tbrown

I don't get off on the danger either. But the danger has the effect of weeding out the couch potatoes. We are a self selected bunch of people who are willing to accept the risks for the exceptional beauty. And that's why we like hanging out with each other, whether we're old or young, men or women, liberal or conservative, gay or straight, you name it. We're people who are okay with leaving an airplane behind in the name of a good time and there are damn few people like us in this world. If just any nitwit could do it, I'd probably quit. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

A private employer can make whatever rules they want for their employees. They decided years ago not to tolerate pot smoking or cocaine or other illegal drugs and have been testing everyone ever since (which is something I hate, but they can do it). In the old days if you worked for Ford and lived in company housing, the Ford company police could come in and search your home. If they found alcohol or tobacco, you were OUT. Fired AND evicted (nice, huh ?). I'm a non-smoking, non drug using, alcohol drinking libertarian who believes people should be able to use ANYTHING, up to and including heroin, responsibly. People can smoke if they want, just not around me because it stinks and I have a right not to put up with it. It does seem harsh to me for an employer to fire someone for smoking a taxed and legal product, but they do have the right. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

With that logic you could justfy not helping out a someone getting mugged "because they won't be getting mugged all day, right?" Your logic doesn't follow, at least you didn't drag a comparison with child molesting into the equation. In point of fact, the US mobilized and led a worldwide coalition in 1990 to come to the assistance of Kuwait when they were mugged by Saddam. The coalition also saved Saudi Arabia from a similar fate, as the Saudis can't fight either, unless it's among themselves. After driving the Iraqis out of Kuwait, we then partitioned off two safe zones out of Iraqi territory for the protection of Kurdish minorities and enforced "no fly" zones in those regions to keep the Iraqi military out. Bush Sr. understood that actually invading Iraq would cost America too much in blood, lives, and treasure, but frat boy likes to show his dad up whenever he can. In fact he just dropped the latest installment of the Iraqi bill on congress' lap this morning - another $80 billion. When your interest rates go through the roof and the Saudis start selling oil for Euros instead of dollars, we'll see what "costly" means. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

58% Dixie. I grew up in upstate NY, but my mom's from Florida and ALL my cousins are from either Florida or Tennessee. Funny thing is I retook the test and put some different words in (I know what grinders and bubblers are, and threw in a roly poly for good measure) and it still said I was 56% Dixie. My Tennessee cousins always thought it was too funny that we called a soda "pop". Of course we thought ANYTHING they said was too funny.... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

According to the January issue of Parachutist, Jim Wallace just got USPA awards for 28,000 jumps and 280 hours of freefall time. He's so far ahead they have to make up names for his awards, I think this one was the "double hepta rasberry wings with penta cherries on top", or something like that. And since awards always take a little time in the pipeline, especially when you have to invent new ones, you can bet he's probably got a thousand or so more by now. I've read somewhere that he has the third highest number of jumps and the No. 1 most freefall time in the entire world. Jim is one of the most gracious, respected, friendliest, knowledgeable, generous, and just plain fantastic people in all of skydiving. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

What's confusing about it? I was on a similar load at Perris in late summer. First person apparently landed one direction, everyone else the other way. All who landed on the grass after the first got a demerit, except me apparently for being the last one down. At Perris the "follow the leader" rule applies only to the grass strip, which is a rather small and ridiculously congested area. If the first one down is obviously going the wrong way, you're perfectly free to go the right way, within the bounds of safety and checking your airspace, onto any of the secondary landing areas, including the huge plowed student field. And of course at Perris anyone who lands in one of the secondary landing zones has the convenient option of catching a ride back on the truck with Tim. Personally, I don't ever land on the grass strip because a.) I'm afraid of getting my clock cleaned by some hotshot, and b.) I fly a larger canopy and don't swoop, so I'd just as soon stay out of the swoopers' way so they can have their fun too. The development of hotter and swoopier canopies has clearly made it necessary to reconsider the design of landing zones and thinking about traffic patterns. Obviously traditional accuracy jumpers have as much right to pound the pea gravel as swoopers do to swoop their lane or pond or whatever. Intelligent design would call for the pea gravel to be outside the main traffic lane however because although deep brakes and S turns are a legitimate part of the discipline, they are nonetheless a hazard if conducted in a traffic pattern. Perris has its pea gravel well upwind of the main traffic pattern, yet still a convenient walking distance to the packing area. But by the same token, the swooping lanes need to be out of the main pattern as well. Elsinore has one of the best solutions, where they have 3 huge landing zones sise by side. One is for students, the one in the middle is the main zone for the heavy traffic pattern, and across the runway is the hot swoopy zone, complete with a pond. In any event, civil discourse and communication is key. We're all concerned about people breaking bones and/or getting killed here and flipping each other remarks like "tough shit" isn't going to save anyone. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

