FrogNog

3;0;3. I started at about noon on Friday and Sunday, Sunset is 4:30. Saturday the weather wasn't cooperating. Each day I did two 10k and one 3k, from a 182. Add in my slow packing and that's a full day - no time for food, even. Temperature was about -20 C at 10k, give or take. Only a bit of snow in the distance; landing area is rock-hard dirt / grass. Gorgeous view first 10k jump today - the air was so clear it was like I was walking on the ground at 2k. So far for the year, I have 1.5 skydives per day. [:D] -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Well, you can't race it and you can't take it to bed. Therefore it better be pretty cheap. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

The classic skydiving student Pro-tec is, I believe, a watersports (i.e. jetski) helmet. (And we all know it has serious ear protection.) I found a pro-tec skateboard helmet once that looks sweet - way cooler than the classic skydiving student Pro-tec - for about twice the price. It had about 10mm thick cloth-over-webbing ear protection, which I expect would still protect the ears well. I vote for pro-tec because it's comfortable enough, has lots of padding, and is cheap. It ain't cool, but my budget doesn't include allowances for "cool" right now. Someone told me Pro-tecs aren't freefly friendly, something related to how high they stick up off the forehead. I don't know anything about this since I'm still trying to fly RW properly.

I rent one rig and borrow another right now. One has spandex BOC, the other cordura. I was very nervous about the cordura at first. Trying to pull the PC out of the pouch on the ground, the cordura definitely retains the PC more solidly than the spandex. So on the ground I packed and stuffed the PC, donned the rig, pulled, doffed the rig and repeated about a dozen times until I was happy that the way I was packing (and loading) the PC was good. (I never had a hard pull while I was doing these experiments; they all felt a little harder or "chunkier" on the cordura than on the spandex but they pulled OK. I repeated so many times because I wanted to be SURE.) In the air at pull time I haven't been able to tell the difference, because when I think "WAVE; REACH; PULL" I'm not doing it half-hearted like on the ground. My advice to try and avoid hard pull with the cordua then is: 1. practice packing your PC and pulling it with the rig on, while on the ground. Get a consistent PC packing method that works for you and you (and your rigger and/or other experienced jumpers) are pretty sure is kosher by PC packing standards. 2. pack your PC in this way reliably. 3. door! -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Call me superstitious, but I wouldn't want to be on the same load with this guy when he goes in. In fact, I wouldn't want to be at the same DZ, if his cratering is predictable. I second Phree's suggestion of refusing to ride loads with him, and clearly communicating that to manifest. Gallows humor: at least you get a lot of separation from this guy at pull time. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

When I rent a rig, I pull the PC and bridle out (up to the pin) and repack it myself, specifically to reduce this possibility. (I'm too lazy to unpack and repack the canopy. Besides, the big strong PC deploys the canopy, but I have to deploy the PC.) P.S. Glad you did great! -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Then buy the dvd "Goodstuff" In "Good Stuff", if Greg has a rig under his clothes, it's a pretty good hiding job. He jumps rigless in jeans and a t-shirt (I think long sleeve), and he not only hangs from it with two hands, and one hand, but by his (bare) feet. I'm not saying he doesn't have some backup equipment, I'm just saying if he does, it's hidden very well. And personally I think the guy's a nutter. I hope to meet him one day.

Elfanie, can you find any note of Joe Jennings being the contributor of this info to this book? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I haven't, but this is related. we were eating at Dixie's BBQ in Bellevue, WA. They're famous for a sauce called "the man" which has evolved to the point where (we think) it's just some shit bbq sauce with habanero seeds in it for show and the active ingredient is "purecap" (clicky). No flavor, just pain. Anyway, we were eating there inside when a couple people start coughing. Then a couple more start coughing and the first ones start rubbing their eyes and shifting around in their seats and coughing more. Then a few MORE people start coughing, and it's like it's spreading from the corner of the room near the door. Then I notice I feel a slight constriction in my throat. I tell my 3 tablemates calmly but sternly that something is wrong and we should all exit the room immediately. I explain myself just outside that I didn't know what was going on but I sensed a weird pattern - a wave of people starting to cough, like a chemical attack. Then we hear "Gene" shouting up a storm; turns out he turned the stove in back on "High" with a pot of "The Man" (the sauce) sitting on it. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I had a former student like that. Drove a better car than me, lived in a better house, in a better area. Never survived her 69th skydive. Cut away her main for a minor problem, and spent the rest of her life looking for/trying to pull. She managed at about 150 ft. Too little, too late. She was a great student too. Flew through AFF without a repeat. You can never tell how you will react in a situation till you've been there. Each situation is different. I have 2000+ Cypresless dives, 18 cutaways, and my share of "blows to the head" stories, but it's always a personal choice. t Not to insult the dead, but what was her excuse about not having an RSL? Or did it fail? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Assuming the rain is accelerating of course. Rain at terminal is kinda doughnut shaped. I know because I jumped in a couple storms with a dissection microscope. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

If the numbers are sequential, that's a good way to do it. An with the USPA they seem to be. But when I look at my phone bill I see my account number is clearly not sequential; it has more "address space" in its string of decimal digits than IPv4 (which has 32 bits). -=-=-=-=- Pull.

A person with 25,000 jumps and a 1 in 25,000 chance of having a double-mal on any one jump does not have a "1 in 1" chance of having had a double-mal in those 25,000 jumps. Probability is not additive like this, it is multiplicative. Probability also never resolves to an absolute until it has happened; while it is still theoretical, probability is always probability. The probability that the military instructor mentioned will NOT have a double-mal is 24,999 in 25,000. The probability that the military instructor will NOT have a double-mal on two jumps in a row is 24,999 * 24,999 in 25,000 * 25,000. After 25,000 jumps the probability that he will not have had a double-mal anywhere in there is 24,999 ^ 25,000 in 25,000 ^ 25,000. Can anyone work that number out? My calculator doesn't work with numbers that large (or small) very well. Statistics doesn't ever say something should happen. It says how often it has happened, and based on that how often it is likely to happen in the future. Statistics / probability are also exercises in "sampling". We look at how many jumps in a large pool happened and how many d-mals there were, and we come up with a probability that is applicable to that entire sample, in the long run. When that probability is applied to a different sample, there will probably be some mismatching. I believe this is what "average and standard deviation" are all about: describing how well the centerpoint fits the sample overall. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I like this line: -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I wonder about the tail, too. But it makes sense why the tail is like that; from what I saw on their website, this plane isn't all that new; it's an adjustment on an existing aggie plane that is itself an update to an older version they did. Perhaps the most special thing is that it comes configured for skydiving right from the factory. I don't mean to insult this plane; I think it's gorgeous, I can't wait to jump one, and I was impressed with the claims of the aggie version (cycle speed, takeoff roll, payload, payload loading speed ). I can't remember the pricing details, but this plane didn't seem to blow other skydiving aircraft in its size range out of the water. The mfgr gives some charts showing how this plane is significantly more profitable than a Caravan, Twin Otter, or King Air when purchase price, maintenance, insurance, and operational costs are all computed, but when operation doesn't go perfectly I suspect the profit difference will narrow. (It was interesting to see that the thing that killed the King Air was the insurance; near as I could tell, the King Air's retractable gear doubled the insurance cost.) That being said, the Caravan has a wider body and there are a bunch of them available used. (Twin otters are available even more used.) Didn't seem like anything had the pilot visibility of the 750 XL from the pictures I saw. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I had a thing with spring-loaded pilot chutes. In about 35 jumps with them, I got two PCs under the canopy. The first one came around the back, wrapped around a "C" line, and led to my chopping a "perfectly good main". The second one came around the front and fully reinflated under cell 7L, I believe, but I flew and landed that one. The details should remain partially anonymous, but the clearest contributions are my not knowing my controllability check cold before I got in the plane, and not doing my controllability check thoroughly immediately after opening (and clearing air). I regret foolishly chopping a canopy with only a "cosmetic" malfunction, and doing so because my hard deck was upon me and I was rushed to make my decision to chop or keep, and I was rushed because I did a half-ass controllability check immediately after opening. I'm proud to have made and executed my decision by (at ) 2k, proud of how I pulled that handle (SOS), proud that my main landed in the field with me (I spotted that one OK), and proud I kept all my handles and I wasn't freaked out. Stood the landing up, too. I regret causing the DZO to unnecessarily repack the reserve. I don't really regret buying liquor for the rigger who previously packed it because the reserve opened fine and he needs the alcohol. All in all, this is one of my best jumps ever because of the distinctive ride and some of the details I have left out. *cough*lightning*cough* -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Oh my gosh, you are slayin' me man! Definitely ROFL!!! What I wanna know is, How did this guy get through law school. I mean REALLY???!? I can think of two things that might explain it: 1. law school doesn't require you to think quite as fast as skydiving and 2. in law school and skydiving, you do better if you really want to. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Hmmm, I don't know. It would seem to me that a skydiver in freefall could not be struck by lightning because he would not be grounded and therefore there would be no negative/positive difference of potential between him and the thundercloud and actual lightning bolt..... That would be why a skydiver could not be a terminus of a lightning bolt. However, lightning is happy to sojourn through or along anything that has lower resistance than the alternatives. If a skydiver has a lower resistance through or along some part of him, then he could become a small portion of a discharge path. Even objects with very high resistance can become parts of these paths if they get covered with water. Plus we jumpers tend to have a steel ripcord on us which, again, is no large source of free electrons (i.e. is not a serious ground) but has a very low resistance (until it melts). Being cooked by lightning superheating the air next to a skydiver is probably not what would be fatal. I bet the shockwave (thunder) wouldn't kill, either, although it probably wouldn't feel too good if you remembered it. I think passing current through critical body tissues is what really sucks in some lightning strikes. A paranoid skydiver could probably up his chances of surviving by wearing a high-voltage safety suit, the kind that have low-resistance buses in them between the head/foot/arm openings so any current tring to use the wearer as a path prefers to pass around the wearer's main body. Of course, those suits are for high voltage work on things like power lines, from what I understand. I have my doubts they could take a lightning strike without exceeding the current passing capabilities of the buses. And in freefall this suit might make the wearer even more attractive to lightning as a "shortcut". -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Dead-center PLFs while you're trying to get your "B" license. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I'm sure you didn't mean for this to sound as offensive or self-superior as it appears. A lot of the "idiots" you are referring to come here looking for this type of information: "Performance Designs and Big Air both recommend leaving a minimum of 18 inches slack line between the last rubber band and the connector links. Much shorter and you risk tearing your reserve container off. Significantly longer and you risk tearing off a main side flap." Good stuff.......they don't need the rest as a slap in the face, even with the little Hee! Hee! This is a misunderstanding. What he means is the quote "It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious." (Or "you can't really make things fool-proof -- the moment you try, someone hires a better fool.") We're all fools sooner or later. The wisest of us fools asks the rest what he should be concerned about doing wrong. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I understand the absolute most boringest canopy in the world is every one that can't be flown while being grounded by an injury. I have 50 jumps and I'm at 1.12:1 on a couple of borrowed 190s right now and I'm a weenie so it will be a looong time before I'm "tired" of them in the air (a Triathlon and Hornet). But even if I were approaching that limit, I'd still be concerned about my landings. I land well on these canopies at this wingloading but I'm not yet 100% sure I can land them in bad conditions. Until I have no fear of a downwind landing with some unexpected gusts while I'm over the rottweiler farm between the power station and the prison, I'm not going to chop another 20 square feet off anything I intend to land. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I'm pretty good at reversing text in my head. I love doing those questions in Cranium(r). -=-=-=-=- Pull.

This post covers density altitude. The canopy performance excerpt relevant to your question is "To create the same amount of lift, for each 1000 ft increase in density-altitude the true airspeed will increase by 2 percent." The post in that link also gives some numbers for computing density altitude, so you won't have to just guess. Further details about performance are not easily quantifiable. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Oh, man, I already do this, and I have to remember to empty the thing (my "spam goes here" box) at LEAST once a week or the next time I accidentally click on it (or intentionally empty it), it takes freakin' forever. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

OK, then we'll give you an extra-credit question: are runway numbers true or magnetic? And another one: how precise are these numbers to the direction suggested, and why is that answer not as simple as it initially seems? Hint: the answer to this last part is a small part of why you want your airport map thingies (IFR approach plates?) to be up to date, or at least recent. -=-=-=-=- Pull.