tbrown

Oh, is the "religion of peace" rioting again ? I'm sorry, how strange.... Pope Benny may be a tough old cuss, but I'm glad he's called a spade a spade where the Muslims are concerned. And of course they're proving him wrong by attacking Christian churches. Anybody up for nuking Mecca yet ??? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Pearl Harbor Day has always been observed, though never a holiday. And pragmatically, it's much too close to Labor Day. We'd NEVER get 9/11 off, unless it was on the weekend and the only reason we even have two day weekends is because of organized labor - and don't ever forget that ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

So sad in that it's probably true..... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Shit yeah, with a surplus B-4 container and a PC. For my chest mount I had at least moved my 24 ft. reserve into a Pop Top container, Sage Green to almost match the rest of my rig. Of course I only weighed about 160 lbs in those days, so at 6'3" was one slender tall drink of water. I used to go floater, which did NOT mean climbing out. It meant I exited before the base and would turn and fly back up to the downhill side of the star. Did a lot more from small door Beeches at Otay Lake, which was called Borderland in those days. We had two small door Beeches, the "Blue Coffin" and the "Green Star Express". I had a running open sore on my right leg, it would just start to scab over when the next weekend would come around and rip it right back off again, but being young & stupid, it never bothered me at all. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I think it's just badmouthing on the part of a few unscrupulous individuals. You'll always find somebody who will say something shitty about the competitor. Have you ever heard Ford and Chevy truck owners talk about the other brand ? Same thing. I jump a Pilot now, used to jump a Spectre. Love them both, the change had nothing to do with being disatisfied with the make or performance of the canopy. My reserve's a PD, it's the one I got with the used rig I bought. My riggers tell me it's in excellent condition, so I have no reason to want to change. If I were buying a new reserve, it would be either a PD or a Smart, depending on the deal I could get. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

We teach a baseball slide method, which seems to work well and minimizes the chances of back & tailbone injuries compared to a butt-slide. I think a baseball slide is a good solution that reduces the risks of the butt slide. My big problem with the classic PLF is that it was designed for landing under a round canopy and doesn't account for the high forward speed of landing a square, especially in the very high speed conditions of a downwinder. I started out on round surplus canopies and a PLF was the only way I could land until I moved up to a Paracommander, so I'm very well versed in a proper PLF. But I'm also over 6 ft tall and weigh over 200 lbs and have done some ram air PLFs that have thrown me over really hard after my feet initially touched the ground. I don't want to break my butt or lower back with a buttslide, neither do I want injuries or fractures to my shoulders, neck, collarbone, or face. So turning just a bit to expose one's fleshy thigh for "stealing 3rd base" sounds like just the ticket. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

