DrewEckhardt

around 1.1, 1.2 or less.

Yes. Depends on how likely you really are to loose 20 pounds and where you get to jump. A nice big grassy 50x100' landing area can turn into a 10x10' boulder top if you're stupid enough to end up on the wrong side of the ridge at the at the end. Wing loading closer to .65 is very much preferable in that case. If you're just going to jump off a certain bridge in Idaho size and land in the grass size is less important; but that doesn't stay as exciting as it starts. I really like my Fox; it sinks nice. My Dagger is sportier but not as well suited to tight landing areas. The Flik is supposed to be an update of the Fox. Video of cliff strikes with vents and valves shows that the canopy stays inflated better so they're probably a good idea too.

EIFF claims a 22 MPH forward speed with wingloading around .7 for their classic accuracy canopy. Since forward speed varies with the square root of size, if a 285 will let you go forwards in a 22 MPH wind, a 265 will get you through 23 MPH. There's no real difference. The ideal wing loading is probably .65-.75 with the lower end being more pleasant. Perhaps not coincidentally that's what EIFF suggests for classic accuracy. Naked weight + 100 and add a size for tight landing areas is another rule of thumb. That means a 280-300 at your current weight; a 265 if you were to loose 20 pounds. I liked my 245 best when I weighed 150 pounds without gear. The thing is that when things get crowded you stop the parachute before you land. Since it's no longer flying you want a lot of fabric over your head so you don't land too hard. For comparison purposes, a 24' round lands like a ton of bricks in spite of having 452 square feet of projected area. The upper size limit comes from having a canopy that's still small enough to respond and turn away from obstacles. A 240 will be too small. A 260 is too small for interesting landing areas if you don't loose weight.

The credit card companies have realized that people keep their first credit card even where there's a 100% difference between interest rates. Getting people putting $1200/year on their credit card (with 3% merchant fees and interest) who will get to $25,000/year is a winning business proposition even without interest. An average skydiving male will go through 2-3 containers and at least 6-7 mains before getting to where they don't care to downsize further. Brand loyalty wouldn't hurt especially where there's getting to be a thousand dollars a rig between companies.

There are exceptions. I've worked for companies with employee stock purchase plans where the share price was a 15% discount off the lower of the share price at the beginning and end of the six month window in which you were putting money in. You won as long as the stock didn't drop 15% overnight. You won big if it went up over the six month window.

To quote another thread, this guy had < 400 jumps when getting an elliptical with a 1.3-1.4 wingloading. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR6oQtWItwU He learned the hard way how much of a handful small ellipticals can be. Oops! Fortunately if he doesn't have any complications in six months he can re-evaluate and get back in the air (after six months I still had a hole in my tibia where the bone didn't grow in) Your 135 will be a bit twitchier than a 150 even at the same loading. While people jump smaller parachutes these days, a 135 ellptical is no slower than when PD wouldn't sell one to some one with under 500 jumps with a 1.3 pound per square foot limit. It's a bad idea. Not intending to swoop won't save you when you land out and turn to avoid an obstacle you didn't see at higher altitude or get back from a long spot without much altitude left for your turn back into the wind. With 10,000 jumps, a bunch of parachute designs under his belt, and lots of experience teaching canopy flight Brian Germain knows more than you and your master rigger friends. http://www.bigairsportz.com/pdf/bas-sizingchart.pdf

Producing goods and services is only viable when you can do so with competitive costs. We won't compete in manufacturing until our wages match the chinese, which currently means $150 a month for auto workers not $30 an hour. We won't compete in entry level engineering jobs until our wages match the Indians, which means $5000 a year not $50000. Get ready for the coming crash.

As a kid, I went to the same barber until he a had stroke and was wiggling on the floor for some fraction of the time the ambulance took getting there. I no longer remember if some one else finished my haircut or they did the whole thing. I think it scarred me for life. My dad didn't care if I got a haircut. My mom did and found a replacement I was sent to as deemed necessary until I had some say in the matter. He retired, I discovered girls, and ended up going to the family hairdresser so I wouldn't be shaggy until I graduated high school. My hair looked OK and that was important. After that I realized my shirts didn't need a Polo logo, I didn't need a haircut, and two or three were enough for the next decade. Being a long haired hippy and skydiving did not mix well. After enough years I got fed up with the knots and went to a unisex salon. A warm shampoo first definitely beat the friggen cold spray bottle at the barbers and it didn't look worse after a cut. A survey of the other visually reformed hippies in my office revealed that we all lost our pony tails within a year or two either side of 30 so maybe it was just an age thing. The decision may also have been influenced by the guys I looked up to, who had managed to extract tens of millions from venture capitalists to start their own companies (when you work 60-80+ hours a week and succeed or fail because of what some muppet does having more control over your life seems like a fine idea) Who knows. I found I liked not having a mop to deal with and got regular haircuts every 3-4 months. Then we moved. I got fed up with being shaggy and got a barber haircut which sucked from some kid. We moved again and my wife talked me into seeing her especially flamboyant artiste and I had the best looking haircuts of my life for a year. Then we moved again (rather than learning to brown nose for capital, we moved to the Valley where more people had already done that so I could pursue my career). The $50 (+ tip) salon was mediocre. The barber shop cut looked OK but being drenched with the spray bottle wasn't pleasant and the barber down the row wouldn't shut up about how one of his friends married a foreign woman, how he'd do any of them even Iranians, etc. If I'd done drugs in high school it would have given me flashbacks to shop class. They were a cash only shop too, so I had to walk down to the nearest bank branch (or pay an additional 10% service charge to Bank America) to pay for the experience. I don't mind the T-shirts with holes (like my favorite Yellow Boy, which is actually orange in my case) or bicycle chain grease stained dockers but there's something which irks me about a mediocre cut on the hair I have left.

A lot of that is equipment choice and familiarity. People used to jump one-size fits most seven cells (I didn't notice the specifics when I watched and it's gone now, but it's a good guess) at under a pound per square foot. Put enough jumps on a 245 - 275 square foot accuracy or BASE canopy (.65 - .7 pounds per square foot is nice) trimmed for a good sink to figure out how to use it. I know it's over twice the size of what you're jumping and not fun in the same way. Your perceptions on what constitutes a reasonable landing area will change radically. Somewhat smaller works too once you have the drill down. It's a totally different game than jumping modern skydiving gear but _lots_ of fun in a different way. Think about what you can do when 50' or 10' of landing area with obstacles on both ends becomes acceptable (remember the video). I have over 900 nice swoop landings on canopies at or under 120 square feet, and managed to put an extra bend in my leg with less than .7 pounds per square foot on a 245 so there's a disclaimer: The stunts alluded to in this post should only be attempted by trained professionals. If you attempt such things you asume fully responsibility for your testosterone poisoning and resulting stupidity.

It's like a D-bag meets a tail pocket with two locking stows instead of one. I find that using a tail pocket requires a packing mat (stash bag and a little pony clamp works fine) attached to the rig to prevent wear as I drag it towards me and takes a bit longer than separate line stows walking the bag to the rig with no mat. What's you're packing experience like with the hybrid? I currently believe that the lazy bag is a solution in search of a problem since you get rid of tube stoe replacement which is infrequent at the expense of packing time which is spent on every jump. Might be good for marketting though, like velcro elimination on risers (it was bad for flaps so it must be bad for toggles) Do other people find themselves getting more onry (which I can't spell) as they age or is it just stress?

Sure. The slower you start the harder you land. Why do you want to do that? Ultimately because you screwed up at higher altitudes, had some head wind, and used brakes to get a steeper glide path and had insufficient room to return to full flight before landing. Before then you do it so you're comfortable and aren't trying it for the first time when lots has gone wrong.

It's a bit unsettling for me to read that statement from a jumper with your posted experience level. Not everyone is jumping accuracy canopies these days. I got lots of jump as a student. I just don't want to jump those anymore. A fresh fat airfoil seven cell canopy is NOT the same thing as a ragged out student canopy approximating what a recreational skydiver would jump just bigger. Quick turns are out of the question but it will give you a tool that gets you into tight landing areas 100/100 times with accuracy measured in inches instead of meters.

You can bring a big fat airfoil seven cell straight down in zero wind. Landing in pea gravel it will be comfortable if you don't do it for too long. You can come in very steep on hard ground without wind which is useful for landing areas with obstacles at both ends. Going too far makes the canopy go backwards with the pilot chute above the canopy with a descent rate that would suck on landing. 245 square feet, 210 pounds of tubby skydiver and big rig (bigger would be better), pea gravel, 45 degree 2/3 brake approach ending with maybe 8' of straight down sink is good for a nice standup. Not like the same skydiver weighing under 160 pounds without gear under a 24' Paracommander (oof).

Private prison companies. The CIA, DEA, and FBI.

Nope. $5980 per tax FILER, with the bottom two quintiles averaging negative income tax rates and the bottom 50% collectively paying only 3% of the total. That leaves a substantially higher screw job for those of us who really pay taxes $11,956 per person in the top 50% who pay 97% of the income tax $71,739 per person in the top 5% who pay 60% of the income tax. In most parts of the country, this is well off. In San Mateo county just making the cut almost qualifies you for government assited moderate income housing ($150K/year limit). According to the accepted 28/36 mortgage debt qualification you can find yourself in this bracket without enough to buy a 2 bedroom, 1 bath home built in 1950 that's close to work. For better or worse a lot of this will be spread over a long time in the form of added interest on the debt and in terms of a devalued dollar. If I could keep the money I'd stick it in savings to compensate for lost retirement savings and the increased chances I'll be living off savings while between jobs.

Only if there's no one else in there with you and after enough practice you should be doing 2-4 ways 35 hours = 2400 jumps 51 hours = 3500 jumps 70 hours = 4800 jumps At the high end you're comparing $14,000 and a few hours of your time every weekend to spending $110,000 a year on a full-time activity.

Yes. Works fine at 1.8 pounds/square foot. It's just harder to get right than a full-flight landing.

Gas is cheap so the airlines have lower expenses. People aren't travelling for fun because of the economy so they have seats to fill. So it's cheap to fly right now. For instance, there are $200 flights from Boston to San Francisco which is nearly as far as you can travel within the continental US.

You left off important variants like over-easy and completely skipped "raw" which works great in steak tartare and some sushis (a raw quail egg with wasabi tobiko is wonderful).

H&R blockTaxCut pro doesn't suck. I switched after the copy protection fiasco where TurboTax didn't run on my machine and I had to buy a copy of TaxCut. My accountants use to charge me $70. The difference between that and a tax program was inconsequential. Then it was $150. Still worth it. Then it was $450 with filling out their information packet taking as much time as using a tax program to complete it.

I had Dr. Chakavarty for calc 3 with a heavier accent than Apu from the Simpsons. I think he secretly yearned to be an English professor, because he spent a disproportionate amount of time on analogies for basic things You take de imaginary line around de mountain between two mountain climbers at de same altitude und dis is de level curve. You have a wetter map of de united states und ze pressure regions are level curves. with not much actually on multi-variable calculus. Our first teaching assitant quit because he couldn't handle covering everything the professor should have. The second one just resigned himself to it. The few hundred people in our section were not happy with the professor (every engineering student got three semesters of calculus).

Yep. Not only that, but interest rates at some banks have dropped to zero while the rates charged to customers for the loans they do write have skyrocketed. Chase now has a top interest rate of (drum roll please) .02%. If you live someplace like California that translates into .012% after taxes. Citibank has raised the interest rate on one of my two credit cards to 15% in spite of a 793 credit score. Those are great profit margins if you can get them.

Get used to it. Once you go to college you'll have professors who would rather publish than teach so they aren't very good at it, ones who are insulted by the university forcing them to teach under graduate classes, and ones who don't speak English with a comprehensible accent. You have to learn in spite of it.

I think the buyer should opt for a PD canopy which only costs $295 every 500-600 jumps for a reline (and inspection) instead of $680-$750 for a reline at the same interval plus D-line replacement every 100 jumps. I've ignored steering line replacement which should be the same for both canopies. Otherwise, I think the seller should reduce the price so that the cost per jump is comparable to what the buyer would experience with a competitor's product. $280 off the usual depreciation to account for the radically increased maintenance until the canopy is relined wouldn't be out of line. Plus some for the hassle.

intevarsities would imply college students, who are generally aged 18-22? Young people tend to do stupid things until they learn judgement, preferably without first hand experience or at least no lasting damage. Newcomers to sports tend to do stupid things until they realize how much they don't know. Visits to the orthopaedic surgeon can help speed the learning but most people don't need that. Cars, motorcycles, drugs, airplanes, parachutes, snowboards, snowmobiles, it's all the same. Once you start hanging around with adults you'll find that nearly all the survivors in a sport for enough years have a less cavalier attitude about safety. A few manage to make it to their 40s or even 60s without learning. You just hope they don't take anyone with them when they go and avoid situations where you'll be collateral damage.