DrewEckhardt

Body position, flying through the openings, and equipment maintainence would have done more good :-) I have no idea where the TZ malfunction came from. One of the Batwing malfunctions came from a skysurf, another my second wingsuit jump. I switched to a Monarch for those jumps where different openings were likely. After the other Batwing malfunction and first Stiletto spinner, I got in touch with flying through my openings and things went well for 500 jumps - no line twists, better heading control, and no cutaways. Much better. The Siletto openings got wierder in the last 100 jumps on its line-set and I ignored them because it was landing well. Evidentally, 600 jumps is not always a reasonable life expectation for 550 microlines. After it spun up again, I got my Samurai and stuck the Stiletto in a plastic bag. The Samurai spinner came from a brake fire. I think that's worn velcro with a switch to Slinks - without bumpers the slider comes down _fast_. This one may also have been recoverable - it wasn't spinning fast or accelerating.

Seven - Turbo Z 205, 3 x Batwing 134, 2 x Stiletto 120, 1 x Samurai 105.

If travel won't violate your parole conditions, you're not a known football hooligan who had their passport revoked, etc. you fly someplace with a more suitable object. If you can afford to skydive you can afford the airfare to the legal span in Idaho, USA. Or perhaps someplace closer.

No. With sufficient altitude I'd rather be stable belly-to-earth or head-high than firing my pilot chute arround me or while spinning. Statistically this is more dangerous. I've remained altitude aware during my spinning malfunctions, have just one unintentional deployment below 2500 feet when I was younger and dumber, and am comfortable with much longer delays from my cutaway altitudes. The last one had me fully open on my reserve by 2000 feet. I'd use a skyhook - the "pilot chute" already has enormous drag and should have you completely open before you can develop line twists, although RWS doesn't make a container size that interests me.

Yep. I made six jumps off the bridge last year and two out of the tram. Given a full three days I look forward to doing at least that many this year.

Depends where I'm going, what I'm driving, what the visibility is, what the laws are, and how many tickets I've had recently. When I was going to the second closest DZ more often with no recent infractions I'd do a bit under 100 MPH since there was good visibility (miles), it would leave me six points more before I lost my license, and was still an infraction that couldn't get me sent to jail. With more recent tickets I'll stick to under 10 over.

That's still not enough. Different people have their height in different places - I'm 5'10" with a 31.5" inseam. Some one with the same height but longer or shorter legs could need a harness a few inches longer or shorter. Girth can also change things. Send your measurements and the serial number to the maker.

I had my first save a few weeks ago: me. Second skydiving reserve pack job. Cutaway, flipped over, relaxed, and dumped without any stress. Opened on-heading like 16/17 my previous slider equipped single canopy packjobs a thousand feet above the highest of those.

The rate of closure between high performance canopies swooping in opposite directions is 90-140 MPH (faster than freefall!) and even moderately loaded parachutes flown conservatively towards each other can close at 50-60 MPH. In that situation, you're also combining three-dimensional approaches with people not evolved to evade flying predators and the tunnel vision which goes with high speeds. It's a recipe for disaster. A collision at those speeds will be a lot worse than a down-wind landing; and you can always land way out and avoid that. Your approach begins somewhere above 1500 feet. In theory, you could be close enough to the next jumper that changing directions gets messy. In practice, SOMEONE will be under a small parachute and in a hurry to land first. By reducing your sink rate it's easy to let them set a landing direction before you get to the beginning of your pattern. An arrow set under human control would work better (IOW, not change once anyone dropped below 2000 feet), although first-one-down is still workable.

When I know how high I am, I cutaway, flip over, and then dump the reserve. Otherwise I pull the cutaway and then the reserve. People using the hand-on-each method have accidentally fired the reserve when they had a hard cutaway (G-forces increase the cutaway force, as do line twists down to the risers without hard inserts). Also note that while in a spinning malfunction, the handles do move.

I'd ask for another one if I lost it because the included bracket is manufactured from a plastic that's too weak/brittle for the application. Otherwise I'd figure it was my fault for being stupid. FWIW, the replacements I'm aware of all came from losses due to bracket breakage.

A motivated president can do _a lot_ to push his agenda by refusing to sign bills until his pet riders are attached, executive branch nominations that pass laws (in the form of regulations) delegated to those offices by Congress, deciding the justice department prosecution priorities, signing executive orders, etc. In practice this doesn't happen often; presumably because doing so pisses off more voters than breaking your campaign promises. The effects can be unpleasant when it does. You get two "parties" both catering to the middle ground when you game out a winner-take-all system like ours. Each throws a few bones to groups outside that to try and gain the plurality required to hold office.

1. They don't want us to know their positions: http://www.vote-smart.org/npat.php?can_id=CNIP9043 http://www.vote-smart.org/npat.php?can_id=S0421103 2. Many of us have one or more show stoppper issues (abortion rights, gun control, etc.) Once you know where the candidates stand on the issues you care most about the rest is only useful in debate and trivial pursuit.

Excellent. Your canopy choice will make learning easier and reduce your chances of death/injury. Big canopies are boring unless you have just a few jumps (easily fixed) or the landing area is small and surrounded by cliffs/trees/boulders (not common at dropzones). Needing hundreds of jumps to master a canopy and Brian Germain's wingloading-never-exceed formula (roughly 1.0 + .1/100 jumps) don't change that. People have been ranting for at least the last nine years about premature down-sizing with no noticeable effect. If you want to do something positive take up a collection to fund a canopy seminar at your dropzone. More education has led people to be less stupid (carving vs. snap turns; front risers vs. toggles). Education combined with the de-stigmatization of high-performance landings may also lead more people to go faster under larger parachutes - I'd jump something much smaller for the speed if I was only landing straight-in.

Unfortunately they'll look no better than laser discs when you blow them up to a reasonable size. You don't want less than a 16:9 enhanced DVD when you park yourself 9' from an 87x37" scope image.

Keep my favorite sport-utility rifle with me where practical, favorite high-cap big-bore handgun on hand where that didn't work, stop paying taxes, and start making voluntary dontations to important service providers like the fire department, highway department, etc.

Light weight. The bar tab is smaller, you loose fewer calories that could be spent on tasty food, and can't get hung-over.

While the dictionary definitions are different, most Americans use the following. Liberal: Any person or thing more anti-gun, pro-drug, pro-abortion, pro-welfare, etc. than you are. Example usage: I hate it when Liberals like George Bush support restrictive firearms laws like the assault weapon ban. Conservative: Any person or thing more pro-gun, anti-drug, anti-abortion, or anti-welfare than you are. Example usage: I hate it when Conservatives like Bill Clinton continue the war on some drugs.

Boards aren't popular because they limit the social interactions of skydiving too much - it's pretty much one active participant plus a camera flyer. Headup/down is technically challenging enough that groups larger than 2-4 often don't work well. Those small numbers haven't limited it's acceptance as a discipline. Wingsuits limit the climb-out possiblities so the maximum group size is usually smaller than you have with other forms of relative jumping, although you can still get six people out of an otter. You get twice the freefall. Suits being $600-$900 and there being no improvised substitute is probably the biggest limit to acceptance.

Other good options are Totino's Party Pizzas, spaghetti with a little butter+salt, and baked potatoes. I don't miss living on $10/hour.

It may be worth noting that there are several jumpable cliffs not in National Parks that are closer to the Royal Gorge/Denver than the National Park with the popular wall.

Mine says gives me a screen that has changing pictures with an unchanging "loading AQ" status bar.

It's a boogie if enough people travel to it. Advertising, aircraft, load organizing, equipment demos, and beer may be reasons people actually do this; or just business as usual.

The tail strike I saw happened in a King Air where we had a lot of small groups and the DZO figured a curved jump run was the most fuel-efficient way to get everyone out. A climbing pass is common on Otters for hop-and-pops.

A sub-terminal opening consumes less altitude but takes longer.