My second freefall jump, which was a hop & pop back in the seventies. The weather was not looking so good, but the instructor said we were good for it and that he'd be following me out of the plane. It was raining already. Anyway, I step off, look up and that asshole instructor is waving at me - and then closes the door ! Then this huge bolt of lightning shot right past me. Wow. I opened and landed on the DZ with no problems, but the DZO wanted to know why in hell I jumped in weather like that. I told him because his fucking instructor said so and we both sort of let it go at that and went in the clubhouse and had a beer. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

When I'm no longer able physically or mentally to do it safely. One of the reasons I'm back in and doing it now is that my mom & dad have had all four of their knees replaced and my dad has further hip and spinal problems. So the hereditary forecast isn't too promising for the future and a day may come when I need two canes to get around the way my dad does now. On the bright side, that could be another twenty years, or I just may luck out (dad was an avid skier up until he just couldn't do it anymore). And when I finally can't do it on my own power anymore ? Then I'll see about taking an occasional tandem ride and invite some of my aging friends to join me. Should be a great way to meet chicks at any age ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Considering whether to take up skydiving is a good excercise in sober reflection and only you can answer the question for yourself. On top of that you also have to take into consideration the fact that you have a young family and that anything you do affects their lives, for better or worse (and that includes something as "harmless" as playing basketball with your buds at the local Y). I like to tell people that ours is a "safe enough" sport. It's a lot safer than most people think it is, but not as safe as skydivers would like it to be. You have two unique opportunities to get killed every time, dying in a plane crash or else getting killed during the jump. It can happen and sadly sometimes it does. Usually, on the jump anyway, it happens because somebody screws up and pulls a real no-no (a low pull, or more recently a low hook turn, etc). With proper training, attention and care, we'd all like to think we won't pull that kind of a stunt, and for the most part we don't. Problem is, you only have to screw up badly enough once and death is permanent. You've made a tandem, so you know how beautiful it is up there, both in freefall and under canopy. The sport offers an exceptional reward in return for taking exceptional risk. There is no place more beautiful than to be out in the middle of the sky, but to get there you have to jump. You can learn to jump safely. You can learn how to use and take proper care of your rig. You can use AAD's and RSL's. You can take canopy coaching and learn how to fly to a safe landing (and given what people are doing with today's hot canopies, you really should make it a priority to get all the coaching you can). You can see and be seen, you can decide what risks you will or will not accept, which loads you're not ready to go on, and avoid people with dangerous reputations. You can train and train and train, keep your mind open and willing to learn from others. All of that should help you make many thousands of jumps for years to come. But it never quite takes away the risk that each and every jump can kill you. You will have close calls, you will have low pulls, near collisions, and almost certainly a few cutaways. You will learn what being really scared feels like, but hopefully only now & then, just enough to "keep you honest". When my kids were little, I gave it up and stayed away for many years. It was my personal decision. I know plenty of jumpers with small children who are able to keep on jumping and I have no problem with them either, that's their decision. But if concern for your kids is a problem, then it could be a valid reason for you to stay away for now. And though this sounds like skydiving heresy, you need to consider where skydiving fits with your marriage. Bottom line I guess is that it's okay not to jump. And if we do jump, we need to be clear about why we do it and why we love it. Of course we love it, if we don't love it then why in hell do it at all ? So think it over, just as long and hhard as you need to. Good luck & God bless, whatever you decide. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I got into it because I heard Jimmy Tavino was one of the Jumpmasters at the Ripcord Skydiving Club in W. Bloomfield, NY ! Well, almost - Jimmy really was one of my JM's back in my student days. I think I first heard about parachutes when I was six years old, that's as early as I can remember them. I loved them right from the start. Any time I had a toy soldier, some string and a bit of cellophane, Voila ! - I'd make another parachute and be throwing them out of whatever tree or second story window was available. Then in 1962 God created the "Ripcord" series on TV. Friday nights at 7:30 you couldn't pry me away from that show with a crowbar, I'd have jumped right through the picture screen if I could have. Ripcord was the first time I'd ever seen film of people in freefall and it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen (still is, although the female physique is also right up there). After that I'd watch ANYTHING with parachutes or skydivers. Gypsy Moths, ABC's Wide World of Sports, war movies with paratroopers, you name it. By the time I was seven years old I KNEW I was going to jump someday, somehow. I was jumping out of trees, flying off of swingsets, seriously preparing myself for the day I knew was coming. Every now and then I'd find a book at the library about skydiving and I'd read them from cover to cover. I studied them and learned all I could. My parents wouldn't give their permission to jump, so I had to wait 'til I was eighteen. During my freshman year the Seneca Falls, NY dropzone sent some people down to our school and they showed "Masters of the Sky" at the student union. I turned around and sold a whole stack of my LP's to scrounge together $35 for the FJC - the normal price was $50, but we had a really big group and got discounted way down. And that was that, we drove up to Seneca Falls on a Friday night in 1974. Got there in time to watch the sunset load coming down under Paracommanders and this one strange thing that looked like a big square mattress. We took the course that evening and then they sent us into town to get smashed. Next morning we woke up in our sleeping bags and they rousted us out early. It was cold and they had coffee on and started suiting us up. I think I was in the second or third load to go up and I volunteered to sit in the door position and go first. Next thing I knew, I was underneath an opened T-10 at 2500 ft, thinking "Wow, I really did it !" After that, you couldn't keep me away from the place. Eventually I did hang it up and was away for 22 years without a jump. But one quick little visit back to Perris, just for old time's sake and to look up some old friends - I found two of them within ten minutes of arriving - shook me up inside. It was the same voice I heard when I was a kid "Gotta jump Tom, you NEED this". And it wasn't long before I was back and now I've been back almost two years. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

