Leaderboard

?? He, in fact, did pull the US out of that. For proof of that, look at the country's GDP. For the first year we saw the fallout of the Bush recession, with negative GDP numbers. After that we saw it go positive and average around 2%. So is Trump - he's averaging around 2% as well. Meanwhile, yes, Trump did have a 3.2% quarter. Obama had a 4% quarter. So, if you believe that the president has a direct effect on the economy, Obama did far better (at his best) than Trump has ever done. Trump can't hold a candle to Obama in terms of GDP growth. Any president who spends all his time cutting taxes and racking up record levels of debt while ignoring issues of justice, foreign affairs, environmental protection, education and fiscal responsibility is a shortsighted fool. Period.

Hi Ken, I've been thinking about this some more & I suppose that we will never get rid of the party system. Therefore, I would just prefer that all offices be non-partisan. Those who want to run, can. Each person would merely run under their own name. No party affiliation allowed on the ballot(s). Jerry Baumchen

Hi airdvr, I'll take her thoughts before I do the 5 yr old who we have in the White House. Jerry Baumchen

And the Holy Church of Climatism according to some here.

Cowboy hats rarely have that option included for purchase. So it it the fatigues that the White Guy is wearing that you have an issue with? I thought in an earlier post it was the other hardware, like vests, and ammunition belts. Just to be clear - you don't find any issue with the AKs and the ARs that the crowd is holding. . . it is JUST the camo/vest combo, but only on the white guy.. Is that about right?

I don't think you are capable of looking at this objectively.

The MarS M2 battery is said by the manufacturer to be good for 15 years or 15,000 jumps. Whichever comes first. I am unaware of any published jump # life for Airtec or AAD, but a new CYPRES no longer needs to be sent for service and it's lifetime is 15.5 years. A Vigil battery is good for 10 years. So although I don't know where he came up with 10,000 jump life his point is valid. And of course Df8m1 is also correct. This will be a niche product, if and when it arrives, it will not be for the average jumper. It is an offshoot of a product designed for military use. It would never have a chance of getting to the sport market without it's costs of development being offset by the potential sales into the far larger government funded market.

That is why it is not benign. Along with the assumed identity comes a sense of belonging. We do not need to relearn how cults can manipulate followers into committing the most dastardly of acts; acts their own families would never believe possible of them. It might happen in an underground parking garage at a fertility clinic, at a Federal Building in Oklahoma, in the Kool Aid line somewhere or, possibly next, at a wall on our southern border. Armed, already in groups, and ready to defend their sense of self in the name of some perceived horror inflicted on the clan, they'll be ready. And so will their masters. Nothing happening in our nation requires the aggregation of heavily armed, angry, white men, dressed in camouflaged and possessed of paramilitary fantasies. No good can come of it.

