Zoltan

I am junior at the tandem business with 100+ tandems but I do as I was told... clean, stable, nice head up, belly to relative wind exits. I consider unstable exits exciting and cool for the jumpmaster and not necessary for the students. In my opinion the primary responsibility of the tandem jumpmaster is to bring down the student in safe and secondary is to give them an exciting lifetime experience... the good footage comes third. I believe that the experience is what we live and not the footage... the video footage is only a trigger to bring back the feelings of the exciting moments.

I do not have experience with 300+ ways so I accept your point. On the 50-150 ways I have never been instructed to track away before the agreed altitude. I think that the difference is that in the world team you can expect flat track from anybody, but on a smaller bigways you do not want anybody to "track" down and pull on 4K. The point might be that these rules are not written in marble... different size, different skills might require different rules. > you should never look _directly_ at the formation. :) Of course... I mean that looking to any direction should not changed the body position. I tell to all students I jump with that they should look with their eyes and not with their body. Sideway setup works in most cases, that is true.

In Finland we really try to handle the tandem students as students, but we still do not train them to pull. Why? I do not know. About 1 out 20 of my students asked if they can pull. In that case I ask back if they are willing to take a 10-15 minutes extra training and they usually say yes. So far all trained students pulled, but I was assisting their hands. But personally I do not see the need of training all students to pull. First of all because I do not want to take the risk that the student does not pull and walks away disappointed or frustrated. It is not what they are paying for. I want to see themselves brave cool folks doing great job. I believe that tandem skydive is a great thing because with the least training anyone can experience the thrill of the freefall and the parachute ride with the maximum level of safety. I do not want my students watching their altitude meters, but I want them to smile to the cameraman and look out and enjoy the freefall and the beauty of the landscape. If they are "future skydivers" they will come back because of the experience not because they pulled. But, that is only my opinion :)

ehhh :) "than" is the correct. Sorry.

Good for you :) I still prefer to fight for being the part of a formation then giving up and tracking away. But hei :) it is just me... we are not the same.

There should not be conflicting answers to this very simple question. If once you are under the formation for whatever reason (the formation is too slow or you are too fast or just because of a screwed up exit, etc) you have only one and only one job... get out of the way of the formation (yes, there the red zone is red under the group as well) and get up. You are looking all the time to the formation and float as strong as you can. When for example 50+ friends are doing their best to make a good skydive you do not just track away.

1. Working with people and introducing them to the sport, building their trust and giving them a lifetime experience is a great thing. 2. Good to be a productive and not only the consumer part of the sport, I love to return something to the community I have received so much from. 3. Tandem skydive is technically interesting and challenging with all the equipment and techniques and I enjoy to learn new things in skydiving

I have the most dirty jumpsuit (OC). I wash it once a year. It is not that bad, but my team mates are suggesting to wash it every day :) z

:) well I have seen as well jump plane where to jump was not an _option_ but a must :) z

Get booted and learn mantis :) the real good RW jumpers use booties and fly mantis :) at least you will look like them :) and looking good is the most important in formation skydive...

Not a secret that most people like Markku and Gareth because they are friendly and nice with all kind of skydivers. They are not that type of skygods who only deal with highly experienced jumpers and they are not kicking you out from the dive for the smallest mistakes...And they take care even with the lower experienced jumpers and they do not feel bad when they jump 8 ways with beginners... Some critics were still pointed to them that 'they are too nice' and 'they should be stronger handed'. But the results their teams are achieving is proving the opposite :) They are result oriented.. but not for all price and since they trust even in lower experienced but most probably talented folks... the magic happens :) world record and and other great skydives come to success :) I will never forget the Herc boggie 37 way with 4 points dive with unbelievable difficult block movement with average ~600 jumped guys... But I am writing too much good about them :) for the balance let's admit that Markku has the worst and most painful collection of jokes on this planet.. maybe in the universe :)

Great :) were the people satisfied with them? I think they are very good organizers. I liked to work with them on Herc boogie and on the 120 way. I was planningto go the sweden but i had to come to work :( z

It seems i could not make myself clear :) I have no negative feelings about the windtunel.. I just do not appreciate it more then it is. It is a tool to develop freefall skills without the involvement of airplane, exit procedure, parachute flying and landing and packing. For about the same price as skydive since i can not do it at my home DZ. On the financial issue i have not even mentioned that jumping on weekend or everyday afternoon I do not need to take a vacation... for wind tuneling I need.. and since even in Finland we have limited payed vacation days :) so add to the cost a software engineer's weekly salary as a minus :) I'm not negative but I just do not hype it. It has its benefits and costs and I do not think it is good idea to hide the costs and hype the benefits.

Full face helmet without visor is still a full face... and it covers much more then a regular open face freefly helmet.

ops Marku=Markku

Who were the organizers? Was Gareth and/or Marku there? z

I like this atitude... We all belong to the same family and we all land with some kind of parachute... and what we do before pull time it is what we like... z

I do not think so... but of course it is more open then with the visor. I use Z1 without visor with goggles. For many years i was using closed face integral helmet and i liked it.. but with goggle it is 100% fogfree.. and it is important on some jumps.

Factory Diver helmet with gogles is maytbe one of the most comfortable and good solutiona. I have seen both freeflyers and RW jumpres using this way the FD helmet. z

Your calculation is a bit wrong.. first the flight costs about 700$+100$ for visa (which is not 100% surely given after 911) the hotel has a cost let's say 300$ and in the states the public transportation and the 'concept of distance less then 10 miles' are unknown the car rent is an other 100$ So a two weeks trip to Orlando is at least 1200$ At home I live in my own place and go with bus or bike to the DZ without visa :) I calculated many times and the result is that wind tunel is mor or less costs the same as jumps under a limit (like 10+ hours or so) and the only technical benefit of windtunel is that there is no 60 second timeframe so the training is more intensive. and about the 600$/4 :) you know it does not work this way, that a team just jumps in to the wind tunel... before team training all the members should take some individual trainings in pair with a coach :) Wind tunel is cost effective if you realy do it a lot... and if you do it a lot thenit costs more... maybe more then you were planing to jump :) z

Deal :) but for 5$ I would pack so that i will have fun watching your openings :) Is it OK with you? :) z

yes, considerable but you know that every team has a season budjet...and it is a decision what to do with this budjet. Jump or windtunel... i prefer jumping. Since I can notgo just for an hour wind tunel session to Orlando... For us it would be a bit bigger project and it would burn up a significant percentage of our yearly budjet. z

Call me jerk but I love packing... it is the part of the fun... I love hanging under the parachute and enjoying the view of the city. I love to be alone and I love to scream my favorite rock song (noone complains that I'm not a Pavarotti) on 2000 ft. and I admit that windtuneling is fun... yeah.. it is. I have a lot friends scubadiving... it is fun as well. Other folks are fishing on the weekends.. they say it is fun... so I beleive :) But whatever you do in the windtunel it is not going to be skydive and it is not a DZ :) even if it makes you a 4way god and hopefuly it makes :) since it is not a cheap toy

No question about it :) but it is still not skydiving. You might use the same muscles, you fly... but you do not jump out, you do not track away and you do not pull and you do not land and youdo not pack :) yeah :) at least that is the ideology behind the fact that I live too far from a wind tunel. There is a skydiving enviroment given to me...the DZ, the Twin Otter, the folks and everything... and I am happy that i try to reach the maximum with these things... Yes I know that if i would sell all my belongings and give up my job and move to the states to live in a DZ with all the other guys form our team and do packjob, camerajob and tandem for living and burn all my money in windtunel that our team might end up with 18-20 point avarage within few years :) This is possible... and we all draw teh border we all have priorities and for me the limit i set for myself is to say 'no' for windtunel. :) z

"Yep...aint it great? :) " you want to hear my personal opninion? :) Well... it is not popular I know :) In my opinion it is not great... because you are not skydiving but drying your hair in a room...for a lot money. I'm a skydiver... so I skydive :) and i wish you great competition results and success... But if i can chose to fly to Fla and train in windtunel or to jump the same money with my friends and still training.. then i chose skydive :) even if i know it is not the fastes and most effective way to be a champ :) But at least I know that I am a 100% home grown formation skydiver.... and oh yes that 65 seconds is so small part of the training, maybe not even the most important. z