It will give a new meaning to being cattle in the sky, I can see the budget airlines using them to transport huge numbers of people from coast to coast in discomfort. A lot of Asian countries, especially Japan, already use the 747 as a puddle hopper. They'll cram 400 or so people onboard and fling the thing over the next hilltop to the town on the other side. In fact a lot of Asian customers have ordered their 747's without the usual long range mods (like winglets) because they won't enhance performance on short commuter hops. A commuter plane with 800 passengers ? Sure, why not ? It's cheaper and less traffic in the pattern than eight 737's or A320's. And the A380 will inevitably carry 800 passengers. The 500 figure is based on the assumption that passengers will really want all those silly restaurants, health spas, and boutiques on the upper deck. Anyone here old enough to remember when the early 747-100 model used to have a piano bar up in the dome ? Those lasted barely a year before the airlines wised up and installed seats upstairs. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

You should really consider the circus, It just might be your kind of zoo, I can't think of a place that's more perfect, For a person as perfect as you And it's not like I'm leaving you lonely Because I wouldn't know where to begin, But I know that I'll think of you only When the snakes come marching in You imagine me sipping Champagne from your boot For a taste of your elegant pride May be going to hell in a bucket babe, But at least I'm enjoying the ride Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Boeing's problem is that they let a fatass bean counter named Harry Stonecipher take over the operation. The official story is that Boeing bought out McDonnell Douglas, but what really happened is that Douglas staged a palace coup with Boeing's money. Douglas was always a bean counting company with no vision for the future. In the 1950's, when Boeing "bet the store" on developing the 707, Douglas was confident that the airlines would stick with propellers for years to come. Boeing repeatedly bet the store on developing some beautiful new planes. The 747 almost killed Boeing at the end of the sixties, but they toughed it out and it changed world travel. In the nineties they developed another beautiful long range plane, the 777. But all the Douglas boys, and Stonecipher in particular can do, is look at next week's stock price. Douglas could've built an A380 type plane twelve years ago, they had the design and called it the MD-12. But they didn't have the balls to build it. And now that they own Boeing they don't have the balls to build anything new or imaginative. Say goodbye to Boeing, it's gone down the shitter. The 7E7 is already losing orders to Airbus' new A360, which is being developed for the same medium size long range market. If I sound extremely bitter about it, it's only because I worked for Boeing for ten years and was once proud of working for a great company with real vision. Now that I've been laid off twice I can only watch the bean counters stuff their pockets with what they can pilfer from a once great company. Make no mistake, Bill Boeing is spinning in his grave faster than any jet turbine can turn. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

