Hellis

Maybe. But maybe they have higher stallpoints on their canopies and were flaring it all the way but it looks like they are not. I'm not saying this is more likely than the other but it could be. Generally it is as you say.

If you had searched for it you would have found that most (or all) who jump with earplugs say they hear better with them in. I wear earplugs at every jump I do to hear better. I also wear earplugs all day at work, to hear better in the noisy enviroment...

Which makes you sound like you don't know what you're talking about. There is no reason to do that in your profile. We're all skydivers. Tell us the model and size accurately, we can count non-rounded numbers, it's OK. It will build your sky cred. Maybe he has two square feet? So 188 above and two to land with?

Slightly different depending on clothes but this is a good example. http://vimeo.com/46015668

Training wheels? So a wingsuit is also "training wheels"? If you talk about tracking as in "my life depends on breaking away from this group", then no there is nothing wrong with tracking and learning the skills with RW suit. I'd say it's a good thing to develop all kinds of skills. But if you mean tracking as in "flocking" with bent knees and some of the group beeing on the back. Thats not trackin in my opinion. It's more of a freefly. You might need a different angle with a different suit. But as I said earlier, it's always good to develop skills.

The spot is never going to be better than the person doing the spotting. Even if you have an app with a map and a big X marking where the first group should exit, the person doing the actual spotting still has to do the job. If the spotter exits early or late the spot will still be bad with or without an app. But yes I have seen one but I think it was mad for the DZ.

This is not the first time this has been done. I have seen a video of something like it a few years ago, possibly the same place. And if I remember correct, the guy died a few months later on a skydive or BASE jump. But I'm not sure about the details

I have a completly magnetic bag from Pgasus in my Javelin. Works great. Not sure if he makes them in your size. You could always mail Harry and see. The deliverytime was quite long but the quality makes up for it. EDIT: I have a 140 canopy in a 150 rig

Still no facebook app in them? What does "active altitude" mean? Is it activation altitude? And what is "fix"?

less drag -> more flare (probably not even noticeable but in theory)

This one is the first one I actually think will work. Not that it's a good idea, but I think it could work. The other ones have missed the symetrics. What I mean is that, sure a loop around the hand will catch the toggle, but will the toggles/brakelines be symetric after? No, the canopy will turn. If you have an inch of slack between the loop and toggle that means the canopy will turn as if you are holding one toggle one inch further down. And after a hookturn when the canopy is flying faster, beeing not symetric will be worse. The magnets idea might also work but I doubt it...

I don't believe thousands of lives would be saved. My general feeling, meaning I don't have any statistics on it, is that most car crashes with fatalities are not in 60+ mph nor in sportcars.

No. Skydiving is still dangerous. In BASE most of the jump is all on you, but in skydiving you have meatmissiles all over the sky. And one day one of those missiles might hit you because he thought it was a really cool idea to spiral under canopy with his eyes closed while the GoPro was in his hand aimed at himself. Can you please be quite now for a few hundred jumps?

I have. 300 feet. I believe if I have a AAD fire it will be because of me beeing unconsius and not in a good position for deployment. So geting that extra margin is probably a good idea. And if I'm not unconsius I will have 300 feet more to set up for a landing and testflare my reserve. I have not changed my maindeployment altitude because I don't jump a streeming canopy.

I believe reception could be a problem. Down in the valley GPS reception is bad, but it could be better higher up. But even if it is better, a "glitch" in reception giving the pilot incorrect data could be enough to distract him/her during a critical moment.

Did you talk to them about this the past tuesday? To know what to do and what not to do is good. But to be "affraid" to do something that is not dangerous can build up fear in the event of you by mistake doing it. I also hate when people tell students (the macho stories) about their linetwists on crossbrace canopies. This makes the student believe linetwists are the end of the world and must be cutawayed.

Depends... What type of gearbag? Is the goal of the bag to be light and easy to stash (BASE stashbags) or to be comfortable? Any of these will work as straps, binding and support tapes or you could look at webbing. Webbing has higher tensile strenght, but do you need it? If you use binding and support tape they are probably thinner (I don't mean width). And thin straps tend to fold easier and make it uncomfortable, but you can always use two layers to make it stiffer.

