davelepka

If both of those are true, you're doing something wrong. Despite being a 'poor' skydiver, you better pony up for a spare cutaway/reserve handle and a freebag/PC when you buy your rig. No matter how eager your rigger is to drop everything and repack your stuff, if you lose any of the above, you're out of the game until you replace it. Here's a hint - before you have a problem, figure out which one of the TIs has a good rig that fits you. If they're busy doing tandems and your rig is out of service, just borrow their rig for a day or two. Even if you have to flip them $50 to use it, you'll make way more than that in the process. Anyway, buy an Infinity. I've got 8 seasons on my current Infinity with no problems of any kind. I like it enough that I'm going to order another one for the upcoming season. Besides being less expensive than the rest, they can typically deliver it much faster than the other manufacturers.

From the sounds of things, you have a domestic-type dispute on your hands and you are taking legal action to correct it. It's very bad form for a DZ to get in the middle of this, and I to would like to know which DZ thinks it has the right to withold this type of information. I could see if you were using it to slander or commit fraud on the DZ, or a staff member, but if you're taking it to court, the proper legal channels, the DZ needs to step aside and let the court review the facts (all of them, to include serial numbers) and decide who is right and who is wrong. Do you have any laywer buddies? Have them call the DZ on your behalf and explain the you need the info pursuant to this lawsuit, and they can either provide now aka 'the easy way', or they can provide it later, when he issues a subpoena for the info later on in the lawsuit. It might be BS, and it might not, but chances are the DZ would rather not get 'officially' involved.

You need to start flying up high with your rears. Use them to get back (unless you're really far, where toggles will generally get you further) and manuver around in the pattern. Work on rear riser stalls, first from slow flight. Add some input to slow down and stabilze the canopy, and then keep adding until the stall. The same rules apply as with toggle stalls, ease into and out of the stall, and keep your hands level. Next work on using rears in accelerated flight. You don't need a full 270, that will burn too much altitude, just a 90 wingover will be enough, but go to your rears and use them to pull out of the dive. Experiment with a slow pull out, and a quick 'recvoery' manuver. Push them both to the point of a stall to see where it's at, and what it feels like. Also work on the transition to toggles. It harder to do up high, but the idea is to get 75% of the way to a rear riser stall, then drop the rears and quickly bring your hands down to 'meet' the canopy with the toggles. You might need 3/4 brakes to apply enough toggle to match your airspeed, so you're dropping your hands until you feel the tension on the steering lines. Finally, do some straight-in landings with a rear riser flare. The steady speed of the approach, and being able to have your rears in your hands from 200 ft up, take all of the 'high speed' out of it, and it's just a simple rear riser flare (it's actually more like a rear riser plane-out, you'll still transition to toggles in the end). Do all of the above at least 20 times each. You can combine them and do more than one exercise on a single jump, but the idea is that you want to be well versed in flying your rears up high before you try it on a high speed landing. It's not rocket science, but you'll find that the rears are very sensitive, even more so at higher airspeeds. You just need to be used to that level of response before you use it down low.

Without looking at the link, I'm guessing is RC planes. In that case, those guys buy and sell parts/planes all the time, so they would be able to develop a good feedback score in order to really mean something. I've sold probably 3 things on the classifieds in the last 10 years, and bought about the same. There's just not enough activity on a per-person basis for feedback to really be of service. In a case where some gets ripped off, they post the whole story for all to see. When it comes to those who don't reply to emails, I don't it's really worth the trouble. None of this is mentioning that feedback is typically reserved for those who actually make a transaction with ehe seller. So if someone does not return your email, and you buy nothing, how do you leave feedback?

Same thing is says about any reserve malfunction. If you tried everything you can to either fix it, or get it under some sort of control, and failed, dump the main. Get as much fabric out as possible. Ditto for the reverse. If you have a main that you cannot control below your hard deck, dump the reserve. Get as much fabric out as possible. If your only option is to hit the ground hard, do whatever you can to hit it 'less hard'. Make sure this is a 'last resort, and not something you do at 2000ft or even 1000ft. At those points, just keep trying, but at 500 ft, or 300ft, if you haven't come up with a solution, it's very bad form to go in without all your pins pulled.

If a DZ needs to have a policy in place to upsize strudents on a hot day, their student WL are too high to begin with. The idea of a low WL for a student is to build a margin for error into their canopy choice, and if a hot day can erase that, there's not enough margin. By all means, instructors should be considering the day when picking student canopies. If the day is hot and humid, err on the conservative side, and if it's a chilly fall day with a steady breeze, maybe one size smaller could be employed, but both sizes need to be large enough to be 'too big'. You have to remember that there's no harm in a canopy that's too large, if you're pickign between two sizes, you're not going to hurt anyone by 'going big'. It's easy to forget that flying a canopy is something that takes some getting used to, but talk to some newer jumpers about their recent downsizes, and you'll get some perspective. When a guy with 50 jumps describes a 190 as 'quick, with responsive turns', you get the picture that a student will be literally thrilled with a 280 at .6 to 1 WL.

http://www.cypres-usa.com/usedcypres.asp

Case in point, there are two 182s in the classifieds right now. One has a 275hp conversion and all the goodies already installed for $57k, and the other is a (presumably) stock 182 with a jump plane door and step for $30k. Of course there are a dozen other factors that go into aircraft pricing and value, but that example shows the stock plane is close to half the price of the one with all the go-fast goodies. You always pay less when you let someone else do the mods and you buy the plane from them later on, if you want to mod the plane yourself, the cost goes up quite a bit.

Good point. Big engine, big (or 3-bladed) prop, STOL kit and/or wingtip extensions, and maybe some speed brakes are not going to be cheap. You might be able to find 2 'ugly' 182s for the price of one 'nice' one plus all the mods. Then you have the flexibility to run 2 pair on cooler days, or one tadem per load on hot days. You have a 'back up' airplane in case one is down with a mechanical issue, you're not totally 'dead in the water', and in the end you can always sell one plane and cut your investment in half (while still staying in business) if need be.

Ditch the tracking suit idea. Unless there are a flock of them at your DZ, you're setting yourself up for a buck of solos, and we all know how much you learn on a solo. (OK, you can learn on a solo, but sooner or later you run out of 'learning' as you have no frame or reference, and you need another jumper to get yourself back up on the learning curve). In terms of the next 150 jumps, forget about wingsuits for the time being. Just jump and have fun, and learn as much as you can. You can't swoop or wingsuit just yet, but you can do RW, freefly, tracking dives, and CRW, so spend some time learning a little about those things. If you did 25 jumps in each of those disciplines, you would learn a little about them and a lot about skydiving. Tracking dives are a good 'tool' to learn some wingsutiing skills, but you really need to be on a 'group' jump where you are not the focus. A solo will onyl get you so far. A 2-way with an experienced jumper will only get you so far if they 'help' you stay relative. A group jump where the base isn't paying attention to you is where you will really learn 'right from wrong'. Of course, you need a good 'base' of skills to be able to safely get on a group tracking dive, but once you're there, take advatage of every opportunity you can to get on those jumps. Find out who organizes and leads tracking dives at your DZ, and let them know that you want to be included any time they're putting one together. It's not going to be 5 times a day, but maybe they'll do one at the end of every (or most) days, and you can get on those.

First off, tandem students generally have no concept of altitude. They know what it is, but I've heard students land from a tandem at 14.5k AGL and comment that 'it seemed like it was over so fast', and students come down from a 9k jump (under an overcast layer) and not mention one thing about the 'short' freefall. You have a couple of other problems you're not considering - one of them being the time in the plane. Even a 'hot rod' 182 (which you're going to need) is going to be slowing going up to 14 - 16k MSL, and that's going to lead to 30 or 35 min in the plane for the jumpers, and that's a long time to be folded up in a 182. The bigger problem is the O2. The climb rate above 12k MSL is going to be dismal, and if you're trying to push it up to 14 or 16 k, they're going to be up there in the thin air for a long time. The students are going to be folded up in the plane, and they'll be nervous for sure and wearing haress that may or may not be helping with their circulation. The instrcutors may not have the nerves going, but they have the problem of hooking up and muscling the students out of the plane. None of the above are good things when there's not much O2 available. Do yourself a favor, and cut your exit altitude down to 9k AGL max. Your going to get faster turns, save money on fuel and tach time, and make for a safer, more comfortable experience for your passengers. It's not a matter of you being 'cheap' or trying to 'cheat' the customers, it's a matter of aircraft capability and the size of your market. If you had more tandems or they were willing to pay $500/head, you could afford to lease a turbine and get them a different experience. If you're in an area that can only support a 182 DZ, then they can either jump with you, or drive for hours to get to another DZ.

This, of course, is the other side of the coin. When a camera guy is 'trying stuff' out on tandem videos, it becomes tougher to stay out of the 'cone' or avoid running into the tandem. One thing I've told other camera flyers looking to freefly with tandems is that if you're not already a 'good' freeflyer, then you have no business trying to mix it into your tandem videos. It's not the same thing as a 'regular' freefly jump, as tandems (even the fast ones) are always slower than a freefly jump, but you do learn quite a bit about control and 'creative problem solving' on the road toward becoming a 'good' freeflyer, and these are the skills you need to experiment with anything on a 'live' tandem video.

Without a doubt, but like I said there's a line between wanting to shoot a good video, and wanting to get better flying in a specific way. If you're on a tandem that doesn't lend itself towards the type of flying you want to do, but you insist on doing that anyway because that's what you personally want to do, you're on the wrong side of that line. I can compare it to new jumper who say things like, 'I want to be an AFF I/wingsuiter/swooper, but I only have 50 jumps right now. What can I do now to practice for when I have enough jumps to do those things?' The answer to that question is always to just jump, do a little bit of everything, and have fun. You'll learn 'on the job', even if you forget about your end goal and just focus on doing the best job you can on the next jump you're going to make. Do that a couple hundred times, and you'll have the 'skills' you need to start learning any of those more advanced disciplines. Go and shoot videos with the goal being the end product regardless of what you want to do. Opportunities for learning will prevent themselves, and in time you'll have the skills you want without sacrificing the final product for any of your students. No can do. When I went to work at a DZ that provides an editor and media (used to be film/tapes, now it's memory cards), I realized that I have no interest in editing, cameras, or really anything but shooting video when it comes to working with cameras. The end result is that I don't have a video or pic in my possesion from the last 12 years. I can say this, my basic idea is to first stay inside of 'the bubble', and out of the 'cone of death'. 'The bubble' is an imaginary bubble around the tandem about 20 ft across (10ft on either side of the tandem), and 90% of the time you should be in there. Occasionally the background will present some clouds or a sunset that lends itself to a wider shot, but even then you should pop out of the bubble, get the shot, and get back in. (For the record I use a .45-ish wide angle lens on my video and a still to match. If you use a ultra-wide lens, which I don't reccomend, 'the bubble' gets smaller) The cone of death, I hope everyone knows is the area above and below the tandem, where if you or the tandem has a premature deployment, a collision is possible. Stay out from directly under or above them at all times. Outside of staying in the bubble, just do what the 'gods' tell you to do. If you get a video at noon, with the sun high in the sky, backflying and looking up at them isn't going to be it. In fact, you'll want to be as close to on level with them as you can get in order to avoid the backlight of the sun. If the student is game to keep their chin up, stay on level for most of the time. You can go low for 'artsy' backlit shots, but those are of limited value, and you should go down, grab one, and get right back to where you can see the student. If you get a real lightweight, maybe freeflying isn't for you at all, regardless of the light. It might be a low sunset, but if you can't stay with them, or are on the edge of your speed range to do so, your job is to belly fly where you have authority and control, and can get the shots. In terms of learing to freefly while 'on the job', use the deployment to your advantage. Set your beeper, or watch the TIs alti, and if you want to 'try' something, do it 1000ft before he pulls the handle. If it doesn't work and you fall out of 'the bubble', keep them in frame and the TI will dump soon anyway. The tandem gets 'bigger' when the handle is pulled, and so does the bubble. So you try a move, and when you see that you're making it 'stick' through the deployment, move it up 500ft, and get yourself some working time. See how that goes, and so on. It's like this - shooting a good video is job #1, and learning new stuff/freeflying is job #2. As long as you always succeed at job #1, anything you want to do with regards to job #2 is fair game.

Just to repeat it one more time, the two guys mentioned in this thread didn't ask to be included and did not provide nor post the footage linked, so I want to make sure that they don't turn into targets. They didn't make any claims about their skills, or the specific jumps that we saw. Not every video goes the way you plan. Quickly recognizing your mistake and recovering ASAP is sometimes the right move, and if you have to sacrifice a second or two of footage to get yourself back in the game, so be it. The alternative might have been a very slow climb back up the slot and a lot of time wasted in the process. I'll take Chuck at his word that both of the guys are good. I know his frame of reference, and if he says they can deliver goods, I believe it. One of the problems with Youtube is that anyone can post whatever they want, good, bad, ugly, or otherwise. While I'll critique the footage I see, I won't hold it against the camera flyers personally until they chime in with their impression of the jump. For all we know, they might see twice the mistakes that any of us do, and be frustrated that the jump ended up online for all to see. I know I'm my own worst critic, and I have trouble seeing anything but the mistakes whenever I shoot a video.

Based on the dive flow - solo exit, turns and back loops, I'm guessing a coach type jump, but I'm not sure how that all works in Russia, so I can't say who would have been on the jump (if it was a rated instructor or not). The video has been posted before, and another disturbing part is the loose right legstrap, you can see the slack and that it would be possible for the jumper to reach under it looking for the handle. Another thing is shows (and this goes for any jump anywhere) is that if you don't break off when you're supposed to, someone who has lost altitude awareness will think the skydive is still 'on'. You can see that the student never looks at his alti, but is always making eye contact with the 'coach/instructor'. If any any time the coach/instructor had simply turned and left, that would have got the student thinking.

I'll continue to state the unpopular opinion, but I would question how some of those transitions look on the final product. Between the two videos linked, a couple of the transitions are dreadful in both proximity and camera angle, and the really quick transitions certainly don't end up looking good on video, it's too quick for the viewer to process. If you snap a quick transition from one position, do a complete rotation and return to the start position, you've achieved nothing. If you transition from one position to the next, your goal was the new position, and a quick transition get you there. If you're just trying to toss a complete rotation into the video, then it needs to be slow and controlled all the way around, a quick snap is just 'noise' in the finished product. With that said, it's clear that both guys have a great deal of experience and are working at a fairly high level. The single example of their work that was posted is probably not (if you ask them) their best work, and what they would want to be 'judged' by. It looks like one of the local TIs just shot some handycam footage of the camera crew on random jumps and posted them just for fun. As an additional 'however', before the masses pile on and tell me I suck and am boring, I fly in a similar style on all my tandems, with freeflying being a part of literally every video I shoot. I'm not against the 'freedom of expression', I've just learned that there's a line you cross where all you're ecpressing is your lack of respect for the end product and your need to gratify yourself at the expense (figurative and literal) fo someone making their first, and possibly only, jump. I've spent many years and quite a bit of time shooting tandem videos, and if you ask for an opinion about how to do it, you're going to get it. If you ask that opinion as a highly experienced jumper and camera flyer, you're going to get a very specific, pointed opinion that assumes you have both the ability and desire to work and produce at a very high level of quality.

FYI, a new tandem rig is $15k. How many friends do you have that you want to take up for a tandem that you want to spend $15k up front to be able to do that. On top of that, is the fact that you need to get your rating, and that costs money to get and to renew every year. At the end of that, you're going to suck as an instructor. Take a guy who does 20 tandems per week, and a guy who only takes his friends, and you tell me who the better instructor is likely to be.

Contacting manifest and finding a local to put you up is the better suggestion. You can rent a room, or a bed, in a jumpers house generally with kitchen priveldges for waaay less than the cost of a hotel. It will be cleaner and more comfortable, and it's a good way to meet some of the locals. Given the length of your stay, you should be able to get a really good rate, and spend less than half the cost of a shitty hotel.

That's actually a fair question. A good number of aircraft components require x-ray or magnaflux inspections on a regular basis. The difference is that those are singular components like crankshafts or landing gear legs, where if there is a failure it will most certainly result in an incident of some sort. As we all know, there are four attachment points, and any one of them is strong enough to secure the passenger, so a single failure is less of an 'event'. Even a highly unlikely double failure stands a good chance of a non-injury outcome. On top of that, I can't recall ever hearing of an attachment point failure where the metal itself has fatigued and cracked. Of course, a whuffo engineer has no way of know those details, so like I said, it's a fair question.

I'm not sure what 'pull your fucking head in' means, but I'm guessing it's not complimentary. I only did the same thing you did. You noticed an unsafe situation, and pointed it out for the benefit of the community. The unsafe situation I noticed was your attitude that knowing the proper configuration of the RSL was the riggers 'business', and as you were not a rigger, you were not expected to know that. You are allowed to pull your reserve handle if you wish. If you notice your rig is unsafe to jump, that's a good way to prevent it from being jumped. However, if you're in the vicinity of the rigger who packed it, you're better off not pulling the pin as that rigger can more easily remedy the situation if the rig is brought back intact.

You don't need to be a rigger to know how your rig works. Nobody is suggesting that you should have done repairs to your harness, or repacked your own reserve, just that you should take the time to educate yourself about the specific rig you are jumping. When you purchase your own gear, it's a great idea to be present during the first inspection and repack, and have your rigger go over the various components and operation of the whole thing. Being a rigger means that you know more about every rig, and how to diagnose, repair, and repack them. It has nothing to do with the user being familiar with the correct assembly and operation of the rig they own/are jumping. Think about your car, you know what the engine is supposed to sound like and how it's supposed to work. If you got it one day, and it was making a different noise or not producing the same HP as before, it's expected that you would notice that. It's not expected that you would know why, or how to fix it, that's the job for a mechanic and you're not a mechanic (I don't think), but it would be unreasonable if you just drove it around that way until your next oil change and the mechanic had to point it out to you.

Maybe. It does appear to be a DO 28, and according to Wiki it has a stall speed of 38 knots. So he can come in over those trees at 60 or 70 knots, and be weel above stall speed but not crazy fast for being the pattern. He stays high until he get's close to the field, and then carries enough speed to clear the trees and get the plane on the ground. Even if he loses an engine over the trees, he's not running any power, so he's not going to have any roll or yaw problems like you would see in a twin that loses an engine on take off (with full power). There are safer ways to land, but given the aircraft and the technique he uses, this isn't as bad as it looks. I have seen much worse in much less appropriate aircraft.

So let me guess, you want to wait until it's 110 degrees and windy? Skydive Dallas, like every other Texas DZ is a year-round operation. Call them today and sign up for a first jump course, and get going. FYI, Texas is a 'destination' for jumpers who have real winters to deal with. It's very common for jumpers in the 'great white north' to take skydiving vacations during the winter months where they go to a warm(er) place and do nothing but jump for a week or so. Florida, Arizona, California, and yes, Texas, all are popular spots for these types of trips.

If you want a routine, take up figure skating or gymnastics. The trouble with tandems is that they're all different. The scenery, the lighting, and most importantly the reaction of the passenger will always be different and therefore the 'best' way to shoot it will always be different. One you can do is to work on 'moves', and have more of them in your box of tricks to use at will. I don't know what your related experience is, but shooting this type of video (tandem or AFF) is a very dynamic activity in that you never know how it's going to go down. You can plan for the 'best case scenario' but the truth is that it really ends up being a 'wait and see' deal for the camera flyer. Get off the plane, asses the situation, and do what's going to turn out the best product possible. Just turn that though around, and you'll be all set. First try to do a good job for the customer, and in turn your flying will improve. Truth be told, I have trouble believing the numbers in your profile, a jumper with 12000+ jumps most likely would not be asking these types of questions, or needing to use tandem vids to 'improve their flying'. In any case, keep your focus on shooting a good video for the customer, and not on impressing or advancing yourself. When I was a new camera flyer, a more experienced guy told me to keep it simple and not make it too 'disco', and he was right. Sometimes you need to fly your ass off to produce a 'good' video that looks simple, and sometimes it's just a breeze to make it look good, and the sign of a good video guy is one who will sit still and take the easy ride when that's what it takes. You could 'disco' it up will all sorts of fancy flying, but that's not the job, bringing home a nice product is the job.

Of yeah, if you're renting gear, make sure you get an orientation to the rig as well. Have them show you how to do a complete gear check from top to bottom including how to power up and check the AAD. Ask about the canopies, and if they have any suggestions for flying them as compared to what you're used to jumping. More or less, and this goes for the DZ orientation as well, but start from scratch as if you know nothing. Don't assume that this or that will be the same, or let them smooth over any details. My father used to tell me this story about his boss from a job he used to have. He always told me this guy was the smartest, sharpest guy he ever met, but everytime they had a meeting with clients or sales people, he would turn into a 'simpleton' who just asked question after question, no matter how simple they seemed. What this guy realized what they what he knew was of no use to him, and repeating to others wasn't going to further his business. It's what the other guys knew that he wanted to find out, so he played 'dumb' and harvested these guys for info. At the end of the day, he was the one who knew twice as much as everyone else, and the guys who though he was the 'dummy' hadn't learned a thing.