DrewEckhardt

Do you have results like winning speed and distance? That would be especially interesting when compared to competitor's measurements with traditional technique at the same DZ elevation.

Probably. Sounds cruel, but yes, they can absolutely do that as long as they pay you properly. What do you mean by properly? If you mean an actual livable wage, then no...they don't. Paying the employer's half of FICA+Medicare (the IRS does not like employers mis-categorizing employees as independent contractors), paying state + federal unemployment taxes, complying with tax withholding laws, paying at least the greater of state and federal minimum wage, paying time-and-a-half overtime for over 40 hours worked per week unless you're an exempt employee...

There's no federal law against it. You live in the United States.

Not a Dell. Although I bought "next business day" on-site service it's been two business days both times I've needed warranty repairs.

Fat is the biggest threat to America that we can do anything about. Obesity claims approximately 300,000 Americans each year. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10546692

It took a few decades for deficit spending combined with an expensive military to crush the Soviet Union.

95 Fahrenheit. We've measured 8000-9000 foot density altitudes . Canopies fly up to 2 sizes smaller than they do at sea level. Brian Germain's statement that canopy size should be increased approximately 10 square feet per 2000 feet of density altitude is consistent with this (IOW, you want 40 square feet more over your head).

It's a hold-over from WWII, where the National War Labor Board approved all wage increases for people earning under $5000 ($65,000 in 2008 dollars) with the goal of maintaining stable wages+prices in spite of the worker shortage, employers who couldn't increase wages turned to fringe benefits like insurance to attract scarce workers, and unions negotiated for benefits which weren't treated as pay. Preferential tax treatment keeps the situation attractive, with employers paying less than they would on the same money as wages (there's no 7.65% FICA + Medicare tax attached to it) and employees benefiting as well (someplace like California you can pay 28% in federal income tax, 9.3% in state, 6.2% in Social security, 1.45% in Medicare, and 1.1% in state disability so you come out ahead even if the group rate is 80% higher than something you could get privately). I'd speculate that health insurance companies get a higher subscription rate and profits due to the current arrangement since many employees don't get to make the choice. We haven't had a free market in health insurance for over 65 years.

I get consistent on-heading openings with my Samurai on real clear-and-pulls with belly-to-the wind. Although I leave the center cell hanging in front of the rest.

Getting acceptable openings on non-square skydiving canopies does not require rolling the nose in any sort of way. Tucking the nose in the pack job doesn't do anything useful and causes the lines to move towards the outside, possibly causing a line over. Placing the left and right side nose tapes against their respective sides of the center cell and leaving it open works very well for heading control. Like a BASE or reserve pack job except standing in 6 minutes instead of on the ground in 45.

The streets are safer than bike paths with cross-streets, especially where the bike path is going the opposite direction of traffic. Drivers rarely pull into a traffic lane without looking first. Drivers rarely make left turns in front of oncoming traffic they failed to see where they're expecting it on the road. I'd be surprised if I could ride 30 minutes down a bike path running alongside a road without having drivers pull in front of it or make blind left turns across it. On the road, you're in driver's field of vision and roughly where they expect traffic to be coming from. In spite of riding up to 5000 miles a year, the only time I've been hit by a car was on a bike path. The streets are faster too. Even where you don't need to go around stopped cars, most "bike paths" are actually multi-use paths with joggers, dogs, and unleashed children. I follow all the traffic laws except the bike path speed limits.

If you need to borrow money to get a rig you can't afford a new one for $5-6K. Used and airworthy can be found for not much over $1000 (this requires expert help, because there's a lot of crap out there), and $2500 should even get you something nice (rigger advice + inspection is needed here too). If you're an odd size/shape sending such a rig to the manufacturer for a new harness at $400 + shipping is going to be more affordable than a new harness/container. I know one guy who paid his way through the student program by selling plasma although I think there are better approaches like 1. Getting far enough into a good career you can skydive as much as you want until sending kids to college. 2. Cuting expenses. When I started skydiving I had a room in a house ($300) instead of my own one-bedroom apartment ($600). Drove an old car I paid $2000 cash for instead of having a car payment ($300-$600 a month). Ate lots of spaghetti. Skipped cable TV. 3. Packing parachutes. I doubt there's a legal way to earn as much money fast for the level of training and practice it takes. $6 each at 10/hour = $60/hour. 4. Cutting lift ticket costs. This is especially applicable to students and other people with a lot of travel flexibility. Not for profit skydiving clubs are one option. Skydive Wissota will charge you $240 for your first 5 student jumps, $30 for each one after that, and sell you a 20 jump free fall package with gear rental for $500. That will get you to your A-license for under $1000 and you should get more personal attention than you would at a big DZ with 100+ students per busy day. Lodi is another option. Their 2-3 day AFF package is $1000 plus $100 for a tandem first. AFAIK they have the least expensive turbine jumps in the country.

Your instructors and coaches are not that experienced, and probably won't be the ones who go to the hospital if you do something stupid. Some have a lot of experience but have been jumping small fast parachutes so long they don't think anything of it. I've visited three instructors in the hospital (one of them twice) because they demonstrated bad canopy skills and personally know two more that are now dead from the same cause. Start with the position held by people with a lot of experience, like Brian Germain (10,000 jumps; designs canopies; teaches canopy flight; writes books about it; studied psychology in school; writes books about sports psychology). If your instructors have seen you perform worse than average, follow their advice to be more conservative. Landing into the wind in a big, wide open field is not a big deal. It is a big deal (as in people get broken and killed) making a low turn to land down wind off the DZ at dusk because a cute girl flashed the pilot for extra altitude on the sunset load, your buddy got hypoxic and stuck on a seatbelt, that led to a long spot, and you didn't see a power line or fence until you were very low. Either your instructors haven't seen you land out, make low turns when you didn't see some one in the landing area, land on pavement, land down-wind, etc. and so they haven't seen enough to suggest less conservative behavior or you have a history of bad judgement which means you need to be more careful than other people. I've known a few skydiving 70-80 year olds and lots in their 50s and 60s. You have plenty of time. In the grand scheme of things it's not going to matter if you wait a couple years before jumping an elliptical parachute.

Absolutely not. Based on 600 jumps made on my Stiletto. Although I had 600 jumps when I got my Stiletto (the previous 200 were on a Batwing one size bigger) it didn't always land in a straight line. PD wouldn't even sell one to people with less than 500 jumps. While PD's other canopies are better behaved today, the Stiletto isn't. Even in 2010 Brian Germain forbids the use of fully elliptical canopies by jumpers with fewer than 300 jumps. No. The Stiletto is more sensitive to toggle input than any other popular canopy. John LeBlanc detuned all the following PD designs because too many jumpers had problems with roll axis stability landing Stilettos. One issue is that at low altitudes small amounts of input (whether intended or not) will quickly roll the canopy into a diving turn so you may end up headed at the ground fast in an unrecoverable attitude if you get surprised in the landing pattern (likely) or don't instinctively limit your control inputs when you get back low from a long spot. That leads to issues like this: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3709212 even though the jumper had about 480 jumps when he died under a Stiletto 150. The other is that it's very sensitive to harness input with the brakes stowed and has strong over-steer. Combine the two with failing to be level and relaxed during opening and/or not dealing with situations promptly and you will cutaway due to spinning malfunctions with line twists. While you may not be loading it heavily, the control sensitivity problems are more a function of the canopy (shape and line length) than how heavy you are. You might get lucky. You might not. Nerve pain after you stretch or kink a nerve from a simple tibia/fibia fracture really hurts even with lots of opiates. Bone grafts where they cut a hole in your back to drill into the top of your pelvis hurt too. You don't want to make that bet. Stilettos also have a short recovery arc which encourages people learning to swoop who don't like carving approaches to err towards the low side and dig out which is less tolerant of mistakes than more modern canopies, although you shouldn't be making turning approaches where that will be an issue.

Any one can pack a main parachute they're going to jump. Any one can pack parachutes under the supervision (usually means they're somewhere on the drop zone) of an FAA rated rigger. I've known a few 14 year old kids who packed parachutes for money and heard anecdotal reports of grade schoolers.

AAPL market cap: 169B MSFT market cap: 246B next!

Unless you read the instruction manual (which the FARs require you to have available), pay attention to tips on-line and local from people like Mick who've packed Reflexes, and take some care to maintain a nice pocket in the middle. My second reserve repack ever with a PD143R (not small) into an R335 (the correct size) with a Cypres was completely flush and didn't have a big bulge for the Cypres battery box. The first was the same Reflex, so I did have a little practice. I chalk most of the bad Reflex pack jobs up to people not liking anything different and being too lazy to learn.

According to a former house mate, jail is not prison. I talked to him briefly about his experience there: House mate: I didn't have to pay rent, played basketball, read books. It was a lot like summer camp except we couldn't leave. Come to think of it we could leave summer camp either. Me: What about sex with Bubba? House mate: That's prison, not jail.

If you're not ready for a 150 main which you'll be familiar with and have 2000' to fly back to a nice wide open field where you land into the wind you're not ready for a 150 reserve which you'll be unfamiliar with and likely to have half that altitude to learn to fly it to an out landing which is small, has obstacles, and may be down or cross-wind.

No, but they can take sales from the weeks before cash for clunkers and adjust up or down according to previous years' seasonal fluctuations.

I've visited three instructors in the hospital and know two who died because they didn't know enough about canopy flight. There's a good chance that your instructor doesn't know enough. With a few exceptions your instructor doesn't know as much as Brian Germain so you should be starting with Brian's recommendations and only favoring what your instructor has to say when it's more conservative. Most of the people with not so many jumps do "just fine" because they're lucky enough to avoid situations they can't handle. Such incidents are a lot rarer.

It's imported to the US in cans with the Guiness nitrogen widget. Look for a better beer store or order on-line. http://beergeek.stores.yahoo.net/oldsphenpubd.html It's pretty tasty in cans but probably better as a cask ale.

Yup. With replacement value (so I get enough to replace my stuff instead of being stuck with what they believe the depreciated value to be) and firearms (so they pay for more than just the first $x000 of the gun collection) riders. When I lived in downtown Seattle and had a separate artist's loft for my power tools and pinball machines I had that added as a second location. When I was just starting my career and didn't have too much stuff, I increased the total policy value to 10X whatever I thought my skydiving equipment was worth since the fine print on the policy limited coverage away from home to 1/10th the content value. The one claim I made for a stolen camera helmet (when mini-DV camcorders were $1500) made the insurance entirely worthwhile.

Worse is that people in severe pain (who didn't choose to get that way) are being told to live with it so their doctors don't have to deal with DEA scrutiny.