mr2mk1g

If it's installed, it has to be maintained in accordance with manufacturer's instructions - which means you have to hit the service and battery replacement timescales given by Airtec. Getting it serviced though doesn't involve loosing your rig - just your cypres. You can always jump without it. Some places can even rent you one if you desperately want one.

I think Sheffield have a skydiving club... maybe... or if not, you could always start one. There's a big skydiving club at the Uni in Leeds, which is only up the road a bit. You've also got a few good DZ's local to you - namely Hibs and Langar. You could also check out the UK forum called ukskydiver.

This thread's chuffing hilarious. I almost spat sandwich on my PC screen. Vortex... are you a native English speaker or is it your second language? I only ask because the only way I can make sense of your argument is if I credit you with less than full understanding of the meaning of the phrase "profoundly influenced by". (I don’t mean this question in a pejorative way at all by the way – if you fluently speak more than one language, that's more than me!) Turning to the point in question, (I can't believe I'm joining in this thing); it's perfectly possible for both Scottish enlightenment AND English tradition to "profoundly influence" something. The phrase "profoundly influence" does not, in English, connote any degree of exclusivity whatsoever. Thus, simply because Scottish enlightenment influenced something, it does not necessarily follow that English tradition couldn't also have influenced that same thing. One does not exclude the possibility of the other. As a corollary, saying English tradition influenced something which is also influenced by Scottish enlightenment is not, ispo facto, an incorrect statement. Unless, of course, you want to argue English tradition did not influence US founding institutions, which I must say would be a rather bizarre argument… but at least, perhaps, not quite as bizarre as the one above. Or is it simply that you're trying to play word games and are actually attempting to submit that English tradition owes its very existence to Scottish enlightenment? Either way; thank you for the amusing interlude. The rhetoric could scarcely have been better argued if it featured a pair of wet fish and a member of Monty Python.

You're asking about differences due to canopy type. You've a pretty good answer about canopy size right above mine. Not being able to get good landings on different makes of canopy could be several things. Firstly - how many jumps is this over? If only one or two, it's pretty weak data to work with - you could simply have screwed up the landings on the 1 or 2 jumps you made on other canopies? Canopies made by different manufacturers have different flare points. Some canopies give you full flare at mid chest point. Some canopies give you full flare at the very bottom end of the toggle stroke. It's important to perform practice flares up high and find the stall point on each canopy you jump before attempting to land them. The flare point on a Pilot is quite deep into the toggle stroke. If you're used to jumping canopies which have a flare point much higher in the toggle stroke, you may not be fully flaring the Pilot. This is a fairly common problem for people stepping from one manufacturer to another. Not all canopies flare alike. Of course, each canopy may also be different depending on the brake settings on that individual canopy. There may even been something wrong with that particular canopy, though that's less common. Maybe you even caught a gust? In short, it's hard to tell now why one landed fine and you had trouble landing with the others. The most likely answer though is that it was pilot error – ie you, rather than the canopy itself. The only real answer if you continue to have concerns is for more demoing.

I'm glad you asked the question somewhere, as doing what you say you'd thought up would be a great way to get yourself killed. Stick to what you were taught in your AFF course. It doesn't suddenly become wrong simply because you now have 100 jumps. And seriously see if you can talk with a rigger or take a look at your new skyhook with him when it arrives as whilst you say you know how it works, you clearly have a fairly flawed appreciation of its operation to have come up with the plan you describe above. Nothing to be ashamed of there of course, but you should seek to clarify your understanding of it if you're going to wear it on your back.

Places like Square One or Paragear may be in the States but they'll ship to the UK and with the exchange rate at the moment, shouldn't cost any more after shipping than a domestic supplier.

The big issue is that for the past 40 years, successive US Govts. have let it be known that these two firms had state backing. This allowed the firms to obtain credit at rates much lower than they would ordinarily have been able to. This drove cheaper mortgages which drove the economy. So the question is not whether you use tax payer's money to bail out private companies... but whether you want to tell financial institutions across the world that you've been lying to them for the past 40 years. The economy has reaped the benefits of having these companies considered to be state backed. There's no such thing as a free lunch – is it now time for the economy to pick up the tab on all those lunches?

Snap - I took this one a couple of years back: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=45019;

I'm trying to play a practical joke on a buddy and want to keep switching out a fuse on an appliance whenever he fixes it. It's 13 amp cartridge fuse and over here in the UK that is (I'm pretty sure) the highest rated fuse you get in consumer electrics, so there's no simply switching it out into a heavy use item to blow it. The requirements of the method are that: 1: it's SAFE - it aint going to cause danger to him, me, the appliance or risk a fire or anything like that. 2: leaves no witness markes - so when he openes up the plug there's nothing to be seen but an ordinary fuse (which just happens to have blown). I've tried heating a fuse - it didn't blow, just got red hot and it had obviously been heated when I'd finished with it. Chucking it around will just break the barrel of the fuse. And like I said, I can't overload it in another appliance. Any ideas? Ideas?

Maybe. Like I say - it's a rule of thumb, to be used as a starting point for consideration of the question as a whole. It's also a 'never exceed' rule - it doesn't say what canopy you should be on, only what canopy you definately shouldn't be on. Someone who's newly qualified, with maybe 50 jumps and who is looking for their own gear... a 1:1.0 wingloading is a common starting point for don't exceed advice... though that's not always going to be appropriate - all the variables should be considered, not just the wingloading. Wingloading is only one set of figures in a much bigger equation. They must also step down to the 1:1 loading in a sensible manner, as they'll usually be on a wingloading as a student of less than 1:0.85 (UK at least).

Bill is right. The CYPRES is not specifically designed to save you after a cutaway. It is an electronic device which works off a very specific set of parameters. It is not intelligent. It does not know if you have cutaway. It does not know if you are wearing your lucky socks. It does not know if Jupiter is rising in Venus. It is a little computer chip which, if it is told by a sensor in between your shoulder blades that it has sensed a pressure change which indicates that it is likely to be falling at in excess of 35m/second AND that it is somewhere below 750ft, it will fire. If either one of those parameters is not met, it will not fire. That's it. Nothing more. It doesn't care what you're doing at that precise point in time. It doesn't even know. It doesn't care whether you have cutaway or have a bag-lock or have a total. It just knows what it's sensor tells it. If its sensor says it's going through 750ft (or less) at more that 35 m/second then that's it. It fires. If you are, at that time, at 3ft off the ground - that's your problem. If, at the time it's firing parameters are exceeded, you're at 750ft - well done; you're CYPRES just saved your life. Now of course... it's quite easy to cut away at less than 750ft an not reach a speed of 35m/second. You only accelerate at a speed of 32ft/second/second (average), so it's fairly easy to cut away at an altitude which does not allow you to build up enough speed to trigger the firing parameters built into a CYPRES (or other AAD). If you're low, you're not going to reach a high enough speed to trigger you're CYPRES in time. That's it. Your CYPRES isn't intelligent enough to care. I simply hasn't had it's firing parameters exceeded, so it does the most important thing an AAD can do – NOT fire. If, in one particular incident, it fired after a cutaway... Well done that man. It saved his life. He must have accelerated enough to trigger the CYPRES's firing parameters. He was lucky. The next guy might not be. Had he been lower, perhaps he wouldn't have accelerated enough to cause his CYPRES to fire. I'm surprised this is still in contention within the community. The CYPRES has been about more than 15 years. Surely by now people should have worked out the fact that it (and it's competitors) is no more than few logic circuits that do what they're programed to do when the sense certain specified events. It's not intelligent. It does not know what you're doing. All it knows is what its sensor tells it. If it's sensor does not sense an air pressure rising fast enough to indicate a speed above 35m/s... that's it. It ain't gonna do anything.

I would use the terms high/low. Depending on your competence, it would probably absolutely fine at nearly 400 jumps. I tend to get people to use the following as a rule of thumb. It's not by any means the whole story of course, but it's a helpful starting point, especially for people fresh to the sport. Take the number after the point. That's the number of jumps in hundreds you should have to jump that canopy. So a 1:1.2 wing loading would indicate a starting point for your consideration of a min of about 200 jumps. 1.1 would indicate 100 jumps. 1.3, 300 jumps and so on. You could even take it further and say 1:1.25 indicates a 250 jumps min. It's a rule of thumb and no more - it starts to stop being sensible after you get above 400-500 jumps for example... but by then people should be big enough to work it out for themselves. It can also be seen by some as being rather conservative. No problem with that - people always overestimate their abilities, and this is only a rule of thumb after all.

I've been reading through the recent thread re a fatality at Elsinore and this is a kind of spin off thread from that – together with the brake stowage thread also in this forum. The conclusion is that the jumper did not release their brake toggles for some time but left them stowed to get back to the DZ. They apparently popped them somewhere prior to 2k whereupon a tension knot was discovered. Now of course, leaving the brakes stowed until 2k was not the direct cause of the fatality - but it did contribute to it. If a control check had been carried out immediately after opening, the jumper would have had 1000 - 1500 ft to either try to clear the tension knot, or otherwise 1000 - 1500ft extra ft to find their reserve handle. I recall a very similar incident in Perris a couple of years back where a jumper left her brakes stowed until final. She then discovered she had a brake line caught in her S-link, which lead to greater understanding within the community of the importance of proper excess brake line stowage. The message I want people to focus on here is of the importance of correctly performing control checks immediately following opening. We were all trained during our FJC to perform a control check immediately after opening. A failure to do this has now been a contributing factor in a number of fatalities. Often, they were entirely avoidable, which frankly only adds to their sadness. PLEASE do what you were taught during your FJC and do a control check. If your control check reveals a malfunction which necessitates a cutaway, you therefore have altitude to do so. If you leave it, even for only a thousand feet or so, you risk running out of altitude and failing to get your reserve out in time. If you leave it to your hard-deck, you throw away any chance you may have had to clear the problem without the need for a cutaway. If you leave it to finals, you are already below your hard-deck and you may as well not have bothered buying that nice expensive reserve in the first place. This is day one training. It's done on day one because it's important. If you choose to ignore it, you do so at your peril.

What is the best etch-a-sketch, and what settings should I use? My Hi-Def one of course: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=89936;

In case anyone want's to copy you Billvon:

Yeah, specifically, US military. For example, IIRC in the British army that signal would designate the gun team, not stop. Stop or halt in the British army is the familiar vertical flat hand. Presumably "official" hand signals will vary greatly across the globe. It's not like it matters much for skydiving what signal is used - a US military signal is probably ok - especialy given the number of ex-military peeps in the sport and the fact that the poster's talking about the US... I do wonder though what's wrong with the signal all civilians are familiar with. Surely that would ensure everyone knew what it meant, not just those who have served or watched too many 'nam movies?

I like it. For filling... hell I'd just have to rig up a crappy attempt at a parachute out of a sheet and some string...

Tell her that, as a skydiver, the guy is required to register any blood-borne diseases with manifest in case of injury and seeing as you've seen his sheet, you advise that she really needs to go get herself checked now. Tell him she thinks she's pregnant and it certainly aint your fault. Then leave em both to it. There'll be a week or so of mutual panic before they catch up with one another and work out they're both in the clear.

I've got a PC350 also, and I've had a very mixed experience with buying accessories. I've bought two batteries from Amazon (uk). The first was a standard NP-FF51, listed as a Sony and clearly the item which turned up was a genuine Sony. It cost me... I can't remember exactly but it was peanuts - like, £10 or so delivered. It works perfectly. A few months later I bought a NP-FF70, again from Amazon UK, which gives bout 2 hours worth of filming time. This was again listed as a Sony item and cost about £20 delivered. It turned up last month and was obviously not a genuine Sony item despite being clearly advertised as such (including photos).. The battery itself was obviously trying to pass itself off as a genuine Sony item, though the packaging was a non-branded blister pack and the sticker on the back of the battery fell off within about 30 secs of opening the packaging. I left the guy feedback noting that the item was a fake, notwithstanding the clear Sony advertising in his listing. In response, he threatened to sue me! I politely told him, in a long e-mail laying out all the salient points, to... well, basically I told him to get fucked and sue me if he liked... though I also asked that he note my professional address and that he should ensure any proceedings were served there... which is of course a law firm. (I was quite happy that legally I was in the right, and it is kinda my job to know about that sort of stuff). He got fucked. To be fair to the guy, whilst obviously a fake, the battery works fine and gives exactly the same performance as the genuine FF70 battery I own. I've not been using it for that long, but I've not experienced any problems at all with it. My wider experience would tend to suggest however that you're likely to find issues with a fake battery, especially in cold conditions, which the genuine item might have withstood. That said, my recent experience is that in the case of the battery I just bought – it makes no difference whatsoever. Who knows though if that's going to change with time. Oh, and If you check the other live threads at the mo you'll see another by me and will see why I'm also looking for a PC350 docking station. I've found a couple on e-bay - one in the UK which I'm probably going to be buying as it's slightly cheaper than my other options, another bunch in China (which, from your post, I guess you've probably already found), from a seller called (quite aptly really) digitlsky2008 and can be yours for about $45 delivered - for example here: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SONY-DCRA-C111-DCRA-C110-FOR-SONY-DCR-PC350-DCR-PC330_W0QQitemZ150145175417QQihZ005QQcategoryZ43439QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262 My advice to you re batteries is to look for a genuine Sony battery on e-bay or Amazon. You should be able to find one for peanuts. I've bought a few genuine Sony batteries from those sites for bugger all and only got "burnt" once... and as I said, even then, the battery has turned out fine so far.

Tried to capture footage to my PC last night and had difficulties. Sony PC350 - firewire - Adobe Premier Pro 1.5 Capture box comes up with "capture device offline". Camera displays "DV in" on bluescreen when I plug the firewire cable in so it recognises the PC at least. I've tried two different firewire cables on two different PC's and have the same results. I've also tried a couple of freeware capture programs and windows moviemaker to ensure it's not just Premier throwing a strop and got the same failure to connect to the camera. I've also used this install of Premier to successfully capture footage in the past, though not for a few months. And yes, the camera's in play mode . When I first plugged the camera in, it wasn't immediately recognised by Premier. I moved the cable slightly in the docking station and the capture box then recognised the camera and let me control it from the screen but no picture came up. Then I moved the cable again and Premier crashed. Now I get the above symptoms. I gave a guy some footage at the weekend via DV out so it was working then... though we had to fiddle with the cable for a second to get his camera to register mine. I'm leaning towards thinking that my docking station's fucked or has a loose connection somewhere in the firewire port... though I must admit I find it odd that the camera at least appears to recognise the firewire connection. Does this sound right to you guys or has anyone come up against this problem before with a different solution?

If you do end up making something - I was looking for a new camera screw the other weekend. Got fed up looking in camera shops as none of them sold one so I spent £2.99 on a table-top tripod mount, smacked it with a lump hammer and hey presto I had a nice new camera screw.

I've watched the guys at 2K Composites use a hot glue gun to install liners into their carbon fibre helmets... presumably there's not going to be much material difference between a BoneHead CF helmet and a 2K CF helmet so that's what I'd use. In fact that's what I did use - last weekend. Worked fine.

The guy clearly hasn't the first idea about history. The relentless bombing campaign was not in response to the invasion of Poland. Nor Austria or the Sudetenland. Nor even the invasion of Belgium, Holland, France, Denmark and Norway. Nor even the bombing of British military targets within the UK. Throughout the early months of the war, the British Air Force was under strict orders to avoid at all costs any damage to civilian property. Orders were even issued to ensure that bundles of leaflets dropped over occupied territory were property broken up by aircrews before being released so as to avoid damage to buildings on which a bundle might fall. After the Germans bombed Rotterdam into ruins on the 15th May 1940, the British Air Force was permitted to attack civilian property of industrial importance outside of combat zones such as steel works and oil refineries. It was only after London was bombed by the Germans on the night of the 24th August 1940, (almost exactly a year into the war), that the general prohibition was rescinded in fulfilment of a promise to Germany (threat) that if British cities were bombed by the Germans, German cities would be bombed in retaliation. Now I don't hesitate to observe that the German raid on London on the 15th May was itself, it seems, most likely an accident, but retaliation was promised and Britain simply knew its capitol had been bombed. So the British bombed industrial areas of Germany in retaliation. The Germans bombed London back and from then on the Luftwaffe shifted its focus from British airfields onto London and other major conurbations. It was not until 1942 however, that deliberate targeting of German population centres was begun by the British, again in retribution for the same destruction being visited by the Germans on British cities. Of course the morals of this can be debated forever, much as the fire and atomic bombings of Japan have been debated. As for the blockade - that too was very much two way street. I guess he doesn't remember the fact that the Battle of the Atlantic virtually entirely comprised a battle between German offensive forces (submarines) and British (and laterly Allied) surface ships; the Germans being the ones trying to sink civilian merchant ships and thus starve Britain into submission and the British and Allies trying to protect them and keep the supply lines open.

I'd distinguish between two potential problems with helmet cutaways. Firstly - possible hard pull as requested in your poll. No issues there with my helmet as it's a 2-ring system which reduces loading on the teflon (lolon) cable just as with your main cutaway system. To be honest, I've not heard or seen that many systems with problems in this respect, though obviously I haven't seen them all. Secondly - possible failure for the cutaway mechanism to work at all. Again no issues for me, but some of the systems I've seen and played with simply seize up when placed under a load. I think that it is this second issue which is by far the more serious (in terms of prevalence) of the problems with the devices we see within the community today.

I'll only comment in general as, obviously, I don't know the specific gear you're talking about. A 1999 / 2000 Javelin should be fine for you. It should be freefly safe as it is, or if it isn't there are one or two very minor mods that can be done to earlier javs if a rigger thinks they're required. Buying a first canopy that you think is too big is a much better idea than buying a first canopy that you think is too small. You are likely to be able to stick a 190 in the rig anyway IF it was built for a 210. You may want to check what size main the container was built for. Also consider what size reserve is in there. You don't want to cut away from a mal and find yourself low, over unfriendly ground AND under the smallest canopy you've ever jumped. Obviously you'll want to check the condition of all the gear, but there's no immediate reason why an 8 year old set of equipment should be shagged out... and it's not obsolete by any means. Are you getting an AAD with the deal? If not, do you want one? If you do, ensure you factor in that cost to any calculations you're doing.