BMFin

None of those openings in the video provided were terminal openings. All hop & pop. Obviously openings are going to be less violent also. What faractures where? Slider grommets? What plastic? Do you have a picture? The only plastic i remeber seeing on the canopy is the cable connecting the slider to the grommets. Do you mean this cable was caught on the lines or something? With the tandem I pitched 10sec after exit. Dont worry, there was a lot of vertical separation before they deploy.

I uploaded a short clip of tha last two jumps. One good and one bad. Unfortunately I dont have a video of the nasty one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7OGXjRq1bo It also seems im not the only one with similar experiences: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jiw4NegPVTc EDIT: watching this Russian guy fighting with this canopy a new possible malfunction scenario came to my mind. Watch how he almost gets both of his hands stuck between the risers @ 2:04. Imagine not being able to use your arms at this point !!

Made 3 jumps with a Demo Scirocco 93 @ 2.3. Openings: Definetly the most demanding canopy I ever flown in terms of openings. Openings were soft, but 2 out of three times I got linetwists and became a passanger for a while even though I was extra carefull with my opening position. Before the 1st jump, I was told by a fellowjumper to steer the opening. I didnt listen to him. My school of thought has always been that steering the opening will more likely cause you linetwists than prevent them. So on the first time I just made sure I open symmetrically and let the canopy sort out it self. As a result I ended up kicking out linetwist for a good 2000 feet. (luckily I opened at around 5000) Before second jump I just had to check out from youtube, if all the competitive swoopers with scirocco really like to steer the opening and found out most do this quite agressively. (guess I was wrong) On the second jump I tried pulling the rears symmetrically quite a bit on the snivel stage and it worked perfect. Almost 100% on heading. However on the third it spun again resulting 1 twist which was luckily cleared quite fast. Definetly the most demanding canopy I ever flown in terms of openings. It felt like the canopy surges forward quite a bit at the end of the snivel and this may easily result in twists if you dont pull on the rears to stop the canopy from surging. Flight The trim felt very steep on full flight. You could however float it with brakes very well and the canopy didnt feel that sensitive for harness inputs on the brakes. I was setting up for a relatively quick 270 at around 250meters. The canopy felt very ground hungry compared to a smaller Xaos 83 with which I have done the same speed rotations from around 190meters. I felt the rears were very responsive, but the brakes were rather unresponsive and heavy. Definetly not my choice for an everyday canopy. I felt it was too much of a handfull. Im not looking to be a competitive swooper so I think im gonna be better of with something easier like a Xaos.

The body is as important to a photographer as a canvas is to a painter. The lens is as important as a brush is. You already have a good canvas, changing to a sligthly better one wont make your paintings much better. However the brush you are using is too thick for tandems IMO. Its difficult to paint well with a brush that is too thick. You need the right tools for the job. Changing from 18mm to 17mm wont make a difference, but the 10-22 will give you a variety of brush tools to choose from. Definetly go for the 10-22.

Im curious where exactly do you aim to be working at and at what position ? Someone correct me if im wrong, but windtunnel hours wont matter that much if you are applying for a job at a DZ (tandem/AFF) Sure it helps you, but actual experience over tandem or AFF will be much more important IMO. I dont know if you ever done any work in the skydiving/windtunnel industry, but my advice is that you first try it for a while before "cutting away". It may not be as glorius as you might think it is.

Singapore has a nice tunnel. You dont need to go to US for that. Anyways, my experience is similar from the Genting tunnel. Not enough speed for vertical flying. The coach there seemed to be able to fly a very wide head up. (a light weight girl), but she was at the edge of her range.

The TI handled it like a pro. May I ask why this is called a double mal ? To me it looked like the reserve only had some twists, but cleared it self.

I agree with Fast. Learning all the fundamentals on a "larger" canopy is recommendable. For example I have seen someone taking all the juice out of a Vengeance 120 and then move straight to Xaos 83 and pretty much start nailing the swoops after a brief adjustment. Someone here might think this sort of downsize is too agressive. However, IMO if you really spend the time to learn that 120, its no problem at all. IMO if one learns all the principles of swooping with a slower canopy, they can transalate that all later on pretty easily. Then you will have the tool set you need for that canopy.

Someone asking for guidance for becoming a better canopy pilot and this is your answer? The next guy is pressing the like button.. What the fuck is wrong with this community.

