DrewEckhardt

An AAD is like an airplane: it's airworthy when maintained regardless of age (like our 30+ year old otters and 40+ year old Cessnas) and its value is that of the time remaining on the components. It's going to cost you about $140 a year in depreciation and maintenance whether you buy a 6 year old Cypres-1 for $525 (plus two sets of batteries at $85 per at the 2&4 year rmark, an 8-year check at $200 at the 2 year mark, minus the $80 trade-in when it expires) and change or a brand new Cypres 2 for $1300 (plus 4 & 8 year checks for $200 each) . Except for being waterproof (most relevant for swooping which you won't be doing) and not having the 500 jump maximum on batteries (which you probably won't do in 2 years as a recreational skydiver) the new Cypres 2 isn't going to perform any better; although an extra $700 in your pocket might help with training that'll make you a better and safer skydiver.

Not according to the 2007 SIM. The requirement for a coach (under an instructor's supervision) or D-license holder (no supervision requirement, 4-way maximum, at least one D-license holder per student) is waiverable by the S&TA though. Obviously, DZs are free to impose whatever additional restrictions they want.

The BSRs now allow D-license holders to jump with students. Pedants might point out that this allows a coach supervised by an instructor as packers are supervised by riggers (read as there may be on on the DZ) to go on a 100 way with 99 students while 7 D-license holders can't take one student up. Of course at a lot of DZs, the S&TA would be one of the seven jumpers.

The absolute rate of gun ownership has nothing to do with crime rates or the severity of crimes comitted, although passing gun laws. Confrontational crimes (robbery, burglary of occupied homes, rape) increase when it becomes more difficult for average citizens to own and carry guns. Confrontational crimes decrease and criminals commit more crimes against property (simple theft, burglary of unoccupied homes) when it becomes easier for average citizens to own and carry guns.

I joined a company which was a reasonable place to work shortly after their acquisition by another company which didn't have its act together (every engineer who'd been there over six months quit and when the sheriff posted a 3-day notice to comply with the terms of our lease or surrender the premesis management told us that was "just a negotiating tactic"). One of the sales people was not happy that the engineers seemed to be too negative and distributed photo copies of an article "How Your Attitude Affects the Group." One of the other engineers and I caught the spirit, stopped by Rob's Music and picked up the sheet music and lyrics to Shiny Happy People which we distributed in the same way. Somewhat later our new masters noticed the attrition rate and came out with their president for a meeting with the entire staff. One highlight was where the president was flapping his gums, one of the engineers stepped out and came back with "Shinny Happy People" and said "What you're trying to say is this" before walking out. Mr. President countered with a Shakesperian "I'll not continue after he's fired an arrow over my shoulder" to which I responded "Cary on before he reloads"

Crab claw and eel.

1. Get training 2. You can still get substantial speed from a 90 degree turn; easing into it would be safer. 3. Learn stop your vertical descent immediately and then deal with stopping the turn. Eventually you will turn low and knowing what to do about it will save you. 4. Learn how to do carving turns at ground level so you aren't an unguided meat missle just waiting to crash when some one or something gets in the way.

It's not televised. It seems expensive (but really isn't that bad compared to lots of sports: Aspen lift tickets are now $87/day, greens fees at a nice golf course can be $200 for 18 holes). You don't really understand what skydiving means until you do it (dressing up in goofy colored suits and holding hands doesn't sound like fun). No. I wouldn't have wasted the money on a static line without freefall and may not have wasted a full weekened on ground school (the freefall ride at Six Flags isn't that much fun). I was all over a few hours to make a 10,000 foot freefall. What would increasing the number of skydivers buy us and what would it cost us? Cheap season passes and high speed lifts mean the snow at Colorado resorts can be ruined by lunch. Some older scuba divers don't seem happy with how accessable that sport has become.

