tbrown

What about wearing them on the way down? That's the concern I see. Not much point in wearing them on the way up anyway. I think the idea is to keep the noise low in freefall. I've felt my ears pop several times in freefall and that's with nothing in them. I would think putting in ear plugs would make that a whole lot worse. I always wore them all the way up and down. Between the engine and freefall noise, your hearing needs protection. I used the soft foam kind you'd usually find in a factory. The foam is porous, no problems with pressure equalization. It also mutes the shrill piercing sound of an audible going off next to your ear. I could hear mine just fine without the drama. Whatever your age, we all need to protect whatever hearing we have. It's precious and when it's lost, it's lost. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Final note - I still have a video from an AFF level 2 I did years ago. Student pulled, I turned to leave, got about 5 feet away. The PC launched, arched over him towards me, landed on my back, then finally caught air and deployed. All I felt was a little tap. PC's do strange things. I might just add that a few of us started jumping before hand deploy came into widespread use - I first saw a hand deploy rig in 1976, after having started two years earlier. In those days, we regarded hesitations as a fact of life and frequently talked about them and our own methods of avoiding or dealing with them. Today's generation of jumpers know only hand deploy and never even pull a ripcord until they're already in trouble. There is a real knowledge gap in the art of ripcord deployment that needs more attention. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Ron Tarnow's two books; Hamilton, and George Washington, a Life are both must reads for anyone who wants to go digging into the earliest days of our country. Without both of these two founders, America as we know it might well have never existed. Hamilton established the financial foundations of America, starting with addressing and consolidating our national debts that came from the Revolution. Washington navigated our country through the political pitfalls and hazards of the earliest years under our Constitution. He was often vilified as a closet royalist in the press, especially during his second term. Both books make clear what a fragile and vulnerable country the U.S. was in those days, something that is not taught in our schools. Washington at the Constitutional convention even took Hamilton aside and told him he didn't think the whole thing could last twenty years. By the way, the Washington bio does not shy away in the least from the contradictions of Washington's owning over 200 slaves, or his unrealistic belief that slavery would somehow wither and die of its own accord. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I assume we're talking about terminal openings here. Back forty years ago we'd breakoff 8 - 10 Ways at 3500 and for something bigger, like a 16 Way we'd break at 4 grand to be on the safe side. I was once on a 36 Way that broke off in 3 waves, at 4500, 3500, and 3 grand, with everyone told to track to 2 grand. It was all by the book too, pretty much. I'm not jumping anymore, but in this century I was comfortable with the 4500 ft breakoffs and 4 grand for 4 Way. Usually my pull alarm (set for 3 grand) would go off at line stretch, as my canopy was shaking itself out. On some of the bigger ways (24 - 40 Way) we were told not to pull above 3 grand and that was fine with me. I'm fine with the 2500 ft. minimum too. Even in the old days I didn't like the size of mother earth at 2 grand. My second time around in the sport I only pulled below 2 grand once, but that was another story... A month later my wife gave me an audible for a birthday present. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Did you have this canopy inspected, or even talk to a rigger before you bought it ? I'm really tired of hearing about older jumpers selling crap from yesteryear to newbies. Like F-111 mains and Micro-Raven reserves. I do know a few jumpers who still jump old F-111 canopies. But they have a lot of experience and know what they're doing. You don't. There is simply no reason on earth for you to buy anything but a ZP canopy. There are tons of good ones on the used market. I think you've been screwed by someone who knew exactly what he was doing. As for size, go easy and put some jumps on a 210. THEN, a 190 size ZP canopy should do you just fine. ZP fabric really does make a huge difference. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I've heard that the Paradactyl (not sure by which manufacturer) was actually TSO'd for use as a reserve. There were a few people who jumped really tiny "double Dactyl" rigs. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

"If you don't stop that crying, I'll give you something to cry about !" Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Never watched a single episode. The reason was that the meth epidemic in Snohomish County, WA was so bad it even made a cover story for Rolling Stone. There was a murdered teenager's body dumped in the parking lot of a middle school (my daughter went to grade school with the kid). Then another kid, a girl was beat to death, but when they took her out to the woods to bury her she started moaning. So they shot her. That's what crystal meth did to our town and it was no TV show. I just can't bring myself to ever watch a minute of it. Not ever. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

"If it were a snake it would've bit you". "Put that in your pipe and smoke it." "Behaving like a bunch of wild Indians". (Definitely un-PC for the 21st century, but this over fifty years ago.) Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I'll have to do that. For Xmas, my wife gave me the DVD set of Smiley's People, the 1983 version with Alec Guinness. He also made a killer version of Tinker Tailor back then. Both also have Patrick Stewart, from his pre Jean Luc days. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Definitely a PC. Local popular mythology was that the jumper was Owsley Stanley, but I don't believe that. It is quite possible that the jumper was an associate of Owsley's. Also known that Owsley cooked up a special batch of "White Lightning" acid, specifically for this event and that gobs of it were given away for free. So the jumper may well have given away or tossed many hits. Plenty of open space to land on the Polo Grounds. Aerial delivery of LSD was a popular stunt in those days, there was a large load of Orange Sunshine dropped from a low flying airplane over the 1968 Newport Pop Festival as well. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Actually, Glenn did fly on the Discovery, which is now in the Smithsonian. You're thinking of the Columbia as the one that broke up on re-entry. I had a hand working at General Dynamics, Convair Division, as a Skin & Structures Mechanic in building the Discovery's cargo hold. I was in the 1st grade when Glenn made his first flight of 3 orbits in 1962. My mom saved my essay that I wrote about what a brave hero John Glenn was. It was written, or rather printed, in pencil on that school paper with the dotted lines in the middle of each line. To this I added my best drawing of a rocket blasting off. Even back then I remember that his mission was scrubbed twice before he finally got off the ground and that there were problems with his re-entry that had the grownups worried (they thought his heat shield had come loose and told him not to jettison his retro rockets after firing). He was a man who lived long and prospered. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I believe Denmark has made it a crime to patronize a prostitute, and the Danes have a reputation of being a very sexually "enlightened" people. It's definitely time to stop criminalizing the women, but it's not the "victimless" occupation it's portrayed to be. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I knew Tommy during my college years in Cortland, NY when I first started jumping. Tommy was a terrific friend and a great supporter of college kids skydiving. He used to come to some our film nights at the student union and helped with some of the carpooling up to the old Seneca Falls dropzone. My very first jump on a high performance canopy was on Tommy's Papillon, in his Mini System ( a very classy comfy sport rig with chest mounted reserve - first rig I ever wore that actually felt good). Tommy used to tell me I should get a Strato Star and a pig rig, "like all the young guys at Elsinore". Sorry to hear this Doug, but I guess sooner or later we're all going this way. Fly free Tommy. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I'd say he had it coming. No problem there. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Omorosa. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The reason the WMDs were kept secret is that they were made in the USA. The Reagan administration ok'ed sending them during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980's. When Saddam gassed the city of Halabja, Donald Rumsfeld himself flew to Baghdad to meet Saddam - there are pictures of the two shaking hands. Rummy told Saddam that the US wasn't exactly happy about the gassing, but would look the other way. Ironically, the gassing of Halabja was the actual offense Saddam was convicted of and hanged for. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I think the "acid mesh" episode in the 1980's accelerated the move to square reserves. A lot of jumpers had been perfectly happy with their reliable rounds, until some of them started to tear apart at repack time. Some reserves even got their TSO's cancelled, forcing people to find an acceptable replacement. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Cancer sucks. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Excellent article. I returned to the sport in 2003, after a 22 year layoff. The ONLY thing I would add to Larry's list would be to get signed up for a canopy course as soon as possible. Canopies nowadays blow the doors off anything we had in the 1970's or '80s - even the student canopies. They're a lot of fun, but they demand respect and it only takes one mistake to put you in the hospital - or on your pals' next ash dive project. Learn how to fly today's canopies !

I'm nota Republican, I don't watch their debates, and I'm not voting for any of them. But I'm glad to see they got to have a real issue oriented debate last night, without that asshole making a spectacle of himself. Of course he couldn't get his way, so he took his ball across town and had his own party, all about himself as usual. I wish there were enough toilet paper in the U.S. to wipe him off the front page. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Saw the Airplane in 1970 and the Starship in 1974. Paul wasn't the greatest singer, or guitarist. But he knew that and he picked the right people for both of those bands and wrote a lot of good songs. Neither band would have existed without him at the helm and both gave much joy to two or there generations. Another light has gone out. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

If you can get hold of a copy, set yourself down and watch "Deeply Madly Truly", in which Juliet Stevenson (who is herself a great actress) loses it completely mourning for the death of - guess who. It's a fantastic movie that's largely been forgotten and could help deal with the real loss now. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

What a cool story ! A bunch of us were down from Seneca Falls, NY and it was our first bigtime boogie with big planes too. I had about 110 jumps at the time. All I really remember about Easter Sunday is that it was very windy and not much was going up. We did watch from the ground as Exitus, Slots, and The Herd made a 30 Way Tri Wedge, broke grips, rotated the wedges and redocked them. It was the most awesome thing I'd ever seen. But the winds were still blowing, so we broke camp and headed off to Disney World. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

We did that once with a bottle of tequila, coming back through customs from Mexico, way back in 1978 (when we were young & stupid). Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !