mr2mk1g

I know Wings come shipped with Cazar PC's... I take it Sunrise add handles on to PC's they buy in? Are you saying the handle should be sewn directly onto the PC (with reinforcing inside) and nothing between handle and the PC?

Forget about your arms. Don't try to produce forward movement by putting them behind you - if you learn to fly by relying on your arms you will only have to re-learn everything when you want to start taking docks.

A friend did a similar thing. He spent a couple of hours going through reserve drills on the ground and procedures etc before being told to go do a solo which was observed. After that he was on his own. It might be like that for you... they may want you to do a jump or two with an instructor... but I doubt it would be much given how experienced you were when you got out of the sport. ... I have to admit though it would probably be quite funny to do a FJC and not tell them you possibly more experienced than the instructor... But yeah, just take all docs you have along and they'll get you in the air pretty quickly one way or another.

Well the IPCC say the Met "resisted" their involvement in the first couple of days of the investigation. I personally still don't know yet if there's anything wrong with that in itself. It's perfectly acceptable IMO for a police force to want to investigate a terrorist event without people getting under their feet... obviously the problem is they really should have known by Saturday that Menezes was not linked to terrorism (they'd said in the press he wasn't linked to the Tube bombings already) and the op should be turned over to the IPCC... why wasn't it? Were there still unanswered questions? Perhaps they thought he was linked to other terrorist cells? Or were they trying to get in the way of the IPCC? I don't know yet... it certainly requires further investigation... but I don't think we need to be slinging ropes over gallows just yet.

what's that phrase... "If you're gonna be dumb you better be tough".

Are you suggesting that it's too dangerous to jump without a cypres and that if this guy didn't have one he should ground himself? I'm not saying Cypres's are great tools, we should all use them because they could easily save any one of our lives... but if they're the thing that tips skydiving into the "not too dangerous" catagory for this guy then maybe the sport's not for him. There ought not be anything wrong with going on any given jump without a cypres. If there is, then that jump is too dangerous and you shouldn't be making it in the first place - with or without a cypres.

It was a joke... if I thought you were really suffering from a victim complex I wouldn't be making light of it on a forum with a piccy... I'd have posted a real link

If I throw I knife up in the air and stick my foot out is whether or not it stabs me in the toe down to luck or down to a complex series of factors including how much force I put into the spin of the knife, how high I threw it, how far away, how much cross wind there is, how far I stuck my foot out, how heavy the knife is, where its balance point, its length, air density etc etc etc ? I'm pretty sure that if you spent long enough working through the sums and measured everything precisely you could work out exactly where that knife was going to land and how on any given throw. Luck doesn’t come into it; it's just beyond the comprehension of people who lack the skills to perform the necessary calculations. Similarly if I could accurately and measure every single variable in the spinning of a bunch of lottery balls, their interaction with one another and the paddles, I could accurately predict the call of the lottery. The fact that I can’t is not because luck has anything at all to do with it, but because I currently lack the computative power to measure and analyse all those trillions of variables. Therefore stupid people think it's luck. "Luck" in all its forms is just a way of explaining the difficult to explain in supernatural terms which are easier for people to handle and get along with. So yes – its all because of stupid people.

The one thing that really does back up the way the police dealt with at least the immediate aftermath of the error is the contemporaneous reports by members of the public. People who were on the train gave statements to the waiting media less than an hour after the shooting. They played a number of those last night on the radio. Some clearly stated that Menezes was running, was challenged by the police and was wearing a big puffy jacket. Now I'm well aware that witness evidence can be absolutely appalling at times (mores the pitty), and it would appear that this is one of them as security camera footage quite simply directly contradicts those reports... but those were the reports the police given to police. I can hardly criticise them for intially putting a degree of weight on them. So when we have statements by the police that he was running and wearing a puffy jacket... I can't blame them entirely for making statements in line with the evidence eyewitnesses had given them. One does have to wonder though why they simply didn't check with their own officers first... although you could argue that if you want appear to be impartial don't give an officers account, give an eyewitness account.

Yes I thought it would be possible to find such reports. Remember though the pertinent date is not the date on which the police concluded he was not connected with the tube bombings on 21/7 but that he was not connected with terrorist suspects in general. As I said though... one does have to wonder what the reason behind the delay was if it is not the case that the police were actively investigating his involvement with some kind of terrorist cell.

From my limited knowledge of police shootings it's normally more like hours (if that) before the IPCC gets going. As for when they stated Menezes had nothing to do with the bombings... I don't recall the exact chain of events - a search of newspaper reports would provide that quite quickly though. The material date is when the police decided Menezes wasn't anything to do with others who were suspected terrorists living in the same building as that which Menezes departed from.

Bear in mind the IPCC investigation must start within 4 days. It is true that they usually start straight away but the fact that this one only started after 3 days is not of itself instantly an issue. In circumstances where the police are investigating what they may well have initially believed was a terrorist attempt to blow up a tube and latterly thought the deceased could have been linked to active terrorists then I can imagine it being important that the police retain control of the situation initially... Then again I can see that there is the possibility for this delay to have been an attempt to derail an enquiry which would otherwise have gone on to expose serious police and or security services bungling for which heads would have rolled. The important thing is that we realize that a delay in the commencement of the investigation on its own is not actually indicative of anything thus it is essential that we don't allow our objectivity to be swayed by it until we know more about the story.

How does the status of your AAD affect your skydiving priorities?

Dude... seriously... contact these people...

If you're worried about costs but tempted by the 350D (canon XT) the 300D is a compromise. It lacks a little in the fps dept but other than that it's all but identical to the XT and only shy 1.7 megapixel (6.3 ought to be enough usually anyway)... for this you get to save several hundred bucks.

Bit of a controversial subject this, even for the Speakers Corner. The Mods better watch things don't get out of hand. Marmite is clearly superior in all aspects to Vegimite. Vegimite shares more with Bovril in my opinion. It's also noteworthy that Australian and NZ Marmite is significantly inferior to British Marmite. It is also the constancy of Bovril and indeed looses much of the classic Marmite flavor in favor of a kind of salty, flavorless chocolate spread. You can't make a fair comparison unless you put British Marmite against Ozzie Vegimite. In the UK we can purchase both... sadly you can't say the same for our antipodean friends. If I had my way, everyone of our cousins down there would be given a free issue of British Marmite to enable them to sample the delicacy. Even if they decided it was not for them (as lets face it, many do) they would at least have been able to perform a fair comparison. My two good NZ friends were stunned by the difference between our and their Marmite. They wish never again to go back to the interloper substitute they know from back home.

How many people would turn up to watch rappellers? How many TV trucks would turn up to film an empty bridge?

Trashiest one's are lower belly tattoos. I keep thinking one of the secretaries at my firm walks round with a tuft of pubes sticking out above her trousers... actually just a tattoo partly on show... personally I wouldn't want to give people that impression but hey, whatever floats her boat.

Cheers - I thought that might be the way it worked out.

Which country are you intending to jump in? If you're going to the US then look to Tom's answer. If you're based somewhere in Europe then the requirements can vary from country to country... most though are roughly similar.

Hi and welcome to the sport. Did you have a problem when you went to jump with breathing through your nose? Were you ill with something which caused your sinuses to be blocked up? I learnt not to ever jump if I couldn't breathe clearly. It caused a lot of pain when I did once and forced a lot of mucus into my inner ears affecting my hearing for days. You always risk a perforated eardrum if you jump when suffering from a cold/flu. It's a known complication of jumping when you really should have decided to stay on the ground with a hot drink. The simple answer is don't ever jump if you can't breathe freely through your nose (or if you have other sinus problems). And I'm afraid you're going to have to wait till you're fully healed before doing your level 4.

Are you still planning to run through the night for at an off-off-peak rate or do the ecconomics not work out like that?

I've lost mine too! It was the one from my first rig which I cut off after the bridle died. I put 100 jumps on the pin and now I've lost it. I lost mine somewhere in Russia. I don't think I'll get it back.

Yes there are. The main dangerous move you'll see referred to is a "low turn" or "panic turn" or "hook turn" or a [badly performed] "swoop". These are all different but essentially each involves turning the canopy when it is inappropriate to do so. When a canopy turns it can lose altitude dramatically. It doesn’t take a whiz kid to figure out that a dramatic loss of altitude when you are close to the ground is going to hurt – ergo a turn close to the ground is going to hurt. So why do people do it? One reason is they make a mistake – for example a "panic turn" is exactly that – someone gets wrong footed and out of panic, turns their canopy when it is unsafe to do so. The answer to this is not to get in a situation where you can be wrong footed, DON'T PANIC (D.A. again) and to use safer control mechanisms such as a "flat", "flair" or "braked turn" (you'll be trained in these)... but then mistakes will happen. They key is to try and train yourself out of those mistakes before you run out of luck. Another reason people turn low to the ground is that performing a "swoop" is fun, challenging and visually impressive; therefore people want to do them. A "swoop" is essentially turning and diving your canopy towards the ground and pulling out at an altitude designed to allow the canopy to return to level flight parallel with and relative to the ground. All that energy from the dive is transferred into horizontal speed allowing the jumper to shoot along, dragging a toe across the grass or pond. Again it doesn’t take a whiz kid to work out that if you misjudge the height of your turn you don't end up looking cool dragging a toe across the grass but rather your femur and pelvis. Once more you're in a world of hurt. People are still willing to take this risk though because as I said it is rewarding and challenging... just like other elements of skydiving. Some may think it is a needless risk to swoop... but on the other hand there's no need for us to take the risk of getting out of the plane at all. Incidents happen with intentional low turns for two major reasons. One is that people just sometimes screw up regardless of how much skill and experience they have. Mistakes will always happen and there's very little room for mistakes in swooping. Jumpers minimise the likelihood of making an error by gaining a lot of skill and experience before they start to swoop. This then leads to the second kind of intentional turn injury: The jumper who has started trying to swoop long before they obtain the skills and experience necessary to perform them safely. They may get it right a few times out of luck but eventually they screw up and hurt themselves. The answer here therefore is not to try swoop manoeuvres before you have the skills to pull them off. i.e. Don't be this person. Hope all that helps.

Like this? I love how the canopy is straining at the line attachment points... not fun. btw the guy's fine... and he just forgot to uncolapse it.