Leaderboard

NATO is a deterrent. Putin doesn’t want conflict with the NATO block. That’s partly why he attacked Ukraine - to cut off NATO membership - and most of why he felt confidant that he could attack Ukraine without being directly opposed. In short, with Finland in NATO there is a far, far lower probability of Russian aggression against Finland. If you can’t see why that’s a good thing for NATO in general and the rest of Europe in particular then I’m not sure what else to say.

I have written a 2,000 word article to answer your question. I am just waiting until KITPLANES Magazine publishes my article entitled "Where can you stuff a parachute?" The first article is aimed at helping kitplane, aerobatic and glider pilots chose the PEP container (back, long back or seat) that best fits their cockpit.. Then I will subject my article entitled "Round or Square Parachute?" My article will be controversial because it questions ancient dogma about pilot emergency parachutes (PEPs). Much of that dogma was cast in concrete back when I was young and beautiful (1970s) but since then I have seen civilian skydiving schools transition from all-rounds to all squares. I have worked with a wide variety of student gear while dispatching S/L and IAD students. I am also an accompanied freefall instructor and tandem instructor examiner. So my second article may sound like a series of "no shit, there I was ... " stories, but it details how my attitudes have changed over the last 40 years. I am also a rigger and have packed squares into PEPs made by Butler (custom-built Beta back, long back and seat containers), Para-Phernalia (Softie back), Rigging Innovations (Aviator back) and Ron Dionne (back). I even did a half dozen live jumps on Aviator prototypes. I concluded that large docile (280 square feet) Precision P124A canopies are boring and much less likely to injure a pilot in distress than an old-school round parachute (e.g. Strong 26 foot conical). I just learned that Para-Tec in Germany will also sell you a "Wingman" back PEP containing a large square reserve. In short, Ed Scott trains new jump-pilots at "Jumpers Away" and he recommends square pilot emergency parachutes for jump pilots: specifically Rigging Innovations' P124A/Aviator series. Mr. Scott includes a few hours of ground school about squares packed into PEPs, and an optional tandem jump to give the new pilot some experience at steering a square.

NATO gains the entire Baltic sea, which is a big gain. If Russia attacks a non-NATO Finland, the Russian army will be destroyed. That much is already clear from their performance against Ukraine. Yes it might add a trigger point. No it won't give Russia additional political leverage. Their complaint that NATO caused their invasion of Ukraine was like a rapist blaming their victim that they were "forced" to do it.

Exactly. He got negative feedback, so he went with a different message. His ratings control what he says - not the other way around.

The US needs to supply some of these to Ukraine.

Curious what percentage of PEP's these days use squares, and if there is any suggestion/requirement that the pilot has jump experience?

You’re worried about Ukraine starting WW3 with an A10. When it comes to the US military why the fuck are you suddenly talking about nuclear weapons as if they’re an equivalent? Try and leave the goalposts where you found them, dude.

That's "alludes to." Elude means "hide from." I assume you don't see yourself as hiding from that critical mass. But in any case, researchers went back to the original notes on the 100th monkey phenomenon and found out something very interesting. In their own words: In the original reports, there was no mention of the group passing a critical threshold that would impart the idea to the entire troop. The older monkeys remained steadfastly ignorant of the new behavior. Likewise, there was no mention of widespread sweet potato washing in other monkey troops. There was mention of occasional sweet potato washing by individual monkeys in other troops, but I think there are other simpler explanations for such occurrences. If there was an Imo in one troop, there could be other Imo-like monkeys in other troops. Instead of an example of the spontaneous transmission of ideas, I think the story of the Japanese monkeys is a good example of the propagation of a paradigm shift, as in Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The truly innovative points of view tend to come from those on the edge between youth and adulthood. The older generation continues to cling to the world view they grew up with. The new idea does not become universal until the older generation withdraws from power, and a younger generation matures within the new point of view. http://www.wowzone.com/monkey.htm So a more accurate view of that would be that the young learn and adapt, and the older people cling to the things that worked in the past and are often unable to learn new methods/values/processes. Today we see resistance to EV's, renewable energy, nonbinary people, new methods of teaching math and even a changing Disney from the older conservative crowd. And it may be that they will be able to adapt eventually to a changing world, the way their parents adapted to desegregation, interracial marriage, women being able to vote and gay marriage. But that 100th monkey tells us that the solution may just be to wait for them to die off (unfortunately.)

Hi Jerry, One of the things that's restricting the 'free for all' of giving Ukraine unlimited arms is the idea that if they use them to attack Russia, Russia will retaliate. Both against Ukraine and whoever gave them those weapons. For example, it's less than 500 miles from Kiev to Moscow. If we gave them, say, old A-10 ground attack planes, it would not be out of the realm of possibility for Ukraine to send them to Moscow (or other targets inside Russia). At that point, Russia would likely retaliate, because they would correctly fear that they are going to be attacked repeatedly. And that they would have large quantities of civilian casualties. And serious damage to infrastructure. You know, like they did to Ukraine. At that point, all bets would be off. Would they launch missiles? Would they send long range bombers? Would they use nukes? No freak clue what the answers to those are. Other than "maybe". The idea of "MAD" (Mutually Assured Destruction) is what kept anyone & every one from using nukes in the past. I think if Russia faces serious attack, Putin may stop giving a fuck, understanding that Russia as we know it is finished. At that point he may well use the old cliche of "see you all in hell" and push some buttons just to say 'fuck you' to the rest of the world.

I still am. I never thought of WWIII as a land war.

As the husband of a nurse who had to work in an ICU keeping non vaccinated people alive I can say for sure that you are full of shit. Is that a PA? Too bad.