DrewEckhardt

Coordinated turns where the aircraft is flying in the direction it's pointed (this is obviously more aerodynamically efficient than flying it sideways) mean the gravity vector is perpindicular to the floor just like it is on the ground. To help the pilot out there's a turn coordinator or other indicator with a little ball in a curved tube. You roll the aircraft and apply enough rudder to keep the ball centered.

Jump until you've done normal skydiving things like building formations in the body position of your choice. If you still like it once you're past the student phase, can live with a sport that's unforgiving of the wrong mistakes and may still kill you if you do everything right, have the time, and have the money (used gear isn't too out of line with things like inexpensive motorcycles, and definitely beats sports like boating) or can find it (really motivated people have paid for their skydiving habit packing parachutes for $60 an hour) it's a sport for you.

You mean snug-fit from Colorado?

Digikey sells them for 28 cents each. Act fast, they only have 375,515 in stock. Small orders (under $25 IIRC) have a $5 surcharge but shipping costs are real reasonable. This is the sort of thing you really want to buy from an electronics company that sells gajillions of the things to people building widgets for resale. As a normal consumer product, you might spend a buck or two each for them. At a DZ where they're special, you might spend as much as $4 each.

I never got more than 200-250 jumps out of my Spectra Stiletto steering lines before they shrunk unacceptably, and added 6" beyond the shrunken state the last time I replaced them. Subsequent measurements of the outer lines on the canopy showed 5-6" of shrinkage in ~600 jumps. Obviously canopies with longer lines will suffer more. The steering lines see friction around the guide ring during normal flight so they shrink more than the outer lines. The lines may have started a few inches short of where they need to be to avoid tail deflection during front riser input. They may have shrunk a few inches more. If your only problem is steering line length, 1/2" may be way short of what you need. What shape do the brake lines make when the toggles are all the way up? You want the tail to be straight with a nice arc to the control lines. If you shorten them and don't get a decent flare at altitude, you can take a couple wraps around the first few fingers (a whole handful might be too much). Obviously, people making these sorts of changes need to assume all responsibility for their actions. I'm just relaying what I did that worked for me on one particular canopy. My Samurai has vectran steering lines that don't shrink. Given a choice I'd probably put Dacron steering lines on with a cat-eye for the brake stow so I'd have lines that didn't shrink and didn't abrade as easily. Dacron is fatter than heavy Vectran or Spectra, although you're only looking at 2 out of 20 lines so the aerodynamic consequences should be minimal. You don't want your steering lines to break and don't want weird handling characteristics on front risers.

The problem there is that Mr. Bill jumps can lead to bad body position on opening which in turn leads to line twists and spinning openings which combine to form cutaways. You don't want that. Things can get especially exciting if Mr. Bill climbs on Sluggo's shoulders and pulls on lines. You really don't want that. If you want to do a Mr. Bill (I admit that my sense of adventure is bigger than my sense of self preservation and to having done a successful Mr. Bill under a Stiletto 120 with 350+ pounds of suspended weight) you want a low exit speed so the opening forces are reasonable (an Otter is better than a King Air) and a big door (Otter again) so Sluggo and Mr, Bill can exit nice and stable with Sluggo pitching as soon as the pair are clear of the aircraft with a reasonablly low deployment speed. The ideal canopy would be square (line twists probably won't cause it to spin up) and slow opening, like a Triathalon. I got major line twists on a Mr. Bill out of a King Air with my Batwing 134, and if it had been my Stiletto it would have definitely spun up and needed chopping. On any other day the Batwing might have spun-up, and the Samurai might have. You don't want that. Personally, if I was doing Mr. Bills under a small canopy and wanted a steeper glide path I'd try a 2:1 system on the front risers and if I couldn't hold that for long enough build a 4:1 system (top-ring from the 2:1, add a bottom ring, and then run the line through another ring just below the top ring)

Skydiving is an inherently dangerous sport. There are accepted standards of conduct. If you follow those practices (6 minute "main" pack job instead of 60 minute "reserve"; students have all safety equipment required by the USPA BSRs) and some one still dies there isn't any negligence and the waver should hold up The current standards don't call for a MARD device like the sky-hook. Gross negligence (the student's reserve has a hole all the way through the container, free bag, and reserve; the reserve hasn't been repacked for a year in violation of the FARs; and it blows up because of the negligence) is the only place where we should expect the waivers to be invalid.

Personally, I don't care whether my money is going to Boeing or Cadillac driving welfare queens. Either way I'd rather it be funding my retirement (especiallly with people who bothered to save for their retirement being increasingly likely to be excluded from Social Security), covering my children's college education, or even buying more beer. I would really prefer the government not take my money in the first place, but given that they do, I'd rather it go to people who need it more rather than people who need it less. If I have my choice between giving my money to a single, unemployed mom or a fat defense contractor or his mercenaries, or someone who borrowed too much money to invest in real estate they don't need, I'll choose the mom every time. Blues, Dave Sure, if it's the same amount of money being redistributed it's better if it goes to the people who need it. Any one who can make the same money on or off welfare doesn't need it. Boeing's share holders and eemployees will be fine with or without a $100B tanker contract although they may not be working for the same company (having worked for two companies in the last decade which ran out of money I'll even feel sympathy if that happens).

At my office we have a standing lunch order picked up by the company. It's actually less expensive for the company that way. When you have to pay for your own lunch, you make sure it's some place tasty even if it is cheap (like the second closest tacuqeria) but spend a half hour of not-working walking (or driving) there and back. When it's free you take what you get, spend no time getting there, and just work in your office. A half of work is a lot more valuable than a modestly priced lunch.

Personally, I don't care whether my money is going to Boeing or Cadillac driving welfare queens. Either way I'd rather it be funding my retirement (especiallly with people who bothered to save for their retirement being increasingly likely to be excluded from Social Security), covering my children's college education, or even buying more beer (since working too hard again I'm averaging over 100 beers a month)

I as a conservitive, Dont want to give my money to any of the lazy liberals I pay more in taxes every year then the average american makes Which is exactly why you shouldn't be a Republican. Bush 43's tax cuts made the tax system even more progressive with high income earners' share of the tax burden increasing. Under Bush 43 discretionary non-defense spending has increased a greater percentage thanthe last two Democratic presidents managed. Comparatively speaking Clinton was a fiscal conservative; the guy even shutdown the government until we had an allegedly balanced budget. Reagan should be spinning in his grave.

They're registered in the Experimental Exhibition category which prohibits "For hire" operation. I've heard that parachute operations are prohibited in such aircraft, although FAR 91.319 is silent on the matter. The convention also had an AN-2 at least one year. Assuming parachute ops are OK AN-2s and Comp Airs (like a Porter, but built from fiberglass with a Czech PT-6 knock-off) might make nice planes for skydiving clubs where members share operating costs. OTOH, supposedly there is an Alaskan who bought one to haul his own stuff that got in trouble because he was no longer using the commercial services of the local bush-pilots.

You buy it used in the size that's appropriate now so you don't swear too much when packing. Jumping rental gear until you arrive at a 1 pound/square foot wing loading may be a better option or not. I spent $700 on the last used container I bought including the reserve and had it delivered within the week. With a 40% discount the last new container was over $1000 for the container, another $800 for the reserve, and it took 5-6 months to get built and delivered.

Stop making babies. All this crap will stop in a little over a hundred years.

Yes. That's what you pay for the convienience of having the newest movies and TV shows sent directly to your computer, without waiting for the postman, without sitting through commercials. Personally, I figure that if something is good enough to be worth watching it's good enough to wait for the DVD to be released, manufactured, and shipped to the mailbox nailed to the wall next to my front door. When I suddenly decide I want to watch something it can wait the 2-3 days it takes to return something to Netflix and get a new DVD. We're down to 351 discs in the Netflix queue and 24 in the saved list (mostly older films they've run out of, although there are five series we've been watching after they've been on television and Unbox) If you have a computer with a DVD drive you could even break the law, rip the DVDs, and send them back to Netflix so you can watch them while the next DVD is in the mail.

For only $8.99 a month you're getting the on-line equivalent of basic cable although it's less expensive and you don't have commercials. If you want newer material you'll need to use Amazon's Unbox which is more like pay-per view, with new material running $1.99-$3.99. You could just get a DVD subscription and plan ahead.

At least 1/8 bobcat. Should grow into the paws.

Yup and with a gun around in that case at least 2 people would have been dead. You are right, that is a much better tally isn't it..... With a gun in the hands of a good guy, the other dead person would have been the looney with the knife, so that one doesn't count. And that would have ensured that he couldn't continue to kill others. That would be a good thing, believe it or not, even though it would involve the use of a gun. The loony probably would have lived. Gun shot wounds from handguns aren't even lethal 20% of the time. Since the most lethal aspect of a gunshot wound is blood loss, prompt medical attention following the 911 call he probably would have lived to stand trial. ROFLMAO. What planet do you live on? If I shoot you I guarantee you have a 99.999999999 % chance of dying. You can take that to the bank. Planet Earth, as in real life not Holywood. On the receiving side, Joseph Guzman was shot by police _16 times_ and lived. Plenty of people shot fewer times survive. On the sending end, the objective is to stop the hostilities. If I have to shoot some one I'll fire at their center of mass until they longer pose a threat - one round or ten (I moved to California). You want to save your ammo in case there's another nut case around and don't want to cross the line from self defense to something else.

Increasing the money supply by whatever means including buying treasury securities (they literally create new money to buy the securities), reducing the deposit reserve requirements (if a I deposit $X with a bank which is only required to have 10% of X on deposit, they can loan out .9X so the total money is now 1.9X. This gets multiplied as money gets re-deposited and re-lent), Depending on what parts you measure, the money supply was about $5.2T or 8T including large time deposits in 2001. As of 2007 the money supply was 7T when you don't include large time deposits, and in 2005 M3 had exceeded 10T with a 9% annaulized rate of increase. The Fed then stopped reporting M3 claiming "it wasn't useful". Depending on whose estimates believe, our money supply may be increasing at 10% per year. Real GDP increases might be 4% annually. When they money goes up that much faster than what it represents you have inflation and a devalued currency.

Yup and with a gun around in that case at least 2 people would have been dead. You are right, that is a much better tally isn't it..... With a gun in the hands of a good guy, the other dead person would have been the looney with the knife, so that one doesn't count. And that would have ensured that he couldn't continue to kill others. That would be a good thing, believe it or not, even though it would involve the use of a gun. The loony probably would have lived. Gun shot wounds from handguns aren't even lethal 20% of the time. Since the most lethal aspect of a gunshot wound is blood loss, prompt medical attention following the 911 call he probably would have lived to stand trial.

I get about 35 miles of bicycling per gallon of beer (which is mostly water).

Lousy earnings. Exxon is barely managing half the profit margin that Intel gets (1.6B/9.5B in revenue for the quarter) and their price (per share) to earnings ratio is lower too. If I were Exxon I'd be embarassed about my performance. If I had Exxon stock I'd want the board replaced. If expensive gasoline pisses you off 1) Blame the governent. Foreign goods like oil cost over 50% more than when Bush 43 was elected. Printing money isn't good for the value of your currency. 2) Blame the price speculators. The commodities market means up to 20 times more oil is being "sold" than actually exists. The demand driving prices may be 95% artificial due to commodities traders. 3) Blame the government. Instability in the middle east drives the speculators. 4) Blame the two billion Chinese and Indians for being too damn American. Those people want to drive cars like us and are even having traffic jams! 2000 million of them will need a lot more oil than just 300 million of us as they approach similar rates of car ownership.

A&B license holders who aren't jumping by themselves. The rest of us who are being sensible about separation and opening altitudes with modern canopies. USPA recommends break-off 1500 feet above the highest opening altitude for groups of 5 or less. The BSRs require A and B license holders to open no lower than 3000 feet, and even as a D license holder you want to open that high when you're jumping an agressive canopy so you can get back to the DZ with enough altitude to fly a high performance approach or wait for people who want to race to land first and get out of your way. I also like to be able to cutaway, flip right side up, cuss, and then deploy my reserve following a violent spinning malfunction. Add 1500 feet for a 4 way to 3000 feet for minium opening altitude and you have 4500 feet.

Sure. Most people get into skydiving because it's exciting. Smaller parachutes are more exciting to fly and land. Classic accuracy with an optimal wing-loading around .7 pounds/square foot is also fun too but in a different way. Backing up or coming straight down with strong uppers isn't a problem; you just need to make sure your spot is far enough up wind.

Nah. My last startup CEO was a mountain climber (Himilayas with Sherpas and stuff) and we had other management driving Porsche Cup cars. Only risk takers win big with billion dollar market caps.