jaaska

Wow... So much for the original topic. However, I repeat: How come so many more Americans are killed (in %)by guns even if you compare to the kind of countries that have a lot of guns, too (say Canada or some European states (in%))?

From outsiders (Non-American) perspective: It's hilarious to see you guys debate about this gun "issue" (or the fact that many of you do not even think there is an issue) of yours. I've seen the movie and although it was fun to watch I guess the main point was to raise these kind of debates rather than present an objective documentary (like that's even possible) - which it definitely was not. I'm not even going to try to get to the everlasting debate of gun control / freedom. There are some countries that have strict gun-control laws and others where it's a lot less strict. How come so many more Americans are killed (in %)by guns even if you compare to the kind of countries that have a lot of guns, too (say Canada or some European states (in%))? I just don't buy "American socio-psychological behaviour is different"... There are big cities with their problems in many other places, too. There is huge diversity in many other places, too. There is crime in many other places, too... etc... Like a good American friend of mine, who is/was PRO guns/NRA etc. said: "I guess it's some sort of freedom to be able to walk around in a 'not so good hood' without carrying a gun and w/o being afraid of getting 'popped'." just my 2 (euro) cent

Unfortunately I couldn't find the report in the net, yet. I know SIL is going to mail a paper copy of it to all Finnish skydiving clubs. I did not take any notes during the presentation at the skydiving conference, so I can not state any specific data. The female skydiver was not unconscious. She had a camcorder with her and it was running until the time of impact. As soon as I get my hands on the report, I can give you more information. IF I remember correctly, she was very current (over 400 jumps during the last 12 months).

In Finland we just had a skydiving conference where the final report on an incident that occurred last May was presented. This incident led to abandonment of ALL soft reserve handles in Finland - It has been illegal to skydive with one ever since the incident, now it was just made an official policy (not a temporary one). After the presentation, a very well respected rigger examiner stated in very clear way, that he was very pleased on this decision. He gave very good arguments for this and personally I (like I think most of the other 200 persons attending this conference) were very well convinced. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=508246;search_string=incident%20finland;#508246 Link to the incident added.

If you have a cargo-door C-206, it is probably easier for the JM to be "behind" the student rather than in front of him - although I have seen both type seatings. The JM sits at the very back of the plane and since the cargo-door is right there, s/he just prepares one student at a time and places them sitting at the door. Off they gooooouuu....

Just curious, did you progress through S/L-training yourself, or perhaps AFF? The reason I'm asking is that being stuck in the first short delays is quite common. I was very stuck myself . Some people stop, some try AFF, and some just won't give up and will be awarded - sooner or later.

Hanging exit is not an option in C206 or in various other c-models...

Kind of the point of having silver D. If - for a reason or another - you cannot cut away, but you would be able to pull the silver D reserve handle, it could just save you... Just my .02 c...

There are couple of DZ open all year around here in Finland... Of course the days are (depending where you live) only 0-4 h long, so it's not possible to have that many loads per day anyway. It doesn't mean you have to stop jumping though...

The manual of the Cypres unit is actually very simple and tells you pretty much all you need to know in a couple of pages....

Just a week ago the upper winds were "kind of" strong. I was watching with an Instructor as a student deployed not too far away, on the upper wind side (he had either tracked towards the LZ or was carried in FF by the upper winds.) He was around 3500f with a good canopy, facing downwind. Couple of S/L students had already landed (student canopies didn't penetrate the wind at all, they were coming down like with an elevator) and they did just fine since they turned upwind right away. Anyway, as we were watching and chanting: "Turn the canopy, turn the canopy... Om... Om... Turn the canopy", this guy headed 15-30s downwind and when he finally turned the canopy, he was waaaayyy on the downwind side... He landed a mile off (fortunately he didn't try to get to the LZ, but landed on a field further downwind - in between there is just woods) w/o problems and was later picked up by one of the guys from the DZ. When we asked: "What did he do that for?" He said: "Oh, I was putting my rip cord away and had some problems with it - after that I had already passed the LZ..." Practice turning with your risers - do that first (of course if the canopy is flying and all), put away your ripcord, release your brakes etc....

Fortunately, frying and BBQ:n humans is not done this side of the ocean...

I had a similar problem... It all depends how bad the rupture is. If it's a big one, it takes more time to heal (of course), but because of that, one may jump with a ruptured, before it really starts to heal. My doctor told me that if I wanted, I could try to skydive. If it didn't hurt, I could continue. She actually told me that since there is a constant pressure change, the ear is better "aired" and may actually help the healing (especially if the rupture was caused by the inflammation of the ear). Of course one should not jump if the pressure change makes you see stars or even feel a lesser pain. You should try the pressure balancing (close your moth and your nose and breath out) and see how that feels. Basically the air comes now out of your ear (since there is actually a hole there). If there is no pain there, it should not be a problem to jump. Keep it dry, keep if out of drag and cold!

I have relatively few jumps, but this is what helps me a lot: If (and there should be) there is an aeral photo of the dropzone with the different jumpruns / degrees printed on it, it is always good to ask how the jumprun is being fly. Then it's just a matter memorizing what direction is the jumprun in relation to any recognizible landmarks (runway, a hanger, a body of water etc.) On the plane, you can still look from the window and check whether the jumprun is really the one told you earlier. On the door you still have 5-8s (ok, not so much if you need to climb out) to check your spot and actually see what direction the plane is flying (compare and check whether it's the same as the visual memory you have of the aeral photo). After exit, enjoy and when it's time track, whether you're doing a track dive or just practicing/doing a breakoff (it takes a bit more time at first, but after practice, you recognize at least one of the landmarks really fast) it's just a matter of turning to right direction and start tracking. Whenever I'm jumping from 13.5k, even on solos, I try to do this. I do the breakoff manuevers (wave off, turn and track, wave again, check the airspace) on almost all my solos. Of course, the lenght of the track may vary depending... It's still good practice and as someone wise has said: "The most inexpensive lifeinsurence one can get in skyding!"

