mr2mk1g

Evidently happens quite often... luckily no one's died from it yet but as we all know that doesn't mean we've not simply been lucky so far. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=6042; http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1280155#1280155 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=395946#395946 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=686694#686694 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=687325#687325 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=687384#687384 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=379613#379613 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=53372#53372 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=6042; http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=394887#394887 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=394889#394889 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=396894#396894 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1280239#1280239 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1280466#1280466 http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1280720#1280720

Focus less on getting the jump number required and more on getting the skills required. I'm sure if you put the time (and money) in you will the skills and jump numbers required... there is time. But like I said - don't be affraid to scratch off the dive if you'd be a liability in a 20way. Spending money on coaching will reduce the chance of that happening.

Id ruled out tents primarily because I would already be loaded down with a shit load of other crap including two rigs. Didn't really fancy sticking a bunch of camping gear in my bags on top of that. Cheers guys. I'm attempting to book a hotel... pity my written Russian is terrible... and my spoken Russian is only a little better. Thank God for the Babel Fish.

Hmmm... that was all I was lead to believe I needed. If so I'm cool cos I have all those. My only concern is that the Russian consulate website says I need a couple of other things: Now I'm figuring one of those must be the invitation... except the website refers to an invitation as "invitation" later on when listing the requirements of a private visa.... but as I said I would have presumed I needed a tourist visa rather than a private visa??? It's these last couple of items I'm confused about... anyone know what the hell are items 4, 5, and 6 are?? Or do people just use private visas? Yes Dave - off to russia to play with big helicopters. Should be fun.

My mate demoed a Cobolt. He described the "two staged opening as a "two staged bitch slap". That's enough for me.

Just trying to sort out a visa for Russia next month. Their consulate website is so damn full of bureaucracy that I'm damned if I can figure out exactly what I need. Helpfully there isn't a single travel agent who knows anything about going to Russia and the embassy doesn't take phone calls. I know I need an invite... but the consulate website only lists that as a requirement for a Personal Visa... I would have assumed I needed a Tourist Visa.... which requires a whole load of other crap that I don't have because I've not used a travel agent. Looks to me like Kafka wrote the system.

hey caspar mate, both the Jav and the Wings the club owns have hard housings. If you like I'll point them out to you on Thursday along with riser inserts which both rigs also have. Nice to see you're taking such a pro-active approach to learning.

The sense behind it is the difference in the failure modes of the two kinds of links. One possible failure mode of a French link goes like this: Hard opening on improperly installed link Barrel cracks and breaks - link bends Bent link holds lines like an open safety-pin. Jumper doesn’t notice and continues with decent. Lines detach from riser below 500ft. Canopy suffers unrecoverable malfunction. Jumper dies. The same kind of failure on a S-link would go like this: Hard opening on improperly installed link S-link breaks or otherwise detaches Canopy suffers unrecoverable malfunction. Jumper initiates emergency procedures at above 2000ft. Jumper lives. S-links either break on opening or they survive to landing. There have been a number of instances of Rapide links surviving opening and then releasing lines once the tension is released on the ground. Should this occur in the air as a result of low control input the jumper would be in a very difficult situation.

We'll he was right with his other prediction - ... the IRA's gone!! It's a global conspiracy

... and everyone else's but mine stinks.

Correct. It's a bitch, Democracy... Er... no.... See, you guys don't live in a Democracy - you have a Republic. One of the defining features which sets a Republic appart from a Democracy is that your whole political infrastructure is set up to protect the rights of minority groups. If you want poofters to have to vote their rights in, come over here and live in a Democracy. As it is you live in a Republic and it's only a matter of time before the wheels of your constitution grind into action and protect the rights of the minority group. Then again... this Democracy has already allowed same sex unions so we probably won't see many bigots moving over.

do a search for scott lutz - you'll find lots of angry people. if you see him poo on his windscreen.

I think you'd be better off with a simple sping loaded reserve pc that's held compressed by a pin just like a reserve. then all you have to do is pull the ripcord. Holding a bit of string tight so it doesn't let the spring fire is impractical and down right dangerous during climbout. I'm thinking though that if you're pulling the ripcord you might as well pull the cutaway cable yourself too. Relying on a pc to cut me away isn't a nice idea - just do it yourself and eleminate the risk of not getting cutway cos the pc hangs up/malfunctions in some way. Still... none of that really solves your auto cutaway problem.

Where would you stay if you were going in June? How dificult is it to get bewteen the DZ and Kolomna?

get a long pole and knock their nests down then.

you thinking of a kind of ROL set up where the bridle first pulls a teflon cable from a three ring circus before actually suspending the board during it's solo decent. Problems to think about - preventing a premi - velcro down the length of your leg to hold that bridle like on a ROL rig???? What are you going to do if you find the "board" (or whatever you're using) has not attached (edit) detached and you end up having to deploy past the fricking mess?? Keep it simple man. If you can't keep it simple be willing to walk away from the project until you can. Get video.

Shooting works pretty well.

Why would muggings and assaults go up because certain kinds of firearms were no longer permitted to be stored in a secure gun-cabinet at home? We've never had the right to carry firearms in the UK. Pretty much the only type of crime that has risen in the UK since the ban have been firearms offences themselves. Of course there are far more firearms offences to commit after the legislation... but that's not the most likely cause. The police and legal commentators suggest the primary reason is the influx of Yardi gangs and Easter European drug traffickers. Plus there has been a shift in youth culture, especially black youth culture, to glamorise firearms leading people to want them… as silly as it sounds, most people blame rappers for this and I have little to refute the concept. Overall however, if you take the statistics from before the firearms legislation came in and compare them to now you see that: overall crime has fallen by 39%. vehicle crime has fallen by 51%. burglary has fallen by 43%. theft has fallen by 36%. overall violent crime has fallen by over 36%. the risk of being involved in crime has fallen from 40% to 26% - the lowest level since our records began nearly 25 years ago. Now I am most certainly not suggesting any of the above occurred because of the firearms legislation. These things are merely temporally linked – the true reasoning is far more complicated than any one change and cannot be accounted for by a purely statistical analysis. Ultimately neither side of the argument is able to point to any one statistic without being confronted by a countermanding statistic disproving their theory. And at the end of the day. The US is a VERY different place to any other place you can point to. The vast majority of the differences in our respective crime rates come down to cultural differences, not legal. This means what works for one country will not work for another.

Anybody think of the Memphis belle when they saw pic #3? Remember the scene where they’re hit by flack and the pilot's convinced he’s hit but it turns out to be tomato soup? Must have thought they were getting shot at for a moment. On the up side I'm sure you’d be able to mount the head. After visitors initial shock you could explain you didn't hunt and shoot it beginning: "Actually there’s a funny story behind that..."

No, but two friends have done. One hooked thought he’d see if he could land it but when he saw nothing but sky during the first turn he tried he thought he’d ditch the backwards stiletto 120 and go for the right way round reserve. The other… well he hooked it up backwards and jumped it… some slow ass huge thing back in the late 80’s/early 90’s. Landed it and decided that was a very stupid thing to do so he went to the hanger to take the 180 out of it. He lay the thing on the floor, switched the risers 180 then... yep, you’ve guessed it, switched the container 180 and went up to jump again. Once again there he was going backwards under a functioning square.

Just a quick note to all those people here who are banding about the statement that this Marine was found not guilty by a Judge… I ought to point out that the guy never stood trial. A Marine Lt. General decided that he was not going to bring charges against the Marine in question. That fact in it's self though, can be seen in more than one way.

Have him take you on a couple of his jumps and jump master you if applicable... hell even if not applicable try and put your safety in his charge. If you put him in a position where he is responsible for your safety maybe he'll feel the same sense of concern for your well being as you do for his. I don't pretend that this is likely to help you stop him; I don't think that's possible. I merely hope that this would instil in him a sense of empathy with your position. Knowing first hand what you're going through, he'll at least understand what you're on about when you ask him to be careful out there. Of course he might just have you huck off the most badass object out there... in which case you better hope you've learned him good and he knows what he's doing. Either way, getting him to understand your concerns is key.

Shoot squirrels with it.

Well! Labour's won a historic third term; well done to them. It's interesting to see however that they have done so with the lowest ever share of the overal vote of any government in history. Apparently the 36% share of votes that labour got is a historic low... now I wonder why people wanted to give Tony a bloody nose? That said they still have a workable majority in the House of Commons... but after loosing over 100 seats, gone are they days when they can railroad whatever legislation they want through the house.

hehe fair enough.