mr2mk1g

Remember the statistics you quote are from 10 years ago. 10 years ago officers wanted more armed response units. That's happened. The 80% figure given as the percentage of officers who don't want to be armed is from only 2003. Randomly arming the odd beat cop who wants a gun is a really bad idea. Either they should be armed or the shouldn't. I believe the best people to ask about that are the police - 57% of them evidently feel strong enough about the issue that they would take industrial action if we asked them to carry firearms; 80% of them don't want to be armed; 5% already are; Police Superintendents don't think the remaining 15% are right and won't back them. I don't think there's much more to say on the issue.

John, remember that survey was conducted over 10 years ago. Since that survey was conducted many of its 'recommendations' have been acted upon. We have now (as the survey requests) trained far more police in the use of firearms. We also have armed response units in every city as requested by the survey. These are areas which could be improved upon even further if the police still feel that 10 years on there is a need for more it. The fact that between 1993 and 1995 42% of police officers felt their life is in serious danger simply mirrors the much higher rate of fatal assaults against police officers than we have experienced during the last 10 years. I also note you highlight the fact that 43% would carry if required to. The converse of that of course is that 57%, more than half the country's police force, would not be prepared to carry even if required to do so. If that's the case what would we see happen were police required to carry? Would we see a national strike of police officers? Would more than half the force walk out of their positions over night? That more than half the police in the country would not be prepared to wear a firearm even if required to do so is an immensely strong statement about their wishes. Regarding stun guns: you're 2 and a half years late on that one: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2955019.stm I wouldn't have a problem extending their use across the force if the police feel it would be useful, but then I certainly don't fall into the anti-gun crowd. You'll have to wait on them for their answer.

wow that's a long bit of tape. The tape on mine is literally a fraction of that lenght. I see now why you're so worried by the design.

Hi mike. I'll answer the question you posted. 1) 80% of police don't feel they need guns. I realize that your question is not do they want one but should they have one but I feel it does have to come into things. I simply couldn't support forcing the police to carry guns when they don't feel they need them. 2) The status quo appears to be working pretty well. In the last 10 years we've had 1 bobby murdered by some twat of a Yank on a trip over here (now extended indefinitely at Her Majesty's pleasure) who pulled his .45 on a couple of traffic cops who'd pulled him over and now we've had another bobby murdered by a couple of twattish illegal immigrant Somalis. Even if you extend the cause of deaths to those bobbies killed with other kinds of weapons you only have another 3 murders in those 10 years! So in total that's 1 police officer killed once every 2 years through an assault. Of course that's not perfect... but there are very few countries in the world, (especially with such large urban populations), who can point to such low fatality rates. While God knows there are problems with the system, as there is with any - there's got to be something seriously right about our policing policy for such low rates to be maintained. I've said many times before on this site that the biggest influence on British gun crime is illegal immigration and migration. It seems the statistics on who's killing our cops only serves to back up that assertion. I personally favor taking steps towards dealing with the damned immigrants who think it's acceptable to come here and fuck up my country.

If you're talking about the one in Goose's post 5 reply's up - they also come in metal.

I enjoy it. Had a little bit of fun this morning... sensibly of course. When I was younger I lived up north and used to get snow/ice every year. That part of the country (UK) is covered in hundreds of old bomber stations from WWII. Unlike the fighter bases you get down south, bomber bases have long concrete runways and large concrete aprons.... these freeze over very easily and make fantastic skidpans. After spending many many hours pirouetting round those old airfields for fun I'm quite comfortable with driving in horrible conditions. It saddens me that where I live now (South of England) the roads all grind to a halt the moment you see the first speck of snow. You've just got to be sensible... gridlocked roads because of 2-3 snow flakes just demonstrates the fact that everyone's a tard and can't drive.

Ditto - I cleverly removed both hook knives from my rigs coming back from Russia earlier this year. Rather less cleverly I somehow thought that putting them in a pocket of my rig bag was the best idea... which of course was what I was carrying my rigs onto the plane with. They still never noticed them, despite going through two airports and what I can only describe as the toughest security I've experienced anywhere while enplaning in Moscow. ... then again I'm sure we've all read posts by people who have had their knives confiscated... and on the way out there my teammate got a bottle opener confiscated from inside his wallet.

love that knife (immediately above this post). Have two. Hate the benchmade in your first post. Have two. Gave one away, the other sits in my gear bag and gets to save my real hook knives from being used on bungees etc round the packing hall.

The Wings cutaway pad is almost identical to the Wings deployment pud and you can grab them in exactly the same way: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=19838; If his gloves caused him to drop his pud - they can cause him to drop his cutaway pad. I wouldn't wear those gloves irrespective of what main deployment system was used.

Just to update you on this; it looks as though there is a motion before the House of Commons which will formally demand that No. 10 publish the record of the conversation in question. The contention is that it is not being withheld for national security reasons but to save political embarrassment.

What's "it"? Are you asking about what happens after the RSL pulls on the reserve cable? Remember most RSL lanyards simply terminate in a ring through which the reserve cable passes rather than actually being attached to anything. If the RSL lanyard pulls on a cable which has one end through the reserve loop and the other end is free floating and attached to nothing (because you've pulled the end off the cable)... it's possible the whole cable will simply come out of the housing and trail behind you as the ring on the end of the RSL lanyard slides up the cable. What you're hoping for is that the resistance of the cable being pulled through the housing is greater than the resistance the reserve loop exerts on the reserve pin. I wouldn't want to hang my hopes on that alone. But then... that swadge is not exactly likely to come off the end in the first place... so I hope this whole thing is just theoretical for us.

How are you going to be able to pull your cutaway handle if you can't pull a main deployment handle? They're almost identical in design and there's a significant risk your cutaway handle may need considerably more force to pull it. Your decision regarding your gloves should not be limited to the use of a pud. In other words, it doesn't sound like it was the pud at fault but your choice of gloves.

I prefer People who Eat Tardish Activists

Assuming the information in the article is correct; I have to admit one does have to wonder how two individuals can be tried for a breach of the Official Secrets Act for leaking the memo unless memo itself is in fact genuine...

John has already confirmed that is indeed his exact belief. See here for example: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1177162#1177162 It is a point upon which he and I fully agree. Pretty much our only point of disagreement is in relation to what perceived problem Parliament was attempting to solve.

Common cameras the same size as your pc100 are the pc110, pc120, pc330 and pc350. Slightly smaller are the pc9, pc101, pc105 etc. Slightly smaller again are the new PC109 type cameras which require a docking station. There are many other models which represent variants of those listed above. Most variants simply lack a memory stick or firewire but are otherwise the same. All of these are also discontinued but a search for them on places like e-bay will turn up second hand ones or even brand new old stock. I think the pc1000 is the only current sony pc style camera. It's a very high spec model though with a CMOS sensor (like in Canon digital cameras) instead of a CCD sensor but it is roughly the same size as your pc100 I think. I'd personally go for one of the just discontinued models I list above. They're cheaper and have all the features you need... in fact they generally have more features than Sony's current selection. Other than that Sony appear to be pusching their HC style cameras at the mo. These are half way in between a PC style camera and a TRV style camera. They're a jumpable size but are different dimentions to your pc100 so you might need to look at helmet mods.

He was of Austrian heritage - get over it.

Or Confucius. "Man with lower wingloading exist on higher plain." Or maybe, "He who buy small canopy, ensures small reward".

It's got less to do with morality and more to do with not causing explosions the morning after the night before in your WWI munitions factory (which is the origin of our 11pm closing time). I'm glad the govt. has finally realised we no longer have many people filling artillery rounds by hand in this country.

I think it is *most likely* going to solve many of the problems. I think that those who complain most vociferously about the possible negative results of this change have not themselves participated in Friday/Saturday night down-town drinking in many many years if ever. I have been out drinking. I know what goes on. I've also had a continental girlfriend and note her observations on UK drinking habits and the problems they cause. 1) People drink fast because they have to get their booze in before "time" is called. People buy a number of drinks when "time" is called to see them through to drinking up time. When drinking up time is called hundreds of people spill out onto the pavement all at once. 2) People don't go home when they want - they simply wait till closing time them everyone goes home at once. This leads to general congestion and arguments over cabs/kebabs. If there was no fixed closing time people would simply go when they got tired. This would lead to a staggered leaving time and there would be far fewer people competing over the same services. 3) People start drinking much earlier than they do on the continent. Here it's not unusual for people to hit the pubs straight after work. There's little wonder they're pissed of their faces by 2am if they've been drinking since 5pm. If they could stay out later they could go home and eat there before heading out later as they do on the continent. It is not unusual for people to not head out to the club till going on what would be a UK pub's kicking out time. I adopted this timescale for a while during my relationship with the continental young lady (as there have long been a limited number of clubs in the UK with licenses to stay open right through the night. This is where the continental folks tend to congregate as it matches their home timescales. Go out later and you end up more sober at 2am. By 5am there aren't the crowds where trouble starts because the majority of people have drifted home in small numbers during the night. 4) It's been this way now in Scotland for some time as well as in certain test cities in England. It's worked very well there. I say *most likely* at the start because I may be wrong – I can't see into the future after all. But then this legislation will be subject to review. If it's not working things will go back to the way they were. (sorry: above = brain dump).

That is one method of dealing with the situation where enough altitude is present. PD seems to recommend that for situations where you have a side-by-side formation or where the canopies keep trying to go into a downplane. I don't think there's a perfect solution however for each scenario you can come up with. It's probably one of those things where you can do everything right (once you've made the error of putting yourself in the situation of course) and still die. The best thing to do is to sit down and talk the whole thing through with an instructor or badger your DZ into holding a seminar on the subject. Take a look here: http://www.performancedesigns.com/docs/dualsq.pdf - generally considered the most authoritative source on the topic... although the data may be somewhat outdated for some jumpers given the types of canopies they were using for the tests.

Yes - just the threat... like this IIRC:

I solve the problem by reading all the threads I wish to look at in a specific forum and avoid clicking on any I do not have time to fully explore. Only posts in forums you look at are marked as read. If you open up gear and rigging for example your unread posts on safety will remain unread forevermore. (at least that's how it works for me). This way if I have only a little time I might read only the camera forum. If on the other hand I have ages in front of the PC before I need to go anywhere I might open the general skydiving forum for example. Any forums I click on I make sure I fully explore because I know they will be wiped clean if I log off. This way when I log off, those forums I've not specifically clicked on remain unread and I am safe to come back to them at a later date/log in without missing anything.

You're not the only one who's gonna read my post.

Not really. I was just pointing out that for the first time Bush has actually achnowledged that mankind is influencing climate change.