Again, country dependent. I believe the only country that actually has a TSO program is the US. Other countries have some sort of similar process. I was refering to Andy´s "In the US...."

You would also need a TSO'd harness?

Don't rig your gear incorrectly. I looked a bit closer on the video and it seems he is using the white loop on the right side but not on the left side. The angle of the brakeline tells me on the left side he used the splice and the toggle trough it. On the right side the brakeline is pointing up, meaning it can rotate. That seems to me as he used the white loop to hold the brake in place. Also you can see something white over the toggle, looks like the white loop. My thinking is that he messed up when parking the brakes and only used the white loop on the right side, that meant the left side released. It would not have been a problem if he had the lines trough the guidrings. It looks like both brakelines go trough the slider, and because the left one got hung up on one of the cascades the slider can't come down. ianyapxw: In short. Unless you try really hard it won't happen to you. Question - if the left side released, why is all the line down by the toggle? I think there is something else going on there...from the body vertical orientation he's well into the deployment...yet, look at the position of the connector links in relation to each other. One side of the canopy is loaded WAY more than the other. One frame later and all the line is up by the cascades

This is a nice machine, it's above your pricerange but it might be avalible used. It can do quite heavy stuff with correct needle. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B002LCY04W?pc_redir=1396024242&robot_redir=1

Yes always open higher with new canopies. About the adjustments on final. Try to learn how to control the canopy with legs/harness/weight shifts. It will be hard with large canopies but it can be done, and learn when toggle is needed compared to what can be done with harness. When you know and can do turns with the harness you can use all the power of the canopy to flare and not for adjusting all the way down and get a half flare. Try this up high first. Notice the difference with brakes set and at full flight.

Don't rig your gear incorrectly. I looked a bit closer on the video and it seems he is using the white loop on the right side but not on the left side. The angle of the brakeline tells me on the left side he used the splice and the toggle trough it. On the right side the brakeline is pointing up, meaning it can rotate. That seems to me as he used the white loop to hold the brake in place. Also you can see something white over the toggle, looks like the white loop. My thinking is that he messed up when parking the brakes and only used the white loop on the right side, that meant the left side released. It would not have been a problem if he had the lines trough the guidrings. It looks like both brakelines go trough the slider, and because the left one got hung up on one of the cascades the slider can't come down. ianyapxw: In short. Unless you try really hard it won't happen to you.

in his defense you could say he maybe had just experienced his very first close encounter with the grim reaper... his following approach of the formation was sensible and skilled enough, wasn't it? But I totally agree with you on his "pulling in the formation" ... Apparently there where a couple more jumpers on this particular jump that didn't make it to the formation and pulling inside this mess without even a barrel roll is just stupid... but everything that needs to be said about this kind of jumps was already perfectly covered by bryan burke http://www.dropzone.com/safety/General_Safety/Implications_of_Recent_Tracking_Tracing_and_Wingsuit_Incidents_938.html glad everybody was okay... learn to say no to those poorly planned, messy jumps!! I hope, they had a thoroughly executed talk to everybody afterwards, including a baseball bat and cold water for the one endangering the camerajumper ... if you know what I mean ... Again, in my opinion.. It seems he is on his belly all the time, and only because the "group" slows down he is able to catch up. Generally you put the best divers out last because the can catch up. This means the cameraman, who based on this video, only can do belly is in the middle of a group who is falling away from him and good divers above him speeding down. Even if he did all good after the "incident" by arching to get down to the others the big mistake was to not know his limit (or know and not care) while he was on the ground. Yes he might have got scared by the "incident", but he was on belly from exit, and he got on a jump over his skillevel. Anyone know how many there was on this jump?

In my opinion, the cameraman did not have the skills to be on the jump. If you want to bellyfly, then go on a bellyjump. If you want to freefly/track but don't have the skills then go on jumps with smaler groups. I don't know if everyone else pulled very low or he pulled high, but when everyone else started tracking away he pulled "in the formation".