lurch

The absence of the wingsuit explains the absence of the smile. So, I'd call it a good likeness of Spot on a grumpy day while his suit's in the shop.

Actually I do fly the S-Bird with students, because I have not yet encountered anything I can't catch with it including Jeff in an Apache, and students just shy of 300 lbs in a T-Bird. In the old S-6 I occasionally encountered a gifted student who could -almost- get away from me by stumbling on a body position that gave them insane speeds in an Intro. The tail alone is almost enough to let them outrun me. With the S-Bird that has never happened. When I got that suit I had a choice of any suit I wanted. I -really- wanted an X-Bird, but it was not an ideal choice for a general-purpose suit, and I wanted to be able to use this one new suit for everything. For a bird of my weight an S-Bird was a far more appropriate choice and far more useful. An X would be USELESS for flocks and a serious hindrance for staying with the faster students. One way or another the drag must be dealt with and it'd be a pain in the ass staying with a student while curled up in the smallest ball I can make because I was too dumb to take off the Ego Suit. I dispensed with that possibility by not buying one. I will be scoring an X2 soon...for comp purposes only. I'm within reach of a #1 standing in Distance or Time, but against the likes of the magnificent pilots at Gransee and Elsinore I'll need a bigger gun. So far the only time I've actually needed to change out suits was the Vertical Challenge and that was purely for appearances. I could hold the slot but looked damn stupid trying, everyone else with wings open and stable, and me, in slot, but wings almost completely shut and the suit skittering around in the slot. Only took 2 tries for me to get the picture and choose the correct tool for the job at hand. Nobody had to ask me to, I knew damn well if I didn't, -I'D- be the idiot in the wrong suit trashing the game. Not my style. However if I wind up working with a very high fallrate student on something precise that requires me to be very close and tight with them, same as before I won't hesitate. I keep my old S-6 on the wall flight-ready...just in case. Given the improved teaching techniques you shared with me while I was in town, I will say I'm likely to start putting more mileage on that tattered old thing depending on the lesson and student, specifically because of the added precision that suit offers at higher fallrates. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Good likeness!

No pecking... what, you don't like birdseed? I could get you a bagel. Ok you want talk? I'll give you some talk. Gonna be long but its a complex subject. When I fly with new birds, anything goes, half the time I'm flying with 1-300 jump birds who often haven't come close to their suit performance limit yet and fly in a V with or without bent legs, and a fallrate I could catch with both wings behind my back. When I fly with the more experienced birds I know, its still limited by the least powerful bird in the group, but fallrates and forward speeds more like we'd expect from experts. Sebastian Invitational, think it was '06, maybe '07, Scott Bland was leading flocks that lasted 2 to 2.5 minutes and were the only group wingsuit flights I've ever been on that actually made my arms burn. The man KNOWS how its done...the flock built, and Scott gradually poured on the speed, till we were all flying wide open flat-out and fast as HELL. The dives worked because the group was invitation-only, best pilots Scott could find nationwide. Fact is, a lot of birds will have what we would consider short careers of 1 to 300 jumps or so before they move on, find something different, sometimes quit for something less challenging or less expensive. Point is a big portion of our population is under 200 flights and always will be, and most of those don't and may never know how to get the most out of a suit. Some can fly but just don't have the gift and never really understand or get a feel for the suit...some just aren't strong enough to fly maxed out for more than a few seconds. And then theres the suit variety. A flock made up of birds ranging from 120 lb girls to 220 lb 6 foot guys in suits from early Machs and Birdman gear to the latest Pfly and "-Bird" wing Tony suits, SOMEBODY in that flock will be flying dirty. Probably me. I think most of the dirty flying people complain about is compensation for that. Now, instead of pecking at each other about weights and wake and glide, couldn't we try discussing ways to get newbies up to speed quicker? We've got a problem: fly with newbs, gotta fly dirty or you just ditch em and they learn nothing. But they don't learn the skills to flock maxed out without practicing in a flock. Ergo, dirty flyin' flocks happen. So far the group solution to this has been to bicker about mattresses, dirty flying, weights and wake, and "european style" or "american style" flying which is just so much CRAP. Thats fine. Now, any ideas about how to bring em up to spec? All I can think of would be to put em in flocks with experts who can gradually get new bird used to flying wide open. And its not just "wide open" either. Getting hung up on how dirty the flying looks misses the REAL meat of it. Lemme explain: I can get in a docked line of birds flying wide open. If I do, I have to start all scrunched up and funny looking when I take the docks. As the docked line settles, I work my wings out gradually to wide open, while adjusting shoulders and torso to keep the fallrate high anyway even though my wings are out wide. Its touchy to dial in, but I can do it easily enough by deliberately introducing small elements of what I'd consider bad posture... sloppy elbows, loose shoulders, who cares where my head is. And of course I can throw an actual Arch in there if I have to. In essence when I do that I'm deliberately having to turn OFF the skills that normally would have me at 25 mph and 120 forward with my wings that wide. Its a wide-open but inefficient way to fly, but its the only way a 140 lb bird can stay matched to the flight of a 220 lb bird in a Raptor and have both birds look like they're wide open. Many, perhaps even most of the wingsuit population never even know theres any other way to fly. I see birds my own weight, in suits bigger than mine, who can "max out" all day long... and get a best fallrate of mid-40's. They upgraded suits without a real clue how to fly the previous one because they -thought- they'd mastered it since they could fly it wide open and stable. They see other birds doing the same. All of em completely missed the REAL scale they should have had. When I get a long term apprentice to REALLY teach, I have em spend FAR more time in small suit than they'd choose. Inevitably they become frustrated and claim to "need" more wing. They're doing 60 in an R-Bird and think it'll never get any better. I've been seeing this effect since I was training Justin in an early Phantom. He was pissed and discouraged that he couldn't get much below the 70's. I told him stick with it, you only got 75 jumps on this thing and work on this and that. I kept working with him on the "ninja tricks" and when it clicked, he was able to get that sucker into the high 40's. When that happened, he got this look like "holy shit I get it now" and he had a whole new world of range to work with. Getting any new bird to wait in a small suit till their skills have actually ripened is like pulling teeth. VERY few have the patience. You wanna fix the dirty flying problem? Find a way to make it "Cool" to fly the small suits again. Not just for the first 50 to 100, but for the first 4 or 500. I tried leading by example, there. Everybody knows I spent half my career in a GTI and an S-6, and in that S-6 I could stomp all over a flock of SuperMachs. Few paid attention or understood the implications. Mostly they just go "He's just a light fucker thats all" and never notice "How come ALL the light fuckers can't do that?" Everyone gets hung up on the idea that the destination, the goal is to GET to a big suit. Blinded by glamour and image. The GOAL is to get as good as you possibly can in the suit you've already GOT. Almost NOBODY actually DOES this. How do we change that? -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

*scatters enough birdseed in the area for both birds.* Some for Jarno, some for Doc... I'm thinking, we keep pecking at each other like this people will mistake us for chickens. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Oh shit I just realized... when we all went wingsuit bowling... we were flying at low glide ratio, and with weights! The wake! Now I know why every time two wingsuits bowled at once, at least one of them fell on their ass. Doc, look what you've done, you've set a bad example and now all the cool kids are doing it. Gonna be twice as hard to teach the newbies to fly right after this, now. They're all gonna think its ok to bowl in a mattress suit before they've mastered the suit they've got. Theres gonna be nylon all over the lanes. It'll be anarchy! Bastards. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

*pops into the thread, perches on nearby object, produces bag of popcorn* Now, I often exit last cause I can catch any formation regardless of where it goes so I'm useful to finish up the tail. Sometimes when the flock turns too hard out the door the most convenient way to get there is to start off flying backwards in an upright kneelfly position. Saves me having to loop back around to get down to the group sometimes. During that maneuver I figure I'm producing a glide ratio of about -.5/1. I get the impression, if I did this in Europe people's heads would explode. If I'm not flying over 1/1 I'm doing it wrong? I must be an incompetent pilot. I guess I'm gonna have to go join an Atmo dive or something. I figure a half-assed reverse wingsuit freefly would about match their glide... imagine the looks on faces when a wingsuit pulls up alongside the group, vertically oriented and flying in reverse. I think they'd probably ban me from flying in Europe just for being a dick. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Second video: at 0:17 cop with can in hand turns around and hunches over seated protester, brings can into proximity to hunched, seated protester's head, commences physically vigorous activity, vanishes behind another cop. 0:30 second mark, individual in hood visibly being forced to the ground/held down along with others in group on the ground. Second cop to right of image wielding can appears to be using the can while cops on left continue to hold down/subdue group. Cop shouts something, then moves can in such a way as to appear to be dispensing something. A hissing sound is heard on the video at the same time a "dispensing" looking movement is made. The can is occupying the same space as the protesters faces were in the video not 5 seconds earlier. When video pulls back protesters are visibly trying to shield faces either under their own clothing or in one case, guys burying his face in the other guy's hood. Everyone visible in vicinity including whole second group on the right are trying to shelter their faces from it. I don't imagine these people were coughing and seeking water just because those cans were displayed. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

I thought it wasn't a weapon. Good point, though. You raise reasonable doubt. To me it looks more like aggressively trying to get in there with the can, movements that look an awful lot like thrusting the can forward directly into the juncture in the middle of the melee where faces were a couple seconds earlier. But, thinking about it, it also -could- be that cop just trying to get narrow and squeeze in between a couple more people. The can happens to be in the forward hand. I try not to even believe what I see. Appearances can be so deceiving. What I think I see may not be so. This ones a tricky call. Guess I'll have to either wait for further video or see how it all turns out in court to find out for sure. To open discussion to larger picture, though: My thought is that this sort of incident, regardless of the specifics of it, is both symptomatic of and aggravating the condition. Even if cops are not in fact any more brutal than they used to be, and it only looks that way from Youtube and universal cameras, public perception seems to be that they are... and having incidents like this related to Occupy events in major cities everywhere only highlights it. This has to stop. Those protesters got a very real Civics lesson that beautifully illustrates the difference between theoretical "rights" whatever they think those are, and reality. They came for the education, they got it. Consider that a field trip. Theory says "Land of the free. Right to speak, right to assemble, blah blah." Reality says "Do as you're ordered or be met with overwhelming force." Funny. I get the authorities' perspective. I do. Can't have this kind of disorder...mess, people disrupting things they aren't paying for... but if we're gonna be that way then we should just drop that silly land of the free notion. We aren't. Actually expecting it to be so seems silly and naive. Freedom doesn't work and we should just admit that, quit paying lip service to it and move on. Now what? Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Agreed. But it's still HIS fucking fault for picking a fight with you in the first place. Your response may be disproportionate but he's still responsible for provoking the response to begin with. And frankly, if -I- was a cop, and some asshole gets in my face because he wants to prove he can stand up to the man by being a mouth and/or getting aggressive with me, yes, I'd take extra pleasure in dishing out the requested beatdown as soon as Citizen Dick escalates enough to justify it. Best that I'm not a cop. As much as this incident pisses me off, I've seen a bunch of youtube videos where I admired the cop's restraint. So help me god I couldn't deal with people that stupid, day after day... Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Hmmm. Ain't gonna argue about reliability of witnesses, but this account came from a professor in open letter to Chancellor, http://bicyclebarricade.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/open-letter-to-chancellor-linda-p-b-katehi/ And comes with more video to back it up Here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxaLKsFdcjk&feature=share The cops were caught in the act, on video. Which does indeed appear to show cops holding people down in the process of "gaining compliance" and force feeding them the stuff straight from the can. I see faces, I see can jammed in faces. I hear clicking and hissing noises on audio (that could be anything from trigger pulls to rattling handcuffs really) and hear people gagging. Draw your own conclusions. I'd imagine we can find this one on video from several more angles if we look hard enough. I have no reason to believe the professor writing that open letter would make up a different tale than the video shows and use the same video to back up the tale. Perhaps we can find one with a nice closeup of the can nozzle actually being forced between some poor schmuck's teeth, if we have to really grind the point in. If that'll convince you. In other words, his description of events appears to be fairly accurate. You treat people like that, fears of violent civil unrest become a self fulfilling prophecy, but time after time Authority bounces its head off a brick wall... we never fucking learn... -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

"Saying people who are dicks to cops are then responsible for the harm inflicted on them by cops is utter bullshit." Uh, yes and no on this one man. Think about it. Being a dick deliberately to anyone, like it or not, is by definition taking responsibility for the reaction said behavior may provoke. This is basic etiquette, come on. In other words if I get all up in a cops face swearing and yelling and then get my ass beat, yes I am responsible for that outcome. My actions caused it. I would not have got my ass beat if I wasn't a dick. It could be Aunt Bertha delivering the beatdown for all I care. People tend to respond that way to aggression. Being a dick is choosing a provocatively escalating hostile attitude. It is picking a fight. Its a cops job to handle people who wanna pick a fight. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

This is actually a fun conversation. "If being in your 20s is considered a kid in America, we need to grow up" (Sigh) Agreed. I was a street kid at 18. Self sufficient. Ran as a carny. Got jobs. Fixed my own damn car. No safety net. So I look at these ignorant-ass well-padded college students protesting a "right" to housing healthcare free education... (on whose dime, exactly?) and think what they really need is a reality check. Chuck em onto the street for a year with 200$ in their pocket to start, and see how they do. Pepper spray... I know what it is, man, I got attacked with it once about 14 years ago by some latino ganksta thought I hit on his girl. Just because its natural doesn't mean it isn't a chemical, and that shit'll give chemical burns. Did to me, I lost skin to that shit. This kid also Maced me first as his opening attack, kid was a real spray can variety pack... the mace barely slowed me down, just made tears and snot, the pepper spray got my attention. Pepper spray -is- a chemical weapon. If it wasn't a weapon, it wouldn't be in use. And even by my standards it fuckin' hurts. Spray in the face= deliberate attempt to inflict as much pain as possible without blunt trauma. Point is by the time I was 20 I could take a savage beating all day long and laugh at it. Life's rough, buy a helmet. The kinds of kids that'd link arms and sing kumbayah in support of whatever foolish cause-of-the-week, aren't exactly hardened into adults yet. I bet half of em damn near strangled to death on their own snot and tears when they got sprayed. To them, that was most likely the worst pain they've felt in their lives, or will feel for some time. I bet they were dumb enough to be surprised, too. What were you expecting? These are not gentle times... My position is, that the use of pepper spray against people THAT soft and harmless was an atrocity. They were pre-subdued, for christsake. What more could the cops ask for? They didn't need a fucking riot squad, they needed a fucking guidance counsellor. A little indulgent humor would have gone a long way here I suppose, but now I'm quarterbacking and I won't do that. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Hey 'Zona. I understand. I often wonder why the hell so many people have such a hard time from cops. I figure the people doing the most complaining probably were assholes to the cop -first-, then wondered where the hostile attitude came from. Because every time I've dealt with a cop I was cool and they were cool back. I find especially with cops, a little respect goes a long way. If I had to advise somebody with cop problems, I'd be like "Look, you don't have to be a suckup, but you could try not being a dick, is that so hard?" I don't just treat cops with respect, I treat everyone that way. I figure, start with respect first, good interaction follows. And, I have no idea why its so hard for the average citizen to do the same. Big piece of whats wrong with this country. Whatever happened to conducting ourselves in a polite and civilized fashion? Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

I'm actually going from multiple news sources two of which were referred to already if you'd bothered to look or read the links. Eyewitness acounts... I already saw the videos, multiple slightly varied accounts fill in the details of before and after. Internet skepticism is a given... but multiple accounts from different sources tends to give a pretty good picture of the event. The videos, as is so often said, do not show the whole event. If the kid coughing up blood 45 minutes later was purely invented color, the writers went to an awful lot of trouble to craft the story from whole cloth don'cha think? Even if you just take the video alone as fact and ignore all eyewitness accounts and assume the basic spraydown was all that occurred, that video is STILL sick. The man calmly used a fucking chemical weapon on a bunch of kids. If one citizen did that to another under any other circumstance it'd be considered torture. Needless, gratuitous cruelty. Biased? I'm not sure how exactly I'm supposed to be biased. I haven't even chosen a side. Mostly I'm pro-law enforcement cause you guys are the only thing between my car and the neighborhood gankstas. But its getting awful hard to overlook how often these supposedly "isolated incidents" happen. Those weren't thugs. Those were kids. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Ok. Just so we have it on record, that an actual law enforcement individual considers THIS "police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood." To be "Not bad at all." Wow. Just wow. Forcing pepper gas down a kid's throat till he spews blood is "Not bad at all." "Standard procedure." For a peaceful, if stupid, protest. In the "land of the free." You think THAT, is a reasonable, proportional response to a bunch of kids blocking a fucking walkway and refusing to obey when told to move? Shove gas down their throats till they choke on their own blood? Thats fucking OK with you? You cannot be human. Thank you. You just made me more afraid of our government than I could ever be of terrorists. I'd never BE a cop. Because the things I'd end up doing to the innocent would make me sick. I'm also never a problem FOR cops. I know a few. The ones I know are good people. I DO have some clue what they deal with because I talk to them and I listen. I seldom get pulled over but when I do, (last time was an out taillight...I thanked the cop and fixed it) I'm never a problem because I don't DO shit that'd make me a target. I don't DO stupid protests. I don't rob or make a public nuisance of myself. I'm civilized. I'm considerate... I'll put on flashers, indicate my intentions by pointing where I intend to stop, creep slowly to someplace I can see the cop can get out of car without getting run over, THEN stop. SOME of us citizens you have such contempt for actually go out of our way to make YOUR jobs a little easier when you have to deal with us. And generally, -I- don't GET ticketed... its been like ten years... maybe my being polite and harmless has something to do with that. Or maybe because I don't usually drive like a lunatic, I dunno. People aren't being a "bunch of pussies" they're asking the authorities to stop fucking treating the general public like inmates-in-waiting, subject to violence at the slightest sign of defiance. Whitewash it all you like with statements about procedure and policy, but in a free country, disobedience or defiance do not automatically merit a beating. And in this country, today, when a cop orders you to do something, especially if said cop is in a foul mood, scared or angry, if you do not jump to obey FAST you WILL get your skull cracked and a bunch of charges tacked on for "resistance" just to make damn sure you get the point. Vindictiveness as standard procedure because we cannot allow the public to think resistance of any kind will be tolerated. This country is SICK... if there was anywhere to go, I'd leave. You think we don't know shit about police states? We're learning really fast, especially at the airports, and we're teaching the kids, too! Lie flat on your face with your hands behind your head till the stormtrooper tells you you're allowed to move and the drug dogs are done with your lockers... -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Briefly noted: "However, a law enforcement official who watched the clip called the use of force "fairly standard police procedure". Really? THIS "Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood." Is standard police procedure? Holding them down to spray em? Forcibly spraying corrosive gas down an already-beaten kid's throat? Prying their mouths open to do it? http://sfist.com/2011/11/19/video_uc_davis_chancellors_eerily_s.php If I were a cop, this day I'd quit in disgust and shame. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Skyrad, I grew up watching this country slowly being turned into a jail. There are a million freedoms I had as a kid...all gone now for "safety" or "security", while ensuring neither. Owning a swiss knife as a kid...and using it in school. And nobody freaked...spanish teacher borrowed it for the scissors. These days a kid with a blade gets a SWAT team. Used to be able to ride in the backs of pickup trucks like free people. These days the last time I had to ride in the back of a truck we had to lie down and hide so we didn't get targeted and pulled over for "safety" that really means "nice excuse to shake you down for a little revenue tickets". One step closer... Wanna make the population snap? THATS how. Protesters are being stupid. If I were them I'd be keeping it polite and not give the cops an excuse. Cops are being worse... like a deliberate caricature of the jackbooted thug, you'd almost think they were reveling in the opportunity to use violence on the helpless. God knows they've been caught on a million videos committing ridiculously disproportionate acts of violence against unresisting people with great enthusiasm. Usually as punishment for failing to obey orders. To use the phrase the law types like to use, "There are consequences." That incident is going to provoke some very, serious anger. They keep that shit up they're gonna start getting shot when they try that shit and they're gonna wonder why. "Just doing our jobs." "Just following orders." One kid in that lineup decides he's gonna get payback for the incoming gas and pulls the trigger. It's gonna happen. Or they'll start being found in dumpsters in ones and twos. Sooner or later the kids will start defending themselves with lethal force. The kids ARE taking names... and spreading the information. The cops are scared by this... they should be. One day they're gonna brutalize the wrong kid and the kid is going to look up the individuals responsible for a little columbine-style one-on-one payback. Of course when that happens they'll respond the only way they know how, by killing a bunch of kids to teach em a lesson, or "For their safety" or "To control the situation". Whatever the bureaucratic excuse du jour is these days for state sanctioned atrocities. And then... I don't even wanna know. America: Ripping itself apart with a certain style and efficiency which only Americans can do. If the government expects obedience and loyalty from this generation they are in for a surprise. Screw this society. I think when I retire I'm just gonna head north till I hit the arctic circle and keep going till the trees get thin. At least that far up north, idiots mostly don't fuck up society and wind up on TV, they mostly just die. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

You wuss. Its definitely becoming winter here in Cow Hampshire. We've already had over a foot of snow. Day temps range from 60 to subfreezing soon after dark. I got a big fuzzy coat, and a borked out Jeep where I spent all the money on engine and serious tires. Snow does not bother me in the slightest. Mom nature can blow me. Well...she will try, but thats what the tires are for. Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Mostly Autos just because that happens to be what was in the cars I've owned except car#2 which was an old '84 Ford Tempo. I drive a stick ok, recently rented one in Germany...getting used to a stick again after having not driven one in a decade while tossing myself headfirst into Berlin highway traffic was a hoot! And NOT for the skittish. Modern Autos eliminate the mileage penalty. I got an '00 Grand Cherokee with an inline-6 Golen 4.6 Stroker packing 24PPH injectors stuffed under the hood and a stock 4 speed Auto with overdrive and a lockup converter. Sucker gets 22.9 MPG at 80 MPH. Not bad for a 300 horse 2-ton tank with comfy seats. The transmission is very timid but shifted by hand it'll let the engine really rip. Oh... and as for whoever said Autos don't do engine braking? You never drove an Auto with a jacked up high compression engine in it. The Auto in this thing does not cope well with the engine and will allow forced downshifts to 2nd at speeds beyond the top of 2nd. So If I'm doing 75 and punch it TOO hard, it'll unlock the converter, drop the overdrive and downshift to 3rd, (no problem) but floor it a BIT harder and it'll go to 2nd, instantly redlining the engine at 7000+rpm, applying VIOLENT engine braking and slamming my face into the steering wheel. I'm working with my transmission builder to tune that out. The stock engine had neither the balls to hit that hard nor the compression to engine-brake that violently... not really the transmission's fault, it still thinks its hooked to a relaxed 4-liter incapable of such behavior. This truck would be fun to convert to a stick but I think it'd be hard to keep the tires stuck to the ground. 320 ft-lb torque. Even with the Auto softening the edges this thing can break all 4 tires loose in 4wd on wet pavement if you stomp it too hard. If this was a stick it'd do 4-corners smokeshows all day long and go through tires like toilet paper. The premium high octane it eats is enough expense as it is. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

"They all broke the laws. If, so many people don't like the laws... change 'em. Till then, that's the way it is, plain and simple." I hate to go straight to Godwin here but that excuse has been used for every psychotic abuse of the legal system ever committed, most notoriously of course being Nazi Germany. "You show your papers and register or you go to the camps, its The Law, you don't like it, change it, till then thats the way it is..." Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Ok thanks, Doc. I'll be the first to admit I am not much of a radio guy. I've got a lot of experience tracking down EM interference with industrial robotics, but that tends to be fairly straightforward stuff, mostly things like arcing contactors or large inductive surges from heavy hydraulics causing servo miscounts, that sort of thing. Aviation radio and the finer physics of radio in general I know nothing of. I'd still like to hear Scott Campos's explanation, but I'm guessing if he hasn't just up and posted it already he ain't gonna. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

