DrewEckhardt

Do you make any income? To be pedantic, not filing is not the same as not paying. You'd have to be in a very unusual situation to work as an employee without paying any taxes unless you filed a fraudulent W4 which would probably get investigated. It's that witholding thing.

that's quite a difference. what about the conventional wisdom that one should have a main/reserve combo relatively close in size in case of a two out scenario? You're much, much, much, much more likely to have a one-out scenario and should be able to avoid having both canopies deployed by being conservative with respect to altitude awareness (eyes plus audible and visual altimeter devices) and choosing deployment altitudes appropriate for the equipment (when you have a smaller canopy and are doing high-performance landings, opening at 2500 feet can make getting back to the DZ and achieving vertical separation before reaching pattern altitude marginal. Choosing a 3000 foot opening altitude for that reason gives your CYPRES a lot of breathing room). I usually jump a Samurai 105 and PD143R, and can't say that I've ever wanted a smaller reserve.

My career, skydiving, and health peaked at 30. While all that declined, my love life did get better after 30 :-)

While making a better product won't hurt you the real problem is marketting. The skills to make things and the skills to run a successful business are different. The last suit I had my rigger make should stand up well to the national competition - more durable materials, reinforced knees and seat, there's no seam across the shoulders, etc. Turn arround time wasn't much over a week. I paid under $250 for materials and labor, Buying one for yourself would be difficult. No logo, no website, no exposure.

I like Northwest Skydivers in Mt, Vernon WA Airplane is a turbine Porter, limited to 8 jumpers. The Google Earth image pre-dates the DZ. The landing area is highlighted in yellow; planes now park exclusively in the taxiway on the north side of the hanger. Tents have been added for packing & spectators along with a semi-trailer for manifest. Do not land on the highway to the east, grass runway or train tracks to the west, farm to the south, or taxi-way and apple orchard to the north.

Get personal references. I used a shop with web references after moving. When I took it in for front brake noise they told me my rear brakes needed replacing (false), the timing belt needed replacing (false, previously replaced 15,000 miles ago. I asked why and they said "it looked worn"), serpentine belt (false), and that the front brakes were shot (true, but I didn't believe it because they lied about everything else and the outer pads had plenty of meat left). And they charged me $60 for the incorrect diagnosis I didn't ask for.

Reserves must pass drop tests regardless of materials, design, or construction method. Elegance of failure mode is not one of the criteria. Opening speeds beyond reserves' placarded limits are likely in a number of situations - prematures freeflying, low reserve deployments following loss of altitude awareness while freeflying, prematures on exit from high-altitude high-speed jump runs on big way attempts, and AAD activations while unconscious. When I become my reserve's test pilot in one of those situations I want more strength than that required to satisfy the FAA minimums . Enough to avoid a failure would be i deal, followed by enough for an injury free landing, and enough for a survivable landing.

Why is that? The R-Max has span-wise reinforcing tapes like a PD or Smart. Older precision reserves do not. The -M series used span-wise bottom skin construction with folded seams across the line attachment points. This is an improvement over unreinforced chord-wise construction but not as strong as a reinforced canopy. The Raven/Super Raven are built conventionally.

Modern reserves are stronger than most mains. While you should have slowed down to 120 MPH (100 knots) when deploying your main, you may not have that option if you have a low opening, premature opening at high speeds, or are unconscious under your reserve (I saw a design without spanwise tapes across the line groups that separated into 2 and 5 cell sections only connected at the tail when its owner was knocked out, fell in a fast head-down position, and had his CYPRES fire). Modern reserves are rated for a 150 knot deployment speed (170 MPH). All decent modern reserves all have span-wise reinforcing tapes across the bottom skin (Tempos built before 2001 and Precisions before the R-max don't count as modern). The only main canopies I'm aware of with the tapes are those from Big Air Sportz (Brian says it makes for a more rigid wing that performs better). In a fast tearing situation, F111 is also inherently stronger than ZP. Older reserves and mains could be identical - the Precision Raven and Super Raven had bridle attachments and were marketed as reserves and mains.

Note that most of the wear occurs during the pack job. PD reserves must be sent in for inspection after 25 uses or 40 pack jobs.

Get small rings because most containers don't have large rings and you want compatability. As long as you have hard riser housings, cutaway forces are reasonable even under rapidly spinning ellipticals which you will not be jumping.

Unless the manager sends the large but incompetant players arround to take up a collection to hire a better coach, watching the loosing game to completion doesn't cost you anything. When you buy stock at $10 a share and it falls to $5 a share with no correction in sight, it's better to walk away with a $5 a share loss than to wait until the stock gets delisted at $1 a share at which point you have a $9 loss.

California has banned .50 BMG. .510 DTC EUROP aka .50 DTC is legal with the same bullet in a case that's .100" shorter.

I've done half a barrel roll, stopped spinning, and then deployed. A couple measured seconds on video; no reason to wait longer. I've also just pulled both in sequence when I didn't know my altitude with certainty; waiting longer would not have been prudent.

You have to be beneath the wing to do any sort of turn with minimal altitude loss. Once you've dealt with the pitch problem flat and flare turns work great; and the induced speed from a 90 degree front riser turn can be sufficient to finish the last 90 degrees of turn without altitude loss while flaring.

Sure. It's a much better idea than convincing yourself that the high cost of gear means you need to buy smaller gear now (A 150 is a small canopy at 50 jumps even if you are a lightweight because responsiveness to control input and turn rate are more a function of size and shape than wingloading) to avoid "quickly outgrowing it" and "loosing money" when you down size. A less expensive rig will be easier to sell for close to what you paid when you decide to have something made to measure. And most importantly, given finite resources spending more on training and jumps will do more for your skydiving performance and safety than the gear (within reason - Jumping a 1967 Para Commander with a belly mount reserve is fun but not how you want to make most of your skydives); and a custom rig of any brand will be more comfortable than the most expensive one built for some one that's a different body size+shape. Old gear is like old planes - as long as it's properly maintained and operated within documented limits, it works as well as it did when new but doesn't look as pretty. I don't have any problems riding a 1969 Otter to altitude or jumping a 1996 Reflex on a regular basis. Spending less also doesn't mean off-brands. I paid about $750 in total for my last Javelin and Raven reserve. While I'd prefer a better reinforced reserve for freeflying (I got the rig for accuracy, wingsuit, and demo jumps where that's not relevant) the Javelin is an OK container.

Sure. Heart, tongue, tripe (stomache), tendon, sweet breads (thymus glad); uni (sea urchin gonads), raw quail egg,Tête de Moine chese (smells a bit like diaper), Jamón serrano (ordinarily ham wouldn't scare me, although when it's been hanging from the ceiling at room temperature for who knows how long with a cup to catch the drippings), raw oysters, raw clams, aligator, antelope, elk, rabbit, ostrich... It's all tasty.

Jump it. While 3-4.5K is a standard hop-and-pop height, most places will let you out somewhere between there and full altitude for a price between the two. Try a high hop-and-pop if you want more time.

Right. Rapists having their way, criminals beating their victims into a bloody pulp is preferable, and criminals being succesful invading occupied homes with a high chance of injury to the occupants are all better than a few hundred criminals suffering fatal injuries. People who defend themselves against violent crime in the united states using a firearm have lower rates of injury and the crime being completed when they use a firearm than when they comply with the attacker, resist with no weapon, or resist with some other weapon.

Homicide rates among non-hispanic caucasians in Seattle, USA were lower than those in nearby Vancouver, CA which is approximately the same size at 6.2 versus 6.4 per 100,000 at the time of the study. Absolute levels of gun ownership in different countries do not correlate to murder rates. Japan has few legal guns and a low murder rate; Jamaica has few legal guns and an astronomical rmurder rate (over 35 per 100,000). Swiss males of military age all have automatic rifles in the basement and a low murder rate. Placing restrictions on legal gun ownership increases violent crime rates - Canadians in vancouver killed each other 25% more often after they passed their 1977 law. Making it easier for citizens to legally carry decreases violent crime.

Over $40K because it took me over 1500 jumps and a couple of rigs until I got arround to getting a license, although my first 25 jumps (including AFF) and rig totaled under $3500.

Many home brews begin as commercial malt extract instead of whole malted barley; sort of like coffee prepared at home can come from instant crystals or be brewed from beans.

Pipe tobacco is $10 an ounce. I've paid $5.50 (Seattle is not cheap) for a bomber of my favorite micro-brewed beer even though I could brew my own whole grain beer for $1-$2. It's just not worth the effort.

What's the point of that? Air guns are the only thing you can shoot inside your home without worying about things like bullet stops and ventilation.

The goal was to prevent staw purchuses, where you buy a gun for me who can't legally. And the effect will be that when such straw purchases do occur from a dealer, they'll be spread out so no form 3310.4s will be on file with the BATF and the illegal sales will be less traceable and harder to prosecute than they are now.