OK... What about this: Your in a load where there is a chuteless person onboard. At some point something goes wrong (let's say you have plenty of altitude) and the plane is unlandable but still flies, sort of, well enough (now, what sort of situation would that be, I've got not a glue) so that you and the chuteless person has some time to prepare for Mr. Bill and jump out... A regular ZP canopy (let's say sabre or similar) with 2-3.0 wingload... Not a nice thing to land... How about steering towards a body of water and asking the other person to let go / jump at 30-50 feet (ok, hard since with that wingload the speed is somewhat fast) and landing in the water yourself?

Also for many smaller clubs (not commercial) it's either S/L or nothing at all. In fact here in Finland you can do AFFs only in a one club, the 19 other ones offer only S/L...

At our club the pilots use visual as well as GPS, so most of the pilots get you where you want to be. However, when there is a student on-board trying to spot, they are told by the JM to F*** around, fly anything between 0-180 degrees wrong direction, 500-1000m off the line... That makes spotting interesting - especially with one of the pilots, who will turn very hard on any given direction when you ask him to ("a bit left, please" - the plane takes a full 90 degree turn before you can say "oh f****, not that much...) JM might ask the pilot to turn the GPS off too, so the pilot really might need your help on spotting - especially when jumping from 4km...

“Freedom is first of all the change to formulate available choices. To argue over them – and then the opportunity to choose. This is why freedom cannot exist without an enlarged role of human reason in human affairs.” (C. Wright Mills 1959) My favorite quote... I think it sums up some very valid points. Knowledge is freedom! It is quite common for most people to stumble into the first plank: "change to formulate available choices" To be perfectly honest, it happens to me all the time... E.g. If one does not know of anything better/different, s/he can always call his/her nation the best place to be and the perfect example of freedom. Traveling of course helps, but then again - to really get an inside peak of a certain society, you need to be very well integrated into that society (takes a bit more time than a quick visit - more like years...) Or is it possible to be free without surrounding society - is reclusion the answer? I doubt that... OR From a more daily type of situation: many people are very stressed out about their lives... How many times they really stop (I mean really stop) and take a long breath and ask: What am I doing and for what? I know I don't quite as often as I should...

Hi you all! I've not been writing here for a while... Well anyway, I was stuck in the short delays for like 15 jumps or something (I'm doing S/L-progression). Did quite a many unstable openings with some really scary moments where the main chute came between my legs and did not inflate right a way etc... I did my first skydive last october and progressed to 3 sec delay in normally fashion in 8 jumps... Then the winter came and as I started to jump again, I just could not get pass the short delay part. Every now and then I did couple of PRC pulls which went really well, but when ever the umbilical cord (S/L) was removed, I felt real, pure horror that totally screwed up my jumps. Our clubs JMs were almost as miserable with my progression as I and they told me to get couple of AFF level jumps to get rid off that horrory feeling... I had like 3 student jump tickets left and I decided that I'd just use them up and do couple of AFF's in a different club (for a student that would of course make a quite a big hole in the budget). So last sunday, after two weeks break, I went to the club I signed for a 3" delay... One of the JM came to me and told me that we'd use all the time (there were like 4 loads before my turn) to hang from a freefall harness, just going through the jump over and over again. Also, for the first time I practiced the pull sequence w/o "looking" at the handle (my problem had been more or less heavy de-arching after perfectly good exit). She kept me repeating it over and over again... Our clubs plane is a turbo c206 and it takes 6 jumpers at a time. This time there were three other students doing S/l-jumps, a JM-student and supervisory JM (looking after the JM-stundent and us). I was the last student to exit and as the JM-student was behind me giving me the tap and go, the JM was siting in front of me so as I was looking at the pilot's neck I could see her face - she was pulling her face with her fingers etc...

So, there's been boycotts on French goods... What are your thoughts about this: http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/marques.htm or simililar sites... Basically, there're movements and organizations promoting boycott on American and British goods.

No... it's just that it's rounded to next tenth (so 1.34 is still considered 1.3, 1.35->1.4)

I've been trying to convince my girlfriend to give skydiving a try... To be perfectly honest, if she ever actually jumps, I'd be very nervous - probably feeling sick and waiting the worst to happen. Now, I know she's quite nervous about me jumping, but I don't care about that - how selfish is that???

Well, couple of weeks ago the gas-companies here in Finland announced that since the market is getting ready for the holy-war-for-oil, the prices are going up 20%. There has been talks that if (and when) the war will be a lenghty one, the prices might go as high as 2e/l (that's about $2,20 per liter -> about $8,30 per gallon). So once our skydiving clubs c206 gets grounded, since nobody wants to pay $30-40 for a jump, I'll thank the good old Uncle-Sam! Ok, I do admit that this scenario is not likely to happen...

Yyyeeesss! It's the new jumping season - starting tomorrow at our dropzone Turku, Finland. I'll just have to get one of those "commando" -face covers. It's pretty cold here and the forecast does not promise anything better for tomorrow...