DrewEckhardt

All of the manufacturers have reinvented the toggle-riser interface, each providing a different mechanism to store the excess line. All of the velcro-less installations seem different. Many are non-intuitive. Some are physically difficult and cry out for an easier alternative. Some makers expect you to wrap the excess around a bottom toggle stub which gets stowed normally. Without reading the manual (which some one who's bought a third-hand rig might not have) or having some mechanical aptitude many people won't figure that out. Some makers provide a tight elastic. Stuffing skinny Spectra steering lines down there is a bit of a pain. We didn't have these problems with conventional toggles. The mechanism was standard (I've only seen one set of conventional main risers that had something other than a pile velcro loop), obvious (what else would the loop be there for?), and easy.

As a healthy person who can't bear children, I'd pay about $1200/year for private health insurance. The median effective federal tax rate (including all taxes - income, social security, payroll, excise) is under 15% in America. Here are some numbers from 2005. Listed are the mean effective tax rate and upper cut-off for each income quintile. Lowest quintile: 4.3 19178 Second quintile: 9.9 36000 Middle quintile: 14.2 57660 Fourth quintile: 17.4 91705 Highest quintile: 25.5 Effective income tax rates are much lower. In 2003 the effective tax rates were -5.9%, -1.1 (poor people get tax credits, with everything above their tax liability refunded when they file a return) 2.7, 5.9, and 13.9% for each quintile averaging 8.5%. What we spend on our mortgages isn't taxes, income from government bonds isn't taxed, dividends are only taxed at 15%, wages above $102K aren't subject to Fica, etc. This doesn't include what our children will be paying as interest on the debt, since taxes fall short of covering what our government spends. They walk into the nearest emergency room which is legally required to treat them if they're in need of emergency care. If they're actually poor and just didn't want to pay for health insurance, states' indigent care programs take care of them. If not, bill collectors try to collect. The problem here is that they have to wait for it to be an emergency, which costs more to fix than if we dealt with people before they got that bad.

Actually, it's our children's tax dollars at work paying off the loans from other countries.

You don't want to do that. You want to be making flat, braked turns in the pattern. That will keep your descent rate low so you don't accidentally descend in front of some one you didn't see, make precision easier, and keep the control forces down for when you begin a speed inducing landing maneuver. Get coaching. Start slow - symetric front risers, last 15 degrees of your turn to final, 30, 45, etc. Establish roll angle and use both front risers and harness input to arrive at your intended heading + altitude. You get more speed by keeping the canopy diving with a turn than you do just yanking on a riser and letting it recover. Your technique should not depend on yanking a riser at a given altitude because that won't work when you find yourself in the wrong place or have a different density altitude. Land with a bit of speed and learn to turn during your flare. Especially with a canopy as sensitive to control input as the Stiletto. When something gets in the way you want to instinctively fly around it instead of yanking on a toggle and putting yourself into the ground at a high rate of speed.

What I said was 'fastest turning', as in 'no canopy can smack you into the ground faster after a low panic turn than a Stiletto'. Stilettos are more responsive to control input (intentional or not) than any other popular canopy (Diablos might be twitchier). I tried an Extreme FX 104 and while it dove a lot longer than my Stiletto 120 and stopped flying at a lower speed, I was not happy with how sluggish it felt - like a Stiletto 135 (two sizes bigger) at best. When I switched from a Batwing 134 (still elliptical) to a Stiletto 120 at 600 jumps at first I had problems swooping it in a straight line. Lots of people have had problems with this so newer designs are all less sensitive to control input - even PD's Katana takes a bit more input to get a given response. Newer jumpers will be less likely to have problems under a more lightly tapered design (Lotus, Pilot, Sabre2, Safire2 in alphabetical order). The longer natural recovery arc of something like a Sabre 2 is also more conducive to learning swooping although good technique does not involve yanking on a front riser at some altitude.

When I was a more militant bicyclist I used to ride everywhere, even the DZ. I could throw my rig and a few six packs of beer on my BOB Yak trailer, ride 12 miles to the DZ, jump, drink lots, and ride home.

No, but you could apply the resistance differently. Maybe ropes and rings with a non-collapsible pilot chute and kill cone tethered to the canopy top skin so it can't stop the pilot chute drag until the parachute has slowed down enough its mostly deployed. Of course, some one who is already removing the (minimal) drag of their collapsed pilot chute isn't going to live with that.

The links are a part of the canopy. Stainless steel #3 1/2 Maillon Rapide (mini) or #5 links are used. DO NOT USE OTHER BRANDS, DO NOT USE NON-STAINLESS. Non-stainless #3 1/2 links are only rated for 220 pounds working load vs 480 for the stainless. Para-gear may charge you $3 each; your local gear store may stick you for $5 plus.

You want to learn technique from an efficient packer. Roll the bag flap around the bag mouth past the rubber band to compress the pack job and then thread the band through the grommet. To stow each bight form an arrow around the bight with your strong hand thumb and index finger, use that to thread the bight through the rubber band which you open with your weak hand, releasing the rubber band, holding the bight with your weak hand, pull out your strong hand, and let go. This is all easier to demonstrate than describe but it shouldn't take more than 1-2 seconds per stow to get the lines in the rubber bands.

It's clever and the engineering looks good. But: It takes more time to put the lines into a neat figure eight than it does to neatly stow them in rubber bands (sized so you don't double wrap) and means pulling the rig towards you instead of walking to the rig so you need a packing mat to avoid excessive rig wear; and a change which increase both packing time and tool count doesn't seem like a good idea to me. The gain is that it eliminates rubber band replacement. Tube stows/calf castration bands/silibands/etc. last a long time so that's not much of an improvement. I wouldn't worry about line dump (tail pockets work fine for terminal BASE jumps) or reliability (reserve freebags work the same way) if the system was used carefully.

Why not just relieve drivers of responsibility for any damages which would not have been sustained if their victims were driving H1 Hummers? Driving cars which get decent gas mileage, riding motorcycles, or even pedaling bicycles aren't constitutionally protected rights.

Since the lines are proportionally shorter and you don't have as far to move, a smaller parachute is more sensitive to control input and therefore more difficult to fly than a larger one whether your suspended weight is 150 or 300 pounds. This is why we put 100 pound people under 170 square foot canopies as their first parachute with wingloadings well under 1 pound per square foot. The jumper totaling 300 pounds will just be going 40% faster and have twice the kinetic energy to deal with when something goes wrong. The increased speed and control sensitivity that goes with it is what places the lower bound on safe canopy size for larger people. In a steady-state situation, the sum of the forces on all of the line groups (break, rear riser, front riser) must add up to your suspended weight. Under the same type of canopy your control forces will effectively be the same whether you're jumping a 150 square foot parachute or 250 square foot example of the same model. Physically, it will be a lot easier for you to pull on the brake lines and risers than a larger person. Some canopies have heavier control pressure than others, but that comes from the design and not the size.

Where in the US? Everything costs more some places (like California)

Because it's the government's job to protect people from themselves. Currently that means making people wear motorcycle helmets, limiting their recreational drug use to just nicotine+alcohol+caffeine, not base jumping in national parks, and a handful of other things.

Right. Just be sure to 1. Get replacement value coverage. If your custom rig gets stolen you want them to pay to replace it with a brand new rig made to your measurements instead of what they think its depreciated value is which may only get you a used rig that doesn't fit as well. 2. Get enough off-site coverage. Some of my home-owner's/renter's policies have limited off-site coverage to 10% of the total policy value. So if you have a rig which will cost $6000 to replace you want $60,000 in contents coverage. 3. Specifically add separate sites. If you have a workshop or something that can be insured as an additional site without the coverage limit for a lot less than you'd spend on 10X the coverage. I did this when living in a high-rise and renting a separate artist's loft to play with my parachutes and power tools. 4. Read the policy and buy appropriate riders. Some policies have limits on specific types of items. When I read my policy I found that there was a $1000 firearms limit that I had to increase. The extra coverages don't add much to the premium but will make a big difference if something does happen.

cana de cabra and bucheron are tasty too. Come to think of it most moldy (inside or outside) cheeses are. Things most people think of as cheeses can be ok. Emmenthaler is a real Swiss cheese great for burgers or Ostrich and Gruyére a nice appetizer. Goat Gouda is good. Be sure to enjoy the local cheeses. When in Spain, Manchego compliments jamon de bellota (from Iberian pigs fed a diet of acorns). Yum. My mouth is watering just thinking about it, and I regret spending my calories on a mediocre roast beef and provolone on soggy bread :-(

If the home was actually worth more they'd be asking something like $1123 more than it's actually worth (people are used to dealing with small amounts a dollar at a time, and have the impression that a larger amount that doesn't end in 0s or 9s is actually smaller because of this). Chances are that it will magically appraise for the purchase price. Or you might get "lucky" and have it appraised by the bank at less than the asking price in which case they'll have to come down to actual market value (because your lender will not write a 100% loan in that case).

