DrewEckhardt

More importantly, do they buy a smaller main than they might have bought used because they're more worried about losing money when they want something smaller than the first main?

After opening my Samurai 105 at 3000 feet I can out float and land after an Otter load except for the tandems and AFF students. Since your PD 9-cell can go even slower you should easily be able to arrange things so that the fast people have landed before you and even passed you before they get to pattern altitude.

Fast food beats going hungry. If I'm on a road trip and there's nothing else to eat I'll stuff a gordito in my gaping maw. Otherwise I'll pass - it's barely edible, not cheap, and often not fast because of the long lines. Five minutes and five dollars gets me three carne azada tacos (with real marinated steak) plus a Mexican Coke (in a glass bottle made with real cane sugar) from my favorite carniceria.

It won't. It wll prevent a bloody scalp wound if you hit your head on climb-out or trip on landing. It'llkeep your goggles from blowing all the way off, give you a place to mount your audible, and maybe provide a camera platform. Based on USPA membership which is required to jump at most dropzones, there may be 35,000 skydivers in the US. In 2003 the US skiing and snowboarding markets had 11,300,000 participants. With up to 322 times the potential customer base a ski/snowboard helmet maker can amortize costs over many more units. A complete set of skydiving gear (rig, main, reserve, Cypress) now costs $5000+. I spent about $500 on my last snowboard, $300 for my bomber bindings, and maybe have $300 in my boots for $1100 total; you could spend much much less at Snigrab. Skydivers buying new gear spend a lot more money. With a smaller market that spends more skydiving helmets should cost more.

Right. A flat percentage is more than fair especially when you consider that the two people have an equal say in how the money is spent after its collected.

While a flat 23% sales tax would be a nice reduction it doesn't address the fundamental problem with our current democracy and tax system: other people get to vote (indirectly) on how much money to take from you and then how it gets spent. Restraint and frugality go out the window when it's some one else's money. My fair solution is to send every one a bill for their share Take the federal budget: $2,700,000,000,000 Divide by the population: 295,734,134 Subtotal: $9129 Your tax bill is the subtotal times the size of your family. Exceptions might be made for those too young and old to work. In 2003 41 million of the 130 million people who filed tax returns paid nothing because of credits, exemptions, and deductions. When those guys start paying for what they've voted for they're going to have to get serious about having a smaller government. Back in 1913 the federal government did fine with a top marginal tax rate of 7%. In 2003 dollars the exemption for single people was $54,567, married couples' $72,756. The next $363,783 was taxed at 1%. Only earnings over $9,094,578 were subject to the outrageous 7% rate. That's the sort of tax reform I want.

If your commute was over 48 miles round trip and you get the standard 10 company holidays + 3 weeks of vacation, you're effectively making more money since the IRS considers the cost of automobile operation to be 44.5 cents per mile. If your commute otherwise costs nothing and your time is worth more than $17/hour you're coming out ahead. I find bicycling to an office 3-4 miles away to be relaxing and wouldn't drive an hour and a quarter for $20K more a year.

Yes, it's unreasonable. The Stiletto is more sensitive to control input than most ellipticals. You don't want to deal with both the added responsiveness and speed at the same time. Yes, although you'd probably enjoy the openings and control response of a less aggressive non-square canopy more than the sabre 150. Spectre, Omega, Sabre-2, Safire, Lotus in no particular order. Canopies usually depreciate about $1 a jump. 100 jumps on each of two used canopies shouldn't cost you any more than 200 jumps on one canopy. And if you're patient both buying and selling, you can buy a used canopy, put a couple hundred jumps on it, and sell it for at least what you paid.

When the canopy is too small you can't get enough tension on the closing loop to safely keep the rig closed. If the rig opens on climb-out the main can wrap arround the tail, damage it, and render the aircraft uncontrollable after which everyone who doesn't get out dies.

Usually Arrogant Bastard. Slogan: Fizzy yellow beer is for wussies. Sometimes Barney Flats. Slogan: It's not just shy sluggin gorms neemer!

I was walking down the street talking to one of my friends about work. He said that he'd built a radio receiver that could pickup signals arround -100dBW (might have been less). I observed that one ten billionth of a Watt is quite small and said "That's tiny!" At which point a midget went by on a skateboard shaking his head. Another day we were out for breakfast and got seated by the restrooms marked "Ladies" and "Gentlemen." People aren't terribly civilized these days so I asked "What if you're neither a lady nor a gentleman?" At which point a male to female transexual decided to use the restroom (I don't remember which one).

The ones you can buy contain exactly 10 imported parts from the list and are therefore legal. Replacing the thumbole stock on your AK imported between 1989 and 1994 is not legal because it has more than 10 parts from the list. The 1968, 1986, 1989, and 1990 bans are all still with us.

They're required for students. Some dropzones require them for experienced skydivers.

While the Clinton ban has sunset we still have the 1989 Bush 41 import ban that prohibits importing fun toys with pistol grips and 922(r) from 1990 that makes it illegal to assemble a gun that may not be imported when it contains more than 10 imported parts from the law's list. This makes you a felon who can be imprisioned for not more than five years. The legal work arround is to replace inexpensive imported parts from the list with US manufactured ones until only 10 foreign parts remain. Some companies use a US magazine floor plate and follower although I think that's a stupid idea because it gets very expensive once you convert your lifetime supply of high-capacity magazines for each gun and not converting all the magazines you touch makes inserting the wrong one a felony. You can get a US parts kit for your gun from any decent company that sells sport-utility rifle parts. The list is 1. Frames, receiver, receiver castings, forgings or stampings. 2. Barrels 3. Barrel extensions 4. Mounting blocks (trunions) 5. Muzzle attachments 6. Bolts 7. Bolt carriers 8. Operating Rods 9. Gas pistons 10. Trigger housings 11. Triggers 12. Hammers 13. Sears 14. Disconnectors 15. Buttstocks 16. Pistol grips 17. forarms, handguards 18. Magazine bodies 19. Followers 20. Floorplates

How significant are the physics? When jumping a small Stiletto with lines about 100" long switching from 20 to 26" risers gets you 5% farther from the canopy. Making a pendulum 5% longer increases its period by about 2.5%. Obviously the effects would be less pronounced with more moderate riser lengths and the longer line sets on swooping canopies. I'd speculate that the user interface change has more to do with it. I think I can pull the front risers down farther on my set that have shorter dive loops (which therefore have the bottoms higher).

Twin Otter. The pilot can give you a slow jump run that makes it easier to hang on and the big cargo door makes it easier to get a stable exit into the relative wind. A big square canopy is a better choice than something smaller and non-square because it will be less likely to do something wierd on opening that throws Sluggo off.

I currently drink five or six Arrogant Bastards a week. The stuff is just too tasty!

The tunel runs for 60 minutes. You get that time minus time spent changing people (if you wait for the previous person to get out before going in) or having a coach demonstrate something without you in the tunel.

They don't break or have tape-flutter that causes digital drop-outs.

Wind tunnels will fade away when we have some other way to get 20 minutes of freefall for $200 in one hour. Assuming 40 seconds of working time per jump since you loose some altitude tracking away, $23 lift tickets, and 5-10 jumps in a day that currently takes nearly $700 and 3-6 days to do it the traditional way with airplanes. Transporters that instantly transport us to altitude and either back to altitude or to the ground when we get low would be a nice alternative....

Depends on density altitude. With a 9000+ foot density altitude (5000-6000' field elevation, hot summer day) I don't think Sabres and Monarchs shut down well enough when loaded over about 1.4:1. With a beer gut bumping my exit weight up to 200 pounds I thought 135 square foot rectangular canopies (1.5 pounds/square foot) were getting marginal on hot no-wind summer days. Down at sea level canopies feel like a full size to two large flown up here.

I was sleeping one night, had a bad dream, and started kicking. I put my foot through a 3/4" particle board shelf next to the bed and the glass candle holder on top of it. Got blood on two walls and the vaulted ceiling. Had to go barefoot or wear sandles for a week or two.

I can't hear my pro-track on terminal jumps with my current or previous open-faced skydiving helmet. It's set on the "loud" volume setting.

Usually 9:30ish to 6:30ish Monday through Friday. When I was self-employed my hours were more numerous and variable although I never worked over 216 billable hours in one month. And in my last startup I just worked Monday through Friday with about six hours off each night to eat+sleep (maybe 2am - 8am, maybe 8am - 2pm) plus two hours once or twice a week to fly for an hour.

- Buying an inexpensive container and having the harness resized will be cheaper than the least expensive new rig - You shouldn't have a problem finding a rig that fits. I paid $700 for a Javelin J7 + Raven III reserve that actually fits me reasonably well (5'10 150 pounds). - And a rig that doesn't fit well won't be too far off, especially compared to one-size-fits-none student rigs on smaller people.