"Guys... Please... No pissing contests... Let's try and keep this constructive... " What Tom said. Instead of the bickering, how bout we slam our skulls together until we think of a way to make sure this doesn't happen again or drive up the local price of Flintstones Chewable Morphine? Whichever comes first. Thoughts: I still don't know what would be considered a "fair" score instead of a zero for a corrupted run. I made 7 runs that day and only got results for the last 3. I was ok with that myself even though it sucked... Yeah the devices were provided by the event but I don't see any way to guarantee they work, and this time they didn't. I think its fairly obvious this wasn't an error of procedure or misuse of the devices. Not when the effect took out pretty much -all- the devices at once. Everyone had their own way of handling em... helmet mount, wing mount wrist mount whatever, and everyone booted em up at their own time...(sometime before lift and sometime around 8-9 grand, but its not like we synched up and turned them all on at the same moment or anything... each one experienced slightly different operating conditions, but it didn't seem to matter at first when, where or for how long they were booted up. With that many people using that many devices whose usability and handling characteristics are that well established you'd think at least a few people would have got it right. Questions: Was anyone using a flysight a couple days after? I took off late Sunday cause the weather sucked. Monday, tuesday, anyone report anything? Are flysights now working normally at Elsinore? Could I show up right now get in the plane do my thing and get a track? I'm not sure I'd buy electrical or radio noise from the plane itself... if the local oscillator in some piece of gear or something in the plane was causing it, you'd think people would have been noticing before now that their flysights don't work at Elsinore or out of that particular plane. (Planes...? It happened in both planes. Anybody ask the pilots if they were doing anything different that day, electrically? Seems VERY doubtful) Also seems very unlikely it'd spontaneously clear up on its own, as it seemed to do that day. If the plane was causing it, I'd think it'd be binary as all hell, on or off, everything corrupted or nothing. Anyway I have a hard time believing electrical or radio noise from the plane was able to keep some people's devices down until the skydive was over. Worst-case, device booted only in the plane and assuming the plane was responsible we should have seen a rash of records all missing the first 5-30 seconds of the flight but consistent acquisition by all devices within 60 seconds of exit at the latest. Instead we got wild corrupted data all through it. The kind of thing I'd expect from having some high powered microwave equipment operating in the vicinity. Again to me this says Military, maybe something the military didn't bother to announce, maybe related to the China Lake thing, maybe not. Thought: Auroras have been reported MUCH further south than usual lately. Been in the news once or twice I've noticed. Sunspot cycle I think. Could we be looking at direct solar interference? This stuff is known to create a lot of wacky electrical effects. Thought: The government and military have rather a lot of stuff going on within a few hundred miles of that location. They announced activity they knew might cause disruption. Perhaps they also had other activity they did -not- announce that could also cause disruption. Thought: at least in future comps, now that we know this effect is possible, we can look for it... start the day by having one jumper fly like a bag of 5 of the things on Load 1? Or distribute them all over that one jumper... I don't know if 2 flysights right next to each other or a bunch of em in a bag will interfere, but I know that two in one wing separated by maybe a foot or so worked ok for me later in the day. Point is we can test for this. Thought: The comp in Gransee in August, so far as I know there WERE no zeroes or corrupted runs. None. I didn't look for any but I also did not hear of any... and it was a small comp. I'd think if anyone got unusable results I'd have heard about it. And I know some people were forgetting to turn them on far in advance, some people sometimes forgot to ground-boot before boarding yet the devices had no problem just doing a cold start in the plane. The -lack- of major failure there tells me its even MORE unlikely the problem was caused by anything the competitors were doing or not doing or how the devices were being used. Normally people can get away with casual handling of the devices, they seem to be fairly tolerant of "just turn it on and jump" handling so why not this time? Personally I -am- content to write this whole thing up as a very solid case of Unknown External Interference and let it go at that until and unless we get more data. -B Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

"Not shit! Energy! No energy, no town! ME, king, Arab!" Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

Best part of going to hell: No condescending evangelists convinced they know the mind of the infinite. I'm on my way, catch y'all at the fire... Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.