Thank you for your comments and concerns regarding the marketability of this AAD. First, this is NOT, by any means, a "standard" AAD, of which the details have pretty well been explained and discussed in this thread. Second, this AAD is designed to use commercially available batteries which are inexpensive and actually can be changed by a rigger "in the field" during a repack, eliminating the need to send it in for service just to have the batteries changed. For the majority of traditional skydivers, the "Standard AADs with 10+ year old batteries" will serve them well. This AAD is not intended to compete with that demographic, however it does offer the traditional jumper some performance features (which have been discussed in detail in this thread) that the "Standard AADs" do not . This AAD is, however, being developed with Wingsuit pilots, High Performance Canopy Pilots, or those that do both types of piloting on the same jump, who do not want to compromise the effectiveness of having an AAD because the "Standard AAD" technology is maxed out, and sacrifices effectiveness/coverage during one phase of a jump in order to try and perform at the extremes that Wingsuit pilots and HP Canopy Pilots can routinely operate in and the “Standard AAD” technology was just not designed to handle. There are many threads that discuss the potential risks associated with Wingsuite Pilots putting their AADs in Student mode in order to crutch their AAD to work predictably should they have a problem while they are wingsuiting. Yes there is a “Wingsuit AAD” that is available… and it has an audible alarm that tells you if it has worked properly or not.. The owner’s manual states that it is possible for it to be tricked and switch from “Wingsuit Mode” into “Expert Mode” while the jumper is still in the aircraft; one of the reasons the audible is there is to alert the jumper that their “Wingsuit AAD” is not a “Wingsuit AAD” anymore should that happen. (Note: I only commented on the currently available Wingsuit AAD in order to compare it to the one my team has been developing. I am not aware of any instances where the currently available Wingsuit AAD has not performed as advertised or noted in its owner’s manual.) There are also discussions about the effectiveness of the “Swoop Mode” AADs because the activation speeds are raised to a point in an effort to avoid firing during a HP landing, that they are almost rendered useless in very possible scenarios where an AAD could make a difference. Now forget about swooping the pond after a wingsuit jump lol. This AAD is designed to identify the flight mode of the jumper and adjust the firing requirements automatically, in real time, and without the need for a “Wingsuit Mode” or a “Swoop Mode” as has been discussed in detail previously. Additionally it offers a feature to help counter the unidentified cause of the delayed reserve deployments which has resulted in several fatalities where the jumpers impacted at reserve line stretch after an AAD fire, as well a feature to help prevent a 2-out situation, both of which have been discussed in detail. I could go on but it all has been discussed in previous posts and I have been pleased by the discussions and overall encouragement that I have received thus far. This advanced performance however, does not come without a cost. The amount of data that this AAD is collecting, processing, evaluating, reacting to, and recording is unprecedented for an AAD to date. That additional work requires additional power; just like as cell phone technology has advanced, so has the need to increase cell phone battery capacity because of the increased power demands. Personally the last thing I want to be thinking, should I find myself in the situation where my life is reliant on an AAD is, “Boy.. I sure am glad my battery is only 13 years old” lol.. That is my personal perspective, batteries are cheep. To your point, yes, there is a segment of jumpers who feel the standard AADs cover their type of skydiving and like the idea of a 13+ year old battery, and that is fine, nothing wrong with that. Equally, there are segments of jumpers who feel they currently do not have a good option for an AAD, and this AAD is being designed for them. However, should they additionally feel that having to have their rigger replace their AAD batteries every 2 years because of the power demands of the increased performance and coverage capability is worse than their current AAD performance /coverage options, then there are three AADs currently to choose from. :) I welcome opposing viewpoints,

I know it’s terrible, I was joking. Good thing that god has predestined me to go to hell :)

Sure was nice of Obama to hand him such a well running economy machine.

the patheos link is to a satirical section of the website. The news story is not true.

I had a moment and some good news (well I think it is good news anyway lol) so I thought I would post an update. As previously mentioned, I have been tweaking the electronic design to try and reduce the power consumption of the Sport model. The good news is preliminary testing indicates that the hardware changes to the Sport model will reduce peak power consumption by over 70% compared to the Military model. That "should" double the number of jumps on a set of batteries to get us in the 1000 jump range. Actual field testing will have the final say, but I am very pleased with the results of the changes. The bad news is the new “lower power” components are super expensive!!!! Noting is free I guess lol. Really looking forward to testing this year!

Same old liberal agenda - wanting to tell others how they should fit in their view. So, it's ok if he's carrying a gun dressed like a hunter or a civil war reenactor is ok. - is it ok for the hunter to carry what ever kind of weapon he wants? Whose permission does he have to get to dress like a militia-man? Or, is this just another case of, "ooooh, that looks scary - ban it!?"

there ya go, get drunk as hell and go pass out without a coat in subzero temps.

Hello To ALL..... Just checked in here, to find this thread.....Thanks to Each of your for your posts and good wishes......The worst Is now Over. I was discharged on Oct 20th.. " They turnt me Loose " " said I was Well " …. And I AM.... I had gone to Skydive The Falls on Saturday September 14th and after a bit of a wind hold it calmed down and they started sending up loads. I enjoyed a Nice 2 way from 12 grand with a long time buddy....The view of Niagara Falls during the climb to altitude was Fantastic . While Packing my rig afterwards, I found it to Be, a bit of an effort.. and I had to stop 3 times and sit to rest...… Hmmmm. Got home that night and was just feeling wrung out... No real pain, no numbness, but I felt lousy..It was around 10 or 11 pm and Nancy had already gone to sleep. I saw NO value in waking her and having her SIT in an E R waiting room, wondering and Waiting,,,, so I wrote her a note , left it where she could Easily Find it. and said " I am going to the hospital " Got there in a few minutes because it is only a couple of miles away. It was NOT busy and they took me in quickly. They did an EKG on me. and the next thing I knew they were calling for an anesthesiologist AND a surgeon !! Yikes !!!! Well they did a big time bypass on me , had me on a heart pump and a respirator throughout... I was out of it for a few days... and feel terrible about putting my FAmily through those first few days, post Op... I got great care from the doctors and nurses and a few in particular were top shelf, in their encouragement and insistance that I "get UP and get Moving"... I was walking around and improving each day, by about 2 weeks post op and little by little they removed the trach... and the drainage apparatus and the nasal feeding tube and got me back onto swallowing and a bit of a sense of normalcy... I have been Home now for 10 days or so, and I am pain free and no longer need the walker I had been using. Kind of glad we are coming into the end of the year as I am on a hiatus from work and will be doing Physical therapy and building up my appetite the next few weeks. I lost 22 pounds and was Under 170, for the first time since high school..... Anyway things are improving. I am proud that I Did NOT ignore my sense of malaise and instead sought medical care...... I was told I was getting close to a cardiac arrest..... Follow your instincts my Friends No One is bulletproof and certain issues CAN sneak Up on us... I feel blessed that in addition to Great Friends and Family, I also have a Guardian Angel or Two... sitting on my shoulders... Thanks skymama,,, for initiating this thread. I am glad that I checked in here,,, to Find it.... skydive often, skydive safely, skydive with friends . jimmytavino uspa # 9452 A3914 D12122

I have been getting a lot of questions such as "what makes this AAD any different?" and "Can a jumper change the activation altitude?".. I am finding that I am too close to this thing to keep it simple when I try to answer those questions lol, so I thought I would post some graphics from one of the PIA seminars I put on in Dallas. Question: Can a jumper adjust the activation altitude? Answer: No.. This AAD actually adjusts the activation altitude, within a window, based on the jumpers descent rate. At a descent rate of 170ft/sec or slower, the activation altitude is 998 ft AGL. Descent rates above 170ft/sec but bellow 250ft/sec will result in an activation altitude between 1200 ft AGL and 998 ft AGL. Speeds above 250 ft/sec will activate at 1200 ft AGL. The goal being to have an open reserve over head by 500ft AGL regardless of the jumpers descent rate through reserve deployment. The current AADs use a fixed activation altitude regardless of the jumpers descent rate which puts all the variable tolerance (how far a jumper will travel during the reserve opening sequence) on the bottom end (between the fixed activation altitude and the ground). In contrast to that, by automatically increasing the activation altitude as the jumper's descent rate increases, I are attempting to put the variable tolerance on the upper end and provide a reasonable cushion between jumper and the ground by the time the reserve is open and over head. There is an exception to that where the AAD will delay activation, and that is if a main deployment was detected prior to reaching the activation altitude. This delay is based on the jumper's real time descent rate and a reserve canopy over head altitude of 300ft AGL. This delay allows any usable time for either the main to open (if the jumper pitched low and the canopy sniveled) preventing a 2-out, or allow the jumper to use any valuable time to try and deal with a main malfunction and clear the air above the reserve prior to automatic activation in an attempt to prevent a duel entanglement malfunction. This ability eliminates the need for the jumper to manually adjust the activation altitude. I would like to note that the jumper will be able to adjust the DZ elevation for a remote DZ which is one way some jumpers are raising the activation altitudes on their AADs now, but it should be noted that doing this also raises the altitude where the AAD will no longer fire, usually around 300ft ish AGL. Question: "What makes this AAD any different?". One thing is that this AAD is able to identify where it is during a flight. The Situational Awareness graphic shows the flight mode changes that this AAD actually identifies every jump. This ability allows this AAD to resist firing in an aircraft regardless of the altitude and descent rate. It also allows for the detection of a main deployment, if it has malfunctioned or has opened and is flying, and if so, locks out the ability to fire regardless of the jumper's descent rate while under canopy (preventing a two out due to a high performance landing). It can also detect a cutaway, and if a reserve deployment is not detected in 4 seconds, it will determine an activation altitude based on the jumper's real time descent rate and a 300ft reserve over head altitude, and if a reserve deployment is not detected by that altitude, the AAD will activate. This allows for a delayed reserve activation provided the altitude is available, as there are times when a delay between a cutaway and reserve activation is beneficial, and I do not want to take that "pilot in command" decision making power away from the jumper. I am however comfortable in saying "times up"..lol. The Dynamic Activation graphic below shows the difference in activation altitudes based on speed and if a main deployment has been detected or not.