Hellis

The PC came out somehow? Just like on most other prematures? Not trying to hijack, but look at this, this is scary. Its the reserve http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pg53t_HIQw#t=1m20s

F111's flare like shit after a couple hunderd jumps. I know, my first canopy was a PD170. There is a reason most modern mains are NOT F111. Why would you buy a main that would be ragged out for flaring after a couple hundred jumps? I expect my mains to last at least 2000 jumps, whether or not I have them that long. You cannot compare mains to reserves when a reserve is only going to have max of 25 jumps. That is if you have to use it every repack cycle which is highly unlikely. You also cannot compare skydiving mains to base mains. For one thing base rigs are huge compared to skydiving mains which negates some of the crappy flare factor. You can't compare a 280 or large base rig to a more common skydiving main size of around 150. Huge flaring differences. I dont agree with you, i think you missed my point As you can see the name of the thread is "Manta 290 how many cells?". My guess is that he (by some reason) is afraid of 7 cell canopys. And even more afraid of F111 canopys. The reserve in this gear he is talking about is a Raven III M 249, without knowing much about it, i guess 7 cell F111. The main canopy on the other hand is a F111 Manta, made 99 and has 20 jumps on it. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/classifieds/detail_page.cgi?ID=99785;d=1 Even if he would keep jumping his student gear, Navigator 280, he would still have a 7 cell F111 reserve. A reserve that he might only have one chance to land compared to pulling high on the Manta and trying it out before actually landing it. If he would have to pull his reserve he would be under a canopy that he has no faith in at low altitude and perhaps have to land of DZ. Even if the Manta is F111 i would rather kick him out the door with that than having him have a malfunction on his Navigator. See my point now? I did not compare it with BASE gear, you again missread what i wrote/meant. If he has a 7 cell F111 reserve he can not pull his reserve and be 'fine with it'. If he and his instructor dont want him to land a (20 jump) 9 cell F111 canopy, how can you tell him that its fine to jump with a smaler 7 cell F111 reserve? I know the 7 cell flight characteristics, i jump a Spectre and Lightning, so i know they are more docile. But still (i might be misstaken) i get the impression he does not like 7 cell canopys. With sloppy packjobbs, i meant either its a payed packer that packed the canopy in 5-10 min, or (if its the student gear) a student/novice packer that packed it. When comparing that to how you pack a reserve or BASE canopy with clamps and much better line control, i call all main packjobbs more or less sloppy. And with all above in mind i call it jumping a BASEconfiguration with skydivinggear and sloppy packjobs because he (as i understand it) dont trust 7 cells and F111. We are not talking about a 150 main, its a 290 sqf Manta.

So you and your instructor says no to a canopy because its F111? I would like to know what you and your instructor think about the reserve? If your not allowd to jump a F111, you are basicly jumping a BASEconfiguration with skydivinggear and sloppy packjobs? Ouch! If your not comfortable with F111, skydiving is not for you, IMO.

Nice! This is my favorite

Send a message to the owner of the video and ask him/her for a copy?

What if you put a piece of earplug in the audibles soundhole? When i put my thumb on the hole and press the buttons it gets a softer tone. Perhaps by dampening the sound from it you can hear it?

I think i have to disagree. ~95% of my jumps has been with a Viso, and the reason i bought a Viso instead of a analog altimeter is because i really dont like analogs and dont trust them as much as a digital. If i where to jump with a analog altimeter im pretty sure i would be distracted, i would probably want to compare my altimeter with others 100 times on the planeride up. This is ofcourse just my gut feeling how i think i would react to it, it could also be that im just fine with it and nothing would happen. But i just have a feeling i would be nervous about jumping a analog again. No i dont think i can, and i have no intention of trying

In that case, do you think camera would be an asset or a liability? If those can happen without a camera, the possibility of them happening with a camera surely must be higher than without. Offcourse it has to be on video, what where you thinking Dave?? Im not in any way trying to minimize the dangers of cameras but im just saying a new altimeter would probably have the same effect as a camera. Especially if you switch from analog to digital as some people have the fear of them not beeing reliable (dont want to start that discussion here, im just naming it). But if we get back to the subject that was discussed from the begining. Does the camera distract you when you have a short freefall? If we only focus on the time in freefall, If you know you will have a max 3 seconds delay, does the camera distract you in freefall? My opinion is that it does not distract me when i do a hop n pop as i know i have to pull immediately. But then again there is no way i know if it does or does not untill something bad happens.

True. I have seen most of those things happen with people that does not have camera aswell. I dont want to say cameras are not a distraction, they are! But, i do belive that the camera gets alot of the blame for "stupid things". If one would use a new pair of shoes on a jump that would also be a distraction because "did i tie them hard enough", "dont f* up the landing", etc, but when that guy misrouts his cheststrap everyone will just point it out as him beeing stupid and perhaps have a "laugh" about it. But Bill, im not arguing about cameras beeing a distraction or not. Because i know they are. But im just saying most of those things can happen without cameras or when other new gear is added but the camera is the only thing that is pointed out. I can admit i forgot my altimeter once. Was it because of my camera? Could be, but i dont think so. I always keep my gloves in the helmet but i showed my gloves/viso to another jumper but placed the gloves next to my helmet instead when we had finnished the talk. Grabbed the helmet and walked of to the plane, cameras fault or stupid skydiver? I noticed it before i got to the plane so i just walked back and got my gloves/alti.

