tbrown

I believe there's such a thing as sin. Personally I am a believer, so my belief is that sin is rebelling against God, along with the "falling short of the mark" definition others have mentioned. I would think that even agnostic or athiest types would have some kind of a notion of "natural law" or code of ethics they would hold themselves to. There simply are those things we cannot do without being held accountable, even if the courst and the system never catch up with us. And that's the problem some people have with sin, the idea that they are ultimately accountable for what they do and never completely free to act just any way they please. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I honestly once had one of the patients hit on me at the STD clinic that I volunteered at. And he was so arrogant about it all!! It was hard not to laugh at the poor guy. "Ummm... no. But, now how about I stick this lil q-tip....." You must have met "The Ladies' Man" !! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Sky chicas rule !! Always have, always will. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Not anything dramatic, but what often passed for canopy condition and repair. For a year or so, 1976 - '77 I owned a 1964 RW&B Paracommander, one of the first ever made, it still had a 1.1 oz. apex (later models almost immediately were entirely 2.2 oz. taffeta). Anyway, taffeta or not, the thing was a real beater, but I loved it desperately. It was so shot that one time while I was packing it, one of our pilots accidently stepped on a panel as I was flaking the panels and it tore. The pilot even said "Eeeeee". I told him not to worry and just slapped some silver duct tape on it. We had ripstop tape, but I considered the stuff a waste of good money because it wouldn't adhere worth a shit. You'd go to all this trouble cutting out a piece and putting it on, when you knew it would just blow off on your next opening anyway. So I said fuck it and switched to duct tape. That stuff really worked. It held up, didn't blow off, and gradually seemed to kind of merge into the canopy fabric. The 2.2 oz. fabric was so heavy anyway it didn't make any difference. I never had a problem with it and swore by it. The next year I bought an almost new Sparrow canopy (think 21 ft mini PC clone made of lightweight ripstop) with a brand new hand deploy Hanbury system. Thankfully, I don't think anyone ever jumped my PC again, but I never felt the least doubt or hesitation about jumping that thing. I wasn't alone either, there were plenty of people jumping horrific old piles of crap that didn't let them down either. I guess that's some kind of testament to how well they are/were built - even when they go to shit they're still good. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Very similar to what he says. My first square was also a Cobra 10, after one jump on a Para Plane Cloud that had been modified and relined to Strato Cloud specs. If it opened hard I wouldn't know, it didn't feel any different from any of the other canopies I jumped back then. The biggest beef with the Cobra 10 was its shitty construction, the things started to tear out at the load bearing ribs very quickly. Mine started to tear after just sixty some jumps, so I sent it back to Para Flite for a free repair. another forty or fifty jumps and it was tearing again. That time I sent it back to National after an angry letter resulted in a cash settlement. I used the moeny to buy a Pioneer Viking Superlite (230 ft 7 cell), which I was very happy with. As one of my friends put it, "Final score is: Cobra 10, People Zero !" (By the way, the Cobra 10 came and went in 1978.) Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

So how did he say it handled ? Those ancient (pre Strato Star) squares used to be prone to sudden stalls. Good idea to jump in dense cold air, hope the snow helped, as it doesn't look like a stand up. Good for you guys, way to go !! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Hopefully they were naked and doing it. Don't you just LOVE skydiving ?!? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Although I jump a Pilot these days, I've jumped Spectres in the 190 - 230 size range and have a very high regard for them. But anything can malfunction, which is why you also have a reserve (I hope). I got a terrific deal on a jumpsuit from a guy who had to quit the sport after a Spectre mal and a low cutaway put him in the ICU for 3 weeks. His wife said "never again" and threatened to divorce him. I guess he loved her because he quit. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Well if that doesn't tell you all you need to know, nothing I can add will help..... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Just tell 'em you were #397, they'll never know.... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Have you tried a note from your mother ? Skydivers will ALWAYS respect one of those - we're scared shitless of our moms. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

But then by defintion it wouldn't be a "bandit jump". To make a real bandit jump you need to risk arrest, jail, and/or confiscation of your gear. "In the olde days" (oh god, here he goes again), we used to jump into a local store parking lot to buy beer in the afternoon and actually got a pilot fired for it - nobody liked him too much anyway. Then some other friends used to make a New Year's Eve at midnight onto a beach right in a major west coast city. One of those years they had to run to the parking lot holding their canopies while their girlfriends distracted the local cops with their flirtatious ways on the boardwalk. Now THAT'S bandit jumping. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Probably the one I live in, but is there a Chucky Cheese Galaxy ? Or maybe one named for Jenna Jameson ? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Please don't forget weddings, there's just something sexual in the air at weddings. Believe it or not, churches are excellent. You do need to have been seen around for a while and frankly this means being at least some kind of a sincere believer, as church types can spot a phony a mile away. BUT you can meet some really nice people who are LOOKING to hook up - and a lot churches encourage it. You may not get a one night stand or a black leather stiletto heeled back walker(or you might anyway), but you might be surprised at how many real, worthwhile AND sexy people you can hook up with. You might even get to consider marriage with less than the normal phobia. I know I did. That first jump student I swooped on 27 years ago was a church girl too. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I expect to be nervous on the initial part of the jump, but I was not expecting someone to say the canopies were so different that they might scare me. I mean first jump students are riding them, right? No, it's the going back up in de plane and realizing you're going to jump again. Your mileage may vary, but even though I really wanted to jump I felt like a first jump student all over again. As for the canopies, you have a lot more prior experience with the old ones than I did and some of those older ones were awfully touchy and could stall without any warning, etc. But sadly, it is easier to get hurt, or killed under today's canopies than the older generation types. I did a couple really dumb things in the seventies with 5 cells and 7 cells that I actually got up and walked away from that I think just might kill me if I made the same mistake nowadays with my Pilot. I stand by what I said, anybody who's been out for a long time, long enough to predate Zero P canopies, should take a canopy course, it can save them a lot of pain and suffering. And by the way, welcome back ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I think this is going to have to be a big part of the solution. USPA can do a lot with developing and supporting canopy training and really should beef up canopy performance requirements for all the licenses. But all of that wouldn't have prevented the Eloy accidents, as these guys had 4000 - 5000 jumps apiece and still made fatal errors. I think stricter segregation of landing areas has to be undertaken. Elsinore sets a good example in that direction. They have three landing zones; a student area, a general landing area, and a hot swooping zone. Students are only allowed to land in the student zone. Experienced jumpers may land in the student zone, but they must give students the right of way. In the general area you need a B license to land and may not make more than a 90 turn before landing. The swoop zone is on the other side of the runway and is truly an "anything goes, enter at your own risk" zone for advanced pilots only. Everybody else stays the heck out of there. It isn't just the swoopers staying away from the "Sunday jumpers" either. It's us Sunday types staying out of the airspace over the swoopers' "hot zone". People who want to make more than a 90 degree turn need to fly in a designated swoop zone and Sunday drivers who violate the swoopers' airspace need to attend an "old time revival meeting" with their S&TA. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

