DrewEckhardt

It might be safer than buying new. A woman I knew didn't know about the missing stitching in her new rig until after she jumped it and found herself under canopy in an odd position. She got a free container as a result of the experience but I wouldn't want to try that. As Spectra "microline" replaced Dacron it took us a couple deaths to realize that grommet seating that worked with the old style lines wasn't good enough for the new lines. Some of the first popular electronic AADs fired when they shouldn't have until they got temporary external shielding and permanent internal shielding on their next factory service. You'll do fine if you get advice from competent parachute riggers on what to buy and have a pre-payment gear inspection (people often run deals through a rigger who holds money and gear in escrow until he does that) to catch wear/assembly/manufacturing issues.

No. Your Neptune measures descent rate. Glide ratios are typically somewhere between 2:1 and 3:1 with the later at lower wing loadings, bigger canopies, or at braked flight (a big guy's drag from his frontal area becomes an increasing part of the total as his wing shrinks, smaller peoples' cross-sectional density is lower than big peoples', and while things like lines get shorter under smaller canopies they don't get thinner so their share of drag goes up without adding lift) which would yield at least 34 MPH of forward speed under the Safire. Some canopies are better due to aerodynamics or trim (Paraflite gets 4:1 from their Intruder military canopy), some are worse due to trim (even a F111 seven cell with a tall airfoil will do 2:1 in full flight). The Vengence is probably trimmed steeper like most swooping canopies following the Stiletto. You'd need to take a GPS unit up with you, measure your ground track in two directions 180 degrees apart, and do the arithmetic to come up with the forward component of your airspeed vector.

EIFF claims a 22 MPH forward speed at .7 pounds per square foot for their classic accuracy canopy. Having jumped such a canopy in winds where they were using tandem catchers that seems about right (flying the entire landing pattern facing into the wind seemed the thing to do though). Paraflite claims 26 MPH forward speed for their Intruder 360 with a more modern shape at 200 pounds and 34 MPH at 300 pounds but neglects to specify whether those are all-up weights. That's enough. A 1.3 wing loading should be 14% faster than 1.0 pounds per square foot which isn't much. We did just fine when technology limited us to a pound per square foot. People under like sized modern gear will be OK too as long as they learn to spot better and exit far enough up-wind from the DZ.

People selling used gear (which you'll be buying since you can't afford new gear. I paid $1700 for my first used rig complete and $700 for the second with container and reserve) generally don't take payments. People selling new gear usually take credit cards.

Let me ask you something: With health care there are three goals. We want healthcare to be: (1) High quality (2) Accessible on Demand; and (3) Inexpensive. I'm not asking for all three. I just don't think that the government should be helping insurance companies increase their profits (through subsidies for the less affluent to purchase their product with unbounded costs, favorable tax treatment that has the better off spending more money than they would otherwise, and other things like the anti-trust exemption) thus making an expensive system cost more than it needs to. France has one of the most expensive medical systems in the world where people don't wait for treatment. As of 2005 they were spending $3,300 annually per capita. The United states spent $6,400 that year. As long as the governments are going to monkey with the health care system (With 80 million of us getting our insurance through them gorilla might make a better metaphor) I think they should be doing it on the citizens' behalf not the lobbyists'.

That might be fine with me if you were only allowed to jump solo exiting on your own pass (the DZO might need to charge you extra for time on the engines and other parts requiring inspection/service at intervals dependent on operational time). When you jump a parachute that you can't turn at low altitudes or are too scared to you become an unguided meat missile in the pattern and landing areas that endangers the rest of the load.

That's what happens when Republicans decide to feed for-profit corporations government money. We could have been "socialists" and had the not for profit single-payer system Obama wanted with lower costs. Instead Republicans opted to enhance insurance industry profits instead by requiring all citizens to buy their product with tax dollars to help out where the financial burden would be too high. It's a lot like their Medicare Part D plan to funnel tax dollars into the insurance and health care industries.

It's anti-Darwinian. Eventually you're going to need to make a low turn or land with greater than trim speed (an incorrectly executed flat turn, surge from a braked approach, etc. will happen). You're much less likely to hurt yourself where that's in a controlled setting (where you're not turning to avoid power lines you didn't see) and you're under a relatively large parachute. The alternative is "not hook turn type people" (to paraphrase incident reports) getting smaller canopies "because their current parachute is boring" or "so they don't go backwards in wind" who get hurt and dead when things go a bit wrong doing something like landing off the airport and they don't have the right tools to save themselves. Here's a guy who "wasn't a swooper never turned more than 90s base to final" who didn't use a flat turn to get back into the wind and died at a 1.2 pound/square foot wing loading: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3709212 It would be reasonable to require a flat turn and front riser approach to clear people to jump something smaller than a student canopy since the situations where those happen can me more likely for inexperienced jumpers (they're in small groups so they exit later and don't yet have enough experience to decide when a spot is too far so out landings or getting back with too little altitude for a turn back into the wind is more likely).

Because at some point he's going to land at faster than trim speed. Maybe he gets back low from a long spot, needs to avoid an obstacle, or is just chasing the wind sock. He doesn't make a flat enough turn and picks up speed. Or perhaps he'll be holding brakes so he doesn't over-shoot the landing area (it works with modern canopies when there's a head wind) or to let some one else land first and he gets a surge close to the ground. In all cases he needs to flare from faster than trim speed. Double front risers are the safest way to get that speed in a controlled setting because getting out of the resulting attitude only requires a pitch axis correction, the canopy will respond relatively quickly to control input because of where the jumper ends up relative to the canopy, and the jumper is traveling in the direction of landing during the entire maneuver so he doesn't conflict with the pattern or hurt himself trying to finish a speed inducing turn.

Moving in next to an airport and then complaining about the noise makes about as much sense as having a picnic on train tracks and complaining that the train crashed the party. It makes a lot of sense. They paid $300,000 for houses that would cost $600,000 down the road in Boulder away from the airport and turkey processing plant. If they can get the airport closed they'll have some of the benefit of spending more without breaking their budgets.

Nah. I only know three straight engineers over 30 who've haven't married and settled down with a good woman. My experience has been that within organizations there's a lot of homogeneity in engineer quality and that the better engineers have more varied interests and fewer social defects. I'd speculate that that people with other observations have been hanging around in groups at the wrong end of the bell curve.

That's a start. It's nice to have a big single action revolver which you could use for hunting if so inclined, assuming you live in a free state you'll also want a real high-capacity center fire pistol for gun games, with the same caveat a concealable pistol in something like .380 is a fine idea.... This ignores where you want multiple guns in the same caliber. Over-unders (the Baikals are surprisingly nice for such an affordable gun) point nice and make for a quick second shot on clay pigeons; so even if you already have one 12 gauge at least one more won't hurt. Lesee.. .22, .40, .44, .223, .308, 8mm. Need to borrow shotguns when I shoot trap so I'm obviously missing a 12 gauge. I also have metric and SAE sockets in 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2" drives; deep variants of key sizes; 8 point sockets for square plugs; Torx sockets with a security Torx bit for my motorcycle locks; hex key sockets; crow foot sockets; combination wrenches; short combination wrenches; a couple of gear wrenches.. It's all about having the right tool for the job at hand.

I read the fine print when I first learned of pet insurance and noted that the per injury/illness limits were all under $1500 with most half-that. aspca now has pet insurance which claims to pay "reasonable and customary fees" for various situations but I haven't dug deeper.

Exactly. We end up with the worst of both worlds because both rarely repeal the other's asinine legislation.

I find that making things and increasing shareholder value is usually a more effective use of my time. Management at small well-run companies that might run out of money tend to agree. When I charge people by the hour the guys paying my tab usually keep things efficient. On salary at big companies people tend to be more concerned with growing their fiefdoms than such thing although given a choice one can avoid such situations.

Yup I interview THEM

No. In a job interview I get to talk about some of the wonderful things I've done for previous employers. It's not bragging, it's not uncouth, and the listeners are literally asking for it. On top of that there's the competition with other candidates. I like that and enjoy winning.

So, what you're saying then is . . . people outside that group have no Constitutional right to own a gun. So, no men under 17 or over 45 or any women unless they belong to the National Guard. In order for me to say that the second amendment would need to be "The right of the militia to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" It doesn't.

The US militia is all males who are or intend to become citizens aged 17-44 plus older former regular armed services members in the National Guard and Naval Militia, and female citizens serving in the National guard National Guard members. 10 USC 311 (a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard. (b) The classes of the militia are - (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia. 32 USC 313 (a) To be eligible for original enlistment in the National Guard, a person must be at least 17 years of age and under 45, or under 64 years of age and a former member of the Regular Army, Regular Navy, Regular Air Force, or Regular Marine Corps. To be eligible for reenlistment, a person must be under 64 years of age.

Yes. You're probably putting your feet down before you need to (most skydivers do) and not flaring all the way. You'll get the slowest landings (a couple of steps under a 105 loaded at 1.8 pounds/square foot at 5000 feet MSL with density altitude approaching 8000 feet and no wind) if you fly so that your feet would be below ground level and pop back up just before the toggles got too mushy to do that. Aiming for the near edge of the pea gravel (crash landing will be more comfortable there) and continuing to fly with your feet up after you'd have tried to put them down might be interesting.

Disposable litter box in the hotel bathroom. Sedatives will be more pleasant for both cats and you. If you can afford it you may be better off flying back to get them so they're not traveling as long.

The sorts of people who commit the largest crimes are also the sorts of people paying to get congress people elected. No. They believe they're better than the rest of us, the rules shouldn't apply, and they're not going to get caught. The worst executives I've worked with 1. Were psychopaths (as in suffering from Anti-Social Personality Disorder not in a metaphorical sense). They faked empathy rather than feeling it, didn't care what they did to other people, were described by co-workers as "the best liar I've ever met," etc. 2. Had a bad case of hubris. They felt that they were above everyone else, that accepted processes and rules didn't apply to them, that they aren't going to get caught, etc. One just got done serving a 6-7 year federal prison term for applying the same attitude in his sex life that he used for his corner office job.

Thanks Drew. Just to be clear, are you saying that current law is that there are in fact no such prohibitions? That it is currently completely legal for me to buy a couple of Stinger missiles, and keep them in my home, and no-one will come and ask any pointed questions? Because I thought the situation was quite the opposite, but since I have never tried to do that (and in fact haven't any interest in doing that), maybe I thought wrong? Don There's what the constitution says but on top of it you have congress writing unconstitutional new laws, the president signing them, and supreme court choosing not to rule on them or upholding the crap. For instance under Federal law it's legal for you (assuming you're a law abiding citizen) to own a machine gun or cannon. In 1934 the government added a $200 ($3200 in current dollars) transfer and making tax to machine guns and large bore firearms (with exceptions for sporting shotguns) and that tax wasn't found to be unconstitutional. In 1986 new machine guns couldn't be sold to civillians although existing units remain available for sale; so a $1000 gun can be $10,000 or $15,000. Surface to air missiles are specifically prohibited by TITLE 18, PART I, CHAPTER 113B, § 2332g.

I think the letter of the law forbids prohibitions on such things and believe that if Bill Gates wants to buy himself an aircraft carrier with a fighter group he has the constitutional right to just like warship owning citizens of the founding fathers' times. Also note that Article 1 section 8 of our Constitution allows Congress to grant letters of marque and reprisal which wouldn't mean much if such weapons were prohibited to our citizenry.

Sounds fair to me. With more shared pain of taxation for spending on behalf of corporatist interests they might stop voting for the Republicans and Democrats that enable the graft. Also fair. Liberal reforms like the Bush 43 tax cuts have made America's tax system the most progressive (ratio of tax to income shares for the top earning decile) out of the OECD 24 which includes Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, The Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, The Slovak Republic, Sweden, Switzerland, and The United Kingdom. We've raised the deficit to enrich the defense industry, the banking industry, etc. and it's about time the tax payers got their share of the pork pie. With the top decile paying 45% of taxes they should be first in line for the kickback.