Anachronist

Make it so when you search a forum, the results are ordered by date. At least for me they are not, and I am not interested in 10 year old threads.

One of my favorites of all time

Thanks for the info everyone.

So I'm visiting CA for the first time and will be close to Perris and Elsinore. Was wondering if anyone could give me an overall impression of both, or either? I searched the forum and only really got info that was several years old, and not specific. Anything sketch or important to know about either one? From their websites it looks like Perris runs an Otter frequently, and Elsinore has a few Caravans (also maybe an otter?) If what I'm into matters, I'm alone, no kids or dogs, mostly wingsuit, like to mostly come jump and leave, not too much of a social jumper. Also not interested in the Perris tunnel. Thanks in advance.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that one, hehehe Well, forgot that it was Sony anyway

I was wondering when a real camera manufacturer was going to get into the small format camera game (other than BMD, but that is pro equipment). GoPro gets a tip o' the hat for more or less creating the market, but they seem to have chosen the "sell as many as possible" route rather than the "actually improve our products" route. Also, I'm betting 360 is just a fad in the consumer market. There are Pro/Commercial applications, but I see 360 more or less dying out in a couple years. But I could be wrong of course.

So it depends on what you want. The best thing that I've experienced, if you have to travel a long way to a tunnel, has been Paraclete 1 week memberships. $1,000 for 15 min a day, for 7 days (if I remember right). Now the cool part is if you have a group, say 4 or 5 people, now there is 1hr+ per day you can fly, and it still costs you $1,000. But there is a catch. You need to be decent enough to fly together, and at least similar-ish skill level. If your buddies want to fly head down, and you are on your belly, you won't be sharing much time. Otherwise, get hooked up with an instructor you like, and go in small groups buying an hour at a time and splitting it. Like was said before, no one can fly an hour straight (except maybe some instructors, not the point). Even 1 hour a day broken up is brutal if you aren't use to it. From my personal experience, I felt like my arms and legs were made out of razor blades after day two. If you can make weekend trips to a tunnel pretty regular, then that is an option too, just book 15 min coached. A little more expensive, but after doing it for a couple months, you won't have to ask for advice on here anymore. Long story short, min for min, tunnel is cheaper than the sky, but it ain't free. And that membership I mentioned is without coaching. Last time I was there, coaching was $50 for 15 min (on top of the time itself of course). These guys get paid crap and do the job for tunnel time, so when a coaching opportunity comes up, it is expensive (it is also a lot of work on their part).

If people had more complete view on fully controlling their suit, and broader goals in terms of practice, small suits can keep one busy and happy for way over 500 jumps, and bring you skills in terms of control that translate to any size suit. Agreed but with a caveat, it depends on body type. I'm 6' and 220lbs, a P3(edge whatever) as much as I loved it and still say it is the hands down the best first suit, was just like hardcore tracking for me. Great suit to get flying a pattern down, playing with barrel rolls and whatnot, but I really started to be like "ohhhh this is flying" on a Havok. On the P3 I didn't have any range to play with, it was just "rock" and "flat rock." And it was a little too forgiving to really have to feel your feet, great for the first 100, not so much beyond that. I went to a Havok with about 50-60 WS jumps and it was, for me, an awesome learning experience and fun to fly for several hundred jumps. On that same note, I've seen a few folks put a few hundred on a P3 and had tons of range, but they were 6' and 150lbs. I even know one cheeky bastard that can easily do XRW in a Swift, but he is like 130lbs. And a second caveat really, for someone who wants to be crazy good and do hardcore acro in a big suit one day when they have a few thousand jumps, sure. But a lot of us are humble fun jumpers that just want to have fun and not be in training mode all the time waiting for when we are 10 years and a few thousand jumps down the road. It is like going to the tunnel, if you want to be a super awesome VFS flyer then your progression and how you spend your tunnel time will be a lot different than if you just want to hold hands with your buddies in a sit. I know a few people into performance flying, they are always "working" and trying to get max speed/glide/time and talking about how they are 5mph faster than their last run after their 6th jump of the day, and I'm just eating my lunch after my first jump like "I don't care man." Out of curiosity Jarno, what would you say a good (reasonable, not "ideal") progression would be for someone who is not an idiot and doesn't have any major issues from 1st WS through say like 500th?

At least for me big suits are a totally different feeling, I don't fault anyone for wanting to jump one early. But that said, I've seen a lot of people clench their butt with a new Freak (for dozens of jumps) after only putting 50-100 or so on a smaller suit. Stability always being the biggest issue. Or thinking everything is good for 50+ jumps on one then having a bad exit and spinning for 6k before getting out of it. I jumped my C2 with a friend who got a Freak after putting 80ish jumps on a Raptor, he didn't have any control issues, after about 20 jumps on his Freak I jumped with him and I was like "are you f-ing kidding me?" he was flying it like a turd and I had to collapse everything to stay with him. He also couldn't do anything but fly a decent pattern in it. Big suit does not equal big performance without appropriate experience. Anyway for whatever it is worth, I think the progression has some "sweet spots." For small suits, after about 50-100 the learning curve flattens out. e.g. someone with 100 jumps on a P3 isn't going to be much worse off than someone with 300 on a P3 going to a Freak. For mid sized suits the learning curve lasts longer. 100 jumps on a Funk/Havok/Whatever is a lot different that 200. Once you're in the big suit range with over 100 jumps on them, you should be able to move around without much problem (except maybe some of the monsters like the Sukhoi, haven't jumped one so idk). So basically, putting more than 100 jumps on a small suit is pointless if you want to upsize. For the mid range, 200+ (on a mid sized suit) would be good before moving to a Freak. Once you put 100+ on a Freak or larger, then you get to make your own assessment and no one can give you better advice than you can give yourself. For the OP: Yeah man, get an ATC/Havok/Whatever, more jumps on the Swift isn't going to help a lot and skipping the mid range is not smart. You will learn slower on the Freak than you will on something a little smaller because doing new stuff will be hard and scary. You will have 100 jumps on the Freak but your skill level will be less than if you put 100 on something else. It isn't about flat spinning, it is about being comfortable and confident. Basically other people will have to fly with you, rather than you flying with them, and you don't learn fast that way.

130-ish, didn't have any problems until I upsized too fast (S-Bird with about 20 WS jumps), some weird stability issues (looking back, it was not knowing where my feet were) and wonky deployments, sorted itself out after about 20 WS jumps. Put about 300 on a Havok, after that everything has been fine. As far as what I would have done differently, upsized slower. Have had 2 chops, one was a pierced bridle, one was hella line twists (on a very out of trim canopy) that I couldn't kick out of. No issues. At least for me, I think hammering out so many jumps on a mid sized suit to the point getting unstable trying to do front flips and stuff wasn't even a concern has helped with everything since.

Welp, I tried...

I know he ruffled a lot of feathers but the first time I met him, as a nobody rookie wingsuiter at a new DZ, he treated me like an old friend. All the old timer wingsuiters would talk about him like like some sort of campfire legend and when I finally met him I thought he would be intimidating, he was anything but. BSBD Scotty

I propose a sticky thread (admins necessary of course) for reporting camera incidents to try and determine if jump number has any mitigating effect on camera "incidents." This would serve to aid in supporting or not supporting the current 200 jump camera rule. It will also help to shape "best practices" for experienced camera flyers. The format should be consistent to help in tabulating the data as it is collected. I propose: 1 - Date and Location. 2 - Jump Number. 3 - Equipment and Type of Jump (e.g. "4 way RW, GoPro on Full Face Helmet) 3 - Result: Cutaway/Injury/Fatality/Gear Damage/or "Resolved" for "they had a problem but fixed it." e.g. camera entangled but was cleared. 4 - Description: Brief but adequately explains what happened. Quotes and eyewitness info appreciated. Facts only. 5 - Supporting info and/or assessment (Personal Opinions/ Pictures/Videos/Links/Etc). If jump number is not reported or cannot be reasonably estimated or there is at least no general location (at least a state) and no general date (month and year) the report cannot be considered reliable and should not be posted. Furthermore, this should be for new data only, as current practices reflect. No incidents that occurred prior to July 2017 should be reported. This is because getting a consistent frequency of incidents would not be accurate. And last, please do not report "non-incidents" such as someone had a bad exit because they bumped their camera, took too long in the door, or forgot their SD card, as are mentioned in DSE's famous list. Maybe this becomes a thing, maybe not, at least I tried

Here is DSE's list boiled down, every single one. So we are talking about jump numbers being the issue for camera jumps, and if it mitigates risk. For that reason, an experienced jumper who has a problem doing advanced jumps means that jump number is not a contributing factor. I use "irrelevant" a lot in that sense. Also, of some of the low time jumpers who did have problems, they responded with appropriate EPs and landed w/o incident. Also there were several where the camera was a non-contributing factor. For the purpose of determining if jump number contributed to an incident, and there is no jump number or time in sport listed, the incident is irrelevant. There were several "non-incidents" reported, my favorite is number 35. Also, there was A LOT of blatant disregard for basic safety standards, this is the "can't fix stupid crowd." If someone is doing stupid things, like flying head down with 30 jumps, the camera is not the problem. In the whole list, there is 1 bonafide low time jumper with a camera, not doing something exceedingly stupid, who has a problem that an experienced jumper would have been better able to handle. It is number 24. He chopped when he probably didn't have to.... Seen low time jumpers chop because of a long snivel and line twists, but this was indeed caused by the camera. After reviewing the list, and the very low probability of having any camera problem for any jumper (1 in 10's of thousands), I stand firm in my assessment that a 200 jump requirement to use a gopro is very excessive and contributes essentially zero to the safety of our sport. Please forgive any errors, it took a long time to go through all that. Enjoy 1 – BASE jumper being stupid (gross disregard for basic safety practices) 2 – Paraglider pilot being stupid (gross disregard for basic safety practices) 3 – Exited without goggles on (who cares, I’ve done that w/o a camera) 4 – Doesn’t mention how camera contributed. Jump number not noted (Irrelevant) 5 – Gross disregard for landing pattern (can’t fix stupid) 6 - 200 jumps (Irrelevant) 11 – Took too long in the door (seriously this was the problem reported) Jump number not noted (Irrelevant). 12 – AFFI went low (Irrelevant) 13 – TI with handicam filmed a chop (Irrelevant/can’t fix stupid) 14 – Jump number unknown, 3 months in sport, flying head down, deployed head down, one line snagged camera, he cleared it (can’t fix stupid) 15 – Misrouted chest strap (I’ve seen that 3 times with no cameras involved) 16 – 200 jumps, planned downwind landing, 180 turn on landing to abort downwind (can’t fix stupid/irrelevant) 17 – 4 way freefly, jump number not noted, the guy is stated as not being very “heads up” anyway, the complaint was “he was distracted” (Irrelevant/can’t fix stupid) 18 – 133 jumps, took helmet off to talk to camera on final (can’t fix stupid/see PD’s new favorite VK photo) 19 – 112 jumps, had a bad landing (I’ve seen someone with several hundred do exactly what was described/ Irrelevant) 20 – TI with PRO rating and handicam filmed EPs (Irrelevant/can’t fix stupid) 21 – Jump number not noted, risers broke camera off helmet but spectra tether made him have to take his helmet off (Irrelevant/also spectra tethers are stupid) 22 – Camera broke off on impact with door, had a bad exit (Irrelevant, a bad exit is not an “incident”) 23 – 50 jumps, landed off after a heli jump (I’m kinda on the fence on this one, not sure jump number really mattered, and landing off is not an “incident”) 24 – 66 jumps, brake line wrapped around camera, chopped instead of trying to clear it (Yay you get one! / can’t fix stupid) 25 – 65 jumps, flying head down, chops b/c of camera? (can’t fix stupid) 26 – Had line twists and cleared them at 2.6k, jump number not noted (Irrelevant) 27 – Bad exit fiddling with camera, jump number not noted (Irrelevant) 28 – YouTube Link, head down flying a tube, camera pulled reserve on exit (Irrelevant, highly experienced jumpers) 29 – Didn’t bring an altimeter on 13 min call, jumped anyway (Irrelevant, I’ve done that w/o a camera, wasn’t going to jump but a AFFI gave me theirs since they were doing a clear and pull) 30 – 31 jumps, camera tangled with lines on final due to head movement, hard landing w/o injury (Kinda relevant, this same thing killed an experienced swooper, def a camera problem but jump number is irrelevant) 31 – Cluster f*** of a 4 way (noted as such even before the jump), passed canopies in freefall, jumper apparently unfazed by near death experience (Irrelevant, camera minor to non-contributing factor/can’t fix stupid) 32 – 2 way, both sub 20 jumps, backflying, premature deployment (can’t fix stupid) 33 – Jump number not noted, camera came off b/c chinstrap not on (Irrelevant, saw this happen on a WS with someone with 1,000+ jumps including several hundred with same helmet and gopro setup, camera was recovered, actually filmed a nice exit and was hilarious) 34 – 55 jumps, camera broken off and damaged risers during deployment, correct EPs, landed without incident (Irrelevant, jump number did not contribute) 35 – More than 500 jumps, consulted with experienced camera flyers, the “incident” was he forgot his SD card, uneventful skydive (Are you kidding me?!) 36 – Skyhawks demo jumper dropped a flag at an airshow (lol what? Irrelevant) 37 – Broken link, no data, no description (Irrelevant) 38 – Main entanglement with camera, chopped main and helmet, landed uneventfully (Irrelevant, jump number did no contribute) 39 – Tertiary rig test jumper, shows how RPC bridal could wrap helmet cam(Irrelevant) 40 - Broken link, no data, no description (Irrelevant) 41 - Broken link, no data, no description (Irrelevant) 42 – Broken link, jump number not noted, jumper allegedly “distracted by camera” (Irrelevant) 43 – Jump number not noted, went low watching buddy deploy, AAD fire (Irrelevant/can’t fix stupid) 44 – WS rodeo, deployed w/o getting off, PC bridal got burbled, I think we’ve all seen this video (Irrelevant, we know that is stupid now and jump number of rider did not contribute) 45 – Took too long in door and exited w/o goggles on, then tried to turn camera off on final, hard landing (Irrelevant/can’t fix stupid) 46 – Tandem student was allowed to have a camera (TI’s fault) 48 – WS with “death bar” (Irrelevant, death bars are a known risk, and an experienced jumper) 49 – Broken link, jump number not noted, apparently PC bridal entangled with camera, described as “not a POV camera,” so foot or chest mount? (Irrelevant)

A note on the "ruthlessness of skydiving." No one is doubting its danger, that is even part of the appeal for some (many?). It use to be ruthless, extremely so, but today the fatality rate for non-swoopers is somewhere around 1 in 400,000 jumps. (feel free to check my math on that one, it has been a long time since I did it). For students, improper (or none) EPs and not understanding how to fly a pattern and land are the biggest risks. For the dozens of broken bones for each fatality, the majority are poor canopy skills and what could be described as "controlled flight into terrain" to borrow a term from our aviation friends. And it is seldom complicated by cameras, statistically irrelevantly so. My own contribution to the bone yard was at jump 90 something, I was landing in turbulence and my normal flare did nothing, and I didn't PLF sufficiently (and no, I didn't have a camera, wish I had though) Someone told me "you should have stabbed out," to which I replied "what is that?" I was one of those low time poor canopy skill injuries I've mentioned. Gone are the days of the first 100 jumps being the most dangerous of your career. Now the vast majority of fatalities are jumpers with several hundred to thousands of jumps. (and it has been that way long before the gopro). From the last 30 fatalities on the USPA website from June 2013 to July 2015 these are the jump number data (includes one AFFI and Student and one TI and Student). Mean = 1,543 Median = 639 Mode w/n=3 (500). 500+ jumps accounted for over 60% 200+ jumps accounted for 80%

It isn't that no one wants to be "safe" it is that the 200 jumps before you can use a gopro is seen as excessive, very excessive. Especially that it is a "oh you have 200, go grab a Aura3 and a full camera setup." 150, "ohhh no it'll kill you." The data provided also does not support the perceived risk, at a maximum we are looking at 1 non-fatal camera "incident" per 10's of thousands of jumps. It is perhaps one of the least dangerous things to do outside of small rw jumps. If there was training involved then it would make more sense, but taking someone with 50 jumps and the correct mentoring is far better than someone with 200 and none, for anything, crew, freeflying, and cameras. It is in the same vane as "oh you have 500 jumps, and 2 were night jumps? You're an "expert" now." It just doesn't make sense. If there is one thing to take away from the whole thing it is "make a course that teaches something, don't just pick a number and assume that alone is any guarantee of competence." I suggest you read my long ass rant on the previous page (or 2). And I don't think anyone is trolling, I'm pretty confident everyone advocating for more relaxed standards (myself included) has already far exceeded the requirements. The USPA also has a huge credibility problem for both creating and enforcing safety standards, # S&TA swooping into people and nearly killing them in a landing area, then doing nothing about it.

Once, manifest called the plane and said it started gusting to 25+, the wind was already weird and disorganized anyway, that sealed the deal. Got the the ground and it was calm and steady, oh well, live to fight another day.

Well, then, why require jump numbers for anything, if the big issue is "you can't fix stupid?" Let people with ten jumps do demos. After all, it doesn't matter how many jumps they have - stupid people do stupid things and you can't fix it. ***Cameras are probably on closer to 30% of jumps, let's about double your report number and make it an even 100, well now, we're getting somewhere around 1 incident per 50,000 camera jumps. That's one person collecting incidents from his one group of friends. Let's say there are 50 people in the country like DSE (experienced, respected cameramen) who could collect a similar set of reports - that means we are at 1 incident per 1000 jumps, which is something USPA should certainly be looking at. Those incidents were from all over the world "one groups of friends" lol yeah right. On top of that, I kept rounding and round and rounding to make the stats as bad as possible for camera incidents, and I got 0.6 per 1,000 jumps, then I ARBITRARILY doubled it to give you an even 1 per 1,000. And it includes EVERYONE, with more than 200 jumps, doing demo jumps, swooping, doing dumb shit like Mr Bills. And after all of that, 1 per 1,000. Here is all the stuff I did to get the 1 per 1,000 number. 1 - Estimated the number of jumps with cameras as 1 in 10 (A HUGE UNDERESTIMATION) 2 - Increased the only data of incidents you have by TEN TIMES 3 - Included ALL incidents, even those for people with more than 200. 4 - ARBITRARILY DOUBLED the incident rate. And I still only got 1 in 1,000. To get 1 in 50k. 1 - Estimated the number of jumps with camera's as 3 in 10. (possibly still an underestimation) 2 - DOUBLED the only data you have. 3 - Still included EVERY incident, even those demos, >200 jumps folks, and incidents where the camera probably didn't contribute. Good Lord, 1 in 50k is probably a conservative number. Just because 2 or 3 people have died as a direct result of a camera (all with over 200 jumps that I know of) doesn't "make it a problem." More people than that have committed suicide jumping or been murdered by having their gear tampered with but I don't see the USPA requiring mental health counseling or criminal background checks (lol ) before jumping.

So in the list are wingsuiters, AFFI's, TI's, swoopers, BASE jumpers, people with over 1k jumps, and a great number are unspecified. On top of that most had significant contributing factors, big ways, "death bars" (an apt name I might add), demo jumps, rodeos, etc etc. What that means is that it does not correlate to 200 jump folks that have incidents, or all of the contributing factors (i.e. the incident may have occurred sans camera), and it doesn't take long before statistically you are more likely to die jumping, than you are to have a non-fatal "incident" where the camera might have contributed. Need I say more?

Just out of curiosity, how long/when was the period of no-drogue tandems? Was it ever "normal" or were they still "experimental" before they figured out the drogue thing?

Completely unscientific and anecdotal... I've only ever seen one bag locked canopy go down, and it was "very fast" compared to a free bag or deployed main. Just throwing some random numbers out there... If I found a free bag 1 mile away from the point of the chop in "moderate wind," I'd start looking for the bag lock about .2 or .3 miles away. Or just to be thorough, start looking at the point of chop and work out to where the free bag was.

I'll add, the most dangerous Tandem flyby I ever saw was Scotty Burns (may he rest in peace) toward the end of his flying career. He essentially (and unintentionally) passed between the drogue and the main, and within the drogue's oscillation cone. The TI (who is on the upper level of "responsible") and everyone else laughed it off, because it was Scotty Burns. Double standard much? If you don't police the pro's, then the children will run wild. **The vid was widely shared and is probably "out there" but I don't have a copy. It happened in DeLand if anyone is curious enough to look for it. It is Scotty's POV, to my knowledge no outside video exists**

And all of that lack of reporting and maintaining of records is an enormous problem for developing and refining "industry best practices." Ideally our community would want to share that information and keep first hand reports and expert analysis. e.g. that Skydive Arizona guy does a phenomenal job with his incident reports. Also the Blinc BASE Fatality list comes to mind. But given the number of skydiving incidents, would be significantly more complex to maintain in our arena.

Reminds me of a old TI I know with a 3 digit D-License. He once told me (not complaining, just noting how things had changed) "30 years ago it would have been considered insane to put a student on a main with the performance of a Navigator." "Your old road is rapidly agin'. Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand For the times they are a-changin'."

Agreed. I have no issue with round/even/divisible-by-5-or-10 numbers. My issue, as I described, is a lack of correlating them to anything quantifiable and applying them far too broadly. *See my super long ass rant on the previous page* I'm back btw, in case anyone wants to tangle ;)