JohnMitchell

Ahh, thanks for the invite. Is that new or just used on weekends? Before I retired from the radar scope, I don't think I ever worked that one at TDO.

You are GOOD!

I'm glad there's a happy ending to this story for that young woman. Prop safety? It reminds me so much of basic gun safety, something that many people are ignorant of. Those of us that know the rules take it for granted. Let's be more proactive in the future, educating all that need to know, but maybe don't.

Do you pull the toggles down close to your body, bending the elbows as you go? That's the correct way to get the most flare. Some people mimic swoopers by flaring with their arms out to the sides. Takes more muscle, it's harder to do and many don't flare all the way down like they should. Flaring too high? Very common problem judging height. I heard someone say the other day "Flare at the height you could kick somebody's head that was standing in the field." Sounded about right, but it takes practice to judge. Keep your eyes on the ground out in front of you, not straight down. Get your landings videoed. Continue PLFing. Good luck.

Good reply. People often confuse BSR's, etc. with FAR's. Violating one will get you kicked out of the USPA. Violating the other may get you fines and/or jail time.

Yeah, but I'd argue not typical. C-206 was mentioned and many, if not most, are turbo. You left out DeHavilland Beaver, but once again, not typical. Who's got the Navajo? I haven't jumped one of those in years.

First Billy Vance, then you? I think you two are gonna worry Billvon.

Woohooo! Congratulations, and welcome to The Dad Club. Don't worry about Harry being early. Five weeks is nothing with today's medicine. Fine looking son you have there, Bill.

I don't even remember if my first jump was September or October. . . But it was in the Fall. I'll celebrate it anyway. 4Oth this year.

Aw Bill, it was fun poking at him with a stick. . . We all know he's pretty harmless.

Yeah, every year I'm happier about the progress the GLTG community makes. It's a tough life to live, having to hide your true self from everyone you know. I like it that my gay friends can now be who they are around us all. Much better that way.

I used to call that a practical joke.

Russian Roulette = 1 in 6 chance of dying. Hard to think of any skydiving thing that dangerous. Well planned skydiving stunt = Big Hollywood paydays and multi-decade careers. I'm not being sarcastic. I've known quite a few people to do just that. The trick is preplanning and practice.

No, I was up in Seattle at the time but was friends with her. Very tough thing, very wonderful woman died on that jump. I'm not sure all the details, just heard maybe hard opening, maybe a little out of position, or that the students feet were spread really far apart. A lot of surmising, but I never heard any clear cut analysis of the incident. I'm lucky to have long arms and can keep my noggin off to the side when riding thru.

I never take a camera until level 4.

Too true. I just barely stopped saying "A-T-M machine".

Thanks for that article. Kelly and his wife Gen are good friends of ours and I got to see that rig under construction on one of our visits. Plus watch Luke do a lot of the test work at Kapowsin Air Sports in WA.

It's the ultimate balloon jump. There is a long period of near weightlessness as you accelerate towards the Earth. But even in that super thin air you'll start getting wind resistance and feel a G-load again. Think of astronauts returning from orbit way higher than that. They pull many G's in much thinner atmosphere. Now . . . why does the chute open so hard? Round figures. Let's say your terminal is 100 mph and your canopy descent rate is 10 mph at 2K feet. You open and in 3 seconds slow 90mph. You experience about an additional 1.4 G's. Much higher freefall, higher terminal velocity, say 500 mph true airspeed, but indicated is only 100 mph, so it feels normal, the same amount of wind pressure on you. But should you open your canopy, it will go from 500 mph to 50 mph in about the same 3 seconds, a change in velocity of 450 mph! You'll experience over 7 additional G's. A snappy two second opening would approach 11 G's. That's one of many reasons why premature openings on high altitude jumps are a bad thing.

There is some talk of when AI passes human intelligence, will we become pets or wards of the machines. I still think we'll need engineers and other tech people for a long, long time.

N/A

No kidding. Going that fast it'd certainly roll your socks down, wouldn't it.

I'm curious why they did this, are there certain situations where he would go for reserve instead of main and then be able to cut away the main. I would assume he would always go for main first, and I'm unsure of the rationale behind a reserve cutaway. My wild-ass guess is that a premature deployment of the reserve at over 100,000 feet would have been very bad and need to be cutaway. That is absolutely the correct scenario. The life support is good for the 5 minute freefall, but not a 60 minute canopy ride.

Yep, there's that saying. . . Friends help you move. Really good friends help you move bodies.

square root of absolute temperature - Absolutely correct. I had it dumbed down for air traffic controllers. This bunch is smarter. A lot of controllers I worked with had a hard time wrapping their head around the concept of Mach speed reducing with altitude.

First jump in high school, 1974. Still jumping 40 years later so that stretches across 5 decades, more or less.