Yeah, i guess the default settings are quite saturated if thats what you mean. Saturation is quite easy to fix however. Also whats really nice with the camera is how you can come up with all kinds of new angles to shoot. For example, were operating a caravan with no door and I can just close the camera inside my fist and hold it outside the door and shoot the take off. I hold the camera steady towards the nose of the plane and it looks like the camera was fixed to the fuselage. Makes really nice take off footage.

Im using go pro 2

Have you even tried shooting the go pro? I just recently lost my CX115+raynox HD3035. I borrowed a go pro2 from a friend untill I manage to get a hold of another CX115. However after shooting one day (tandems) with the go pro2, theres no way i would anymore choose the CX over the go pro. The to pro wins hands down in picture quality. The only thing I liked better with the CX was the sound, and even that is easy to fix with a small 10€ external microphone. Shooting stills is another story, but for video the go pro is really nice.

A glass that has a thick front element like in this lens, is very prone to fogging up. I have a very similar 8mm samyang, which I dont consider suitable for tandem. It simply isnt reliable enough, in terms of this fog issue. Also, you shouldnt compare the 8mm to the 15mm, since the difference in FOV is huge. The 15mm lens is ment for the Full frame where it gives the same FOV as the 8mm with APS-C.

Obviously everyone here can agree a pro can shoot better video. However thats another topic. Lets just focus on the safety question here. Personally I fail to see the tandem customer as a student. On the contrary, I see it as a possibility to experience freefall without needing to go on the skydiving student status. Hell, we can even take blind person with us on a tandem skydive after 5 minutes of instructions. Would be much different if he/she was a real student. I still stand behind my point. I see students shooting themselves less dangerous than TI´s shooting the student.

I also came across this a few weeks ago. Heres a samplehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsizrFV9s2w However I cannot come up with any reasons what would make this dangerous. Other than poor framing which makes the video worse than it is when shot by the TI, it actually seems safer since the TI isnt distracted by the camera.

In fact there are laws strictly forbidding landing a parachute on federal national park land Interesting, maby you could point out those laws for me? (even though I wasnt suggesting to land on a federal national park land per se)

It may be easier here. Public access to private land may be wider in Finland, and the other Nordic countries, than in most other countries. Everyone is basically entitled to walk, ski, cycle or ride freely in the countryside, as long as this causes no harm to property or nature. This right is limited in cultivated fields and plantations, and around people’s homes. So we obviously cannot disturb anyone by entering their home yards, but if someone owns a huge chunk of land, we may roam this land freely as long as we wont do any damage. Using any kind of motorized vehicle on someones land also needs a promission. A parachute is not a motorized vehicle, and therefore there are no restrictions on where you can land it. If you can go roam this land freely, you can also land there with your canopy. But how about city property in the US? City property surely must be availeable for everyone, am I right? The landing zone we are using is basically a park area owned by the city. So there is no issues at all about ownership.

Its hard to see hard to see how the airfield owner could be held liable for your actions. I dont think this would be a realistic scenario. However if you cannot convince him/them otherwise, how about landing somewhere close by? I currently work on a DZ where we have to land on a landing zone outside the airfield. A van picks us up and takes us back to the airfield. Works fine.

May I ask what sort of liability is the airfield owner trying to avoid exactly?

yes, i know

www.trondteigen.com Among skydive photographers Trond Teigen for example adds a lot of noise to some of his photos. He seems to have a style where he brings down saturation and adds noise and some other stuff. (for example take a look at the BASE gallery 2nd,3rd,4th,5th, 6th pics)

Damn those clouds look sweet..

I actually thought the scam looked rather well made, untill they claimed the chinese authority to have a yahoo.cn email

Its all a matter of taste. I used to be very allergic to any amount of noise. Later on i realized how some pros actually add noise to their photos. Noise in some situations can produce a nice effect. In some situations it is however less desirable. Example of a photo where noise is added: http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4123/4926466496_d3209fa7a2_z.jpg

I wonder why all professional sport photographers use fast fps bodies for shooting sports? Pros like to shoot 10fps. Is it becouse they just spray and pray? No, it is becouse they realize they are just human and one fraction of a second can mean you either get the shot or you dont. Ever wondered how many photos does a pro photographer take during a football match? A lot! How many of those wil be published? Sometimes zero. Taking a shot like this with a slow fps camera takes a lot of luck. If your camera can do 10fps you need much less luck. If someone says they can take this photo everytime with pure skill and 1fps I call it BS.