. I remember I did my full AFF for the equivalent of around £400, bought a custom made carbon fibre helmet for £40 and my original tandem video was only £11. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

NHS is only for the UK, not rest of world when travelling. Also most people who can afford it, have private cover in place (NHS is not that great). As for free, (in the US press) they always leave out the fact that we also pay 11% National Insurance Tax. The end result is poor service and the most expensive “free” health insurance you’ll ever get. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

A skydiving-only insurance policy is not an economically viable idea; however, multi-sport extreme coverage policies are much more useful and available in many countries. However, I’ve found the insurer’s knowledge of skydiving is near idiotic. You’ll maybe get a one-pager questionnaire focusing solely on jumps numbers without any intelligent queries such as “what is your wing loading?” At least for SCUBA, they know that diving at 40metres+ is more dangerous than 20metres. For skydiving, they don’t have any knowledge or metrics. As this is a minority sport, it’s not in their interest to expend much time and effort learning; however groups such as USPA and BPA could be proactive and provide information to the insurance industry to help educate them of the real risks and help in availability & pricing for all of us. For reference, in the UK, PJ Hayman had global multi-extreme sport coverage but for 2009 they limited the skydiving to Europe only (they previously offered global cover). So after using them for over eight years, I’ve gone with a company called DogTag. But be careful as each of these companies has quirks when it comes to multiple activities. In my example, my main coverage concerns were skydiving, offshore yacht racing and helicopter flying. Oddly, under my new policy I’m not covered while piloting a helicopter but my wife sitting next to me (on same policy and in same helicopter) is??? "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

Speak to the guys at Skydance in California. I did a 30K HALO there late 2004. They were doing them two weekends a year - Don’t know if they’re still active. Also, I can’t be bothered the search for the exact rule change, but I remember that in 2007 or 2008 the FAA implemented a new reg requiring some type of expensive equipment to be installed on planes for flights of 30K or above. I think the cheat now is is to do the jump from 29K. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

I thought this was a skydiving forum? Let’s get back to jump talk; they debate this shit all day over on the PPrune forum for helicopter pilots. Believe it or not they are more pedantic than the crowd on this board. Lots of inaccuracies in the above heli-related info, but I can’t be bothered to type replies (one note, just because more Ford Mondeos crash than Lamborghinis, doesn’t mean for former is more dangerous) Robinson has now made more helicopters than all other manufacturers combined. Best global deal? Aerograd Russia with EUR12.00 lift tickets for jumps from a MI-8 helicopter. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"

I’m also a private helicopter pilot and rated on the R44. US self-fly hire prices (wet) will be around USD 400/hr +pilot cost. Info on the the R44: http://www.robinsonheli.com/r44specs.htm As for out-of-ground hover (ie high hover), I doubt anyone really does a high hover for jump operations. It would not be the safest of ideas and burns fuel like crazy. For the heli jumps I’ve done they just slow down to no more than the limit of translational life which is around 20mph. For reference, the R44 uses about 15 gal/hr. As for altitude on jumps, I’ve jumped a Eurocopter AS350 (what’s commonly called Single Squirrel in Europe and an A-Star in the US). On these jumps in Switzerland we repeatedly went to 11,000 in quite turnarounds. One note though, the R44 can be flown with any or all doors removed, however as the tail rotor is on the left side, persons on that side should be extremely careful of anything going into the tail rotor (makes for bad day for all involved). For jumps out of Eurocopters, they exit only from one side generally which is not possible for all three jumpers from a R44. Why? French helicopters main rotors turn clockwise (which is the opposite direction of American helis) which means the tail rotor is on the right side and the same side as the pilot. "Pain is the best instructor, but no one wants to attend his classes"