There's many a lad as will be blown ashore. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Damnit Popeye, that'll learn yez to sticks wid' the CANNED spinach ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The military are not trained to be policemen and have no business policing American citizens under ANY circumstances. The fact that a weapon may hurt or kill doesn't mean it shouldn't be used in war - where killing is the general idea, not for it's own sake, but as the most effective way of neutralizing an enemy. If we only used weapons in war that wouldn't harm American citizens, our soldiers would be marching into battle with nothing more than tazers, beanbag guns, and rubber bullets. STUPID I say, and so is this general, but ehre's nothing new about stupid crackpot generals. We've always had our share of them, along with the good ones. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Poor George defeated Ann for re-election, because Ann vetoed concealed handgun legislation. George Bush promised to sign such legislation, and did. And the rest is history. That was the father she was talking about, at the 1988 Democratic Convention. A shame to lose such a gutsy lady. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Used to smoke a lot of the stuff many years ago when it wasn't nearly so potent. Don't personally like it anymore. Don't want my kids smoking it. Hear it even causes lung cancer. But it should be absolutely legal. People who drive under the influence should go to jail whether they've been drinking, smoking pot, or taking anything else. But other than that and sensible legal age limits for the sale (which could reap a fortune in tax revenues), it ain't the government's bidness to tell people what they can smoke or cook in their brownies. Do some people have mental health problems because of it. Yeah, some do. But that's a HEALTH problem and should be treated as such, just like people who drink too much or do anything else too much. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Interesting picture Mike. Reminds me of a weekend about 15 years ago, not in CA, but on the west coast, where Jerry Bird was organizing some 54 way attempts from an Otter and a fleet of Cessnas. I wasn't an active jumper at the time, but went out to watch, as some old friends were in town to take part. The breakoffs were ALL bad tracking, the formation broke into a lot of people doing graceful delta swan dives - nobody going much of anywhere. As I was not jumping at the time I didn't feel like I had any credibility to stand up and ask where the hell these people had learned to track, so I begged my jumping friend to say something before somebody ate a canopy. By contrast, out at Perris yesterday some formation loads of similar size were jumping from two planes. Breakoff was like an exlosion, jumpers flying to every point of the compass, huge seperation. Like it should be. As for looking down, you have to be able to see the ground, it's your only reliable altimeter. And people below you do have the right to pull first, it's your obligation - and a very smart thing to do - to get off their backs as fast as you can. Because even the careful ones who actually bother to look and wave off might not see you. There are blind spots over your back you simply can't see and in a crowded sky barrel rolls and back tracking are not safe. You need to see who's down there. But the fun part is that if you're doing it right, it feels a lot like body surfing a really good ocean wave, you get a yee-ha feeling that tells you you're really cookin'. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The 7E7 has gone into production, the first one has anyway, and it's now designated the 787. It would make sense to have a custom transport for flying in the really big parts. Don't know if they still do, but they used to hire a Russian Antonov jet to fly in engines for the 777 (those engines are as big around as the body of a 737). Airbus also has a huge customized monster plane for ferrying A380 parts around Europe. But this is not a passenger plane. Boeing's basically given up on super jumbos. They won't design anything big enough to replace or surpass the size of the 747 and have only offered warmed over extended models that nobody was interested in. Instead, Boeing is concentrating on long range planes that can carry a medium load of passengers, like 260 or so, from almost anywhere to almost anywhere else in the world non-stop. That's what the 787 is all about and it's picked up a lot of orders. But it's still sad to see Boeing give away the lead to another company. But that's what's happened to Boeing, all the visionaries are long gone and have been replaced by bean counters who want to build Toyotas with wings. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I inspect precision machined parts on a CMM. It's a fun machine, it has a probe on an arm, so there's probably an underlying psychosexual connection somewhere. But anyway, once you orient and calibrate the thing, so it knows where it is and where it's starting from, you go around the part touching all these different points and it spits out all these exact dimensions down to 1/100,000 of an inch. You learn to look at complex 3D shapes and break them down in your mind to planes, lines, points, spheres, cones, circles, and so on. The one I work with now is a nineties museum piece, but at some other places I've worked I can pilot the probe with a joystick and the program starts to make a picture of the part as I go merrily measuring my way around. It's fun because it's both precision and hands on. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Santa's also a real baseball nut. He hits the exhibition games at Spring Training in Florida and Arizona a lot. Don't know if he skydives though, I've never seen him at a dropzone, least not in the springtime. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I'd prefer to be cremated and would hope that at least part of my ashes get one more skydive. But funerals are for the living, so whatever makes the wife and kids happiest will suffice. I think they'll burn me (crackle, crackle) and let me have one more dive with my friends. A lot of churches now have nice little gardens with a wall for plaques, the ashes get scattered in the garden and you get a plaque on the wall. That's where the rest of me can go. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Anologs are great for a lot of reasons. They're durable and reliable and don't need batteries. And (my opinion here) they're easier to read, you just look at which way that one needle is pointing. No need to read numbers. Having an audible is a good idea too, it can be a very helpful reminder if you're distracted and not paying attention to other things, like the size of the landscape below (still the ONLY completely reliable method). An audible with an anolog is a great backup combination to your own set of eyeballs looking DOWN. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

It's pretty close to being stabbed with a sword. The barbs can be up to ten inches long, and this one went under his ribcage and into his heart. It was a freak accident. People swim with stingrays all the time, get stung all thet time, and walk away with a puncture wound, a band-aid, and a good story. My dad stepped on a stingray in a tidal pool about twenty years ago and it lashed him across the Achilles tendon. I can understand that the stingray was minding it's own business and upset at being stepped on and just defending itself. But it still fucked up my dad's leg pretty good. I can't help but think that Steve Irwin was somehow BOTHERING and ANNOYING this poor creature when it stuck its tail fin into the guy's heart. Somebody on a related thread said this was the first documented death caused by a stingray since 1944. The wife and I aren't really surprised in the least, we've always felt we'd be reading Mr. Irwin's obit one of these days. Along with people who insist on swimming among sharks in chain mail suits (they nailed her), and running around on fresh lava beds taking pictures of fresh volcanos (got them too, though I must admit I admired their pics). I won't go into whether or not the guy was doing a good job at promoting conservation of endangered species, because I don't know the facts (and am generally STRONGLY pro-environmental). But I know better myself than to go around provoking animals that are naturally going to strike back and all I can say is if you keep annoying crocs, snakes, grizzly bears, sharks, Humboldt Squids, and stingrays, etc, it WILL eventually get you in the end. Guess his number was just up, but it didn't have to be.... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I think it's encouraging that 54% of the people responding are guys who are willing to read the book, whether it's valid or a bunch of crap (you won't know 'til you read it, now will you ?). And that's encouraging, life is good! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Probably showing my age again, but I'd have to vote for Annette Haven from back in the seventies and eighties. And Hypatia Lee. Beautiful women who enjoyed their work. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Not really. We used to hop & pop from a Cessna at 2 grand if that's all we could get in bad weather. You actually have about as much time as you would with a terminal pull at 3 grand. The landscape does look pretty big, but it's a safe confidence builder of a jump. On the other hand, if I knew 2 grand was all I might be getting, I'd turn my Cypres off before boarding the plane. As for whether or not it's legal for A and B licenses, do the 3000 and 2500 ft altitudes apply to terminal or to ANY jump, I really don't know. Because you've got as much or more time, with a canopy that takes less altitude to open. Poor AFF kids are just scared to death of hop & pops, what a shame... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

pullout pullout pullout pullout. How many times do I have to repeat myself? Well yeah, and we can also say "ripcord, ripcord, ripcord", as pc's in tow were virtually unknown on the old ripcord deployed mains. But nobody uses ripcords anymore, except for the reserve - and for a number of excellent reasons. I've often thought about a pullout, all the way back to the late seventies when both systems were new. Over the years it's been pretty well established that pullouts are not considered suitable for newbies, due to a number of things that can go distinctly wrong with a pullout as opposed to a throwaway. And across the board, pullouts have racked up a higher percentage of total mals than throwaways. Admittedly a total mal is much easier to deal with than a pc in tow, you just pull silver without having to pray desperately for it not to entangle with anything. But a mal is a mal and getting more totals is not a pleasant alternative either. I think proper maintenance and prevention have kept the problem small enough that throwaways have far outnumbered pullouts in the marketplace. And I think pullouts are fine for people who want them and have the training and experience to use them properly. But for the rest of us, I was thinking of something even cooler, like somehow being able to release a pc in tow. Don't ask me how - somebody else will just have to make their millions when they patent a workable idea ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I was under the impression that Bill Booth was involved with the project, or with designing some kind of a landing gear carriage for Jeb's chest. It would include a small drogue chute, to be deployed after touchdown and only to bring him to a full stop more quickly. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

This is just another of a long list of reasons I have for opposing the death penalty. Not that these four might deserve it, depending on what the evidence shows they might have done. But you can bet that none of the officers who ordered them to kill all military age males are ever going to see a court martial, let alone death row. Just like ALL the other abuse cases, these guys are being thrown to the wolves to cover for the officers who gave the orders. As they say, "dead men tell no tales". It must go pretty high up for the Army to want these guys dead so badly. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

There were riots in the streets because people believed their lives had actually been shortened by ten days and they wanted their ten days back. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !