DrewEckhardt

I wasn't knocking American beer. There is good American beer, e.g.: http://www.newbelgium.com/index.php New Belgium makes average micro-brews. The styles are uninteresting (which does make for a bigger market, since they're not going to offend any one) and specific recipies just OK. I'd buy stock in the company but not use them to stock my fridge. Left Hand's Saw Tooth (Ordinary Bitter) is a more flavorful and enjoyable style than New Belgium's Fat Tire (Belgian Amber?) without having too much body. If you do want an amber or copper ale unlikely to challenge a light beer drinker's palate Boulder Beer's Single Track is crisper and IMHO better tasting American Amber. While not a Belgian Amber it's close enough for comparison purposes. Actually, they're mass-produced knock offs of Czech and German beer. Real American styles like American Strong Ale are what British Beers styles like India Pale Ales aspire to be when they grow up. It's amazing what a few decades of modern research can add to centuries of brewing tradition.

The cutaway is a crapshoot. Lots of time they land on the dropzone. They're fine landing in high winds. You just need to read Brian's instruction manual which tells you how to deal with it (basically diving the canopy into the ground so it lands on its topskin and just floats there). I jump a Samurai. It's not a full size; about 5% more which is within normal manufacturing variances for canopies. Seems less than the difference between a Spectre and Sabre. Brian used to use 0-3 CFM on the ribs which helps get the air out when packing, you'd have to check and see if that's still the case.

Unless the government legislation requiring the bracelets includes a provision that prohibits such suits so they stand a chance at getting a company to produce the bracelets with an acceptable price tag.

Maintain common areas and enforce standards to maintain property values that are stricter than local ordinances (ex: people have to mow their lawns) with bigger penalties for non compliance. Some people have nothing meaningful to do with their lives so they meddle instead. Daily fines until you comply. Repaint the property and bill you for it. Seize the property and sell it at auction to cover the resulting debt if you don't pay.

Better glide ratio to get back from long spots and for better penetration into winds, lower stall speeds so the broken, fat, and/or old among us don't have to run as fast when we have a less than perfect landing with a tail wind.

I've put hundreds of jumps on my Samurai 105 and it's just not a problem. You just have to read the instruction manual. In high winds you dive the canopy into the ground and land it on its topskin with the nose facing you. You can stow your brakes and let it float there until you walk over and deal with collapsing it. A fully rigid wing would do the same thing. After that you just need to run the slider up the lines and yank on the tail a few times to get a reasonable amount of air out. The "ears" will be fluffier once you have your pro-pack on the ground but not unmanageably huge. In lower winds you just land the canopy on its side. It'll collapse like an accordion about like a non air-locked canopy and not take appreciably more work to pack than any other ZP canopy. Either way (low or high wind deflation) it's still a 6-7 minute pack job when you don't rush things which is plenty fast when airplanes take 20 minutes to turn around. Some one will have to work out a dump valve system that lets the air out fast but it shouldn't be an issue.

Something in the 320 square foot range will work nicely. It won't have much forward speed when you get slammed into the ground and will have a lot of drag so that even if it's not flying it will set you down softer. At contemporary skydiving wingloadings the right answer is to just avoid turbulence. A square canopy may be less likely to spin you into the ground, but it can't stop as well as a more modern tapered design so you'll be more likely to break something landing out on an uneven surface where you can't run or slide as well.

The same technique used to manage airlocked canopies should work fine.

Aren't those called air-locked canopies, like those made by Brian Germain? No. We're talking about deployable inflatable rigidizable wings. The inflatable leading edge on some kite surfing kites would be the closest consumer example. Something like this: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/plane-inflatable-wing-01a.html http://www.ilcdover.com/products/aerospace_defense/uavwings.htm We'd go faster and farther swooping with hang-glider like aerodynamics.