So your saying, whatever you write is correct and everyone that says anhything else is bashing or humiliating you. ok. Will, as i wrote in my post, yes on a skydive i would agree. But this accident was not a skydive. You are correct, cameras is a distraction. But when i do a hop n pop, im not sure i would say the camera is that much of a distraction. Sure i could lose altitude awareness on a hop n pop, but its more likely to happen when i do a full altitude jump.

The GoPro is one major snagpoint, other cameras would perhaps not be as much of a problem. This is of course speculations but nobody can argue that even if they are smaler cameras (GoPro, Contour, Drift etc.) they are (usually) a much bigger snaghazard. Condolences Who are you kidding? Larger cameras(Not in a box and especially with stills) are much larger...making them a much larger snag point. The GP is small, and (usually) just mounted by a piece of 3M tape. If a GP was to get snagged, I'm willing to bet it would get ripped off in most cases (also because I have seen and heard of this happening at least 6 times). I understand that this BASE jump had a snag on a GP, but what position was she in when she pulled? Was the GP screwed to her helmet? Anyways, my point here is this, and I think most old timers can agree, the major hazard with a small format camera is NOT the snag hazard, it's the distraction. I understand this has happened a few times, but compare it with the snags on larger format cameras and the GP's snags pale in comparison. -Evo No im not kidding. 1. How often do you see larger cameras without boxes/cages? 2 This was a hand deployed jump, why would anyone use a still camera on a hand deployed? 3 Larger yes. More snag hazard. NO! Look at the GoPro and compare it with other cameras at the DZ, im (almost) willing to bet my life on you wont find a more snag hazardous mount with the horrible shape and the screw mount thing. 4 3M tape might not hold against 120 mph, but this is not 120 mph. This is still a hand deployed jump. And there is (obvously) not enough force from the PC to ripp it off. 5 I cant comment on the distraction part (since im not a BASEjumper), but i dont think that is as much of an issue when you do a low base jump, rather than a skydive where you actually have to remember to pull. 6 The boxes/cages that bigger cameras use have rounded shapes which make it less likely a PC will wrap around/snag a camera. A GoPro that has a inverted "coneshape" and lots of sharp edges is not ideal. Also if the PC hits a larger shape it would be easier to "bounce" of than snag. I would somewhat agree with you if we where talking about a 120(+) mph skydive, that a GoPro is not much more of a snag hazard if everything is going as planned. But here we are talking about a low BASE jump, hand deployed, in crosswind. No, i dont agree with you and im not kidding

The GoPro is one major snagpoint, other cameras would perhaps not be as much of a problem. This is of course speculations but nobody can argue that even if they are smaler cameras (GoPro, Contour, Drift etc.) they are (usually) a much bigger snaghazard. Condolences

From the pdf-file he linked to

http://www.cwol.com/keyboards/vegas-dv-keyboard.htm Works every time, still its never used

If you start as a student jumping a 260 sqf and only downsize as the warninglabel says you should have about 400 jumps when you get to jump a 111 canopy. 260->240 50 jumps 240->210 100 jumps 210->190 150 jumps 190->170 200 jumps 170->150 250 jumps 150->135 300 jumps 135->120 350 jumps 120->111 400 jumps So if you would downsize as much as possible you could end up with a 111 at 400 jumps. That is if you make 10 stand up landings within the target area on each canopy. But im not so sure its a good way of downsizing.

I hope you guys do understand i meant it as a joke.

Wow, that thing has no snagpoints at all. Not only would it be perfect for beginners and students, it should be a requirement they wear it. Not very impressed at all, and the mount looks not skydive friendly

Not very complicateda at all. I have a similar set up right now. Bluetooth GPS, Cellphone and logging software. Works ok. I think the reason it does not work good/perfekt is because the GPS is not good enough. I just orderd the Flysight, so buying another GPS the same week is not really tempting. But if anyone does i suggest you get the vlkGPS tool to log the data. http://vlkgps.sourceforge.net/ Its Java, so it should work on all phones (except iPhone?). It can save the data as gpx, kml or csv files

Are you sure the data is off by 300 feet and not only the DZ that is 300 feet MSL? The GPS only records MSL altitude. What you could do is subtract 316 feet from all the altitudevalues and it will be "correct". But at some point the GPS recorded 309 feet, thats odd

What exactly are you calculating here? You divide 5 skydivers by their number of jumps (why) and multiply with 3 milions (whats 3 milions, and why). And that gives you ~20000 active skydivers? Ehmm.. I dont get it.

It looks like he is holding something in his left hand

I also find it intressting, but i wonder what they mean by: I guess that means more than once per second, but why cant they tell us how what the frequence is.

Im closer to 300 now. My previous gear had a white reserve. The one i bought this year i just asked my dealer to suprise me. When i asked my rigger what color it is he said "uuuhhmm.. yellow, red, orange and...." and he just changed subject. Something tells me i dont belive that, but if its true. NICE!!!

Oh! Wow. Does it feel lose or is it ok? If you got a 132 ZPX in there fine a 150 should work

I could never own a one color canopy. That would be so boring. I dont know what color my reserve is (rigger packed it without letting me see the canopy ) but if its one color, i will be so ashamed landing it