mr2mk1g

No I'm not. I fall into the "none of the above" catagory again. I'm English; we don't even have a Republican party.

But in the 80's it was a bottle of Panda Pop for 10p and some Beach-Nut chewing gum for 7p... or you could splash out and buy some Hubba Bubba for 11p. Chocolate would of course come in the form of a Marathon bar! Oh... and I still know all the words for the theme tune to Fresh Prince.

How about NONE of the above? The USA is a Republic.

I am one. I know of the existence of maybe 10-20 others in the UK alone... I suspect there will be significantly more in the States... in fact I met one last time I was out there. I also think that statistically speaking; you are highly unlikely to ever require the services of a lawyer arising out of your skydiving activity. It is far from the certainty you seem to have concluded it is, in fact I suspect it's actually a very small risk indeed when compared to the risk you are assuming in performing the jump itself. Additionally, lawyers are regularly involved in litigation surrounding activity in which they have no personal experience. For example, I have never worked as a banksman or dug a trench using a JCB... but that doesn't stop me being perfectly competent to argue a case in court involving a banksman who has been injured by a JCB. Lawyers have to be good at turning their mind to activities with which they have no personal experience - it's a huge part of their job. Besides, this is the very reason courts make use of expert witnesses – it's their job to fill in the blank spaces in the Court's experience, not the advocates. Any competent lawyer should be able to ask the right questions of an expert witness irrespective of their personal field of experience. If they can't then perhaps they are not as competent as they should be, for that is the very thing they have been trained to do.

Neither BASE jumping nor tresspassing is in breach of any UK law.

I can't buy the oil from the motor parts shop for the price I pay for an oil change at the garage I use (with the same brand oil). Besides I'm just way way too busy to be fannying around under my car these days. I used to do all of my own car maintenance, (and wore my sliced up knuckles with pride), but I simply can't justify the time anymore.

The story is usually told about Russian paratroopers not Polish. War was declared on Sept 1st 1939 and Poland was defeated and completely occupied by Oct 6th 1939. Polish units (including Parachute Battalions) were fielded throughout the rest of the war via the British military but the Brits wouldn't have been mad enough to let that sort of scheme go on. [Raw] Use the search function on this website to look up a guy called Nicholas Alkemade. You'll find some posts by me about his varified fall from 18,000ft without a parachute. He was a tail gunner in a Lancaster Bomber.

I saw this video several years ago. The first time I saw it, it was said to have been made during the intervention in Kosovo! I have subsequently seen it stated that it was from Afganistan. I have no idea which is correct. I've also subsequently seen it with people saying it's from Iraq, but I know that's crap because I saw it way before we went in there this time round.

A couple off the top of my head: 22. You could buy a trailer to tow but it wouldn’t come with the correct kind of fitment to go on your tow bar. You’d have to buy an adaptor and gender changer in order to actually tow your trailer. 23. You’d be able to buy peripheral items such as fog lights or roof racks which are supposed to fix right on with a set of screws. The only problem would be that the screwdrivers that came with the car won’t fit the screw heads, nor would the screwdrivers that came with the peripherals. So you’d have to spend a whole couple of hours getting different “drivers” from dealerships before you found the right one for the screws to attach your peripherals. 24. Sometimes your car would get hit by another car and damaged beyond repair, destroying everything you kept in your car. When you take your car to the garage to have it looked at the mechanic would just tell you that you should have backed up without knowing anything about how the accident actually happened! 25. Other vehicles on the road would not be susceptible to these bad drivers who just managed to trash your car. These vehicles are called “Armoured Personnel/Produce/Luggage Expeditioners” or “APPLES” for short. 26. You’d also come to your car some days and find there was a person sat in the passenger seat writing down all the places you drove to and passing that info onto someone you didn’t know. They would also keep hitting a button to pop up an advert on your windscreen when you were trying to drive. Strangely the APPLE vehicles would never seem to have this problem either. 27. Your car would come supplied with an annoying yappy dog in the back seat who would keep on trying to tell you how to drive by barking things like “you look like your trying to drive to Dave’s house, would you like any assistance?”

The SA80's not cheap... it's just built cheap.

Last year actually. And the year before that, and the year before that. In fact, every year that the Royals have been required to pubish their accounts. That's the only reason I'm happy to stomach such a figurehead. The cost to the country of running the Royal family is actually far less than: a: they personally contribute to charities, b: they assist in fund raising activities for charities and other good causes, c: (most importantly) they bring into the country in terms of tourism money. The funny thing is that the Yanks love our Royals more than we do (in general terms). We just laugh at the Royals... but at least they represent a very significant net gain to the country's GDP. Financially speaking at least, getting rid of them would be a poor move.

1708.

Seriously, where do you get this stuff? Royal Assent has not been refused since 1708. Since then it has been granted 100% of the time - the Monarch has absolutely no say whatsoever in what laws get enacted. We do not have a written constitution in this country but one based on Constitutional Conventions. This particular one is a very strong Constitutional Convention which means that in all practical sense it would be impossible for the Queen to refuse Royal Assent to a bill passed by both Houses of Parliament. The mechanism may however still hold a small role in that it would be a way in which a highly unpopular law passed by a tyrannical government could be prevented from coming into effect; in that way the population could look to their Monarch to protect them from an over powerful government. This is a further safety mechanism which simply cannot exist in the absence of a Constitutional Monarch. The same mechanism would not work in reverse though as all the constitutional power lies with Parliament rather than the Monarch.

I must correct myself as I have miss-typed which subtly affects the meaning of what I was trying to pass on. I recall being told that a rigger may not put non PD reserve slinks with a PD reserve (rather than the other way round as I post above). As I said though - I cannot personally vouch for the accuracy of the advice I was given; I'm just passing on what I was told and cautioning British jumpers to check with someone in the UK as our riggers do not operate under the FAA rules cited above but rather CAA rules which may or may not be entirely different.

There are a couple of posts above me re PD reserve slinks on non PD reserves. Those nicely cover the position within the USA. The position may well be different in other jurisdictions however. I have been told in the past by Apples (chairman of BPA riggers committee) that in the UK a rigger cannot mix and match PD reserve slinks and non PD reserves. Now of course I cannot myself vouch for the accuracy of that advice but it was what he told me and I kinda hope he of all people would know what he's on about. To be sure for certain I'd try to find out first hand from someone in the UK. Remember, we don't care what the FAA says; only what the CAA says.

I don't see a bayonet lug

True, in that sense the change represents a return to the status quo in realtion to the position at RAPA.

I agree with you in that I don't see any uninsured risks presented by this change. Any risks will be covered by either the BPA policy or the German policy. I cannot foresee an instance which would fall into any lacuna between the policies (although admittedly without both policies in front of me I cannot exactly be absolutely sure... but I would be really surprised if there were any gap in coverage). There are however a number of areas which could expose the BPA to litigation arising out of a German jumping at a BPA DZ. Instructors, as you point out, are one area but probably a less significant risk than those posed by others. Such instances could be BPA rigger negligence; BPA packer negligence; BPA jumpmaster negligence or even an accusation of negligent drafting of the BPA ops manual. Negligence on the part of the DZ itself is also easily possible, (simply the negligent handling of an incident could be an example), and there is a huge potential for harm were DZ staff to fail to adhere to established practices across the whole spectrum of DZ operations. This is without worrying about such things as plane maintenance schedules or piloting errors. We must all remember that a claimant doesn't have to be successful in court to cost the insurance policy money. The moment they even start talking about bringing a claim the BPA has to start paying someone to write letters and read statements etc. Those people don't come cheap, even if they win out in the end for the BPA. Now all of this represents risk to the policy and increased risk means increased premiums. Up until the inception of this change, the premium these risks brought with them was paid for by the charges paid by German jumpers. That money has now gone but the risk hasn't. On the flip side however, the much more serious risks involved with jumper on jumper claims as well as all the significant risks associated with insuring the jumper themselves against claims by whuffos have also gone. This will mean a significant reduction in risk. As I post above, these increases and decreases in risk will hopefully even themselves out at least, if not actually lead to a slight reduction in exposure overall. I litigate things like this daily and most of my fees are paid for by third party insurance policies; it's part of my job to worry about exactly this sort of thing. I personally don't think we've endangered the BPA insurance pot greatly... at least I hope we haven't. And at the end of the day I feel it was the "right thing to do" - to extend the same courtesy to our German friends that we ask of them.

Well... the change has the potential to both increase and reduce the BPA's litigation exposure... it all depends on what happens in terms of paterns of jumping. Predicting that is all part of the voodoo in insurance underwriting. If German jumpers would have jumped at RAPA anyway after purchasing BPA insurance, but are now permitted to use German insurance and so continue to jump at RAPA, the change will reduce the BPA's overall exposure. If German jumpers would not have been jumping at any BPA DZ but now will as they can do so on their German insurance, this change could potentially increase the overall exposure of the BPA. I think this increase however, would only offset the more general reduction in exposure if there are a lot of people in this second category. I suspect we're going to see a mix of both of the above scenarios and that overall there's going to be very little change in exposure, (if it was actually possible to measure such a thing). Any change I think will be towards a reduction, at least in the beginning. A less favorable change may come later if other EU countries with international third party insurance cover ask for similar recognition - and who could blame them, or refuse for that matter? This is the floodgates argument which was touched on slightly. We might then see enough non BPA insured people jumping at BPA centers (each time presenting a risk to the BPA insurance but not paying anything into the pot to account for the increased premium that risk will entail) to offset the reduction in exposure represented by the fact that those who would have jumped anyway on BPA temporary insurance are now no longer a risk and policy concern as they are covered by a foreign policy. That's the point that premiums will go up... assuming the insurers know what they're on about of course... and assuming they don't simply use this change as an excuse anyway. (Note I base the above on the assumption that an individual jumper is more of a risk to the BPA insurance policy than an instructor, rigger, DZO or Ops Manual etc. I suspect this is correct given the fact that we have been told the biggest impact on our policies has been jumper on jumper claims... but I can't be sure as I've not seen any figures).

Present company excepted, I'm sure - anyone who cares enough about the topic to want to discuss it would I'm sure read the proposal. I just meant I got the feeling that 90% of the room couldn't give a damn and moreover didn't actually grasp what was being asked anyway - evidenced by the fact that the majority of the questions weren't actually anything to do with allowing Germans to jump at BPA DZ's but about how they wanted British BPA members to be insured in the future.

No - we voted on the proposition put forward on that pink sheet of paper that I bet very few people bothered to read. The proposition was that all German experienced skydivers should be permitted to jump at any BPA DZ without having to pay for BPA insurance. That proposition was passed. I don't know about overnight... but I'd certainly expect it to be in effect from the start of the new financial year. There's no re-negotiating to come - the proposal was passed as written. Overall I suspect this move will actually reduce the BPA's insurance exposure. It does mean however that people will be able to use BPA services and potentially sue them for any negligent delivery of those services without having first contributed to the cost of insuring those services. This is a most unusual situation but not exactly directly harmful in itself. I have no idea if this move will drive insurance up or down - it should certainly be used by the BPA as a negotiation point with insurers to demonstrate a credible reduction in the total insurance liability presented by insuring the BPA... however it does also mean fewer people paying into the pot and thus the potential is that the fixed cost of insurance may increase for the individual independent of movements in the market. I personally doubt that there are that many people involved however and we're not really talking about that much potential for change either way. Even if the rest of Europe were to ask that the rule be applied to them I simply don't envisage hundreds of Euro skydivers coming to England each year to jump here - the skydiving holiday traffic is all going the other way. The Germans were the exception because of the BPA DZ in Germany.

I believe the max you're permitted to do per day as a student is 4. Good luck actually managing to fit 4 jumps a day in though. 2-3 is a more realistic number and then only if the weather's good and the DZ isn't incredibly busy. As far as the temp is concerned you're looking at temperature dropping by about 2deg C per 1000ft... so on pure maths it's likely to be about 7deg colder at altitude on the average static line jump than it is on the ground. A full altitude jump this could mean it is as much as 20 or 30 degrees lower than ground temperature. ie the ambient air temp is probably going to be significantly below freezing. However (big however) you then have to add in wind chill and the weather conditions which if there's a temperature inversion may even result in it being warmer at altitude than on the ground. Generally though just count on it being "significantly colder"*... it's a pretty good rule of thumb. (*sometimes simply referred to as "fookin cold"). If you're getting £20 RAPS jumps and have the commitment (and I do mean commitment as completing RAPS will mean a number of weekends sat around on a windy/rainy/busy DZ waiting for a break in the cloud or an instructor to become available) it can be a good way to get qualified and spread out the costs. AFF in the UK is very expensive and is held up by the same weather issues as RAPS. Traveling abroad takes a couple of weeks holiday and will probably cost about the same in the end. If you're serious about jumping now AFF is certainly the way to go... but that doesn't mean RAPS wont work for you... you'll certainly get a sense of achievement from it rather than perhaps the feeling that you just went and bought your licence.

AAD requirements have been revised twice recently in the UK. Firstly requiring them on demo jumps and secondly requiring them for A licensed jumpers. I am aware that both of these changes were primarily driven by insurance concerns. Demo jumps are an area of the sport which offers the greatest opportunity for interaction between jumpers and the public - as such they entail increased liability exposure for the BPA insurance into which we all pay and from which we all benefit. The level of liability exposure is directly related to the cost of insurance. If you can do something to limit or reduce that level you have a shot at reducing or mitigating any increase in the cost of insurance. Insurance costs have been a very hot topic in the UK over the past few years. A-licensed jumpers can also be, rightly or wrongly, sold to insurance companies as being those who are most likely to benefit from the assistance of an AAD. As such, making AAD use mandatory for these individuals can be a bargaining tool with insurers again mitigating any costs increase. Another factor in the BPA's decision was that virtually all A-license skydivers used an AAD anyway. As such they felt the negative impact of the requirement would only be felt by a very few people, while the positive impact of reduced insurance costs which we all pay would be felt by the entire skydiving community. While these are the considerations within the BPA only, the same mechanisms may well be at work in many other countries. Hurling 200lb sacks of meat at people's houses is a dangerous business - the cost of third party insurance can be a big factor in the regulations adopted by national bodies, especially where the national body has a hand in the provision of that insurance.

Do you even bother to read the posts to which you respond? I mean, ever? The article itself says: "Ohio and Michigan have similar laws in place.". So no, I have no problem differentiating between States such as Ohio and Michigan where this law is already in place and States such as Florida where this law is being debated. Well I dunno man... all I've done is posted an article which reads: "The bill also says police "may stop any vehicle that bears a DUI plate without probable cause to check the driver." Seriously mate, read the article before you pass comment on it; it will save us all a lot of time and you a lot of embarrassment. You caught yourself out by displaying your own ignorance because you couldn't be bothered to actually read the article I posted for you before responding. Everything you think you caught me on is actually in the post you've replied to and is there to prove you wrong. Read the article Jeffrey. It says the plates are current law in at least two other States. It also says the Bill wants them to be of themselves, sufficient cause for a cop to stop the driver. Just scroll up and read it - it's that grey bar on the right. Just here --->

A ban was called for by a doctor when writing in the BMJ. That is not a "serious proposal" by anyone of any political importance and it is certainly not being "floated" anywhere of any political importance. It was merely a medical report in a medical journal read by medics. There was no ban called for by politicians. There was no lobbying. There were no motions tabled. It featured in no manifesto. Nothing was said in either houses of Parliament. The Home office did not give it "serious consideration" but as pointed out in the quotation you provide above they simply said: "Home Office spokesperson said there were already extensive restrictions in place to control the sale and possession of knives." ie they dismissed the suggestion out of hand. You of all people should really be able to tell the difference between a political proposition considered by governing parties and someone writing a journalistic article in a professional circular. If I wrote an article for the magazine "Counsel" arguing the legality of an invasion of Iran, no one in their right mind would suggest that the UK was considering such a move simply based on the existence of my little article. Especially not after the Governments only response to the article was a statement saying; "Iran is quite well contained and working within a diplomatic process".