Sure. Provided that you comply with FAA regulations, there's no law against putting him in a parachute and tossing him out of an airplane. Of course doing that safely requires training, experience, a plane, and pilot. People you don't know with training and experience are nearly all going to be unwilling to take the legal risk of letting your son jump. Since he's under 18, he can't waive his right to sue if something (which may be his fault; doing the wrong thing on landing can get you badly broken legs or worse even on a tandem and $20-$200K+ hospital bills) goes wrong. You also can't waive a minor's right to sue if something (which may be his fault; doing the wrong thing on landing can get you badly broken legs or worse even on a tandem and $20-$200K+ hospital bills ) goes wrong. You might be a reasonable person who wouldn't sue and may raise a son who won't sue on his own if he's stuck with a limp but your health insurance company has a subrogation clause which lets them sue to recover costs ($20-$200K hospital bills). Some drop zones take the risk and let children skydive at 16 with parental consent (the minimum age according to the USPA Basic Safety Regulations) but finding one that will let strangers jump before that is unlikely to happen. Most of the kids who've jumped sooner in America have skydiving parents that are instructors, own dropzones, own planes, etc. Tandems are possible in countries where lawsuits are less prevalent.

Government priorities are about getting politically powerful groups what they want, where power comes from money and voting blocks. Africa has resources we want, like oil. There's money in oil. There isn't much money in people who can't pay for their own medication. Those that aren't old (with lots of time on their hands for AARP) aren't powerful voting block. People without resources who can't pay for their own medication are It really pisses me off when people around the globe reap the benefits that should help the American taxpayer when they need the help. Bush talks crap about America being a caring and compassionate country! How can anyone say that when this government is hellbent on letting Americans die for lack of health coverage? Caring and compassionate? Hypocracy! The funding for Africa's AIDS problem should be directed back to the taxpayers who are in need of the very same but are denied. Africa should pay for the care of it's people. If they can't, they should maybe take out a loan from China. Hell, we did and now we are giving that money to African countries. Speaking of out of touch. Am I to believe that Bush was unaware that gas prices were on the rise? He seemed completely unaware when the question concerning gas was asked. He said he was not aware of it. How can he not know? On the otherhand, he was quick to defend the grossly astronomical profits of his buddies. Pitifully out of touch with what he has done to destroy this country.

Delta. Like a track but with your arms between you. DO NOT AIM AT THE FORMATION (because that could break the cardinal rule of kindergarten/skydiving: we do not break our friends). Dive to the same altitude as the formation but some distance away horizontally and then drive in. Think about acceleration - it will take a while to stop so you have to start slowing down before you get to the formation altitude. Get coaching.

I did two of my AFF jumps at home in Colorado one per weekend, made a business trip to California where I did levels 3-6 on one weekend, and did my AFF7 to graduate the next weekend.

Although you probably didn't have an out landing with obstacles like fences you didn't see until you got close to the ground, didn't have a long spot that left you over the landing area without enough altitude to make a normal turn back into the wind, didn't have to land it in some one's back yard, and didn't have some one "cut you off" on landing or run in front of you. Skydiving long enough will mean all of those things happening to you. Landing (even small) parachutes straight in without incident isn't that hard when things are going well, but it gets trickier once (several) things go wrong. Unsuccessfully dealing with (even large) parachutes when things aren't going right kills tens of people each year and breaks a lot more. It's good to ask. It's just that if you're doing something which is not conservative people are going to point it out, especially if you don't yet have the experience to know what you're getting into. Many of those people are tired of making the same recomendations over and over and watching what happens when people don't listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GufHPcYE8-s With a wingsuit, large mesh slider, and BASE canopy you can pull pretty low but a pilot chute hesitation would really stink. Robert doesn't unstow his brakes in the linked video, but the canopy appears to be flying into a strong head wind.

Compared to other sources of homicides it isn't. 5000 people loose their lives annually to manslaughter by motor vehicle with drunks driving. 500 people can be murdered each year by street gangs in a single large metropolitan area (in 2001 LA County saw 587 gang-related homicides). If a few hundred deaths are worth worrying about, a few thousand are more worth worrying about. Compared to the 5000 annual sober victims of drunk drivers, or 500

I have no problem with background checks if, once the check is completed, it is destroyed as the law states. And, cap locks not withstanding, this is NOT a gunshow issue. Not even close What kind of issue is it, then, since allowing felons (and loonies) to buy guns at will is CLEARLY an issue. So, are you saying they ONLY get them (guns) at gunshows? I'm ASKING you what kind of issue it is that felons and loonies can so readily buy guns. It's not a statistically significant issue. Assuming the percentage of firearms used in crimes acquired at gun shows is consistent between homicides and other crimes and the percentage is not increasing, fewer than 175 homicides a year are committed with guns purchased illegally gun shows. In 2006, we had 10177 homicides committed with firearms. The Bureau of Justice has done two studies in the last decade: _Firearms Use by Offenders_ and _Federal Firearms Offenders, 1992-98_. The first reported that .7% of criminals acquired their firearms at gun-shows and the second 1.7%. Personally, I worry a lot more about people buying beer at seven eleven and contributing to the 15,000 drunk driving deaths we have each year (nearly 100X more than firearms bought at gun shows).