MarkF

22 years, how come ? I started jumping 24 odd years ago and after 12 jumps had the mal from hell. 28 foot conical reserve all tangled up with the Jolly Green Giant. (35' TU Lopo). Took me 23 years to get back on the bike. I'm STILL having nerve troubles, in fact I'm considering that jumping may NOT be the sport for me, thankfully the people in the sport make it doable (for me that is). After I did my AFF #1 tandem I said to the instructor words to the effect of "never let me give this up again". Since then he's been a TOTAL bastard and has kept me at it. Even past the page in my log book that says that I should give up jumping...:-) I still have GREAT difficulty actually getting out the door. Once I'm out there, no problems...:) Apart from the usual of course. Thrashing and flailing is my all time favourite...:-) What am I saying here ? Don't leave it too long between jumps unless you absolutely HAVE to. I missed out on 20 odd years of fun weekends and for what ? NO GOOD REASON that's what...:D Ooroo Mark F...

SkySlut wrote ;- AADs & RSLs save lives, but they can also fail. JUMP LIKE YOU DONT HAVE ONE!!! Bad advice. You MUST always keep in mind that you have an AAD or RSL. Ignorig the possibilities presented by mis-behaving AADs or RSLs (unlikely) could well kill you. Remember there are documented cases of CYPRES false positives (premature firings) and false negatives (didn't fire when it should have). Of the 3 well documented false positives 2 killed lots of people. One went off in a DESCENDING aircraft because no-one thought to turn the CYPRES off and it fired. The reserve PC escaped somehow and took the jumper out through the side of the aircraft thereby rendering it UN-airworthy. It crashed killing all on board. Another, in Denmark I _think_, fired in an ASCENDING aircraft. The jumper was the only fatality in that case. The third was fairly benign in that the CYPRES fired while the CYPRES equipped rig was sitting on a picnic table. Documentation of false negatives can be found in spades on the fatailities page (sorry I don't have the URL handy). It's also worth rembering that in all 3 cases the CYPRES concerned somehow managed to "get lost in the mail" upon its return to SSK....Hmmmmmmmmm. RSLs should NEVER be taken for granted either. An RSL, in the wrong circumstances, can kill. i.e. high wind landings and CRW are two that spring to mind where I most certainly would NOT want my RSL connected. Just my 2 bobs worth.... Ooroo Mark F...

Froggie wrote :- Foot and mouth disease? oh man, i must be a youngin. what is that? somebody made a mention to a cow, so im thinking it might be a side name for madd cow disease? froggie Nah it's not mad cow disease. It's a VERY infectious viral disease that affects animals with cloven hooves. Sheep, cattle, etc. The virus load to start infection is VERY low therby making it incredibly infectious. F&M rarely actually kills animals but it leaves them in a somewhat run-down condition and therefore nearly worthless in the meat and animal byproducts arena. They get killed because of the worthlessness and NOT because of the disease. Having said that we have to keep in mind that the farmer may have spent a goodly amount of resource on feeding that animal up only to have it come down with F&M. Now the farmer has to spend as much again, or more, to get the beast up to marketable quality. Usuallky it's cheaper to buy another cow or whatever and shoot and burn the sick one. Given feed lot farming shooting and burning is much more humane than letting the animal live till it's deemed edible. I s'pose you've all realized that I'm vego...:-) and I can't see for the life of me why we have starving millions on this planet when we feed around 40% of our vegetable food to cows so we can kill ';em for the meat. Remember a kil0 of prime steak takes about a months grain based feed and presents the food value of about a cup of wheat. The original grain could have fed a starving African family for quite some time. Days or weeks and NOT just part of one meal. Should have brought a rig with me when I climbed on this soapbox. It's bloody high...:-) Ooroo Mark F...

OK Sis, my eyesight stinks big time. I'm now in my late forties and I've been wearing bi-focals since I was 7 or 8. I'm short sighted to buggery and have an astigmatism that my optometrist calls spectacular. On my last visit, about 6 months ago, I asked about LASIK and he said "what you ! what a joke". I took that to mean that my eyes weren't suitable...:-) Looks like I get to stick with glasses. I don't find them a problem because all of my "seeing" life I've needed glasses, and heavy ones at that. (Lighter now thanks to Ziess-Ikon glass) My advice is to get either prescription sports goggles, which are VERY good, or stick with a pair of daggy PLASTIC lens glasses. Daggy because you want frames that allow a LOT of lens in front of you eyes. This'll help with peripheral vision. For goggles have a look at http://www.sportrx.com/all_skydiving.html . The landing problem...:-) I had the problem of flareing about 15 feet too high ( i'mm 55 kilos under a Saphire 230 so no real problem...:-) ) so I asked an instructor about what to do. He said DON'T flare until you are thinking..OH...SHiiiiiiT. That should be about right. In my case this got the flare down to about 8 or 10 feet too high. Instructor said "better, in fact MUCH better but next jump wait till Ohhhhhh FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK and you should have it about right...:-) Works for me...... Ooroo Mark F... Edited by MarkF on 3/10/01 05:29 PM.