If a mere $460 matters to you, you might worry more about the thousands of dollars price difference between good used gear (which may mean having a new harness installed on a container) and new gear plus the thousand plus you spend on gear rentals waiting for a popular manufacturer to deliver. Especially since those of us who suffer from testosterone poisoning can be ready for a new container+reserve in 400 jumps (2-3 years) even when downsizing no faster than Brian Germain's WNE chart, at which point it's easier to compete on the used gear market with nice ~$1500 used container + reserve sales when we're not trying to get the new price with options less $500 (Wings are nice reasonably priced containers; you could probably not take too big a beating selling one). Wait for your next container to buy something new in your colors. You could arrive at your final container size (downsizing farther would be done with cross-braced canopies that pack up smaller) and not be replacing it until it wears out. It's your money. Spend it where you want. I figure that ten minutes to use a measuring tape and fax machine aren't worth a lot and if you're calling people on the phone they aren't even doing that. They could be "educating" you on the gear, although you'd really be better off going to a boogie like the World Freefall convention, jumping demo rigs, looking at how they work, and talking with the rig companies yourself.

Having more important things to do is a better (more temporary and finite) reason than having broken parts that get in the way of jumping or landing.

Although I've had my main flap open in freefall because some muppet couldn't get it stowed correctly after doing a gear check. If I had less closing loop tension I would have had a premature deployment (I've packed rigs owned by whimps and girls who preferred less tension over learning the techniques that would let them close a tight container with less strength). If that happened during a vertical freefly move at 160 MPH there could have been a fatality. I check everything on the ground and feel back there before exit to make sure the container is still closed.

I've found that employees do their best work when their tasks require a small but achievable stretch. They're focussed, they make fewer careless mistakes, and the work gets done faster. Given a choice I'd rather have less experienced people filling less senior roles even if their pay expectations (and potential earnings in other companies) were the same as their more experienced counterparts. In a lot of fields, experience translates into the ability to fill roles with the potential for much higher earnings. Salaries can more than double moving towards more senior positions which require less than a decade of experience. Unfortunately the budget and salary range available for a position is based on the minimum qualifications it takes to fill the role. If I fill a less senior role with a more senior person I'll have to pay them a lot less than they could earn in the position they're capable of and there's a real risk they'll be leaving the company when they find a better offer. In positions where employees aren't at their most productive until six months or a year after the start I'd be out a lot of money if you spent that time finding a better job. Given peoples' tendency to spend what they make, a less senior salary may not even leave a more senior person cash flow positive after they've made their mortgage and car payments. If the position doesn't require much context, you might temporarily offer your services as a contractor. The employer gets the work done sooner, your paycheck is bigger than your unemployment check, and no one feels bad when you leave for a more suitable position. That gives you eight years experience beyond where people typically earn undergraduate degrees and six years more than I'd want in a junior employee. At thirty I was making over twice what I was at 22 even after adjusting for inflation. It's supposed to take 10 years to master subjects (chess, software engineering, making suits, whatever) after which you don't really get more senior. If you didn't spend too long in school or did work-like things while there you could be close to the peak of your career at 30 where you don't get appreciably more qualified. While I get better pay and equity packages I think my career peaked at 29. You pick up useful specializations, learn more about various businesses, and get better at negotiating compensation packages Being unemployed sucks. Good luck with your search!

Brian's literature also states "Fully Elliptical Canopies are not permitted for jumpers with less than 300 jumps" with the term defined as more than 20% wing taper and that one size must be added for such canopies. The current version of Brian's Wingloading Never Exceed chart can be found at http://www.bigairsportz.com/pdf/bas-sizingchart.pdf

It feels different. If you flare off to the side it will take more control movement to get a stall. Since you're pulling directly on the tail, any movement away from your body goes towards the tail instead of pulling the steering line around the ring. You need to to lock the brake line down some how or the toggles will rip the elastic stows right off the risers. BASE risers have an additional line loop (like the 3-ring release loop) sewn to the riser. Slider down/off jumps with the brake lines routed outside the guide rings (so you can throw away the toggle if you get a line over) run the loop through the brake setting cat eye and through the guide ring. The toggle then goes through the riser loop.

How inteteresting smaller canopies seem is non-linear (switching from a 135 to a 120 was a bigger handful for me than 205 to 170) and varies with the individual. You really don't want to find out the hard way that where that happened for you was at a size you skipped. This is an example of why "asking your instructors" is a bad idea. You want to start with a conservative recomendation from some one like Brian Germain and be more conservative if directed by the local jumpers; and not start with what yahoos with only a few thousand jumps think based on their limited experiences. When I had just 600 jumps and switched from my Batwing 134 to a Stiletto 120 the thing didn't always land in a straight line and I bruised my heels badly enough that it hut to walk for a few months. You really don't want to make that downsize without a lot of jumps on a 135 sized elliptical before hand where you really learn how the thing flies. Putting a few hundred more jumps on a 150 would be consistent with accepted wisdom on canopy sizes. Start swooping if you're bored, are current, and have received instruction from accepted experts at canopy flight and instruction. It's much better to get used to the speed when everything is good than being stuck with it when you're ladning out, at dusk, in a small parking lot, downwind...

Is it b/c they need more sewing machines? Because that was my guess! Seems like if the demand is constantly that high, having a higher capacity for production would give you an edge on the competition. But hey, I'm no sales guru, I'm sure someone did the cost/benefit analysis and decided that the wait was better. -shrug- -syn Most of the big rig makers business comes from foreign and domestic militaries. You could be in line behind a contract. Skydiving is a seasonal sport in much of the world. To meet the varying demand the rig makers can either lay-off people during the slow season (which isn't nice) or have longer backlogs. Longer backlogs are common.

Gear vendors used to place orders for rigs with scheduled delivery dates. If they sold the rig, they changed the order to whatever a customer specified and had a custom rig made. If they didn't sell the rig, it got built anyways with inoffensive colors and added to their in-stock list. Having arived at my final container size years ago I haven't paid attention to if this is still the case, but it can explain different delivery dates for gear ordered through different channels. A few gear makers also finish container construction up the point where they have to decide on harness size. You may be able to get such a half-finished rig quicker that way.

You can tie your shorts to your left legstrap (it seems like something on the pull side would be a bad idea, as would trusting your fellow skydivers to not steal your underwear).

Nah. The FAA allows main parachutes to be packed by the person making the jump, a rigger, or any individual supervised by a rigger. They don't care if the uncertified individual has ever made a skydive. At my old home DZ they hired a couple of 16 year old kids which they trained as packers. Each had a couple years working as packers under their belts before they made their first jumps. I've heard stories about grade-school kids walking up to skydivers, asking how they liked their opening, and then informing them they packed the parachute. The practicality of working as a packer will really vary with the DZ. Some places have lots of lazy jumpers who don't want to pack for themselves. Some places actually stop the plane between loads and wait for people to pack.

Jump naked. Especially if you live some place warm; it's real refreshing after baking on the ground at 95 degrees.

yea, I kinda hope there isn't much of a negative correlation between price and mortality rates. But I don't think there is... Right? Everybody follows the same FAA regulations. Even most non USPA dropzones have USPA rated instructors. There's no connection. More likely you get lower prices from a club (no profit involved), where you have smaller+slower but less expensive aircraft, in a less urban area where land and hanger costs are more reasonable. Safety shouldn't be an issue. If anything, the small club is likely to be safer because the members have more time to deal with the students than a busier commercial operation running 100+ students through the system each day.

Sure it can, there just isn't much room for profit which isn't an issue in a not for profit club. Skydive Wissota is a club. $750 is $30/jump. Cessnas are not that expensive to operate. Even with today's gas prices there are not for profit flying clubs renting 182s for under $100/hour wet. If it takes 15 minutes round rip for a static line load with three students that's under $9 each per jump Gear only depreciates a couple bucks a jump. Or start with the $10 to 4K / $15 to 10K feet Skydive Wisota charges experienced jumpers, add a few bucks for gear rental, a few more to pay instructors & riggers, and you're still at less than $30/jump.

The insurance included in your ticket price is, but for domestic travel you can usually buy up to $5000 per person in excess value coverage for 1% of the policy value each way. IOW, when moving with my favorite rig in the cargo hold I paid $50 to insure it.

Since Target doesn't sell custom replacement skydiving rigs, the airline loosing your rig may ruin your vacation and mean up to a six month wait to get your gear replaced in your size, preferred brands, and colors. When you check your underwear instead and cary on your rig and they loose your lugage, you get a new pair and a new tooth brush.