In the old days (the seventies), early model hand deploys didn't have closing pins, you would simply stow a bite of your bridle line in the elastic closing loop, same as you stow your suspension lines in a rubber band on your bag. I tossed out my pilot chute and it hung up, wouldn't clear. There was just this pilot chute on the end of its bridle whirling around in HUGE loops over my back. I didn't know how the hell I was ever going to deploy my round reserve through that mess, so I grabbed my reserve ripcord and took another look at my altimeter. Thank God the damn thing cleared just then and my main deployed quickly and uneventfully. I got one of the newfangled pins installed on my bridle before I jumped again. The other time was my first cutaway. When I punched my ripcord, I felt the reserve pilot chute hit my foot. I swear I could feel my hair turning white then and there (round reserve again, no freebag, this was 1979). I was sure I was a dead man. But it just bounced off my foot, thank God, and a moment later I was getting line stretch. But I'm convinced to this day that I used up a year of my life in that moment and will die a year earlier, of whatever cause, as a result. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The Crater Patch ? Freebag Farm ? Cypres Follies ? Whuffo They Jump ? Hook It ! Swoop 'Til Ya Poop Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Funny you should ask, as my wife just picked up a DVD copy of "Suddenly Last Summer", with young Elizabeth Taylor and Katherine Hepburn. Hepburn wants to have Taylor committed to the loony bin because Taylor keeps telling gruesome stories about the death of Hepburn's son Sebastian. Oh yeah, it's a real corker. All the old Hammer horror flicks, with Peter Cushing and Cristopher Lee and those guys are always a good kick in the butt. Also anything with James Stewart or Clint Eastwood is usually worth the effort. And don't forget Kubrick's "Dr. Stangelove" ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Aw skygrl, I'm so sorry you were honest with the state about anything. You must've been raised in a convent to believe they actually wanted to "help" you. I guess now you know better. Anyway, if you've been sober since the fall and only smoked a little poot on New Year's Eve, you should probably be alright and pass the test. I know you won't feel much better about it until you do pass, but try not to worry too much if you can help it. And don't EVER trust the government ever, ever, again. The whole reason we have a Bill of Rights is to protect us from the government, because our founding fathers knew that all governments are fundamentally evil. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I don't really care one way or the other if says "under God" or not. I never like having to get up and say the Pledge in the first place (I did nevertheless lead the Pledge at my high school graduation, to our principal's boundless relief). I just don't like making a show of loyalty oaths. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Whether he does or not, it would be the typical heavy handed and ineffective way the Russians try to deal with their social problems. In the final years of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev kept sugar off the market, which pissed off the average Soviet housewife to no end. Some women even confronted him about it and he didn't bat an eyelash telling them that sugar would only fall into the hands of bootleggers. Just think, next thing you know you'll have to line up at the prescription counter to ask for one (single) box of cold remedy containing pseudoephedrine, or whatever the fuck it is, because the meth labbers use it to make crystal. I was recently in a checkout line and the lady in front of me was not able to buy two boxes. She was a perfectly average looking housewife and just wanted two boxes (it was on sale). I mean if she was skinny and picking at scabs on her face, smelled bad and mumbling to herself and trying to buy a gross of the things I might've wondered, but two boxes ?? I nudged her on the shoulder and said "ma'am, I'll buy your second box and give it to you outside". And I did. Either way, neither bootleggers or meth labs are impacted by any of this. Just ordinary people who want to bake cookies, or who have a cold. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Let me talk to my lawyer about it and see if the statutes of limitations have run. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Always. I live right in that neighborhood, by Lake & Springfield. The rents aren't any higher than anywhere else and you've got downtown Huntington and the beach just a mile away. Easy walkin' for anybody who skydives. As for whether anyone "lives" in Newport, I've always wondered about that myyself. I always thought they paid someone else to do their living for them... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Catwoman, we could go burgling together and curl up in a big pile of stolen treasures. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

My opening height was about 2.3k, not overly low compared to a mal, but the lowest I had gone. If by opening height you mean you were sitting in under an open canopy, you were not low by any means, especially if you were clearing traffic at breakoff. With today's canopies, you probably threw it out about 3 grand'ish, which is fine. On the other hand, if you threw it out around 2300, you were probably hummin' it down to 1700 or so before you sat in. As John Mitchell says, a few posts down from you, we used to routinely breakoff at 3500, with people pulling at 2000 - 2500 ft. Of course our canopies opened faster and with a bit more "authority" in those days - "but we liked it !". If you get to going on real bigways, sooner or later you're going to be told by an organizer NOT to pull until something like 2200 ft. And you'll get your ass chewed if you pull higher. This is supposedly one of the reasons the original Sabre canopy opens so fast and hard. It was designed in the 1980's for relative workers who wanted something that could open fast and low on a bigway. But most jumpers today have come up through the sport with soft and snively opening canopies (which really ARE nice) and a higher pull mentality they learned from AFF training. You really don't want to be humming through 1200 ft on your opening, because then your Cypres can fire, but when circumstances warrant and you've got at least a C license, you can safely take it to 2 grand. You don't have to like it - that ground does start getting awfully big - but you do need to feel confident that you're the one in control and that you CAN do it when you need to. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I was told that if you have a steerable canopy you should keep it and use the rear risers to control it, b/c if you have something above your head don't take a chance on the reserve which might not work. It seems to me that I would be taking a chance by relying on the reserve, but I would be taking a bigger chance of injury by waiting to PLF on a "wounded" canopy. Aside from the issue of whether or not to keep a marginal canopy, there seems to be an added issue of "reserve paranoia" popping up in this and other recent threads. It's been pointed out, correctly, that there's nothing magical about a reserve. There's no Fairy Godmother standing by to guarantee your reserve opens. But some other facts need to be pointed out. First, your reserve is a ram air canopy and ram airs basically want to open. Second, unlike your main, your reserve has been tested against some strict standards to be approved for use as an emergency parachute. For instance, it must open within 3 seconds, even with three line twists intentionally packed up against the canopy. Third, your reserve is inspected and packed every 120 days by a licensed rigger, who signs and seals the packjob with their name, number, and reputation. Cutting away a canopy is not a fun experience, at least not until the reserve opens (that brightens your outlook considerably). A malfunction is a frightening and disorienting experience. You're suddenly not having fun anymore. A slow or marginal canopy malfunction furhter injects a lot of "what if" questions into the mix. But you have to keep in mind that a ram air is a wing. A wing has to fly, even the big canopies are too small to lower you to the ground the way a round would. All the while you hesitate, worry and dither, you're losing altitude and probably faster than you think. Before you know it you're too low for proper procedures. And then the ground comes up. Cutaways are a fact of life in our sport. If you're going to take up skydiving, you will more than likely have to cutaway sometime. A few of us are lucky enough to have gone thousands of jumps between, or even without cutaways. But all of us have to be ready to chop it every single time we jump. We just have to be able to accept that less than pleasant fact, that and the fact that we take a highly calculated risk on our lives with every jump. That's our sport. If you don't like the way your main looks by your hard deck, then lose it. The reserve has a better chance of working than an "iffy" looking main. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Both myself and a good friend of mine have been very happy with the used gear we've bought through the Classifieds. I bought a complete rig and my friend bought a main canopy. In both cases we arranged to have the gear shipped to a well known and reputable loft which acted as an intermediary. In addition, my rig was being offered by a well known gear dealership (whose owner regularly posts on these Forums), acting for the owner who was away on a job on the east coast. I have had nothing less than FANTASTIC service from this dealership. There is an element of "You pay your money, you take your chances" anytime you enter into a private sale, especially online. That risk can be minimized with a little cautious planning. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !