riddler

TSA Claim form "TSA screeners exercise great care during the screening process to ensure that your contents are returned to your bag every time a bag needs to be opened. Â TSA will assess on an individual basis any loss or damage claims made to TSA." I believe that Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I've always wanted a micro-cool. Like a microwave, only it makes things instantly cold. Pop that warm beer in the micro-cool, set it to 30 seconds, and viola! Cold drink. Melted ice-cream? No problem with the micro-cool. Also great for parties - stick your drunk friends' underwear in there for lots of good laughs.

I think our non-American friends would like us to remember that skydiving happens in other parts of the world too. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Everyone I work with works from home. The only restriction is that we have to wear at least one article of clothing on conference calls. I've been know to break that rule Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

K - what's with the coffee mug symbol on the left side of this thread? Is this some kind of new symbol I've never seen before?? Sorry about my ignorance - I never got the TPS report. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I used to do this too, but hooknswoop "enlightened" me. Doing this results in more off-heading openings (i.e. you may be inadvertently pulling a tiny bit harder on one side). If you don't grab the risers, you can focus on the horizon and hip-steer through the snivel if necessary to maintain on-heading opening. This is more significant when doing big-ways - you want to keep going in the direction you tracked away because there are more bodies in the sky.

Skymama - how do you feel about being second to Saddam? Make sure he takes a shower in between! Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I like that attitude as well. I'll think about changing my priorities. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Which is why I think my next container will be a Vector

OK, so this one probably doesn't warrant posting in Incidents, but it's worth discussing. Last weekend, I was on a 4-way with a camera flier (a certain Canadian that we all know and love ) above us. One jumper was doing his 100th jump, and we were celebrating. We had an uneventful (read went-to-shit-from-the-start) skydive. After the usual track-off and open, I noticed a cutaway canopy. I identified the jumper under reserve, saw that he was headed for the target, and others were there to help him if necessary, so I opted to chase his main and freebag, rather than follow him down. When I got on the ground, the S&TA was just driving up to help collect the main and freebag. He noted that both brakes were still stowed and no lines were broken. After seeing the freebag and the color of the Reflex cap, I knew it belonged to the jumper that was doing his 100th. After talking to the jumper, I gathered this information. He pulled lower than anticipated (approx. 2,500 feet). At 1,500, he was still snivelling, and he elected to open his reserve without cutting away first. This resulted in a downplane, which he then cut away from. He landed, uninjured, but it obviously could have been worse. When I asked him why he chose to not cutaway first, he stated that he felt too low to cut away. The jumper has both a Cypres and a RSL. Other jumpers in the hanger saw the two canopies out at low altitude and assumed that it was a Cypres fire. Everything below this line is my opinion only. First off, I only have 175 jumps, so I never intentionally pull below 3,000 - I prefer 3,500. I intentionally pack for 700 to 1,000-foot openings. Pulling at 2,500 would get my heart going a bit and I might make some bad choices too. On a long snivel, I'm going to want to grab my toggles and pump them to try to inflate the canopy. Maybe the jumper didn't feel he had enough time to do this. In this situation, I would cutaway before opening my reserve. Going for silver first with a main out is risking a main-reserve entanglement. At 1,500 feet, under a streaming main, there is plenty of time to execute emergency procedures. An RSL will certainly help deploy quicker. At Mile-Hi (field elev 5050 feet), we tell jumpers they can chop as low as 1,000 feet (although hard-deck is higher for students). I've heard people state at sea-level, you can cutaway lower, but the thinner air up here takes longer to inflate the reserve, so we add a few hundred feet for safety. We all practice our emergency procedures religiously (I hope ). But do you have what it takes to cut away at 1,000 feet? Next time you're under canopy, when you get to 1,000 feet, look down, touch your handles, and say "What If?" I can tell you it's a pretty scary proposition. If it bothers you like it does me, I suggest you practice that several times until you get used to the idea. When that ground it coming up fast, it will be easy to make the wrong choice. In the end, the skydiver did what he felt he had to do and he survived, so it's hard for me to be too critical. But there are good emergency procedures and bad ones.

This right here is a good enough reason for you to keep skydiving. We need you to test new manufacturing designs Old skydivers don't die - they just become test pilots. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I really surprised how adults behave like children on the Internet. It's like some new toy that they think it's acceptable to revert to acting like a 12 year old. A few weeks ago, I pissed off a sales guy that was trying to sell a particular technology to a customer. It's his company and his product, but he doesn't understand anything about it, so he calls me and gets me on a three-way phone call with his customer. Being a typical customer, the customer wants technology that is so advanced is doesn't yet exist, and he wants it for pocket change. And being a typical sales guy, the sales guy promises it to him (and more). Being a typical engineer, I tell the customer matter-of-fact what exists and what he can have and what it costs, which of course pisses the customer off because he thought he could have 22nd Century technology for free. Is any of this sounding familiar to any of you engineering types? So the sales guy looks bad and blames me for not getting the sale, which gets me in trouble with the sales department, until I let them know how much of a liar the sales rep is. This is all typical. But every since that day a few weeks ago, I've been saturated by child pornography (as in less than 8-year-old girls and boys - not your typical email porn), as well as getting a dozen email viruses every day in my office email (which I typically get about twice a year). Why do some people act like this? And why are they almost always sales people? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I am really tempted to invent a device that signals cell phones to turn off in certain venues. You could set one of these up at movie theaters, plays, airplanes, etc. When the cell phone got within range, it automatically stops transmitting wirelessly (and hopefully also stops beeping). Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Depends on what you're looking for. eBay will have newer titles, but more businesses selling them. Half.com is good. You can also click the "used" button on Amazon.com and connect with individuals selling their used CDs. But you can also get great deals at garage sales, and flea markets, if you don't care about getting the latest music. Any time you don't buy new in the store, you are not giving money to the RIAA. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Agreed - the fact that they stated they're starting in 8-10 weeks proves this is just to scare people. This is nothing more than posturing by the RIAA. Typical scenario - RIAA decides they really want to sue a user. First, they have to find out who it really is. They can only do this via the ISP, which has a privacy agreement that doesn't allow them to share user information. So the RIAA sues the ISP to get the information. Even if they succeed, by the time the lawsuit finishes, the ISP won't have the log file (they don't keep them very long). Even if they did, the RIAA would have to prove that the person they are suing was using that IP address and that computer, which would be impossible. And what would be the result of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and months of effort? They would find that some 15 year-old kid was downloading music, and not only are minors hard to sue, but they don't have any money. If you really want to make a statement to the RIAA, stop buying from them. I prefer songs in CD format because they have better sound quality. I buy CDs used from individuals on the Internet. Sound quality of a used CD is just as good as a new one. RIAA gets no cash from me. RIAA - yet another example of corporations destroying culture. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Trillian

I already knew I wanted to be a skydiver before my first tandem, which was a sunset load. After the tandem, my tandem instructor offered me a beer (anyone remember how dry their throat was after their first jump?), and he said "Hang out with us tonight, we'll drink beer. You're a skydiver now, part of the family." I don't know if most skydivers would agree, but it made me feel pretty good at the time. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Good thing I'm naked in front of the computer right now, or I wouldn't be able to answer that one. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Thanks for the link - I popped my container to have a look-see at the slinks. They were connected OK, according to the manual, and I can now see what the problem is on the first picture. Very informative. Question about resetting the position of the tab. Some of my rigger friends have pointed out that one or two the tabs on my slinks are sticking outside the webbing of the riser. I see from the instructions that this may wear the slinks out quicker. So, I flexed the slinks a bit and gently slid the lines around so that the tabs are now positioned inside the riser webbing (on the inside of the fold). The steering lines were a bit tighter, so I had to loosen them a bit before I could slide them around - I pulled them taught by hand when I was finished. I guess I'm hoping that the next few jumps will reseat them with the tab in the correct position. Is it a good idea/not a good idea to try to reseat the slinks like this? Does it wear more on the links or lines? And should I keep checking them after every jump?

I like this one too. I usually tell people that flying a canopy is like driving in a parking lot full of frustrated shoppers. They come out of everywhere at high speed and always seem to be aiming right for you. You have to keep your head on a swivel.

I think that free-fall styles would make a difference in landings if everyone had the same wingload, canopy type, opening altitude and didn't exercise any control of their canopy. But that isn't reality. I'm not a great canopy pilot (yet ), but personally, once I'm under canopy, I feel like I can exercise enough control to change my landing time by perhaps as much as a full minute, and select my landing location for up to a mile in any direction. So can most other pilots. I can certainly spend time in the air, and on the ground watching for other canopies. If you agree with that, then does our style of freefall really effect where and when we land? Does it make it significantly more dangerous to land if I'm on a plane with belly fliers, freeflyers, students, tandems and wingsuits? Is it safer to land when I'm on a plane with only other freefliers or only with other belly fliers? I don't think it is. That's really the only point I'm asserting.

Then can I safely conclude that freefall styles, whether belly flying large groups, head-down freeflying, or wingsuit flying have nothing to do with landing order? As a soon to be coach (I hope), would it not be wise to tell my students that just because we have setup the order in this particular way does not mean that you should have expectations about where other canopies will be in the sky? From the previous discussion, it seems that some jumpers feel this is the case.

I've heard that a swooping safety technique is to go to deep brakes and wait for everyone else to get down before initiating the swoop? If this is true, it would certainly effect landing order as well. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

From this discussion, can we conclude that the exit order also determines the landing order? In other words, I do about half freefly, half belly/RW jumps. We (my DZOs) are getting pretty good at figuring out how to get on and off the plane. Should we also apply that to landings - i.e. I exit after jumper X and before jumper Y, therefore, I should also land between jumper X and jumper Y? Sorry Greenies - this might be a better topic for General Skydiving discussions. Feel free to move, if so! Thanks.

At the DZ I trained at, 95% of AFF students fail at least one level. The DZO (before he died) was a perfectionist and demanded high performance from his students. I failed level 3 twice. I don't see it as failure - it was kind of expected. Since then, I've been to other DZs where most students pass without failing once. I'm not convinced they are better students. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD