DrewEckhardt

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content

    4,731

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Feedback

    0%

Everything posted by DrewEckhardt

  1. DrewEckhardt
    Of course, but 60 HP per liter * 5.7 liters is a lot more interesting than 60 HP per liter * 3 liters. I built my small block using this cam+head+intake combination plus some CNC head work, bigger valves, and higher ratio rocker arms. http://www.compcams.com/Technical/DynoSheets/XE262H-10_001.asp?printer=1& Should do somewhat better than the tested 348 HP @ 5300 RPM.
  2. DrewEckhardt
    QuoteI say, all's well that ends well. He relisted it legitimately, the people who originally bid on it are no longer screwed, and we can all go on with our lives. Quote Saying that the 12 year old CYPRES "should not be packed" is not quite the same as "is illegal to use for skydiving in America."
  3. DrewEckhardt
    Be sure to use a shipping method with a tracking number. If you don't the buyer can claim non-receipt after which paypal can freeze the funds.
  4. DrewEckhardt
    The fee is charged to the account that receives the funds if it's a business or premier account. There is no fee for sending or receiving funds with a standard personal account. There's a $500/month receiving limit for personal accounts. You'll need a business or premier account if you plan on selling the rig for more than that.
  5. DrewEckhardt
    Although an out-of-date helmet won't cause your motorcycle mechanic to refuse to work on your bike or the local court to yank your license if you wear it. All knowledgeable American riggers won't install an out-of-date CYPRES and the FAA can yank ratings if you get caught using it.
  6. DrewEckhardt
    It's capitalism in action. $250 is ludicrous for even an hour of labor requiring very little specialized knowledge and training. My lawyer only gets $200/hour in exchange for 8 years schooling, passing the bar, and a couple decades of experience from practising law. My accountant who cuts my tax bill by thousands only gets $70/hour. My favorite rigger doesn't get $250 in labor for the hours it takes to build a custom jumpsuit. Businesses have inventory costs, although this is not applicable to gear drop-shipped from the manufacturer. Gear prices including rentals until your equipment shows up, canopy insurance, loaners while gear is in for maintenance, etc. are worth paying for. A tailor's measurements may be worth $20.
  7. DrewEckhardt
    NO. 170 square foot main and (especially) reserve canopies would be appropriate. 100 jumps before you switch to a 150 main would be a good idea. When things go bad they do so quickly. You're picking the parachute for what happens when people guess wrong about the wings aloft and you have to land cross-wind in a concrete parking lot. A wingloading over 1.0 is never appropriate for F111 mains like the PD150 since they get porous with a few hundred jumps and don't provide a strong flare.
  8. DrewEckhardt
    Assuming you put in a reasonable "new" value for the unit. Although the list price is similar using the same value doesn't make much sense because the originals cost $85 more every two years or $340 over the life of the unit. We also didn't pay as close to list price in the US. I paid $945 for one in 2000 and under $900 in 1998. And the originals aren't waterproof without the $200 upgrade kit.
  9. DrewEckhardt
    Because the clothes match our colorful personalities.
  10. DrewEckhardt
    Almost always none of the above. Their food is barely edible. You pay too much for what you get. During a lunch rush they aren't fast. My one chain restraunt fast-food experience in the last year was at the truck stop Taco bell outside Eloy. It was late, I was starving, and it beat being hungry or eating a power bar. I usually dine at nice little local restraunts. For example my favorite carniceria y panaderia makes killer carne asada and barbacoa tacos with tender meat on fresh tasting tortillas. They sell Coco-cola made from cane sugar in half liter glass bottles imported from Mexico. There's often no line during the lunch rush. Tacos are $1 each and Cokes $1.50. Better, faster, and cheaper than "fast" "food".
  11. DrewEckhardt
    It allows people with mortgages to have the same interest costs as land lords for whom the interest is a business expense which in turn encourages home ownership. With a 33% combined state and federal marginal tax rate, without the deduction your pre-tax costs would be 50% higher to own your first few homes than to rent them. That's significant.
  12. DrewEckhardt
    Starting with $8M in venture capital, deciding how you want your company to run, hiring who you want, designing a product, and building it is much more fun than skydiving.
  13. DrewEckhardt
    Since I'm not going to place high enough the ranking and prize money are irrelevant and I can't gain anything by swooping the course during a competition versus doing the same on any other hop-and-pop with ground video. OTOH, participating in a competition means that I need to cough up the entry fee and get my butt out of my house before the competition starts.
  14. DrewEckhardt
    It might fit well if your inseam is about 9" longer which is probably not the case.
  15. DrewEckhardt
    All modern rigs are freefly friendly. Anything correctly built to your dimensions will be comfortable, although you may have a preference for cut-in latterals, a back pad, or different (narrow, extra padded, whatever) leg strap configuration. Rigs not correctly built to your dimensions may not be. Rigs with the closing loop on the reserve container instead of the bottom flap will accomodate a smaller canopy. Delivery time, style options (split panel colors, tye-die, etc), and price are probably more significant.
  16. DrewEckhardt
    Yes.
  17. DrewEckhardt
    Not necessarily. In many cases cell phones are a necessity. If a person is in town shopping, with the cost of gas as it is, isn't it cheaper for them to call home to see if anything is needed? It's least expensive to plan your shopping ahead of time and buy when items are least expensive. It would have been cheaper to finance my least expensive used car ($2000) with a 20% APR credit card cash advance paid off in 5 years than to finance any new car with a 0% 5 year loan.
  18. DrewEckhardt
    Because while you can buy a toothbrush and underwear at the corner store, they don't sell BASE rigs and not having one because the airline lost yours would ruin a jumping vacation. When that happens they gate check the excess, and on some airlines (smaller commuter flights) it's waiting for you when you get off the plane. Not a big deal.
  19. DrewEckhardt
    The Stiletto was originally placarded at 1.3 pounds/square foot for expert skydivers. That wing loading is no lower now than it was ten years ago. _All_ canopies are heavily loaded at 1.5 pounds/square foot. There's a huge difference when things go wrong, you're landing down wind, you're at a high density altitude, etc. It will be plenty fast when flown harder. Once you get away from straight in approaches I don't think 1.5 is too much slower than 1.7. Buy a used 150, put a couple hundred jumps on it, sell it for what you paid if you got a good deal (or $200 less if you didn't), and then buy something else. It's a bad idea to change shapes and sizes at the same time because both the added responsiveness and added speed can get you in trouble. It's a bad idea to change down more than a size at once. The change between canopy sizes is not perceptually linear. It's a bad idea to downsize faster than Brian Germain's 1.0 + .1/100 jumps formula.
  20. DrewEckhardt
    With the brakes stowed many ellipticals will stay in a turn until you apply control input. Harness or riser input is a better way to deal with it than toggle. since that will leave the canopy in braked flight to give you more time to deal with traffic, stowing your slider, loosening your chest strap, etc. This seems to be more likely with ellipticals that are more sensitive to control input like the Stiletto; but is far from unique to that canopy. I think the Stiletto just gets a reputation because it was the first common elliptical. All ellipticals ocassionally try to open into a hard turn which will turn into a spiral. Flying through the opening minimizes this. If you made enough jumps on a Samurai you'd find that it does this too.
  21. DrewEckhardt
    Flying relatively slow in the pattern makes no difference to the people behind you since they can always land after you (A 100 square foot elliptical at 1.7 pounds/square foot can maintain the same descent rate as a 170 square foot canopy at 1.0 pounds/square foot) and your parachute is only 25' wide. It's also unavoidable when you have a wing loading below 2.5 pounds/square foot and get out early enough. That describes most new jumpers at turbine DZs (20 people out in a pass) who have necessarily lower wing loadings and get out relatively early because they're in smaller groups. It's much safer than doing S-turns in the pattern and will save your life in some situations. If you can't land with some brakes you need canopy coaching.
  22. DrewEckhardt
    Assuming there's either a head wind or you're jumping something that actually sinks. Assuming that you can still get a decent flare from the braked approach. A big open-nosed seven cell trimmed a bit steep and loaded arround .7 pounds/square foot sinks with half brakes, comes almost straight down if you get close to the stall point, and can give you a comfortable stand-up landing as long as you come in a bit faster than the stall speed. A modern skydiving canopy at contemporary wing loadings won't sink until you get deeper than 3/4 brakes, still has a somewhat flat glide, and you'll have a hard time getting a comfortable landing
  23. DrewEckhardt
    Freight trains are diesel-electric.
  24. DrewEckhardt
    A _lot_ of BASE jumpers use Hanwag Fly 2000 paragliding boots. http://www.flyaboveall.com/hanwag.htm I wouldn't want to run in mine though, so they're probably not appropriate for higher wing loadings.
  25. DrewEckhardt
    A big open-nosed F111 seven cell with a mesh slider out of a King Air at normal jumprun speed doesn't really loose any altitude. I don't think it's too different than a zero airspeed static line with no slider which is quite comfortable at 200-250 feet. Combine that with a reserve/BASE packjob for reliability.