DSE

Reading the Onion, more likely. BOD member; "Sit down and be quiet. It's clear you don't know anything about this motion." As reported on the web; "We siad what we came to say, we knocked out the opposition, and we won this battle for everyone! You're welcome." Doing this on my own dime can be done, but doing so without board cooperation means scrambling and no respect for the time it takes to turn on/off equipment, move things out of the way, and no cooperation. It's also disrespectful if people don't want to be streamed/recorded. I have no problem annoying members of the board sometimes, but a full-time annoyance? Not my style. There certainly are BOD members that want to see this happen, and want to see technical progress. THen there are BOD members that say one thing to the public membership and another thing when seated at the table. Most of the BOD are really great people, some of them care very much about seeing USPA grow into it's next generation, and a few even have great passion for making new things happen to reflect the changing times. Unfortunately, the "old guard" is willing to do whatever necessary to thwart progress. Some things are simply absurd, however. Delivering the IRM in print-only is one of them. For 6 years, we've had the ability to deliver e-versions. It's better for the membership, it's a cash cow by comparison to the organization. Instant gratification for the buyer. No more printing costs (there is a lotta paper in those books) No more shipping costs (all that paper is damn heavy) No more lugging from place to place (reads very nicely on an iPhone, Droid, tablet, laptop, or desktop) Readers can choose which sections to print. USPA can set the number of allowable prints per copy, and if serious anal retention is required, USPA can track every print. Can it be pirated? Sure...with significant effort (not much different than the IRM pages can be torn out, Xeroxed, and shared).

There certainly are members of the BOD that want to see the meetings streamed. It's unfortunate that we're well into the next century and the BOD can't find their way to taking technology on. I've offered my efforts at no cost: -Secure online delivery of the IRM for Kindle/e-pubs, with background security so the docs can't be easily passed around/copied/printed. -Live Streaming of the BOD meetings Neither have been taken. Yeah, CSPA seems to have a lot of this well in hand, but the CSPA doesn't seem to have the same kind of turf wars or personal agendas. Maybe that's a Canadian thing?

Any datalogger can be fooled into thinking you've deployed, particularly if you're doing something like a practice touch where everything closes, you're suddenly falling fast, and then wings are opened hard with a rapid slowing of descent. The school has six Altitracks, and all of my personal rigs have them mounted on the mudflap with a LookMa soft mount. I also always wear an Altitrack on my wrist (two Alti's on every jump). It is quite common for both of them to display the same information (false deployment) during practice touches or steep dive/hard flare combinations. Whether it's on a wrist or mudflap doesn't matter. Speed is speed. The burble of your body will create a slightly greater issue, but not enough to be "the cause" of the problem, IMO. Otherwise, my wrist unit would show a straight-through flight while the mudflap shows a deployment. TMK, that's never once been the case. Since you're already in SLO mode, you might want to contact Steffen at L&B and see what information/options he has for you. Your first instinct is likely the correct one and wrist, helmet, or mudflap, devices may be fooled. I stupidly bought an N3 because I was led to believe it wouldn't be fooled in a dive/flare. I have a lot of openings at 11,800 based on all of my dataloggers. One thing, the Flysight isn't fooled because it doesn't work on barometric pressure.

I cast regularly (every 60 days) from various hotels in Vegas, using a 4G puck. Bandwidth is exceptionally small for 720p video. This is part of what I do, and USPA's been made aware of this for years. The issues are not in any way technological, and have not been technical for at least 5 years. The membership would be plenty happy with a wide lens showing the entire BOD, a cam op is not necessary. The _only_ reason to not stream it is USPA not wanting to stream it. I've heard all sorts of reasons, and none of them make sense. Yes, it's an extra thing to turn off during closed sessions. it's as simple as an off switch, or a USB cable disconnect. The biggest overall inconvenience for the plenary sessions, is where PowerPoints would be best shared with the viewing audience, and that can be done by pre-loading. Sessions like this are done every day, in the most remote places, all over the planet, via organizations significantly less capable than the USPA. Technology is in no way a barrier. If we can stream live video from a NASCAR vehicle doing 190mph around a track, we can certainly easily stream a bunch of DZOs sitting around a U-Shaped table.

FWIW, if the NEX5 had an external trigger, that's all I'd be using now. With the timelapse plugin on it, it's perfect, and being used by at least 3-4 photographers already. Lightweight, I love it, and use it regularly for video with the 50mm lens. Trunk modified one of the NEX for freefall, but I didn't get the opportunity to work with it.

I personally use a 24mm lens on a 40 or 7D, depending on which camera is closest. On an APSC body, this is equivalent to 38mm. Number of shots isn't an issue, but i'm also not a spray n' pray shooter (nothing wrong with that, just not my method). 8 fps is plenty. When the new Sony's are shipping, I'll be removing my large body in exchange for the A6000. Much less weight, faster frames, great video, crazy-fast focus, wifi.... I have a fortune in Nikon lenses adapted to Canon. Now they'll be adapted to Emount instead. Weight plays a huge role if you're jumping a lot.

It's impossible to control who shows up with what. If you're asking if he was allowed to jump his large suit, eventually yes.

I've stopped using mf, and use AF, and unless it's a specific shoot, I'm shooting tandems and other 'stock' in AV modes, with a few custom settings for color. Flip side, I work closely with a sports photog that shoots fully auto on everything. You're a professional photographer and are applying tape to a lens barrel? A tandem stow is better, no gunk to catch dirt and get into the lens barrel.

the systems tested so far have not worked well. Al Caudillo has a new system I'll be testing for wingsuiting in the next couple of weeks.

First, I don't think suits like this are for flocking. If you have one of these in your wardrobe you most likely have a suit better suited for flocking. Second, I can't see how they are more dangerous than cameras sticking out...and then there are the flying 170+lbs bodies that cause the real damage! Dangerous? Yes, but I don't think more than the existing obstacles. And certainly no more dangerous than the carbon fiber altimeter mounts many wingsuiters choose to wear.

It would have been easier, it's been brought up for nearly every session since around 2006? Glen Bangs was still prez when I first proposed it. Then last year, at least one BOD member (I believe it was two) and one person not on the board "let" outsiders see/hear closed sessions over Skype. I was present (outside the room) when it happened. Knowledge of salaries leaked out over Facebook. One member of the board tried to skip the entire BOD process and Skype in only for a controversial session as well. Fortunately the board took a quick vote and decided that doing so wasn't permissible. I've offered (several times) to fund USPA BOD meetings being streamed live. Nothing needs to come INTO the meeting, but membership (I believe) would benefit from seeing the process occur, and writing their BOD members. For example, a proposal was sneaked in under everyone's noses during this past session; it would have been nice to know about it more than 4 days before the session, and failing that notice, at least the membership could have known of the proposal before it was passed. I hope Jan and other BOD members are reading this thread. The live streams (archived for later viewing) of PIA was easy. No funding required. Membership will volunteer.

could you elaborate spot? im not sure at what youre getting at. can an aura not be flown super fast and super steep and agile like say a vampire? To elaborate: If you want to do precision flocks, if you want to do acro, if you want to backfly, if you want to do anything outside of more-or-less solo belly flight, then monster suits aren't likely what you want. Yes, an Aura can be flown super fast and super steep like a Vampire. Agile as a Vampire? I don't have enough jumps on the Aura to compare, and I don't do proximity so I can't intelligently compare, but in the few Aura and many Vampire flights I have, I'd struggle to believe that the Aura can be as agile as a Vampire. Remove the "exceptional" pilots from the conversation, talk about "average pilot" and I'm entirely certain the Aura is nowhere near as agile as the Vampire. FWIW, guys show up at the DZ regularly with big suits, and myself and other regular flyers are routinely kicking their asses for distance, speed, hang time. It's not very often about the suit, it's usually the pilot. FWIW, the 200 jump guy last weekend had 15-20 WS jumps, and doing his first jumps on the large suit.

Cuz it's all the rage these days? Had a guy show up Sat with an X3. He wanted to celebrate his 200th skydive with a rider on his back.

If you're going into acro, and docking/flocking is the goal, check out the Shadow. Great suit, serious power in a small package.

It may just be the way it's packing. Dunno. I honestly haven't tried hard to dig in and figure it out; it's not that important to me, so long as it's not too tight in the tray. The Pulse 170 also appears to be bulkier in my older voodoo than the Storm 170 (The school has both, swapped out between the same rig) The only difference is the Dbag. One is a semi-stowless bag from Jerry Baumchen, the other a semi-stowless from UPT.

That makes more sense, Ed. If grabbing the grippers 'hurts' then again...physical impediment or something is being done wrong. Too much muscle input happens with some folks, but I've never heard of it "hurting." FWIW, we don't teach people to use the grippers in the FFC. It's unnecessary, and it's also a good skill/realization to know that the grippers may or may not be used. Releasing grippers is the gateway to docking as well...

I'm a little lost by your description. When you deploy, you should not be holding grippers. Based on your description, I *think* you're trying to say that you're rotating your wrist after letting go of the grippers, so that your palms can be palm-up on your BOC, thus getting the rest of the armwing out of the way? If that hurts, either you're doing it wrong, or you've got some sort of physical impediment. point your palms so that they're facing back behind you, while in a neutral wingsuit position. Now bend your wrist so that your palms/hands are 90 degrees/now facing the sky (assuming you're practicing this in a standing position). Now swing your arms around so your hands are just above the top of the curve of your butt cheeks/approximately where you BOC is. Does that hurt?

FWIW, I've jumped the Colugo and Aura. I really liked the Aura, and didn't like the Colugo much. I've twice flown next to a Scorpion, and was quite impressed with it. Given a choice (not having flown the Scorpion), I'd probably choose a Scorpion anyway, simply because it _appeared_ to have less drag than the Colugo. Follow the recommended progression, get into an Aura if your goal is to just fly flat, dumb, happy.

Really? Since when? The last "big event" had quite a few loaded at 2.0 and higher. The "big" wingsuit events that I've been part of have never asked about wingloading (I still have the registration forms for all of them). Some big events, it's even been ok to smoke up before jumping AFAIK, Jarno and my own events are the only ones where wingloading has ever been mentioned, and that's only been since 2010. To the OP; Are you a swooper or a wingsuiter? Frequently the two don't go together well. Not necessarily because of the additional drag, but remember that wingsuits are frequently landing at the same time as tandems. Not all DZ's have separations for landing areas. I have video of three of Jonathan Tagle's chops under a Velo, and he was arguably one of the best pilots in the world (both wingsuit and canopy). Some guys do get by with small canopies, but please remember that it's not just about you. If you have a highly loaded canopy that spins up, you could well be putting another wingsuiter at risk, and could possibly putt a tandem at risk. FWIW, I've upsized from a Storm 135 to a Storm 150. Always on-heading, still sporty, can land flat and fast (I'm not a swooper), and can accurately land in very tight areas/demos with it.

What Monkey says. I have a VC2. Storm 150 fits perfectly in it. A Pulse 150 looks a tad preggo, and there is nothing sexy about a pregnant rig. Even with cut corners, I'd recommend not overstuffing a rig for the reasons outlined above. You'll also cause undue wear on the BOC, and the pulls will be harder due to the added pressure on the BOC. FWIW, I love the Voodoo/Curv so much I own 6 of them (student rigs). But part of the reason I own several is because I don't want to overstuff any of the rigs. In the attachment, the VC2 has a Pulse 150 in it. I'll dig up a pic of the same container with the Storm 150, but you can see the Pulse pack looks pregnant and off-balance. Closing loops wearing out more quickly too.

I was a little disappointed that the article didn't key on the distraction factor; it was heavily discussed in the interviews. Trunk sounds intelligent as always.

perhaps in the 200 views, no one has the cameras you're asking about? The 150 is a full 1080, it's better in low light, and has a few options that don't benefit skydiving. If tandem video is the goal, the 100 will be just fine. MSPD sticks are dirt cheap, and having a few around will be good. The 150 is a better camera, but is it a lot more better? Not really, not if budget is your main concern. Save the coupla hundred bux and get the 100, IMO.

The point of the 265 standard is to bring the format to a tubeable bandwidth. Optical disc is merely a leverage, no different than HDV was for DV. It's a short-lived strategy, one Sony is already dev'd up for. Blu-print isn't even getting an upgrade. However, you're right...I shouldn't have said it won't make it to disc. When I made that comment, Sony had decided against joining HEVC, but that has also changed.

Kauai? No. That's north shore/Dillingham field. Excellent piece of work as always, JT. ChrisD, sometimes you still amaze me with where you can twist up BS beyond recognition.

This is exactly what VASST does, with approximately 100 DZ's around the world using our automated systems. I am one of the partners in VASST. We conceptualized and developed automated systems for broadcast, and developed same systems for tandem skydiving operations (as well as other "adventure experience" concessions).