tvandijck

does it still not work? I added you as reporter, the same way I added Andrea, and she just added a first report. As for the emails it claims to send, you are right, I don't get those either.. I think my hosting provider actually blocks the server from sending anything. that said though, the emails are pretty useless anyway. Anyway, after someone signs up, I have to assign that person to a project. As this is not the only project I work on, so there is more stuff in there then I want visible for everyone.. So you cannot start right away. I do however send out email afterwards manually to confirm your registration. I hope you did receive that at least.

Dude, you're creating some expectation here... now I can only disappoint.... thanks for the confidence though.

I'd like to take the opportunity to note that there is a donate button on the bottom of the website. It explicitly says that all donation will go to a good cause of our choosing, and suggestions are obviously welcome. Just PM me for that. Anything skydiving related would be preferable, but I'm open to anything.

Yes, but honestly I was thinking of rewritting the software in JavaScript/HTML5, and just get it on the intertubes. That way it works in your browser (except microsofts internet exploder) and I don't have to care about what machine/platform it runs on. That however is more of a longer term goal..

the software doesn't really make that judgement. pass of fail... it just shows red/green dots, or black/red lines. In this case playing with the tolerances will probably help, but its a perfect example of why we need to test and adjust the software to make it better, because you are completely right, this is an awesome formation, and there is no reason at all for the lines method to show anything red.. More test data like this is awesome, and I can't wait to get those all together in a database.. I should probably add an 'upload' link to the website orsomething to collect them. Also, if you want to report bugs and feature requests etc... www.tomvandijck.com/mantis is the bugtracker website, you have to sign up for it though.

Dude... I'm in your video ! :) whoehoe..... It was awesome indeed, my first flock n dock and my first wingsuit flight.... sweet video.... can't wait for more ;) TomTom.

To answer a couple of the questions asked: > Why did the handle not come out of the rig if it was pulled? It's somewhat hard to explain without pictures, but unfortunately I do not have a camera or drawing application at hand... Anyway, I'm jumping a Vector3 with Skyhook, as some may know the skyhook comes with a different reserve pin, where the reserve cable is not actually attached to the pin, but rather has an 'eye' at the end of the cable where the pin runs through... If you pull the handle the eye pulls the pin, but the pin itself is entirely free to move. Then there is this extra line attached to the pin... now when you pull the handle, the pin gets pulled upward, but that small piece of line will make it rotate after it comes free from the reserve loop. once it is rotated and it still runs through the eye of the cable, it will essentially block the 'eye' from going past the housing, and thus prevent the cable from going any further that that... Mind you this is still more then 2-3 inch away from the loop, so it does NOT in any way prevent you from pulling. I'll see if I can make a picture of this tomorrow at work, which may further clear this up. > In what direction was the damage of the housing and where? The damage to the housing was on the outside (where the handle is), and it was pulled in my facing direction, as in straight from my body. > did you get the freebag? No, I'm thinking that it ended somewhere up in San Diego.. It was so warm that day, with good thermals, so my guess is that it went far far away... >what happened? I really can't tell... the video is in 1/4 of the speed, and I still cannot follow all the things that are going on. The one thing I remember is a 'strange' pull that kept me from presenting, and Marks face shaking a disapproving no no no, as I was looking him in the eyes ;)

That would be unlikely, also considering the D-handle was out of the pocket, and the cable was highly curled up.. Additionally it was the first jump of the day, I check my gear first thing in the morning.. the reserve flap needs to be opened to turn on my cypress, so I would have seen anything wrong there. Javelin Odysee, but a very very small one, I think he jumps a 97sqft of something elliptical and very fast.

thanks rob... I had a good teacher ;)

I have absolutely no idea either.. we've been guessing about that for a couple minutes, but then decided to not have this ruin our day for much longer, and were in the plane 20 minutes later... (good to have 2 of those rigs ;) ) That said, I'm obviously as curious as anyone else. On thing to note is that the cable was curled up pretty badly, and the cable housing had deep scratches in the direction it was pulled. So it came out under a lot of tension. We're obviously replacing the cable with a new one. The footage shows me somewhat being pulled on my side towards the outside center, but other then that there is absolutely no real evidence of what happened. It happened all very quickly, the movie I posted is already at 25% of the original speed. Anyway, we practiced our exits in the mockup before every jump, and after this jump we took some extra time in the mockup to see what it could have been, we changes some small things here and there, and made an additional 20 jumps that weekend, without further incident.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vHbwlcFywg I was a little reluctant to post this, considering the incident this week on another dropzone where something similar resulted in a fatal accident, but I guess this is good footage for some discussion. Basically what happened here was some struggle to get all 8 people in the door of a twin otter prior to the count. On the count all 8 of us left, and although the exit was no beauty it was relatively stable, except that for some reason my D-handle got snug up to the person next to me and thus got pulled, resulting in my quick departure from the formation. Quite a surprise, although I knew what was happening before actual deployment, and considering I packed the reserve myself I was pretty happy with my first official save.. but still, I had rather stayed with the formation... It was noticed on the ground and in the airplane immediately after exit, and no additional people got to jump on that jump run and I got down as quickly as I could to clear the sky, stayed as much as I could in my own air space, basically spiraling down, and flying on 90 degree angle on the jump run as you would when tracking. Anyway, obviously never saw the free bag back again, but am now wondering if a 'puddle' would have prevented this, and if I should change my gear towards that, considering I'll be doing more of this 8-way stuff in the future... I'm not sure what other lessons can be learned from this though, I pretty much always check my handles before getting into the plane, and before getting out... but am obviously open for any suggestions about changes I can make.

So, to clear this up... The guy in red, eventually jumping is a friend of me. The guy in blue (completely, even my head) sitting next to him is me.. The other person "helping" the guy in red out the plane, was some girl we met on the DZ. And the guy filming was someone else. I did not jump, but merely because I was unable to. When I woke up sitting in that door, I realised that I'd better move back a bit, but it was all kind of unreal at that point. And the reason why I put the video up, is mostly because it is a year ago, and might be usefull to show other people the effects of Hypoxia and the dangers of it. And just for the record, jumping out really didn't have anything to do with the jump being expensive. Nor me, Nor the guy in red that jumps out, actually remembers ANYTHING of the jump, let alone make the decision to jump out because it was an expensive jump. We had headaches after the jump making it totally impossible to jump the rest of the day, so in regard to that, this pretty much ruined one day of awesome skydiving.. Money really was no issue at all, we largely made up for this the next day....

It's been a year now since we made this "jump". We're still unsure what exactly was wrong, but after the carefull briefing by the dropzone, and listening carefully to the pilot during the flight, we still got hypoxic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXa4w4aYKEk Both landed safely, one under canopy after an uneventfull skydive, although the first 50 seconds unconsious. The other, me, passed out, and woke up at 12-14k sitting in the door, apparently ready to jump out. All I can remember is getting off the ground, and waking up sitting in that door, wondering where everyone had gone. Anyway, I cut the video short to 3 minutes, but the full video is about 11 minutes, so considering that the movie starts with both of us suffering from hypoxia, the next 11 minutes are pretty boring, until the end. Now obviously this could have resulted in a very different ending, but I would like to mention that although this might have been a life threatening situation (I'm not exactly sure how much) we are both still alive..... kind of...

whaa... considering there is no air to breath the first 3-4 minutes of freefall... you'd be death before arriving the deck anyway... But still... I take my canopy as hand lugage... just in case :) hehehe.

I've been traveling multiple times now, and have sofar always taken my rig on board with me. Last time even without a gearbag, because I used it for clothes. What I always do however is tie the reserve handles so they can't be pulled by accident... Don't forget to untie them though !!! I use bright color straps that are easily noticed.. If you don't feel confident with taking it on board, take a hardshell suitecase and check it in. You could even ask to put a 'fragile' label on your case at checkin.

Recently moved from The Netherlands to Vancouver, Canada, and obviously don't want to stop jumping. Anyone with information about good dropzones in the surroundings of vancouver?