FrogNog

Dear Santa, I wish I had a magic carpet that could climb 10,000 fpm and carry at least a 4-way team (plus video). -=-=-=-=- Pull.

What is the reason for the desire to downsize? Am I correct in understanding that many, many of the times people say they want to downsize to get more performance, they could get more performance out of their existing canopy with reduced risk? I think my opinion on whether someone weighing 170 pounds out the door should downsize below an eliptical 95 is clouded by the fact that watching anyone fly an eliptical 95 kinda scares me. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Basically, billvon is just saying that 1: A lot of people state they have a cypres because of the (rather small) chance they are knocked unconcious 2: Most people how are saved by their cypres were fully concious, and probably screwed up in one way or the other 3: There are other things, skills, etc can save your skin, and it's these you're more likely to use at some point of your skydiving career. I totally argree with these points, but I'm also a strong `believer' in aad's, just because people do screw-up sometimes. That's the reason I have one. Oh, btw, I would jump without one if I have to send in mine for some reason... I haven't had to make this hard decision, but I feel I would not jump without a good AAD. (I have 49 jumps right now, so I'm obviously still pretty green.) I know I can beg to borrow a rig, or I can pay to rent a rig, or I can stay on the ground. Overly cautious? I'm sure. But that's my choice. I'm going to have a Cypres for the reasons just like billvon explains: 1. I'll say it's in case I get knocked out and 2. it'll be in case I screw up. Then I will continue to work very hard NOT to need it. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I noticed that on the "What Badgers don't eat" page, BEER was listed. This is a shame for all our resident Badgers Maybe they just mean this is what Badgers shouldn't/don't drink before the beer light goes on. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I've seen the rolls of plastic. No idea what sort it is - I can't generally identify a plastic unless I heat it with a lighter and snort the fumes. (expl) You could call a container mfgr and ask them. There is a pretty good chance they won't consider this a critical trade secret. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

What badgers eat -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Nice picture. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

You could say it's for in case she gets knocked out on exit or in freefall. If that happens, the only outcomes are: 1. regain consciousness and pull in a very short time or bounce, 2. don't regain consciousness and bounce, or 3. don't regain consciousness, have an AAD, and probably just hit under canopy at half-brakes no-flare, which can be either slightly or much more survivable than going in. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

err I didn't read his post, but I imagine he means that the reserve "blows out" aka blows up. Like if the cells rip all the way open and it turns into a big wad of tatters. I still don't know if cutting it off with a knife is really a plausible idea... since you only have like a minute, not to mention you'd be flopping around, making it hard to cut things. If my reserve opens and pops, that would really suck, because reserves are supposed to be tougher than me. I think my rule of thumb on planning for exotic emergencies is this: if nobody thinks it's likely to happen AND nobody knows of it ever having happened before, don't worry about it; there are much more "important" emergencies to worry about. So, anybody ever hear about someone's reserve deploying prematurely and suffering structural failure? (Below oxygen-required altitude, please; a reserve open at e.g. 30k is a serious problem even if it isn't popped!) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Wish there had been some planes flying to 4 grand this weekend. :( Anyway, 8 degrees celsius, windy, and raining / foggy constantly is perfect weather to get SCUBA certified, eh? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

If your canopy takes 1000 ft to open, that's 1000 ft when you're moving straight down at terminal, which is probably between 5 and 10 seconds. (It would be "about 5 seconds" except once you start opening, you slow down.) On a hop-and-pop, you're not moving straight down very fast when you deploy. So opening at 3,000 feet on a hop-and-pop means you have more time than opening at 3,000 feet on a regular jump. Plus at lower overall initial airspeed, the slider will not inhibit the canopy's complete opening as long. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

You should see our weather reports. Nine dropzones within ~500 km and they all say rain or showers as far as the weather computers can crunch. I'd even consider coming to Australia to jump, but I can't fly my canopy backward yet and I understand that's a requirement. (Also, as I've said before, I'm generally afraid of spiders that eat birds.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Oregon annoys me because whenever I go there, everyone is saying my name, only they're not trying to address me. Basically Oregon is what's between Washington and California. If you're in one of those and you want to go to the other, Oregon is a scenic connection with a modest helping of attractive things that will sting or poison you. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

If Dave's an Aggie, shouldn't he know about the legendary lye pits? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Reminds me of trying to explain to some people that there's really no way to cure the problem of the poorest 15% being perpetually the poorest 15% no matter what we do, and if we want to be able to measure progress, the term "poverty line" doesn't mean anything. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

For all my inquisitiveness and the resultant desire to learn in detail how many things work and how they can best be made to work well, plus work "differently", there are lots of cases where I say it works well enough for me and after I take it apart, analyze it, and put it back together, I have no more interest in seeing it pushed further. Wingsuits is one place where I expect to be quite content to fly the state of the art and let someone else fiddle with them. So, y'all knock yourselves out. (Not literally, I hope.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

If it gets you to the ground so you can do it again, it's fast enough.

A redundantism because I don't have any oxymorons on hand: PIN Number A retardism: RPM per minute Just plain stoopid: unloosen, dethaw. Confusing: if you have refried beans for dinner, and you have leftovers and you fry them up the next day, what do you have? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

By some definitions, the outer circles of hell are quite cold. From there I think they are just dreary, sort of cold, and very wet. Like WA dropzones in the Winter. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

"Extra" as a prefix means "outside of", as in extracurricular, extravehicular, and extramarital. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

What are side spins? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I'll wait for the court to explain. Meanwhile I have my own underinformed opinion about the circumstances based on the bullet hitting the cop in the back. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Not that bad. I think the Puget Sound area is only a half-dozen cents below that. And we don't have any clear skies in the Winter, or more than 9 hours between sunrise and sunset. (If there is sunrise and sunset; most December days I can't tell. ) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Well, once you see a movie starring a talking mouse, what's real anymore? That's why watching the vids isn't what it's all about. It's about falling out personally. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Shouldn't camerawork and CReW be up there? -=-=-=-=- Pull.