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I didn't mean to sound like I was arguing for the use of two FXCs. I have only been in the sport for half a year and I've seen a two-out on one of those rigs. Maybe I'm unlucky, but it's not such an uncommon thing with these FXCs. In fact, I believe that I've read about several fatalities because of FXC false positives. In my case, it may have saved my butt, but I'm sure that many students lose alti awareness at some point. A student on the second load I was on did the same from what I heard, so it should not be uncommon. Also, as I understand, most DZs in the US use a single AAD on student rigs, and the death rate is not high at all for students. I guess that just means that even students can figure out it's time to pull when they're 2000' lower and the ground is yelling "DUMBASS!!!" at them

Yes, they are. And setting them any higher you are running the, arguably more significant, risk of having it pop open into the face of the instructor. -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

If I'm spinning hard enough, can the altimeter start reading erratically? -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

Not that it matters, but my reserve FXC for this jump was set at 1000'. I believe that is the DZ policy. I meant that for students. Thanks for pointing it out. What would you, an exprienced jumper, do if you find in freefall that your alti is screwed up? Say the needle sticks around 9000'. If you are, lets say, in a bigway? Waveoff and track? I have been told that I do not need to count on my 15 second delays, so I wasn't. I usually count out an arch count (arch thousand through 5000) to make sure I'm stable. I wasn't doing this on my last two jumps, I wanted to learn to judge my stability without counting. The 15 seconds are to prove that you can get a stable arch on exit, a stable transition to a box, and pull at the designated altitude. Then simple freefall maneuvers are attempted on a 20 second delay. We stay on 20 seconds until graduation, after which we can go as high as we want. There is a coaching program available after graduation to learn more difficult freefall maneuvers, like tracking. Yes, the students are not taught to track during basic solo progression as I understand. You don't get your A until you can track, obviously, so it all still works out. -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

That's an easy one. Study, of course. -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

Damn, I gotta get me some of that. Funny thing is, I seem to be able to go through the ordering. Not that I tried to buy that thing, of course. -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

The 292 Manta! "Your canopy is sooo biiiig" -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

S dnem rozhdenia Hans! -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

This is not an incident (thankfully), but I think many students can find this beneficial. The DZ I jump at uses ripcords on the mains with an FXC 12000 on both the main and the reserve. I've done my 22nd jump yesterday, first of the day. It was a 15 second delay from 5500', I was working on a stable box position that I have been having some spinning trouble with. We were grounded for lack of pilots in the morning, so I got lots of productive coaching from a very good instructor. When we finally went up I was confident that I can do well. Guess what, I screwed up good. Exit ok, arch ok, on heading, try a box, get a slow turn going. Try to stop it as per coaching, doesn't work. Twiddle legs around, too much input, turn becomes a spin. Punch an arch, still spinning. Try to look at alti, can't see anything because of the spin. Stare at it for a second or two, decide it looks like about 4800' (waveoff planned for 4000', deploy by 3500'), try to punch an arch again, POP. FXC fires on the main. 2800', I was off by 2 grand! Lessons learned: (a) If ever in doubt of anything, altitude in particular, pull. (b) Altitude awareness comes first, dive maneuvers second. (c) Skydives are stressful, even if you are no longer scared in the plane. Try to concentrate on too much and you'll probably get hosed. Prioritize correctly. (d) Freefall is much faster than you think. After that I went right back up and did a fairly stable box for the first time (beer!). Checked alti every second or so this time. Pulled a little high for the dive, as planned. Most important lesson from second dive: get back on the horse that threw you and learn from your mistakes. Blue skies and safe dives everyone! -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

The speed of light in kph is approximately 1,080,000,000. Lets transform one hour of Earth time to one hour of Pioneer time: t' = 1 / (1 - (132,000)^2/(1080000000)^2)^1/2 = 1.0000000074691358861511212977787 Everyone who says negligible raise their hands Actually, it could accumulate to a couple of minutes, even hours over the years, but in comparison to 31 years that's nothing. Keep in mind that the distortion of spacetime due to the Sun is significant, and will accelerate (I think) time on Pioneer. Dr Kallend?

I've bought my gear unseen and untested. I've seen photographs of it, and I have been assured that it was in good condition, but I never saw it before I bought it. Main reason? I'm in Canada, they're in Florida/Ohio. As much as I wish I could have went to Florida, it just wasn't happening. The main I bought from Craig, who immediately got my trust by shipping the goods before he ever got the money. Rest assured that he did get the money. The container+reserve I got from Stacy, who was kind enough to provide me a notorized agreement that, if her rig fails an inspection by a rigger of my choice, she will give me my money back. Needless to say that all components passed the test with flying colors. I assure you that I have an interest in skydiving

Anyone got a figure for it's speed? If so, the Einsteinian transform for time is t' = t / (1-v^2/c^2)^1/2 Of course, this will be wrong because it only works in flat spacetime, and that big red blob over there we like to call Sun curves space. Honestly, probably about the same. It's speed is still negligible in comparison to the speed of light (300,000 km/s). Think of it this way. How long did it take the spacecraft to get there? 31 years? How long did it take light? 11 hours? Safe to say that time dilation is negligible here. -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

BWAHAHAA!!! -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

I don't think it would have helped much to tell the crew about it. There probably wasn't much they could have done. It's like you find out in freefall that your legstraps have been cut. It may tell you what will happen soon, but you can't do much about it. -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

$95 billion divided by 300 million people in the US = $316.17 -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

The decision not to decide is a decision, especially when made conciously. Not only that, sometimes it is the difficult decision. You can say "I saved my son because that is who I am". And what will I have to say? "I saved my son because I am a weak asshole who cannot do what he believes is right"? My grandfather was a surgeon in Russia, and had to make coin tosses because they did not have enough supplies to save everyone. He had a little white book every year with the names of people who died because of his decisions. Part of the Hyppocratic (sp?) oath is that no one life is worth more than another. Did I mention he acted as a field medic in WWII? Thankfully I have been spared those kinds of things so far, but his stories give you some idea. Ask anyone who lived by that code if it's the easier way out. You may find the answer surprising. -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

So because you provided help voluntarily, you are absolved from negligence? "Lets see if this works. Oh well, she's dead, too bad for you. Back to Mexico now". I'm not saying I approve of the good samaritan lawsuit culture, but sometimes people need to be punished. Why can't she ask for justice? Because she isn't American? And if she was, would that make it better? If the doctors were not overly negligent, the lawsuit will fail. If they were, justice was served, no? Surely, as an American, you would find that a good thing. -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

Here's a good example of the same-worth principle. My economics professor gave me this, it is not a life and death situation, but it illustrates the point quite well. You are the cashier in a toystore. You sell extremely popular dolls. So popular that you have only one left. In line in front of you is one of the ugliest little girls you have ever seen in your life. She has a face that only a mother could love, and doesn't look like she has any friends. She looks stupid, dressed badly, by all account she is probably poor, overall repulsive. Near the counter there is a small, cute, well dressed girl, who is counting out pennies and sobbing at the one doll left. She obviously doesn't have the money, but she definitely looks more deserving. She looks like she has friends that can share the doll, that it will add to her emotional growth that will later give her a good education, a good family, etc. Which girl gets the doll? If you said the deserving one, consider this. You later find out that the ugly girl has no friends, no family, no money. She works on the street in some grocery store and sleeps in a garage. She has saved that money up for months, and now she wanted to take this one chance to feel like a normal, proper human being. If you would have given her the doll, she may have had the courage to get out of the gutter, but now she continues her miserable existance. The cute girl is a spoiled brat, she threw the doll away the next day. If you chose the ugly girl, maybe you were right and she didn't deserve the doll at all. So how do you choose? Stick to the money. Except that money in this case is a very pathetic way to evaluate. A doll will not kill the person, a bad liver can. In life or death matters that come suddenly, where the amount of money required is enormous and the time given to collect it is very small, money is a very skewed decision factor. A lung transplant is just not something that you save up for and prepare for. But then how do you evaluate people? -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

Drunk driver in this case has performed a negligent murder. As I said before, one respects the worth of a life unless that life is in an obvious manner dangerous to others. The drunk driver dies, because he caused the accident, and he killed. This is not a random occurance. If he was not drunk, I would help the 12 year old girl because her life is still mostly ahead of her, and because she was a completely innocent participant. It is mostly bullshit that crashes are "shit happens". To the other driver, this is pretty much a coin toss. He was unlucky enough to hit a 12 year old. Again, this is not a random occurance between two people that you have no real way to evaluate. Again, a question of pure numbers. See above. It is the opposite side of the least damage principle. Here you can predict the benefit to a reasonable degree. The decision is based on NOTHING except the fact that the surgeon can, in all likelihood, save more lives than the drug addict. If I did not know, I would not decide. Coin toss. You were the first on the scene. He was your son. Please detail the criteria by which one should judge the worth of one life over another. Also, please detail the methods by which you would make sure that the elements that you are using to evaluate these people accurately represent their individual worth. If you are saying that your criteria is your own, then you simply represent one of those coin tosses. Some other person can have the opposite criteria and be on the same moral ground as you. Which one arrives first? Toss of a coin. I do not think that this is the easy way out. I believe that following the predetermined rules of society is the easy way out. Try following this in the real world, and see which way is easier. I have not yet met a person who can do what I described exactly. I myself have (thankfully) not been put to this test yet, but I'm confident that if I ever find myself in a situation like this, I will fail. Thankfully, such situations where the evaluation is forced to be completely random, where you have to toss a coin, is very rare in day to day life. -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

Please do not apply anything I said to the mother. It would apply to the case of a person who did what was described, but she is not that case. -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

Everything I say is based on the assumption that the writeup of cgross is the truth. If it is not, then just scratch out everything I said about the mother. There is NO REASON why an American is more deserving of a treatment than a non-American. This goes for every single country. If I was a doctor and I had to choose between Einstein and someone who achieved nothing and is in my country illegally, I would use a coin. I may hope it will come up Einstein, but I will follow what the coin says. NO human life is worth more than another, except in extreme cases of the other person being a thief/murderer/rapist, and even then it's a tough choice. -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

They did not call the doctors and the dying girl murderers and started a lawsuit. -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

Yeah, they can live in Nunavut. That should be an interesting change of scenery "What is the huge white rug you got on yer igloo?" "That, that's them polar bears" Did you know the Nunavut was created on April 1st, 1999? -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

I agree, but consider this. Assuming everything in cgross' writeup is true, why did the mother of the foreign girl vehemently refuse to donate and called the others murderers? Isn't that worse than the doctors making a mistake? If you call her decision not to donate her daughters' organs "human", the mistake of the doctors is also "human". Both "human" decisions/mistakes can cost a life. So where does that leave the foreign mother? In the cesspit with the doctors, to me. Again, the above is assuming what cgross wrote up is completely true. -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

Chalk me up. The doctors made a mistake and that's inexcusable, yes. But behaving like a pig towards someone who is dying is probably more inexcusable. The doctors made a mistake, she understands what she's doing. You know sh*t went sour when your primary motivation is revenge. -- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.