DrewEckhardt

Since 1. There's thousands of dollars difference between a new rig (+ reserve + AAD) and a nice used rig, much of which will be lost when you want to sell the rig to down-size. 2. People who down-size no faster than allowed by Brian Germain's chart will be done with their first rig in a couple years and 400 jumps. you don't want to be ordering a new rig. Some people try to get a rig that they can "grow into" that's too small to use safely at the time they buy it, although with the high cost of lost work, co-insurance, and medical deductibles that often isn't cheaper in the long run. So you buy a safe-sized used rig as soon as possible. I started jumping mine on jump #13. You sell it when it's no longer an appropriate size for what you paid minus a couple dollars a jump for depreciation. It's unlikely to be ideal, although you'll be putting so little time on the main canopy (less than a year) that's not a big issue as long as it fits. This all assumes you've been cleared for self-supervision and (for average sized people) down-sized to the accepted 1.0 wing loading and are buying a rig sized for that. Whilst still doing AFF or static line jumps you want to wait until you're sure you'll continue and know at least a little bit.

A Cypres which has fired once but includes the cutter is worth more because that's also a life-limited component which could be sold separately when the main unit reaches its end of life.

No. In no-wind conditions proper technique will allow you to land modern canopies with up to moderate or high wing loadings (at 5000 feet MSL it may be about 1.9 pounds per square foot under a Samurai and 1.7 under a Stiletto. I haven't put a lot of mileage under less aggressive tapered designs, although with conventional squares the number it's around 1.4 at that elevation. You can go higher at sea level) with a few steps at a comfortable speed. Potential problems that lead to running are 1) Putting your feet down before the canopy has too little speed to maintain level flight. You can aim for the pea gravel, keep your feet off the ground, and see where that really happens. If you don't get your feet down in time you won't come down too hard. 2) Maintaining level flight until the end. With the canopy flying relatively flat it may be going fairly quickly. Instead you want to apply the toggles harder just before it runs out of lift, which will pitch the canopy and give you some aerodynamic braking. If you fly your plane-out so that your feet would be below ground level if you were standing and do this at the end the maneuver will take you back up to walking height and give you a very slow comfortable landing. Personally I'd get some canopy coaching (perhaps just experienced pilots with some teaching aptitude looking at landing video and giving hints) and trade back for the Sabre2. You're doing something sub-optimally.

But how long of a cheater bar is the Professor going to need? He might want a good one. The inner spindle nut sets bearing pre-load so it pretty much has no torque, and the outer one just has enough to lock it in place.

Although as long as he's staying away from cars and valuables, it's still going to be less expensive to leave him on the street.

As a California tax payer I have a big problem with the sentence. With per-inmate costs of $50,000 a year in California, the long sentence is going to cost the tax payers $150,000 - $400,000. Assuming the criminal was a tub-o-lard eating 3500 calories a day and we let him steal all the cheese he could eat at $4 a bag retail we'd only be loosing $2920 a year. I'd prefer the second option.

I DIDN'T WRITE THIS! But I agree. That being said on average per beer I give $1+change. so if it were say $2.50 I would give $1.50 per drink if it were a simple draft. Not for mixed drink it's $2+change. If there is food than the usual %15. Long story short, tip well tip often.[/reply So... just out of curiosity (and I have never worked in the food industry in my life)... why do the bartenders get upwards of 60% tip but the person serving you a meal only gets 15%. This defies logic to me. When my wife and I go out for dinner and have a drink at the bar first, the bar tender gets $2 for seeing us twice ($1 per) and the wait person gets $10-$20 for seeing us 5-6 times ($1.67 - $4 per). For like amounts of service, the waiter is getting paid more although the percentage is less.

Probably. I did AFF 1-2 at home in Colorado, 3-6 whilst on a business trip to California, and #7 back home again.

You should learn to flare all the way and be able to handle down-wind landings. It's better to get dusty from a down-wind landing you can't handle than to collide with some one attempting to land in the agreed direction. Where that's not possible (you got back from a long spot with too little altitude to turn around) you need to land out so you don't pose a danger to yourself and others.

What do you guys leave when you walk up to the bar to our a bottle? $1. Maybe more for the first one. It takes the same labor to serve a beer whether it costs $2.50 or $7.50, although for a $10.50 (Silly Valley is not cheap) liter I'll tip $2 because it's pretty much two beers.

That there is a pretty car... and by the way WHEN you do start paying exorbotant $ for your fuel over there - you'll know it and then you can start moaning Our prices only stay as good as they are, because we also "produce" oil, I'm pretty sure you have to buy every drop in the UK! No. Wholesale gasoline costs about the same in both countries, with the February 2010 US prices ranging from $1.75 to $1.85 a gallon while theirs are 32p per liter which is the same $1.85 a gallon. Our prices are as good as they are because our government does not yet tax it as heavily for social engineering purposes. The UK gas tax is .5619 pounds per liter which is $3.23 a gallon at current exchange rates. Then they apply a 15% Value Added Tax on top of the whole thing, which at current retail prices of $6.51 is $.98 a gallon for $4.21 a gallon in taxes. US federal gas taxes are only $.272 a gallon, with a state average of 18.4 cents making the average $.456 a gallon. After taxes has been subtracted the average UK retail to wholesale spread is $.45 a gallon versus $.35 in the US, probably because high costs of doing business make everything more expensive.

No, the "birther movement" is a tactic, albeit a poor one, to get a socialist, communist sympathizer, out of the office of POTUS. So, you're saying that it's ok because it's viable tactic even if it's a fuckin' stupid one? That it's ok for people to lie to mouth breathing idiot followers as long as they're trying to get "socialist, communist sympathizer, out of the office of POTUS"? Really? You need to use effective tactics to get elected, and in this post literate age people don't have the attention span to deal with facts. This will not get you elected in a presidential debate: This will: Throw in a few lies and exagerations for good measure and you too can hold high office.

Nope. After I dropped in the last ER Season 4 DVD (6) and first Season 5 NBC's Olympic broadcast was completely irrelevant. Most television is crap (even major league sports). Why should the Olympics be better?

No.

Because it takes senior people who weren't already looking for work a number of months (I've heard 1 month per $10K of salary, although three to six months has been more reasonable in my experience) to find a position that's a good fit, senior people hold out for that because they don't need a job-hopping reputation, good positions pay a lot more than unemployment insurance, multiplying that delta by the job search length is a lot of money, and a lot of people would take $XXXXX to put up with the people who don't want them for a few months longer. I spent $30,000 in savings the one time I left a position without having another one lined up and would not willingly repeat the experience even if it meant getting my lawyer involved.

It's automagic. Harder than it looks. If you aren't relaxed (which comes from lots of experience - jumping off things isn't natural. Jumping off BASE objects 300 feet high is scarier than jumping out of planes because the reptilian part of our brains has an evolutionary memory of staying away from high places to stay alive, but it's never seen a drop of 3000 or 13000 feet) errors in body position will cause larger changes in canopy heading. If you aren't exiting level with your shoulders to the horizon you're likely to make the canopy turn on opening. If the canopy turns on opening on a BASE jump it often flies back towards the object. If you're experienced, you might be able to turn quickly or stall it and back it away from the object so you don't hit it. I've watched inexperienced muppets crash into cliffs and it sucks. Assuming you get that part right there's landing. Landing is easy. Maneuvering at low altitudes to get into a tight landing area without increasing your descent rate or flying into the ground is harder and the last guy I saw get it wrong on a BASE jump broke his cocyx, sacrum, pelvis, and one vertebrae. Repeatedly landing in a tight landing area without crashing into solid things is harder and the last guy I saw get it wrong broke a bunch of bones. Higher jumps have different problems. If you have too much rotational energy you can end up flying towards the object or at least use up too much altitude getting stable. If you can't get moving away from the object, you're more likely to be too close at opening to deal with problems. The last friend of mine that over-rotated on a wing suit exit couldn't make the landing area, landed in a freezing mountain river, and was being dragged down stream towards a potential drowning death when his canopy snagged on a rock. The last guy I jumped with that had a bad exit from a big cliff and didn't get moving away from it hit the wall and dislocated his big toe (we were surprised that he didn't break more from the impact, or slide down the cliff face. I've watched a few videos of that and it really sucks - I think there's a first person example in Roland's tribute video here [URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNdRUQ_eUF8[/URL]) When you start skydiving first, you'll be relatively relaxed BASE jumping, know something about flying parachutes, and be able to get some distance away from objects. When you jump of bridges before cliffs you'll probably get your heading control issues (from pack job, body position, and pilot chute throw) sorted out before it really matters. When you do slider-down jumps (many of which let you can open early after a bad exit) before terminal your exits will probably be flat and stable. Yes. Just to start wingsuit BASE. Proximity flying is more involved. You can hear my wife screaming in the video of the guy dying with his legs coming off from an object strike ten feet away. You can skip as much of the training and preparation as you want but we'll make bets about the sort of injuries you'll suffer. If you do manage to get enough experience to learn judgement before that we'll be happy for you, but will probably end up using you as an example for others and spend a lot of time talking about the stupid things you did and how you could have avoided breaking yourself. I told this guy [URL]http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3612705[/URL] he was going to hurt himself if he didn't listen. I'd reference the dead guy I told to shape up on-line but can no longer remember his name. Fortunately most people don't die when things go wrong, they just break bones and spend time in the hospital. That's usually enough to teach judgement (I only know one living jumper that I've had to visit twice in the hospital). This is what I did when I didn't look at where I decided to land before I jumped (although I had jumped off that object a lot of times before): [URL]http://www.basejumper.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=84302;[/URL] The X-ray doesn't show the nerve damage which hurt more than anything else except when they bent my leg on the X-ray table. The bone graft two years later to patch a hole also sucked (mostly the slice in my back where they cut you open so they can drill a hole in your illium to scoop out live bone).

Learn to skydive via the standard AFF (7 or 8 instructional jumps) program after which you're cleared for self-supervision and pre-license coaching program that will get you to a license after 25 jumps in the US. After you've made about 200 jumps, are proficient at tracking, are comfortable with skydiving, fly consistent landing patterns, have good awareness in the air so you're not a danger to yourself and other people, and have enough capacity left over to deal with unusual situations learn to fly wingsuits starting with a few coached jumps from a wingsuit instructor. After perhaps 500 parachute jumps, you've learned judgement including that there's a lot you don't know, you have good accuracy, you have consistent openings, can deal quickly with opening problems (especially in the wing suit), and you know something about rigging, take a BASE first jump course and find some more experienced local people to mentor you after that. I disagree with people who think just 200 jumps are likely to build a solid foundation for BASE (the biggest problem being that it's not enough time to learn how much you don't know so you stay unbroken) and did not do that until I had 900 skydives. Some where in there you need to learn classic accuracy, because interesting BASE sites have small landing areas and modern skydiving techniques will lead to problems over-shooting into trees or landing short on boulders. I watched one skydiver (every one here would know his name) with over 10,000 jumps that didn't do that and had problems staying inside a generous 50' long landing area. After perhaps 100 BASE jumps including a bunch of terminal jumps, you have no problems with still air exits, you can get a track going early to move away from objects, you have consistent openings, you can deal with problems, you have even better accuracy for tighter landing areas, and BASE jumping isn't to overwhelming you can start to combine them. A tracking suit in between jumping in plain clothes and wing suits is probably a good idea. Spending $25,000-$30,000 on lift tickets ($12,500), travel (this can get real expensive), equipment (maybe $6000 for used skydiving rig, used BASE rig, jump suits, helmet, wing suit. You'll spend a lot more on new rigs), and training ($3500 for AFF, pre-license coaching, and a BASE course) is probably reasonable. Six years is probably a good time frame - in one year about 150-200 skydives and 30 BASE jumps (if you travel) are comfortable (the last year I counted it was 178 skydives, and 30 BASE jumps of which 7 were terminal and 8 others slider up). After that you have good chances for making your first wingsuit BASE jump and repeating the experience injury free.

Colorado also has a lesser offense of Driving While Ability Impaired with a .05 BAC limit.

EAA imports the Russian Baikal IZH27 over-under. While not pretty they work great for trap and you can't beat the $500 price tag.

Given a choice people want to spend their $25 lift tickets on jumps which are likely to succeed and not hurt them. Unfortunately it takes a lot of experience to be able to build interesting free-fly formations. No one on my first 4-way free-fly formation which built after exit (round, two head-up, two head-down) had fewer than 700 jumps. There were a few 3-way attempts before that which didn't work. Sufficiently inexperienced (this isn't just number of jumps) free fliers often can't maintain fall rate after a bump which creates a safety issue when they get bumped, loose stability, and are headed towards people over them at 40 MPH. Just ending up with people outside the formation is bad since you can't relax and do your thing when you're worrying about where people will be for break off. Combine the two and people have an understandable reluctance to avoid new and/or unknown jumpers. Conversely I've made a bunch of great flat jumps including people with under a hundred jumps and can't really think of a bad belly jump where we were honest about the participants skill levels and put people in slots they were likely to fly well enough. You would do well to spend a _lot_ of time and money on vertical wind tunnels to get past the bar to admittance on interesting free fly jumps and/or be flexible on body position. You don't need to be vertical to be relaxed and have fun.

When I go to new drop zones I talk to the people who want me to fill out a waiver and if they're not helpful I talk to manifest. "Hey, I free fly. With over a thousand jumps I'm competent head-up but not head down. Who should I jump with? I'm down with casual RW too, who's up for that? I brought my wingsuits too..." and quickly get pointed in the right direction. Having my name embroidered on my left mud flap makes things a little easier after that because the people I'm jumping with don't need to actually remember my name.

Get the Ruger. They're inexpensive, accurate, reliable with most ammo, and with the heavy bull barrel they stay parked on target. I have a Mk ii bull barrel; it's very nice.

I told my parents when I started skydiving. While I'm sure mom didn't like it much, I had broken her in already with back country snowboarding and motorcycles.

Give it a shot. Plenty of old people switch from skiis to snowboards because it's easier on their knees. I taught my favorite college professors to snowboard when she was 53.

The gift tax has a $1,000,000 lifetime exemption. If your father has a small estate this will not be an issue. Medicaid generally requires people to exhaust their assets before getting coverage for a nursing home. Home equity is exempt up to $500K in some situations. However they look over the last five years for gifts and sales below fair market value, and deny coverage until you would have spent that money. You could have the situation where if your father keeps his house and ends up in a home he's covered, but he'll have problems if he gives the house away. Talking to a CPA or eldercare/estate planning attorney might be a good idea.