Where is this run? I can find precious little info via Google. I've typoed Horgan into Morgan; the race was so horrible I had to repress its true name. Start riding up Canyon (in Boulder) at the Justice Center. Hang a left on Magnolia road. Over the next 4.6 miles you'll climb 2300' of the over 4500 total with the grade reaching 17%. Then the pavement ends and you have 7 miles of dirt washboard. You get back on pavement for the scenic descent into Nederland Hang a right on Peak to Peak highway. Go left on Eldora road. Take a left on Shelf road. Finish at Patterson Lake. Pros have won riding that 18 or 21 (sources differ) mile route in 1:23. http://www.cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=road/USA/2003/jul03/jul12mikehorganhillclimb

OK, 22 I can do, but 28.2 on a flat?! Not on my mountain bike, (at least not here a 5300-6000 feet). I haven't ridden at altitudes close to MSL for 11 years, so I don't know how much the denser air would help me. If you're fast the denser air hurts you. Merckx set his record at 7500 feet. Merckx, Boardman, and Sosenka have done nearly 31 miles in an hour on a conventional road bike with no aero bars, wheels, etc. 1972 technology. Guys on time trial bikes have done 35 miles in an hour. Just thinking of going that fast reminds me of when I was partway up the big hill on the Mike Morgan Memorial Hill Climb (Magnolia route), looked down, and puked....

When I didn't drive 12 miles in 15 minutes to the nearest turbine DZ, I'd go 100 miles in 1.25 hours (consistently, mostly through rural Colorado). Takes longer to go just 60 miles with Washington traffic. At first I was always looking for accidents in Everett since nothing else could make traffic that slow, and then I realized they just drive that way arround here.

Countrywide Financial is the largest mortgage lender in the country (originating 17% of loans) and the owner of Counrywide Bank which has some of the best (5.4% APR) online savings rates. Coutnrywide has tapped out their $11.5B credit line. Investors are backing out of the short-term commercial paper market. One of Merill Lynch's analysts said "that a loss of access to short-term loan markets could force Countrywide into bankruptcy" 1) In theory, Countrywide Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary. In practice, what will bankruptcy or near bankruptcy mean for its account holders? 2) Where do you put your money when you no longer trust countrywide? 3) What does this mean for mortgage rates?

Yes but it's more complicated than that. I've known skydivers and pilots who were going to die due to their bad judgement, and just hoped they didn't take anyone else with them. I've known skydivers who may have survived if they were taught judgement in the titanium club before then, and hoped they'd hurt themselves just enough to wise up before they bounced. Avoiding those sorts of mistakes is an easy choice for most people. Other situations are more complicated. For example, eventually you'll exit the aircraft too far from the drop zone to make it back (perhaps the winds will pick up in the wrong direction after you exit) to land in the main landing area with a normal pattern. Training will make a safe off-field landing more likely, perhaps with a low turn to avoid obstacles you didn't see from pattern altitudes. The incident reports are filled with reports about "conservative" skydivers who were "not hook turn type people" with hundreds or thousands of jumps that died in such situations. While your instructors know more than you do they don't know everything. Lots of them tell people its OK to exceed Brian Germain's Wingloading Never Exceed formula. Annecdotally most of the people I know who made their first 1000 jumps major-injury went through canopy progressions that didn't break that. Everyone I can think of who got metal was jumping smaller canopies.

260 / 315 cubic inches reserve and main claimed by Fliteline. MR120, PD113R, or tempo 120 reserve and 120 main. full size chart here: http://web.archive.org/web/20050307150002/http://www.tridenthc.com/ReflexSizes.htm

1. It needs wheels. While 25 pounds of rig isn't too bad, rig plus clothes plus camping gear is too much. It's great to have the option of dragging it. 2. If your rig is small enough it should fit within the airlines maximum carry-on limits of 22 x 9 x 14" so they can't loose it and ruin your vacation. I like the 22x9x14" Victorinox backpack/roll-aboard, although that's European in the $200+ price category.

I've posted on moster and dice and while that generates lots of phone calls and E-mails the vast majority of the positions are things that I wouldn't want to do. With 15 years experience writing complex systems software I'm not going to be happy with an entry level engineering position which requires a couple years .NET and the employer posting it isn't going to like my salary history. TheLadders.com is the only national jobs site I've encountered which has a reasonable signal to noise ratio. Local mailing lists (craigslist san francisco or denver; rocky mountain internet user's group; etc.) are reasonable too.

You need to split IT activities into Moore's Core and Context categories from _Crossing the Chasm_ . Core activities create sustainable differentiation which produces a competitive advantage. Context activites are everything else. While you need E-mail to get business done, making messages pop up in milliseconds instead of a larger fraction of a second is not going to improve your bottom line unless you're in the business of selling E-mail. Many companies would do well to outsource E-mail administration to a company that has that as a core activity in the same way they have ADP run their payroll. Building software which is not easily assembled from off-the-shelf compnents (tracking cellular calls, searching the web, provide augmented reality for aircraft pilots, etc.) is a core activity for many companies. Puting another company in charge of those family jewels would be bad. The last two companies I've worked for could not hire enough people to fill their open reqs in core positions even though neither required new hires to know their primary programming language. That said the software and hardware businesses are geographically concentrated. The Silicon Valley, Colorado Front Range, Seattle, and Boston areas have lots. Austin has some. I would not want to start a hardware or sofware company somewhere else, and existing companies are opening remote offices in those locations to tap the local talent pools (for example Google now has Kirkland, WA and Boulder, CO offices). The complication here is globalization - it's not too hard to open foreign offices where labor costs are 1/10th what they are in the United States and India is producing fine engineering graduates.

Very inexpensive: Carpet Liquidators in Seattle has laminates starting at under $1 a square foot and you can get something decent looking for not much more. Still affordable but better: Lumber Liquidators

That blows my mind..... What else could they ask for? A rocketship?Are they being serious of just saying those things to joke with their nervous Passengers?!? Lots of people have never been in a plane smaller than a regional jet.

Depends on facilities and local jumpers. Landing next to the runway with motivated up-jumpers, a lot of us can make every other load on a turbine (space permitting). Throw in a trailer ride with a single trailer for students + up jumpers and it can be every third load at best (assuming you pack outside in the sun + dirt). Other places people jump at a slower rate.

The second engine will somtimes only serve to get you to the scene of the crash sooner. Read about the Perris Crash and the MO crash. They both crashed on take off. Nothing anybody could do about those. The NTSB does not seem to have released a final report from the Sullivan crash. While contaminated fuel leading to a right engine failure was the root cause of the Perris crash, the NTSB report indicated that the left prop was feathered and that the pilot may have shutdown the remaining engine. That would have been avoidable. In general pilots can maintain proper weight and balance, follow the FARs which require a rotation speed greater than 1.05 Vmc and 1.10 Vs1 and 1.10 VMc/1.20Vs1 (unless the aircraft has higher speed requirements) by 50' AGL, train for the situation in simulators, and handle emergency procedures properly just like skydivers.

Among other things, the BSRs don't take into account how fast you're going. Opening 12 seconds from impact as you pass through 2000 feet at 120 MPH is permitted while opening 13 seconds from impact from a 1500 foot hop-and-pop or even 15 seconds from impact at 1984 feet is not.

You probably have two problems: 1. Packing. Any modern canopy (even Sabres and Monarchs which are purportedly notorious) should open acceptably given reasonable care (perhaps including attention to slider placement, rolling the nose, etc.) packing it. Packing for yourself should avoid the problem (or at least let you know who to blame). 2. Rig fit. When the rig fits you can have extremely hard openings without bruises (although your back and neck may feel it the next day). If the rig doesn't fit, it slows down and you run into it still going 120 MPH a split second later. Small people have had luck putting oven mitts between themselves and legstraps which can't be tightened down enough.

It depends on the canopy. Following my usual carving approach my Stiletto 120 would level out for some distance without any control input. My Samurai 105 takes a little bump to flatten it out. The FX104 I demo'd took more input.

Your PC should be in clean air, and the recomended 9' bridle should help it get there, but sometimes they bounce around. A bungee would not be good there.