mr2mk1g

Think of it this way - you swim through a pool of water at 20mph. That's your canopy flying through the air. The pool is still. The air is still. You move through the water at 20mph. You move through the air at 20mph. You move past objects outside the pool at 20mph. You fly across the ground at 20mph. You're a pimped out gangsta however and your pool is on the back of a motherfucking limo heading down the main drag in Vegas. That's just how you roll. The limo is going 20mph You now swim up the pool - the same way as the limo is going. You pass through the water at 20mph. You pass bitches and hoes on the street at 40mph however as it's your swimming speed plus the speed of the limo. Turn around when you see one of those honeys and swim the other way at 20mph. You're still going through the water at 20mph. The limo though is going 20mph in the other direction though so relative to the sweet ass honey on the side of the street you're staying still - 0mph - and can now find out it's $200 a roll baby and you gotta bring your own blow. Stop swimming and still in the water and you'll carry on up the street at 20mph. The water in the pool around you though ain't doing shit - you're travelling at 0mph through the water. You're not being pushed one way or the other, your just stood their in your sweet ass pool heading the fuck up to the Luxor in nice still water - time to get into your bitch-ass Elvis suit though because you're still doing 20mph up the street! Capiche? And seriously, edit the profile back to how it was.

Adding to what Ron said which are all excellent points and valid today - The "no full face for students rule" is largely a legacy of when full face designs were inferior to the ones we have today. The Cookies are really some of the first to have virtually no impact on your field of view. With most earlier helmets, you lost some of your ability to look down - to where your emergency handles are!! A crucial point, especially when dealing with students. For this reason, as well as those pointed out by Ron, historically the "no full face rule" became part of the sports institutional understanding of best practice, whether or not it ever got written down anywhere. The rest of Ron's points are in part why there's been no change to that culturally accepted norm. By the way, the protec helmets you'll be made to wear are about the only ones in the sport which actually meet any form of safety standard. Remember that next time you've your feet and knees together ready to PLF. Ps... they also tend to be what the special forces guys wear - or at least they have been whenever I've seen them train. So you still get to look cool (albeit with snot up the front and tufts of hair stuck out the top). Don't sweat it - just stick your Cookie on the shelf for a few more jumps and be thankful it's someone else's lid getting banged up when you land like a sack of shit. It's a rite of passage.

I think the only measured, reasonable, and above all, Christian, way to deal with the situation is to act calmly and without over-reaction, and take out a hit on her ass. It is Christmas after all.

Yes, but... don't forget your order of priorities: 1) Pull 2) Pull at the correct altitude 3) Pull stable Don't beat up on yourself. We've all been there. Plan your jumps ahead of time - don't be tempted to mix things up on the way to the plane. Having a plan for your jump and carrying out the plan will see you a long way towards success.

Hmm - I just re-read his second post: What he's looking for is some fucking sand. Pile some sand on the kite - go get in the harness etc. Pull on lines and launch kite - sand falls off. Simples. Replace with weighted bags of shot if you're looking for something calibrated. Job's an orange root vegitable.

I don't think the purpose is to separate the Kite from the 'pilot' - so that wont happen. I understand it to be a 'hold on a minute until I'm ready to launch' type of thing. I'm not sure we got to the bottom of exactly what the OP wanted. That's exactly what current cutaway systems on kites do though - they detach you from your suspension point attaching you to the kite. You may still be attached, but only by the brakes - hence the kite will collapse. Great if you're being dragged along the ground - not so great if it happens at 20ft. Anything that is triggered by the force of the kite's pull independent of some input by could activate at any height. As to what it triggers... I'm not sure exactly what the OP has in mind. You only have essentially 3 lines to work with though on a kite - two control lines (essentially 25-30m "risers" made of spectra (or one of the others) type line) and a pair of brake lines which tend to terminate in a pulley system a few ft from the flyer and then attaches as a single line to you. There are oodles of variations on that theme with vastly more complicated de-power kites where you can essentially adjust the trim of the kite independently of your load-bearing connection to the kite. That may be something he's getting at but there all you have to do is let go of the bar and it de-powers so not sure why there's a need for a mechanism. If flying on handles rather than a bar you have 4 lines to work with as you can control the brakes independently but frankly you can easily be overpowered by the wind when caught out by a gust and loose the ability to apply brakes sufficient to control the kite. At that point, absent a cutaway system/dead man's handle of some form you're along for the ride. If that's straight up, you're in trouble. All this applies to flexi foils only (essentially exactly the same in design as a parachute only they range from about 30 square ft to up to a little in excess of 100 square ft in size (they measure in m2). I've no idea if the OP is asking about leading edge inflatables - kite surfers tend to use those rather than foils, but foils are still used. Any land flying (buggies/boards etc) will be with foils. I can't comment on LEI's as I've only ever flown one once and can't recall what control system it had. I think the question of what the relase system does once it's released is still to be answered. As I say though, there aren't exactly that many lines to work with and if it's to replace a traditional cutaway system on a kite... well that does exactly what it says on the tin - it releases your harness from its connection to the kite.

Bear in mind Bill's #1 requirement of any cutaway system: that it doesn't cutaway until you want it to. What if the kite surfer is airborne when this device is subjected to force sufficient to trigger the cutaway? These guys can get up to some height and it's not always over water.

What do you want this gizmo to do? Pull the brake lines in a bit? Is this a de-power kite you're working with? Is it a flexi or LEI?

You might be best off giving a little explanation as to your current set up. People may be able to give some better input that way as skydiving gear and kite surfing gear are not exactly the same. I power kite with flexi's and have no experience of flying LEI's - I've no idea what setup you have. I for a long time, have been unsatisfied with the safety devices available in power kiting. They all require user input to depower or cutaway a kite. To me that's dangerous in any situation where you're pushing the boundaries. I would prefer some kind of dead man's handle setup and went some way to developing something but then kinda moved onto other things. To translate this to the skiving world, imagine all 4 sets of suspension lines coming to a bar, both left-hand line sets attached to the left hand end of the bar and both right-hand line sets attached to the right hand end of the bar. The brakes attach separately and are not used for steering - turns are generally what jumpers would consider to be harness turns. You have a harness with a hook on your waist. You hook a flexible connector from the middle of the bar to the hook on your waist. Pull the bar left like on a pedal bike and the wing turns left etc. The problem comes when you get caught by a gust or surge of power you were not expecting. To depower your kite, you must physically pull the bar towards you and un-hook yourself from the connector point. Un-hook and you ditch the suspension lines and are left holding the brakes - so the kite collapses and you're no longer being pulled about. Of course, if you have significant force going through you this can by VERY difficult. You may be able pull on a plastic toggle attached to what is essentially a 3-ring circus (made up of a pin and two loops of cord) to detach yourself, but this still requires physical intervention and not all systems have this safety feature. Few flyers understand the need to have a hook knife. Simply letting go on this kind of setup does nothing. You're along for the ride. Therefore, a dead-man's handle to me always seemed the way to go - maybe a leaver device forming part of the grip point on the bar which when closed, closes the connector point on say, the right hand line set, with a cross-over line connecting the line set to a ring on the brake lines so the whole line set doesn't disappear off towards the kite. Ie, let go of the bar and whilst the bar remains connected to your hook-in point, the right hand line set lets go when the dead-mans handle is released. This slides a couple of meters up the brake lines to a stop. Kite then completely collapses as the right hand side looses all connection with you, the left hand side goes limp (to the end of the bar control range) and the brakes both come on, collapsing the wing. To re, connect, you only have to walk a couple of feet up the brake lines, find the right hand line set and hook it back into your dead-mans handle closed line connection on the right hand side of the bar. Depending on the length and where the handle is located, you could even configure this for one-handed flying. Bear in mind the "suspension lines" are 25-30m long so you don't really want whatever system you come up with having anything to do with the canopy - it needs to be down with you at the control bar end.

Clear goggles - your instructors and coaches need to be able to see your eyes - lots of non-verbal feedback.

Bet he "probably" has. Not sure they know who they're talking to. Hint Lyra - there's a clue in his name.... and his D-number.

'Twardo, because he was there. Pfft - Twardo taught Garnerin's ground school.

Feedback is feedback. Just stick a note on the 5-pack saying "yeah... whatever you did, don't do that again" and leave it outside their office. I'd be surprised if someone didn't actually pay at least some attention to the message - and appreciate the fact someone took the time to give it. You'd hope.

It's already 'tomorrow' where he is...

hahaha. I was going to post this as an attached image but decided I couldn't be arsed: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bc1sfsvJ_G4/UKvP2UXidxI/AAAAAAAAHCs/z9rkaUfS1oE/s640/cartman-screw-you-guys.jpg

Guys, seriously, RonD1120's got this one. It's written down in a badly-translated 400 year-old book, so he's got to be right. Right?

Sometimes it's wrecked, sometimes it's fixable. The one I mentionned above outside the city council buildings has got a few shots from a paintball marker on it at the moment. I think there's a plan to clean them off - it'll be, I think, at least the second time it's been fixed. The one up the road from there (police sniper with a kid sneaking up behind him with a paper bag) got destroyed by successive tagging/modification after being there for a few years unmolested. It got painted over earlier in the year. Plenty of photos on line for those inclined. The Mild Mild West one's been up going on 20 years. Got doused with red paint a few years ago and cleaned off. There'd probably be a riot if that one came down.

There's plenty of it round here, many of which have been around for years and are now part of the fabric of the city (I live in his home city of Bristol). Most of it tends to stick around; some of it ends up defaced by vandals / other "street artists" who think a tag is "art" or otherwise have some kind of issue with him. Some of it even gets cleaned up and fixed by the council when defaced. Then again, it's good for the city as many shops sell post cards of his work and there's a bit of tourism associated with it. There's a huge work (the one of the naked bloke hanging out of his lovers window as the husband looks for him) right outside the council chambers and the council voted on whether to remove it and settled on keeping it. There's often a gaggle of tourits stood photographing it of a weekend. You can easily spend a day driving round the city seeing some of his most famous stuff... I can think of maybe a dozen or so high profile works within a mile or two from where I'm typing.

In the UK his happens far more, partly because of the weather and also because our cloud rules are far less restrictive than in the US so there's often more of a chance to give it a go when conditions are otherwise marginal or a no-go under US rules. I've seen it both ways. Often, if it's the DZ's choice to send the plane and hope to get a couple of tandems done and we sport jumpers are just filling the slots, you don't loose your ticket if the entire load comes down. It was the DZO's choice to give it a go and make a profit; you were just along for the ride - he would have gone anyway even if you stood down. It's therefore in his interest to bare the risk and have you on the plane on the off chance and take the benefit of what little profit your presence might add in the event it's good to go. I've also experienced discussions before the load is sent where it's just sport jumpers and the DZO will state quite clearly - its up to you chumps, if you want to try it, I'll send the plane but if you end up having to ride the plane down that's your problem and the tickets are gone on wheels up. Even in this scenario, the DZO is sharing the risk and being generous as inevitably we'll spend far more time in the air than normal, searching for a hole. Students however ought never loose their ticket. They're not the ones that make the call. They also ought not be put out in less than ideal conditions so it really was a poor call by the DZ if they ended up getting caught out at altitude with too much cloud to go. With US rules, it's far more clear-cut when to go on a weather hold so I can understand a different application of the rules. Here it's really not uncommon to still be jumping on a day that no US DZ would ever consider.

Nope - found one in San Diego once while on a 3-week jumping holiday and went round and round it 5-6 times for a taste of home.

I used to teach static line at Cerney (Duke of Gloucester Barracks) and would have a few Ghurkha’s through over the year. Cracking guys, up for anything and whilst they were usually new to the military and therefore the language skills weren't yet perfect meaning you had to be careful to make sure they got everything... once they did it was like having freaking radio controlled humans - you spoke: they did exactly what they were told. They'd be sprinting off the end of the PLF ramp by the end of the day, clearing a good 6 ft and doing a perfect PLF on mats which had been moved away from the ramp to accommodate their near suicidal willingness to follow instruction. Jump run would be signalled with a chorus of "over the top".

No idea who put it there, but you made it onto failblog: http://cheezburger.com/7842001664

Fixed it for you. It's still an odds game. Sadly, the odds didn't pan out for those in that 1 example. The odds still massively favour staying with the plane at 120ft, especially in an Otter with one good engine. Buckling up, keeping your helmet on, adopting a brace position and staying still all load those odds further in your favour. Hell, at that altitude how the hell do you know exactly how high you are - the needle on your alti would only indicate a fart over zero anyway.

You can cut away from a line-over You can't cut away from a ball-under

Jack and support the car properly. Then for added peace of mind, put the wheel you've just removed under the car. Think of it as an AAD - if all else fails, at least there's the wheel...