They say the ancient Celts wouldn't send women into battle because they were too vicious. The men could kill and move on. the women would get preoccupied with mutilating their victims, which slowed things down. I suppose sending women into combat would be the egalitarian thing to do and folklore is full of women who disguised them selves as men or boys so they could fight. But in our culture it's too difficult to accept. Congress will never go for it, they have too many daughters. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

After 22 years off my first jump scared the crap out of me all over again, the whole "oh my god, I'm gonna JUMP outta this plane", dry mouth and all. But when you step out the door, it all comes back. Not like you never left, you will be rusty as hell for a few jumps. Definitely do a bunch of solos and 2 Ways to get your basic skills back. AND TAKE A CANOPY COURSE ASAP !! Canopies have changed way too much, they're nothing like the Strato Star/Strato Cloud generation you may remember. Even a student Navigator will blow the doors off anything you can remember. Today's canopies are nothing to fool around with, so shell out the bucks and get yourself into a daylong canopy course at the first opportunity. I think you'll like the way things have changed. It hasn't gotten any cheaper though.... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Well there's always crystal meth..... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Another reason to pull quickly over getting stable first is that a cutaway can defeat your AAD from saving you in time. For sure there are malfunctions that don't involve a cutaway, but most of the mals we're having nowadays do involve chopping a bad main. And a lot of those cutaways are from "spinners" and other uncontrollable, but open canopies. The result is that you're cutting away from a "low speed" malfunction and your AAD has gone back to sleep because you're not falling 79+ mph anymore. So while you're tumbling earthward trying to get stable, you have to re-accelerate before your AAD gets scared enough to fire. And all an AAD does is release your reserve pilot chute, if you're too low for the canopy to deploy, you're done. This scenario is exactly what killed two or three people at the '03 and '05 WFFCs, they cut away low, tried to get stable and pulled too low. And their AADs fired - too low - because of the "low speed" of their cutaway. RSLs would most likely have saved them, getting stable didn't. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I never knew a PC could collapse like that - mine never did. The whole running thing was part of the magic for teenage me. What I find interesting is that nowadays the TV network would probably ship her off to a fat farm. Back then guys just thought she was hot. She was. Back then pretty women were allowed to have some meat on their bones. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Hate to say it, but we have our share of assholes in this sport, just like anybody else. The DZs in So. Cal have light systems and typically give the "door" signal with a red or yellow light early enough to take a look around, then the green light comes on to get out of de plane. If I'm at the door I always take a look, partly to make sure we're over the right Zip Code, but mostly to look for other planes that might be in the area. It's the other planes you really have to look out for, you could have anything from a Cessna to a C-17 below and I guarantee that hotshot pilot wouldn't have a clue. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

As a newbie, it's completely understandable that jumping your own packjob would make you nervous. At this stage of the game, jumping is still making you nervous enough all by itself, it's not a natural act and all your instincts are telling you not to do it anyway. I'll try not to sound like a bore about it, but thirty years ago, after completing 5 static lines, we would make our first freefall on our first pack job. Talk about a stress double whammy ! But I had an instructor who trained me both for the jump and how to pack, which I did under his close supervision. The fact that it was a round canopy is irrelevant, I was in all new territory, packing my own 'chute and going up to open it all by myself with a ripcord pull. I think in a lot of ways it was better than having two people hold onto me, and it was certainly better than going on having people pack for me. Sure, I was spooked, but when it opened perfectly I felt wonderful about it - partly because I'd made a successful freefall, and just as much because I'd packed the thing and it opened. If you've already done 5 packjobs, you should already be starting to feel more confident about it, unless you've fallen back into the habit of hiring a packer. Make yourself a New Year's resolution to do your own packjobs for the next two dozen jumps. See if you don't feel a whole lot better about it. You'll even get a few more jumps with the money you save. Hiring packers is okay if you're in a training camp or something, but you'll never gain the confidence in yourself or the independence until you learn to pack as a habit. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

What if you marry a stripper ? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

sandra rose robin lisa ricky what do I win... So who the fuck is Ricky ? Don't think we didn't see that ! I mean 37 "ain't bad", you're definitely making a commendable effort there.... But this Ricky, were you drunk, or was this somebody you met in jail ? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !