mr2mk1g

To defend Taiwan from China would require overwhelming sea power. Sure the US has that, but not against a modern adversary – not even one without a single ship. Putting the kinds of assets such an operation would require in harms way is no longer a viable option. I’m not talking the political ramifications of losing 3000 souls in one go – merely the tactical considerations of a modern combined arms operation. The surface to surface missile capability of a modern military has rendered the old power of the senior arm largely ineffective. It’s simply too easy to blow a trillion dollar warship out of the water with a 1/4 million dollar missile – like I said, you don’t even need to have your own navy. At present, there simply isn’t a system available to protect the size of fleet an operation in the South China Seas would require. A fleet off the coast of China would be sitting ducks. Even with solely land based assets on both Japan and South Korea, I don’t see anyone being able to project the kind of power required to dislodge an occupation force from Taiwan.

Confucius say: "Man have two ears, but only one mouth. Wise man listens twice as much as he speaks".

In Britain, paraffin is what you guys call Kerosene. Of course my interpretation of "paraffin" is worth squat next to what the manufacturer actually means.

ah what the hell - it's lunch One time in his early skydiving career he flew way way off the DZ and the name kinda stuck.

ahhhhhh, not the crumble vs. pie debate again. You'll have the crumble rights brigade up in arms again and the pie control nuts all over us. And once more, the Crimson Permanent Assurance sailed out of the mists and bore down on the hapless posters.

If you really want to work on speed you need two and mount them on each lateral so you can compare the two sets of data and make sure you're not fish-tailing.

Sorry man - you misunderstand me. You challenged Unformed to prove that skydivers are not suicidal. I said "I'm not" [suicidal]. So there you have it: direct, written testimony from a reliable and credible source. You want proof, courts deal with proof - my testimony ought to carry some pretty good weight. You could do well to look into parsing and relationship between the subject and object of a sentence. Breaking a sentence down into its syntactical components in such a way can be a powerful aid to proper comprehension.

You sound like a bully threatening some kid who mouthed off at you in the playground.

Means rea as to what though is also important – at least in some jurisdictions. In the UK, the relevant mens rea in your box car scenario would be the intent to commit a dangerous and illegal act as that would form the actus reus of involuntary manslaughter. Shooting at a train is obviously illegal as at the very least it will lead to criminal damage. Any idiot can foresee that someone stood on or behind the train could be hit, thus it’s quite likely to also be considered a dangerous act. Where both the intent to commit and commission of a dangerous and illegal act can be shown and where this act leads to death, a conviction for involuntary manslaughter may follow under the Homicide Act. So over here at least, shooting at a boxcar train could very easily lead to a conviction for manslaughter. As we see, here an intention to kill is not always necessary – just intentionally doing something which could kill. The same would follow in the instance of a trial for gross negligence manslaughter in that there is no need to show an actual intent to kill, only an intention to commit an act which is grossly negligent. Now obviously there are many more hurdles to overcome before securing a conviction for gross negligence manslaughter, not least with regard to a duty of care, but under the right circumstances I doubt it would be too troublesome. edit: Under the circumstances I see making a distinction between murder and manslaughter as pretty academic - either way you are being held criminally liable for someone's death and punished for your act. Both are homicide, over here both carry a maximum life sentence.

Stowed breaks are set to half breaks which is a pretty good setting for getting a shallower glide path and thus a longer range. So some people don't release their breaks till they enter their landing patern at 1000-500ft as this may allow them to get back from a long spot. This is a dangerous and inadvisable practice, bourne out of lazyness, which has led to the death of people who were experianced enough to know better. We do a controllability check after opening at arround 3k because if it highlights a problem we have plenty of altitude to sort it or switch to our reserve. If we delay to 500ft before we release our breaks we may find that same simple problem causes our death as we no longer have the altitude to deal with it. If a longer range is required to get back from a long spot, it is advisable to use manually inputted half breaks or rear riser input. Now whilst this means people might actually have to use the muscles in their arms just a tiny bit more, it may well mean they don't die. I know which choice I'd take. Don't let lazyness kill you.

it's not the reserves age so much as the number of reserve repacks it's had that effects it's value.

by god am gonna gitcha

A valuable lesson to us all about exceeding manufacturers recommended wing loading

I take it when you say Aerograd near Moscow you mean Aerograd Kolomna? I've done a lot of looking into it already. There's a group from Hinton going and a group from Nethers at different times later this year. I'm going separately with a friend or two in a couple of months. From what I hear I'm gonna have a blast and intend to put in about 100 jumps in 10 days. With the prices and turn around it seems eminently possible - give me a couple of months and I'll tell you first hand. I think we're soon going to see a hell of a lot more jumpers going out there to train given the reports people are coming back with. Anyone want to share first hand exp?

Having both in the same size (well, within 2ft) I'd agree with you.

I've gotta ask this even though I wouldn't want to be asked if I were you: If you don't need one yet why buy one? Things will change significantly in 2 years to the point where for the price you pay for an HC42 you could buy a PC350 and get far more camera for your money. With that pointed out, if you just want a camera damnit (fair play - nothing wrong with that) go for what suits your needs... just figure out what your needs are first. If you need to gell with the rest of the video pool then that's a need to be adressed. If it's not so important as to warrant the extra $$ that's a call you can make. I think you're confusing the 109 with teh 105 when it comes to lens size. The 109 has a 25mm lens - that's not something to distinguish it from the HC42. It's the 105 with the larger 30mm lens.

I'm not. There you are Unformed, Job done.

What are you needs? I think both the HC42 and PC109 have the same size lens - 25mm

Billvon says: You say: Sounds to me like someone has a comprehension problem.

It's ok, I can hear you just fine. They're extremely similar to the Sabre 1. They do have a slightly more agressive angle of attack, but not so it causes a problem. You can easily get in from longish spots on rear risers... but at the end of the day it's a "first generation" style canopy and canopies such as the SabreII/SafireII/Pilot will have a longer range. I would be surprised if most would be able to tell the difference between an EXE and a Sabre if they woke up under one.

Well I'm glad you all agree, cos I got mad and filled in a feedback form online. Head office wrote to me yesterday to see if they could send me a similar item at a knock down price to say sorry. I replied saying that after getting fed up trying to buy from them I bought the item from their biggest competitor instead. (true... although it was more to do with the fact that their competitor had the item in stock). So now they're sending me an accessory I was after with a third knocked off the price. Guess they made good in the end.

Would you have been pissed in this scenario? You see a high value second hand item you’re after listed on a shop’s website so you call up the store about it as they’re a couple of hundred miles away. They say they got the item in that morning for a local customer who had requested it a short while back. They will be in later that day to look at the item. You ask them if they will be able to send the item to your local store (another in their chain) so you can see the item and buy it - should their local customer not buy the item first of course. Of course they can – so long as the local customer doesn’t buy it first; first come first served after all. Sure you say – that’s perfectly fair. So you call back near the end of the day – the customer has still not been in. The guy at the store however takes your number saying that he will call you once the local has been in to see the item and let you know if he’s able to sell it to you. He confirms he can either sell it direct or send it to your local store first for free. Cool you say, as you’d really like to buy the item. By the end of the next day you’ve still not had a call back, so you figure you’ll give the store a call. Turns out the local didn’t want the item in the end, but they’re not able to sell you it any more as a member of staff put his item in for repair and has taken the one your after as a loaner in the meantime. Now… would you be pissed with them for letting a staff member jump the queue like that?

Just remember what I told you - it's not an "assult pistol" till you're able to take out a tank with one.

Do you not have any kind of gross negligence manslaughter over there? Over here I don’t think it would be that difficult for a prosecutor to convince a jury that the vendor was so grossly negligent in knowingly selling this canopy to this guy that he ought to be held criminally liable for that act. By pointing that out I’m merely seeking to show just how seriously we should look at such behavior – albeit by perhaps using examples from a different jurisdiction.

hehe - when did that fact ever stop anyone here. What surprises me is when people whine that an investigation occurs at all. Someone got shot. Some people say the shooter did wrong. Why is it bad to look into it? If the shooter did actually do wrong, charges should follow and a court case will decide what really happened. If there's no evidence that they did wrong they should walk. None of that stops half the town being up in arms about an incident where they have no idea what actually happened because they were not there and don't have all the information.