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OK, but this thread isn't about Republican politicians.

It's a simple solution really. Name all the bases and put up statues in honor of those 3,520 Medal of Honor recipients. Of those, 90 of the MoH's went to 89 African-Americans (Sweeney was awarded twice). Who's gonna take exception to an MoH recipient.

I don't believe in tacking reserve softlinks unless the manufacturer specifically says too. The softlinks aren't going anywhere, and it discourages the next rigger to check and make sure they're routed correctly. I will untack, inspect and retack but I really feal its not necessary to tack softlinks on the reserve. any opinions on this?

Old airplanes wear out or corrode out. I was badly injured when a 40 year old King Air suffered a fuel pump failure. A skipped inspection almost killed us all! After 3 -ish years, the factory's liability fades and then the reliability of any machine becomes increasingly dependent upon the thoroughness of the last mechanic. For example, if the owner does 1,000 jumps per year - in the Southern California desert - a parachute might be scrap after 3 years. OTOH Closet Queens might be in mint condition after 30 or 40 years. However, Closet Queens may need Special Inspections or Service Bulletins that were published long before the interweb became popular. That is why young riggers should not feel forced to repack any parachute older than themselves. As for the grey-bearded, grumpy old Master Riggers ... I refuse to repack plenty of gear that was fashionable when I started jumping: round reserves suspected of acid-mesh, first generation 5-cell square reserves, Sentinel AADs, pre-3-Ring canopy releases, etc.

Well, there you have it. I'm a fookin genius.Just four days late for the meeting :)

Back during the 1990s, various fabric mills tried to duplicate Parachutes de France's zero porosity fabric ... with varying degrees of success. Gelvenor Fabric Mills in South Africa introduced their ZP fabric that was less slippery than competitors. Gelvenor depended more on calenderizing than silicon coating. Calenderizinf involves pressing the fabric between two heated rollers to partially melt threads and encourage threads to better fill in gaps between them, reducing porosity. This form of calenderizing created a less-slippery fabric that was easier to pack. It also needed less silicone to reduce porosity to zero. Gelvenor's disadvantage was wide variations in fabric bulk. Early Triathlons (sewn by Parachute Industries of South Africa) varied as much as 30 percent in volume. This drove container manufacturers to drink! Hah! Hah!

This! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sAr8PiJiVI The tab from the soft link on the front riser wrapped around some lines from the rear. How likely is to happen again?! Not very likely. Reserves have wider risers and will be more difficult from the tab to cause problems, but why take the chance? If you tack the links loosely to only one side, is still easy to check the routing. Like always in rigging, you will get 14 different answers from 10 different riggers and they all will tell you theirs is the correct one. For the record, I tack reserve soft links and never had any problem with doing so... I also have no problem with riggers who choose not to...

He's not discriminating against you because of your sexual orientation (hetero). He's refusing you service because of your bigotry and hatred. There's a difference.

This ruling is a crushing defeat for evangelicals, for those who sold their souls in the worship of trumpism. Everything was bet on SC appointments launching a new right wing conservative agenda. Justice Gorsuch sold them out. With regards to bathrooms, child molestation, rape of children and adolescents. There is ample research to show that gay, transgender people are statistically less inclined to commit sexual offenses than heterosexual people. Consider: 'As much of the nation was recently celebrating Christmas, a Memphis pastor was arrested for sexually abusing a 16-year-old family member. What makes this heartbreaking story even more repugnant is that church and family members had been informed about the abuse two years earlier, but failed to report the crime to the police. Instead, they decided that the best response was to simply pray for the offender and hope for the best. "

Unless you are ashamed to do it, please let me know your name so I can be certain you are banned from my DZ forever. You wouldn't like it anyway, we proudly fly a huge rainbow flag display in support of all of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters and happily refuse service to narrow minded, bigoted assholes regularly.

“GENEVA (Reuters) - The top U.N. human rights body agreed on Monday to hold an urgent debate on allegations of “systemic racism, police brutality and violence against peaceful protests” in the United States and elsewhere on Wednesday. The U.N. Human Rights Council’s decision followed a request last week by Burkina Faso on behalf of African countries in response to the killing of George Floyd, an African American, on May 25 under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer. His death has ignited protests across the nation and worldwide.” Reuter’s Up next, Zimbabwe and Iraq send inspectors to ensure that the USA has free and fair elections...

Hi Rob, Well, they could find a grumpy, old, grey bearded Master Rigger to make them one. Jerry Baumchen PS) And, this is why I advise owners to always have a set of spare parts for their rig.

Ask around on FB rigging forums. There are tons of old parts sitting in riggers bins. But don't be in a hurry!

Unions started as a great idea - give workers an organized voice to speak out against workplace abuse and unsafe working conditions. Many of them have since morphed into profit centers that sell their political power to benefit the union's leaders.

I don't think that sort of system is in use currently. With the existing skyhook sort of collins lanyard system, depending on which side of the main riser breaks, you either have both sides cut away and reserve activated, or a high speed streamer/one riser attached but no activation of the reserve, which is OK also. Bill Booth I believe has previously written on this forum about the inherent weakness of mini risers possibly being the most practical way of limiting force. Maybe we'd be better off to not have the reinforcements on mini risers, but have to keep a close watch for signs of damage and replace them after a certain number of jumps or use some force test setup to confirm a minimum strength if in doubt...Risers would need to be made very consistently, maybe destructively tested samples confirming things. It would be a hassle, but could be effective.

I would suspect any DZO with any sense would restrict its use on the DZ. the pilot walking by and getting a snoot full of a weed cloud and a surprise piss test and they get their ticket pulled. Not worth the risk to the DZ and pilots and TI.

How would the Feds know? A we talking fun jumpers at night, or are we talking about tandem students and observers during the day. If jumpers are the jumpers dealing on the property, storing quantities that would attract attention? Are they using it discretely, or are they being assholes and drawing negative attention? If it was my business I would make it clear that at minimum there is no substance consumption on the premises by any time during operating hours.

Come on Dave, does the fact that this topic has been heavily debated invalidate a question from someone with 27 jumps and a new A license who wants to buy his first rig ? You're one of the longtime posters here - and so is Jerry - and I hold you both ih the highest regard. But seriously, you wouldn't answer a student like this would you ? "Do a search". I just don't think it's an appropriate response. This is a live forum and we continue to get a barrage of the same questions from newbies. and let's hope we always do, because if the newbs dry up the sport and these forums will both die. Unless we just want to put the Gear & Rigging and Safety & Training threads on locked down auto pilot "do a search" mode. Those of us who feel irritated with these questions have the freedom to simply pass them by. Nobody is making us answer any of these posts. Also, relevant to the OPs question, Jerry B was recently kind enough to lend me a demo model of his RAX system, which I had the chance to fool around with for a couple weeks. It's a really simple and slick design - elegant is the word I'd like to use. It answered a lot of my questions about how these things work. Back in the seventies the really HUGE gear revolution began. We moved from round canopies and gut mounted reserves to piggybacks with squares and even square reserves. From ripcord deployed mains to hand deploy. From shot and a half Capewells to 3 Rings. From boots to sneakers. The advances were tremendous. But along the way there were too many weird systems that all seemed like a good idea at the time, and some of them actually killed a few people or came damn close. So if there's a lesson from the Great Leap Forward of the seventies, it's to innovate boldly - but carefully. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !