winsor

Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny. As any citizen of the Occupied Confederacy can tell you, you are right as rain. It was a Republican Lawyer who laid waste to this fair land and brought it into the Union at bayonet point. Wedded bliss is all well and good, but when it is achieved forcibly it is still rape. Blue skies, Winsor

Only if you consider a selfish, hedonistic sinner to be a bad thing. To some, such a description is nothing short of flattery.

Oh, then it seems your comparison missed the main point of the thread. How so? I think he hit the nail on the head.

With all due respect, my guess is that you are out of line. I have known this RD for years, and have seen her put in untold hours to improve the lot of the rank and file skydivers. I don't know anyone more committed to having fun safely in the sky than is she. As far as capricious application of authority goes, I simply don't buy it. She is anything but a martinet, and I can't imagine her applying sanctions without VERY good reasons - probably reasons with which you are unfamiliar. Before you start a recall move, I suggest you look around and try to find someone who will work harder and put up with more guff than will she. I can't think of anyone who meets those qualifications off the top of my head. If you think you can do a better job, run for office. If you are a better candidate, you should get the job. Blue skies, Winsor

You think Saddam Hussein didn't have WMD? HAH! He just knew how to HIDE them! Q: Where do you hide an elephant? A: In a HERD of elephants! People have been looking in the wrong places, so they'll never find them. Do you think someone as crafty as Saddam Hussein would be stupid enough to "hide" treasures like WMDs in Iraq? Hell no! He hid them in North Dakota. Think about it - it makes sense. You can't swing a dead cat in North Dakota without hitting a silo chock full of thermonuclear devices, so what better place to hide various WMDs? How did we know he had WMDs? Easy! We had the receipts! Okay, it was sort of a sting, I'll admit, but it was necessary. We know the Saddam Hussein was the kind of madman who would actually USE WMDs - unlike us. Okay, so we dropped a couple on Japan, but they were just cute little A-bombs, not big evil H-bombs, and they didn't kill as many people as the conventional firebombing raids on damned near every other Japanese city did, so it was really a humanitarian act that doesn't really count. Also, we know for a fact that Saddam Hussein was the kind of madman who would preemptorily attack a sovereign natiion without a valid casus belli, so he just had to go. The US of A has been accused of invading Iraq. Nothing could be further from the truth. We simply conducted a lawful police action, and people should know how scrupulously we adherered to police procedure. Every "bunker buster" bomb had a search warrant affixed to it before release, and every bomblet in every CBU had an arrest warrant attached to it; if someone was maimed or killed in the process of resisting arrest, then it was just an unfortunate result of their lawlessness. The Iraqi people can rejoice that they have had Truth, Justice and the American Way delivered to them on a platter, that each HMMWV that passes by proudly displays "We Serve and Protect;" the raison d'etre of those deployed to provide them with a new life (or afterlife, as the case may be). The people of Baghdad can feel proud to know that they now have a quality of life on a par with that in an American city. Why, they would hardly recognize the difference between their own hometown and Newark, Watts or Detroit! The people who criticize the current administration are those who simply don't understand. Anyone who has been on a farm knows that you need to spread around manure to get a healthy crop, and we have put around enough fertilizer that strong democracies can not fail to spring up all over the place! Blue skies, Winsor

As far as caliber goes, your best bullet selection is in the .308 section of the store. I have some superb .338s loaded, and out of my Model 70 Alaskan I can keep them in the black at very extended ranges all afternoon, but heavy hitters aren't my choice for long range precision. I'm much more recoil insensitive than most, but an extended range session with a heavy magnum rifle is a nontrivial experience. Agreed, the .300 Winchester Magnum has been used to win the Wimbledon Cup 1,000 yard match - by Carlos Hathcock, no less - but the .308 has been used with great effect at ranges from 600 to 1,000 metres. Ammunition costs are typically double for the magnum offering, and reloading costs are affected by the use of almost double the powder. Barrel life is much more of a consideration on a target rifle than its hunting counterpart, and accuracy begins to degrade on a heavy magnum rifle in a fraction of the time it would take in its milder stablemate. My personal long-range target rifle is a Model 40X from the Remington Custom Shop in caliber .308 Winchester. It doesn't meet your criteria for

What do you mean? A canopy transfer? Nope, it's a cutaway where pilot chute launch and riser release occur simultaneously. Once the cutaway pad is peeled, you pull both handles vigorously at the same time. As it was, I suffered nerve damage in my left hand (since recovered). Had I gone back into freefall, I may have lost fingers. Blue skies, Winsor

Maybe not, but you were there when I damned near died because I had lost my trusty Zak knife on the previous jump, IIRC. I performed a gunslinger cutaway to avoid having my fingers cut off by the steering line knotted around them, and landed with the main in tow so attached. That hurt. I now keep a couple of better quality hook knives on every rig. I am also careful to avoid getting caught up in lines whenever clearing my brakes, and otherwise seek to stay clear of entanglements the might require a hook knife to clear. Like a firearm, it's better to have one and not need it than to need it and not have it. When you need one, you need one badly - and it still might not be enough to turn the tide in your favor. I don't tout it as a panacea, but strongly suggest keeping an operational hook knife on hand and staying in practice with its use. Each safety procedure you have mastered serves to load the dice just a little more in your favor. Blue skies, Winsor

That's not fact, it's only a theory. Quote I rest my case.

That is a silly distinction. Is f=ma theory or fact? Most people call it Newton's 2nd LAW, but it fails at very large and very small distances. We don't put warning stickers in physics text books saying "Newton's Laws are only a theory" I taught my class that Newton's Laws were actually Local Ordinances. Anyone who would term either "Evolution" OR "Creationism" a theory does not comprehend evolution, creation or theory. Intelligence is greatly overrated. Stupidity is a limitless resource, and anyone with the capacity to harness it to a fraction of its potential has been guaranteed untold wealth and power. I wish I was not constantly reminded of that fact. Blue skies, Winsor

Groundspeed, in and of itself, has nothing whatsoever to do with separation in the air. When you have high winds at jump run altitude, but lower wind speeds at pull altitude, wouldn't that tend to compress the jump groups? Yes. The key here is the speed of the aircraft with regard to the air mass at opening altitude. Using my tethered balloon example (the DEA has some that hang out at 14,000 feet) in significant winds that are twice as high at exit altitude as at opening altitude, successive jumpers with a nominal separation of 1,000 feet at exit would have only 500 on opening - and ZERO on landing. Frames of Reference problems cause more than their share of conceptual heartache among students of the subject. Once these problems make sense, they are no big deal. Blue skies, Winsor

Reasonably accurate? Sure thing. Average jumper? I guess that's the rub. A veteran Physics Professor at my alma mater, Dr. Ralph Heller, once turned to a Freshman class who had just blown an exam and said, in frustration, "I've been teaching this course for thirty five years. You should know this by now!" Thus, something that seems blindingly obvious to an engineer or physicist might take a bit of pondering for someone who has not lived, eaten and breathed it for decades. Please bear with me, since I do not remember what it was like not to know this material (no kidding). I suggest that you break it down into two parts. Come up with a basic minimum delay between groups for your dropzone's jumprun style (all pilots and aircraft are not created equal), and then come up with a simple fudge-factor to account for uppers. A thousand feet between group centers is a good place to start. It is a nice, round number, and allows everyone 400 feet of latitude with 100 feet of opening surge or line twist to avoid someone from another group. To put it into perspective using an airport, if the first group leaves when you are just over the threshold of a 3,000 foot runway, you can put out three more groups by the time you are over the end of the runway. At 100 knots (true), it takes 6 seconds to cover 1,000 feet. Thus, for groups that might slide around at all and may be expected to track, you should consider 6 REAL seconds to be your minimum time between EXITS. If you know your climbout is at least four seconds, you can count "one thousand, two thousand," begin your climbout, and expect MINIMUM separation with NO WIND. Working out the uppers is no big deal if you live in a cockpit and watch the GPS readout for hours out of boredom, at various altitudes and weather conditions. Since there are a lot of variables in exit and freefall, being overly exact buys you nothing, so I will recommend an approach that is sure to be misconstrued. If you use the groundspeed readout of the GPS (the pilot will usually pass it back if you ask) for the basis of your timing, this will USUALLY give you separation greater than the fast calculations indicate. The second part of my fast and dirty approach is this: take the bare minimum delay for separation that you have worked out (say 6 seconds at 100 knots) and INCREASE it on the basis of your speed over the ground. If your ground speed is 75 knots, for instance, you are only going 3/4 as fast as your basis speed so you have to wait 4/3 as long between groups to have the same nominal separation. So, for 6 seconds at 100 knots you would delay 4/3 * 6 = 8 seconds when you have a 75 knot readout on the GPS. Similarly, 66 knots is 2/3 of 100 knots, so the appropriate delay would be 3/2 * 6 = 9 seconds between groups. Since you are counting seconds in a very inexact way, you only need to work out a few benchmark speeds that you use to up the count. For example: At 100 knots (dead air - very rare) - 6 seconds delay Anything less than 100 knots - 7 second delay Less than 85 knots - 8 seconds delay less than 75 knots 9 seconds Less than 65 knots - 10 seconds Less than 60 knots - 11 seconds Less than 55 knots - 12 seconds Less than 50 knots - 13 seconds and so forth. 50 knot uppers are getting moderately serious, and it up to you to decide how much to commit to memory before you would not jump anyway. While ground speed is not related directly to separation in the air, it can still be used to come up with a MINIMUM delay between groups that will result in workable separation. I make no guarantees, since someone on the first group that has the bright idea of having an impromptu tracking dive after funneling can be under the LAST group at opening altitude (it has happened). Thus, if you work out some basic numbers in advance, pick a MINIMUM delay between groups with which everyone agrees, and stay HEADS-UP regardless, this approach is as good as any. Blue skies, Winsor

the ground speed that day was 50 knotts. so even if they did leave 10 seconds it wasnt enough.... Groundspeed, in and of itself, has nothing whatsoever to do with separation in the air. Blue skies, Winsor

"I hate quotations." Ralph Waldo Emerson

The issue here is not "how do we stop anything that might be a bomb?" it's "what's easy for a moderately trained TSA agent to spot?" Bear in mind that in order to come up with 40,000 people in short order, TSA wound up accepting people who failed their last job interview because they couldn't remember to ask "do you want fries with that?" There may not actually be a two-digit IQ ceiling for TSA employment, but, of the thousands of TSA employees I have encountered, there is not one I would expect to see at a Mensa get-together. Blue skies, Winsor

In any language, Body Pilot in Command is execrable. As far as the Vladiball goes, I'm underwhelmed. I know more about things Serbian than you might imagine, and I take that into account in my assessment of these products. Even with the benefit of the doubt, I'm still unimpressed. I cut slack where slack is due. I'm being generally benevolent here. Blue skies, Winsor

There was no personal attack. None. The banning was based on a complete misunderstanding, none of which was John Kallend's fault. What John posted was civil, and the overreaction (banning) was inappropriate. Blue skies, Winsor

"Forgive and remember." Holding a grudge and looking for payback has nothing to recommend it. OTOH, if someone has demonstrated a propensity for unacceptable behavior, that is the reality. To expect them to be different is unrealistic. There are people I like, people I don't like, and those for whom I have no opinion one way or another. Beyond being polite, I can't see any reason to treat people uniformly. I try to spend time around people I like, and avoid people I don't like. You can forgive someone for what they have done, not for what they are. Blue skies, Winsor

If you do it right, it's at least as nice of a landing as you could expect with toggles. The control input is different (less is more), so practice is the key. Blue skies, Winsor

The only way I would try to land a canopy with a stuck brake is if I was too low to address the issue. If I'm in that situation, I have already screwed up about five different ways, am on a roll, and can expect to get hurt anyway. I always clear my brakes above two grand so that I don't have any nasty surprises near the ground if they choose to hang up. If I concluded that I couldn't undo one before my hard deck, there is a good chance that I would select which hook knife to use, cut the offending line, and continue with rear risers. I have landed canopies by use of the rear risers, so it is not a last-ditch maneuver in my case. Replacing a cut steering line is cheap, fast and easy, and is a hell of a lot less fuss than is a trip to the Trauma Center. I have known people to get killed rather than risk damaging or losing equipment (no fooling). If you haven't, it's a good idea to get some practice flying and flaring with rear risers when your back is not up against the wall. My experience is that if you try to flare as vigorously as you would with toggles, you are a LOT more likely to stall the canopy and pound the landing. You want to get your flare wired before you have the ground rushing up at you. A few suggestions are: 1) Talk it over with instructors. I do. 2) Make your decisions at altitude. 3) Have a plan, and go with it. Indecision can be fatal (or at least really painful). 4) Practice your emergency procedures (flat turns, riser control, etc.) when things are otherwise working well. 5) Again, go over it with someone with the right credentials, who you know and trust. Let this forum provide you with questions, not answers. Blue skies, Winsor

I have a real police baton! Yup, I keep it under the seat in my truck for self defense... was cleaning out my wife's car one day not long after she bought it used, and found it hidden under the rear seats which fold down to an opening to the trunk... So... Nina has a police car, freeflir29 has handcuffs, and I have a real baton... what next? Well, I could ARM a pretty sizeable police department, complete with Tactical Squad and SWAT team - and then some. All things considered, I have more firepower than does the average Police Department. I no longer have any vehicles that will outrun a Highway Pursuit vehicle. I got rid of my last 255 km/hr (150+ mph) motorcycle as a matter of survival, and the E-type Jaguar cost more to run than does the airplane. In any event, if you're going to have a fast car, it pays to have a sleeper - a Camaro is one of a thousand in the area, but a Lotus is THE only one around. The Florida State Highway Patrol used to sell off their old cruisers, and high school students could get ahold of a Fury III with the Interceptor suspension package and 426 Hemi for cheap. Those suckers were mind-boggling. These days if I want to go fast, I want some altitude with which to play. Doing 140 mph, I have been told to SPEED UP by a representative of the U.S. Government. I love it. Blue skies, Winsor

There is some merit to the sentiment in a tangential kind of way. It all comes down to attitude. Some years back, Dave DeWolf had a group in his rigger's class who were all fun and games. They progressed well enough with the technical skills, but were vary cavalier about the whole thing. One of the instructors finally had his fill, and read them the Riot Act. He pointed out that people's lives depended on the execution of their duties as riggers, and that the attitude they displayed was unprofessional and inexcusable. Apparently the message got through, and they did beautifully thereafter. In the military, it is customary to pick one of the rigs packed by a rigger, hand it to him, and say "you're jumping this one." This has the effect of making it clear that every time they assemble a rig, someone's life depends on it - and it may well be theirs. There is a big difference between a parachute jump from an aircraft in flight, and stepping into dead air at three (or two) digit elevations. A reserve deployment that could be salvaged to a safe landing might amount to a BASE opening that guarantees disaster. So I agree that one needn't be a BASE jumper to be a good rigger, but I sure would prefer to know that my reserve was prepared by someone who packed it as carefully as a BASE rig than someone with the attitude that goes with packing the average skydiving main. Blue skies, Winsor

For those of you who have never driven a Ferrari, be advised that its looks are but a minor part of the equation. A Ferrari is a singularly idiosynchratic machine, and any resemblance between a replicar and the real thing disappears when you start the engine. I heard a description of Ferruccio Lamborghini's creations that is apropos of the Ferrari, in that speed becomes an abstraction. 200 km/hr is simply twice 100 km/hr, and so forth. A Ferrari is happy at speed. Loafing around the streets of Brussels at 100 km/hr was effortless, and letting it stretch its legs when clear of town was anything but the white-knuckle experience of a lesser machine. I submit that anyone touting the Replicar would change their tune forever after an hour behind the wheel of a GTO, Testarossa, 308 GTB or anything that legitimately wears the Ferrari logo. The difference between a Ferrari and lesser machines is hardly skin deep. Blue skies, Winsor

Like Enzo, I love the song of a twelve. I've driven a mess of Japanese vehicles, and my share of Ferraris. I'll take even a sleeper Ferrari hands down. Blue skies, Winsor

That's a personal attack. I've banned you from Speaker's Corner. Actually, if you read the exchange carefully you will note there was no attack involved at any level. The response was facetious, but made direct reference to the question posed. Ask a semanticist if you think otherwise. A tongue-in-cheek answer - and that is what it was - is hardly a personal attack. Blue skies, Winsor