tbrown

That sure was fun to read again Jim. I still remember the one & so far only time a van full of us came down for the 1977 Easter Boogie. We met you at manifest, where you checked our logbooks & reserves and turned us loose. Up north it was still cold and gray, but Florida was sooo beautiful that week. It was also our first experience with big loads and big planes. We had a Beaver up norht at Seneca Falls and had jumped in a 6 Way the weekend before. But oh Lordy, you had 40 Tango and our first morning we got put onto a "relaxed" 14 Way round. I had about a hundred jumps then and still rmember thinking on the way up "Oh boy, now we've gone & done it". Before it was our turn, we got to watch Exitus do their speed star chunk exit and our minds were blown, we knew we were watching the very frontier of the sport. And the parties, camping out on the airport - well you know all about those. It was still one of the most exciting and eye opening vacations of my entire life. Hope you don't mind if I'm thirty years late, but THANKS !! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I remember the meetings at Perris in the spring of 1980, in the lounge/classroom (now the location of the Square1 store). The excitement about legalizing El Capitan and organizing expeditions for the summer was at a fever pitch. It also began a deluge of expedited requests for D licenses to USPA, as a D was req'd for the permit. I had to beg for a lot of signatures on my incredibly sloppy logbook, as I'd more or less stopped logging at the time. Then I needed a picture, so a Navy Photographer's Mate friend at the old San Diego NTC took me into their studio, where he shot I.D. photos of recruits, and I got a really snazzy set of pics. Got my D license just in time for the permit application too. Just a week or two later USPA said they would no longer honor expedited requests for D licenses, as their staff was buried alive under the things and we should've all got our D's long ago and could therefore go and fuck ourselves, we'd get our D's when we got them. The trip itself was great. We arrived in the middle of the night and slept on the side of the road, getting to the meadow on a Saturday morning, just in time to watch the group that morning make their jumps. More than anything, I remember how incredibly huge El Capitan really is. There are NO photos that really convey what a giant it is, its size is completely beyond comprehension, unless you've actually seen the thing. After hiking all day up the Tamarac Trail we had an unforgettable night on top of the rock, watching the Perseid Meteor Showers, which come the first week of every August. Away from all the city lights and 7 thousand feet above sea level, it looked like the entire Milky Way was collapsing on us - absolutely incredible. Our jumps in the morning (Sunday, August 10th) were uneventful, but beyond every expectation. After landing in the meadow, a very courteous Ranger rode up on horseback, asked for my name and home address, then checked me off on his list and said he was happy to see I had such a good time. It was a very mellow happy morning. But even then, there were extra people sneaking into the groups. And people with dirt bikes offering jumpers rides up the trails. I didn't notice much trash, maybe a little, at the top and at least then there was no spray painting on anything. We weren't the only campers either, there were some German tourists up there too. It's been 27 years now, but sometimes at night I still have vivid dreams of jumping off that cliff again. I've been told by our organizer Dave Schulz, who asked Jeanne Boenish, that my number is 159. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The camera guy didn't jump the plan. You had an agreement. It's his fault. There are things you could've done better, but he went back on a plan you both agreed to. He's wrong, it's that simple. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Why not ? At least he's Jewish.... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Cool Hand Clyde ? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

We were going to have dinner on Wednesday night, since Amy had a team dinner thing to go to. Then we got the record that day and everyone forgot all their other plans in the massive party that followed. I figured there'd always be another time. I guess there wasn't. One of life's hardest lessons. It's happened to me with a friend who bounced many years ago, another who was murdered, another who ran his bike into a phone pole. They were all people I was meaning to see, of course I'd be seeing them again soon, just as soon as I could find the time.... The only time is now, if you've been thinking of seeing somebody - go see them. If you love somebody - tell them. We don't always get another chance. Especially not in our chosen sport. I never met Taz, but I still remember the way Mark Brown sucked in his breath and bit his lip at mention of her name shortly after she died. He could hardly put into words what she meant to him. I can feel a small piece of her magic though, just from looking at her pictures. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

And the only double amputee (AKA, BKA) to become a helicopter pilot, then helicopter instructor after the accident, as well. ltdiver Fascinating story about Dana Bowman on one of the cable networks (Discovery Channel maybe ?). The REALLY cool part of the story is Dana's ongoing participation in the design and development of newer generations of "smart" prosthetic limbs. The legs and feet he's wearing nowadays actually allow him to feel - and control - very slight and subtle movements with his feet. That kind of dexterity is essential to controlling a helicopter, where the pilot is literally "dancing" with the hand and foot controls. It's all done by the pilot's ability to alter pressure with very subtle motions and his ability to then read the feedback of the control response. Dana's prosthetics actually do that for him. And now that they they can do that for him, they're available to others as well. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

It made me wonder wouldn;t they have problems over opening times and people flying into others canopies or opening and then having collisions. Its easy when u have a 4 way for example and can track in opposite directions but when you havw so many at different levels. Whats everyones else thoughts and has anyone done it that can talk from experience? Actually, for starters the jet flies a jump run that's perpendicular to the normal line of flight, so everyone's making a crosswind approach to the center of the dropzone. That helps. The other thing is that they explain at the briefing, about half an hour before flight time, that since the jumprun (at Perris anyway) will be east to west, you're expected to track either to the north or south. It's up to you which way you want to go, but it needs to be north or south (both are parallel to the Perris runway). So in the end you have around 40 people exiting on each pass, plenty of horizontal seperation due to the high speed of the plane and half the people tracking one way, half going the other. I found it wasn't much worse than the average midsize RW load, though I also found there was a lot more vertical seperation, perhaps because some people were freeflying and falling faster (I'm a belly flier). A friend of mine with barely fifty jumps at the time made a jet jump and felt completely comfortable with the traffic issues. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

First (obligatory PC disclaimer here) I am not a homophobe. Why, some of my best friends....aw, hell, do I really have to to grovel like this ? I don't see any reason why a city should be expected, at the taxpayers' expense, to open a porn emporium. I'm not anti-porn either, I love the stuff for about five minutes, before it gets depressing. I have no objection to gays opening a library of their own to make these materials available to the public. It's just not an appropriate role for government to provide. Of course saying this brands one immediately as some kind of a Neo-Nazi, but the money needs to be spent on other things. Maybe a new fire truck, a pool for kids in the summertime. The really HUGE problem I have with gay activists is that they insist on making EVERYTHING about them and branding anyone who disagrees with their agenda as some kind of a Neanderthal bigot. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I'm just waiting for them to elevate clerical pederasty to sacramental status. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The answer is simple - don't ever fly this asshole airline. Ever. Ever. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I don't have a problem with the issues Moore addresses so much as the way he addresses them and the guy himself. Michael Moore is a very obnoxious in your face kind of person who attacks people with carefully constructed questions that leave his victims with a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" choice for how they might answer. His approach is very childish. He reminds me of the big ugly nerd in jr. high who would throw a stink bomb into the girls locker room in hopes of flushing out a bevy of naked screaming girls into the hallway. It's unfortunate that he feels everything he does has to make noise or stink, because I think he degrades the debate over some very serious issues. I have no plans to see "Sicko", though I think the current state of health care and lack of health insurance is a serious issue. From what I hear, Moore seems to be suggesting that Cuba is a better place to live, with better health care than the U.S. I don't believe that for a moment and it degraqdes the debate because now I have to defend my own views by dissavowing Michael Moore any time I get onto the topic. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Speaking for the older set, we don't do as much dating or hooking up as we used to back thirty years ago (when we did everything and nobody had ever heard of AIDS). Nowadays I don't know about any of our friends who have HIV, but I do have at least three friends with C hepatitis. They all talk about it rather openly among themselves, comparing therapies and which of the drugs kick their butts and so on. But we're all a monogamous bunch by now. I wouldn't tell anyone about their hep status unless they were a bloody mess after an accident and needed medical attention. Of course responders are supposed to use safeguards for blood born pathogens as a standard procedure anyway. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Yeah, nice red, 20" wheels. And training wheels. Only used them the first day, then my Dad said they had to come off so I could learn. He did the usual thing, holding the seat while he ran alongside. After a while I noticed he wasn't there, turned my head and saw him about two houses back. I promptly crashed, but that was the beginning. The next day I was riding up and down the sidewalk like I was born to it. Took a bit longer to get the braking thing down, after running into one parked car and some little kid down the street.... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Depending on whether you'd like a seven or nine cell, get a Spectre or a Pilot. Both have lovely soft openings. I've also heard good things about the Safire, though I haven't tried one. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

It's quite a jolt at first. Haven't sold a rig since the last time I left the sport in 1982, but even then it was hard. The rig I have now is a real beauty, a used rig that was cared for like a child by the previous owner. I'm not considering selling it anytime soon, but I do have a daughter we're sending off to college, so one never knows. I'd sell it if I had to . Bottom line is that a rig is after all just a rig. When the time is right you can always find another one and maybe even one you like even better. Maybe you need to get drunk and cry about it with a girlfriend, that would be alright too. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I'm sorry, I was thinking of Terminal Research. You're absolutely right. My mistake. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Given the fuel sensors are going to be at the bottom of the tank, this would mean that the tank would have to me damn near empty for ignition to take place which doesn't seem likely for an oversea flight. I suppose its possible they didn't even need that much in the belly because NY to Paris is actually a relatively short flight for a 747. Still fuel probe wires don't carry that much current and even in heavy fumes I don't see how that small of a spark could possibly cause that kind of explosion. It would be tough for an actual turbine igniter to light off straight fumes or straight fuel for that matter. It ususally takes a fine mist for ignition. I recall reading that the plane had also been sitting out on the tarmac for an unusual number of hours at JFK, during some very hot weather. A lot of transatlantic 747's often fly with the center tanks empty to reduce weight and fuel costs, because Euro destinations like London or Paris are indeed a short hop for them. The combination of a low, residual amount of fuel in the center tanks, combined with high summer temperatures and aging wiring combined to ignite a fuel vapor that had been created. As an interesting aside, about a year after the crash I was visiting Long Island and was a Boeing employee at the time. Nearly everyone I met immediately told me "the knew someone who sawr (sic) the whole thing and it was definitely a missile". Not a one of them claimed to have seen it, only to have known someone who had. As much as I distrust the gummint, I accept the NTSB report. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I'd like to see Dick Cheney top this. On second thought, that's a horrible pun.... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The Bill of Rights specifically prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. It was written at a time when Europe had been burning people at the stake, breaking them on the wheel, drawing and quartering (a process so nasty I won't go into it), and throwing people on pikes and into frying pans. Whatever we feel about the crime committed, Americans as a people have always tried to make death quick and humane. We dropped people at hangings in the belief that breaking their necks brought a quicker death than merely allowing them to suffer by strangulation. Then we decided that elctrocution would be faster and more painless. I won't comment on the gas chamber, as it's simply too ghastly as well as dangerous to all the other people present. Lethal injection isn't working out as planned. What do you expect, leaving a medical procedure in the hands of cops ? These guys would've died more humanely from a gunshot to their heads. Just one more reason for opposing the death penalty. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

You go girl ! Hey, is she any relation to Zbigniew Brzezinski ? It's just not that common a name. He was the only member of the Carter administration who ever showed any amount of spunk either. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

A Cracker Jack box. Verne, we got us a regular Zen Master here. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

You forgot to mention it was thanks to Hamas that he was freed. Fuck Hamas. Now that he's out of there they should nuke the entire city. They'd be doing everyone a favor, including the people who live there. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Just saw the headline, Alan Johnston was freed in Gaza. He's alive and well. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Good job Ryan and congratulations for your cool nerve with so few jumps ! What you did is use a skill that all of us are supposed to have. Your first crucial decision was to perform a controllability check, which you were satisfied with. I get the strong feeling you would've chopped if your c-check hadn't felt right. You're gonna go a long way in this sport. A great resource at this website is Bill Von's article "Downsizing Checklist", in the Safety section. It's something most of us should be reading and rereading every month. I get something new out of it every time I read it and it's constantly showing me drills I need to work on, especially as Perris has such a gigantic plowed up student area. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !