DrewEckhardt

Because small rigs look sexier and people who lack the experience to fly a smaller parachute aren't willing to give up the safety that goes with square footage on a daily basis (otherwise both main and reserve could be smaller). Some people also plan ahead for when they down-size so at that point the main and reserve will match in size. I have a 105 main and 143 reserve in my main rig, and 135/150 in my birdman setup.

A reasonable reduction in our excessive taxes isn't sustainable without reducing spending. Congress isn't going to do that. In theory our 12.4% social security tax is going into a trust fund, although in practice Congress borrows from the fund so it's just another regressive tax on our first $87,900 in earnings. Before this can go into a real retirement plan, Congress has to stop spending the money on other things. They aren't going to do that. The viability of turnip-green powered generating plants is dependant on the spending ratio between the turnip-farmers and fossil fuel lobbies. It's not up for grabs in an election. The only things you can do are 1) attack the other candidate's character 2) scare people about what he might do (especially in regards to abortion, gun control, jobs, and taxes) 3) counter the other candidate's attempts at #1 and #2

Small (I use two fingers) and high so the tail doesn't get deflected, open so it's easier to get fingers in there.

More advanced planforms have lower stall speeds. Once that becomes the limiting factor (as opposed to approach speed or control sensitivity) fully elliptical canopies let you shrink a size or two from a square, more modern shapes (Samurai, Crossfire) up to a size more (At my old weight 120->109 was about right, 120->105 too much), and cross-bracing at least another size. Subjectively I don't think the stall speed of a Stiletto 120 is much different from a Sabre 150 or an Extreme FX 104. You'd probably have had the same landing experience under an Extreme FX 114 as your TZ165 or the Nitron 135. I had no problems landing an Extreme 104 @ 1.9 pounds/square feet when I had 500 jumps and was used to a Batwing 134 although 800 jumps after that loaded at 1.6-1.7 taught me that those jumps were a really bad idea. The interesting differences are elsewhere. You can generate a _lot_ more speed under the smaller parachutes whether or not you mean too (I clocked 48 MPH coming out of a carving 90 degree turn under my Stiletto loaded arround 1.7). Designs built for swooping stay in a dive longer and build even more speed. The smaller parachutes are also a lot more sensitive to control input, intentional or otherwise. A Samurai 105 @ 1.9 pounds/square foot stalls more abruptly than a Stiletto 120 @ 1.7. When I switched from a Batwing 134 @ 1.4 to a Stiletto 120 @ 1.6 I didn't always fly in a straight line when flaring. These characteristics get lots of people in trouble when something abnormal happens - some one flies close to them on landing, there's a wind shift, etc. Speed that's manageable in a straight line may not be when you need to fly arround an obstacle. Bill's down sizing checklist http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/safety/detail_page.cgi?ID=47 isa great list of necessary survival skills you should have mastered before down-sizing. I'd probably add "land with a 5 MPH tail-wind" to the list. Brian Germain's Wingloading Never-Exceed chart (1.0 + .1/100 jumps with a 2.0 maximum, -.1/2000 feet density altitude, -.2 for smaller canopies) seems to accurately reflect human learning and perception as it relates to flying parachutes. Buying a Stiletto 170 for $500, putting a few hundred jumps on it, selling it for the same money, downsizing to a 150, puting a few hundred jumps on it, and then putting 500-1000 jumps on your favorite 135 would be a fine idea. At 1.7 pounds/square foot prachutes have sharp pointy fangs even when you can't see them.

Ew. I'm sorry. Maybe you could find something decent in a neighboring town. Or you could make faux sushi with some of that fake crab stuff. Or you could get a little crazy and try something vegetarian!!

The local fish-monger's tuna is tasteless, their suhsi-grade salmon farm raised, and yellow tail not that good. My cat actually turned down a piece of their fish.

I've had fresher Sushi in Boulder CO than Berkeley CA. Arround here the better Sushi joints have their chefs drive out to the airport and bring back fresh fish. The best Unagi comes here alive in a bucket from Japan while most coastal eel is processed in a Taiwaneese factory. OTOH the best halibut I've had came out of the sea that morning outside San Francisco.

About 1.0 at your experience level. A Sabre 210 would be ideal. You'll feel turbulence less but hit the ground much harder when you do get a sudden down-draft.

It can be interesting in a good or bad way. Without experimentation you'd never try delicacies like Sawagani or Unagi Shirayaki. You'd also never end up with a nauseating plum sauce you can't swallow.

Yes provided they're not paying you extra for the ~128 hours/week you're not working for them.

The PD - better reinforcement (spanwise reinforcing tapes) and flight/landing characteristics. I've seen a reserve which only had a reinforcing tape at the tail lying on the ground in 2 and 5 cell chunks with grass between them. Without any tape it would have been a fatality and with a full compliment of tapes the landing may have been injury free.

Two cats. They can keep each other company when you're working. As far as kittens and litter box training: The local humane society has kittnes live in foster homes until they're old enough for adoption. They come socialized, potty trained, and spayed or neutered by the time you get them.

It's something you should agree on before you have intercourse and stick to afterwards. If you neglected to do it beforehand you're stuck with what your partner wants to do with her body.

It's them, mostly Clear Channel which owns 1200 radio stations, 19 TV stations, 700,000 bill boards, and a concert promotion company. You make the most money airing non-descript music that offends the fewest people, with a focus on musicians who are playing concerts for your promotion company. For some people it's not about the money, although the FCC doesn't have to give them a license and lobying by the media monopoly has made that more difficult (for example you now need three empty channels between stations). As a result, arround here the only stations worth listening too are the public classical/jazz stations and Radio Free Boulder (pirate radio which plays everything from classic rock to ambient).

Your parachutes (main+reserve) should be big enough that you can set down gracefully and accurately in any conditions - at high density altitude, in parking lots, down wind, cross-wind. Brian Germains 1.0 + .1 / 100 jumps with adjustments down for small canopies and higher density altitude never-exceed formula is also reasonable. You should also be able to finish Bill's checklist http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/safety/detail_page.cgi?ID=47 before each down-size. By all three metrics your wing loading is excessive.

The speed and body position differences are what make low-jump-number flat flying safer. You can't accidentally end up with a 40 MPH change in speed and loosing stability is difficult. You don't know which person is moving so you might not learn as much or progress as quickly. Graduating from AFF (7 jumps) requires being able to remain altitude aware, hold heading, turn, change fall-rate, and track in a straight line. As long as you didn't forget that and aren't to aggressive (we touch our friends gently in freefall!) an all-newbie 2-way isn't unsafe. Larger formations are a bad idea because you're more likely to have people that don't make it in and aren't yet fully aware of what's going on.

I had my seven AFF jumps, five more on student gear, and a packing class from Skratch Garison with the condition that I teach two more people how to pack. Needed some help the first time, less help the next couple, and was packing for myself. If you keep the lines in the middle, cock the pilot chute (assuming it's collapsible), and don't do something amazingly stupid closing the container it's going to open. Keep the slider at the stops and roll the nose/tail as appropriate and the opening will be comfortable too. IOW, don't worry about it.

Had one and scrapped it because it made getting the pin in more difficult than a wide pull-up cord and it took longer to remove. One might save your hands if you work as a packer, although a pull-up cord is fine for under 10 pack jobs a day.

Eric S. Raymond's A Portrait of J. Random Hacker suggests that we're neophiles, stimulated by and appreciative of novelty. Skydiving is definately different. The prototypical computer geek is into sports that are primarily self-competitive ones involving concentration, stamina, and micromotor skills. Recreational skydiving fits the bill there. Mix in an ample discretionary spending budget and you have a good match.

I love most meats. Antelope, aligator, beef, bison, boar, capon, catfish, chicken, clam, conch, crab, duck, elk, grouper, halibut, jack, kangaroo, lobster, mussel, ostrich, oyster, pheasant, pork, quail, rabbit, salmon, shrimp, snail, snapper, turkey, tuna, venison. Baked, braised, broiled, BBQ'd, fried, roasted, or raw. I love steak tartare, sushi, oysters on the half shell, carpacio, and ceviche. My mouth waters just thinking about it. I dislike most vegetables and many fruits.

You start the same and stop before you start flying backwards. The problems are that 1. You don't see things the same in windy conditions because your forward ground speed is lower for a given vertical speed. You might think you're coming down slower than you really are and flare slower than you need to. 2. You have less ground speed and therefore time to reduce your altitude and vertical speed to zero before you run out of forward speed, making things more difficult. This relates to my first point - it's possible to end up with zero forward speed, substantial vertical speed, and have a hard landing. As a student you get taught to flare fully at X feet off the ground, which only works when X hasn't changed due to being under a different canopy or density altitude variations. You also have to get X right, which is harder when your speeds are different due to winds or induced speed (intentional or accidental - say from the surge following a braked approach). It's better to interact with the situation, adding toggle as necessary to control your vertical speed. You start with some assertiveness to slow your vertical descent, stop yourself vertically slightly below ground level, and then add enough to come back up as the canopy is running out of lift or your ground speed nears zero. Slower canopies require less precesion to get a comfortable landing and the sink/pop-back-up part can be elliminated (you level out at or slightly above ground level). On mushy lightly loaded canopies it gets compressed into one motion. Works great on everything from F111 seven cells loaded at .7 up to cross-braced tri-cells at 1.9 in any wind conditions (upwind, downwind, crosswind).

Not enough (it takes a while to accelerate). Tracking for a full thousand feet would be better. If that would put you below your intended deployment altitude, break-off higher.

Steady winds have zero effect on how long your canopy dives and it's glide ratio relative to the moving air mass. You cover less ground with a head-wind so the dive looks steeper. The resulting excitement skews your perception of time. Wind gusts and other turbulence are a different story.

Starting with the worst case: - With a missing sign your place might not be seen by a buyer and end up on the market for months longer, costing you thousands in interest and property taxes. - If your sign gets misplaced some one needs to go through the trouble of buying a new one - Finding your sign and re-installing it is a hassle. Simple tresspassing with no property damage and no alarms tripped isn't hurting any one.

Assuming the angle of attack is identical. Being more assertive with the toggles prior to touch down gets you a higher angle of attack and lower stall speed. It's possible that what you do differently between straight-in and high-performance approaches is getting you a different stall speed.