MakeItHappen

I can see that I'm going to get another 'stirring the pot' sticker at this meeting. ;) Just to re-emphasize the procedures: If you can get a motion to eliminate skysurfing defeated in the Comp Comm, then you are done. The motion never makes it to the FB. So - email the Comp Comm. first. If you find that the majority of the Comp Comm want to do away with skysurf, then find 12 votes on the FB to keep skysurf. It's news to me that an email to uspa_AT_uspa.org with Attn BOD Members will get to BOD members. Maybe that's a new thing that HQ is doing. I think it may be better to use the BOD emails or this alias uspabod_AT_skydivehard.com Replace _AT_ with @ If this email is ever linked directly, I will change it. We don't want spam from email farmers. The other thing is that it is better for BOD members to read and digest your comments before a mtg, not at the mtg. So email them before Thursday (the usual travel day). Do NOT assume that the BOD is reading this thread. I may be reading it, but not many others. One other thing is that _some_ (not all) BOD members do not reply or respond to mass emails to the BOD. You may have to make a special email for them - addressed to them personally. Lastly, the efforts are paying off. I just got this email (sans ID info) Oops - I've been remiss in my duties. Those that advocate elimination of skysurf also have the same communication avenues. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

The best people to ask about that would be Lew Sanborn and Jacques Istel for S&A discipline, several people (Skratch Garrison, Pat Works, BJ Worth) for RW discipline, Tom Courbat for the CRW discipline, several people (Carl Boenish, Joe Svec (deceased), Nick DiGiovanni, Andy Calistrat) for BASE discipline, Dale Stuart, Tamara Koyn, Deanna Kent (deceased) and Mike Michigan et al for freestyle, Olaf, Pat Works & several people (sorry I don't know the names off the top of my head) for vRW, Jim Slaton, PD Team and Icarus Team for the Canopy Piloting discipline, Jari Kusmo (sp?) and Loic for wingsuits. Para-ski was popular in Europe before the US. There were Austrian and German comps that paved the way in the US. All of these people popularized a discipline before it was a national competition. We are still waiting on the BASE USPA Nationals and wingsuit USPA Nationals. Besides National Comps do not drive the majority of jumpers. Most people jump because it is fun, different and challenging. Unfortunately, a lot of the top dog skysurfers are dead now. The ones still alive are Robin ??, Scott Smith, Tanya Garcia. None of them skysurf anymore on a regular basis. There is no way you can definitely say that a discipline cannot recover. CRW was very popular in the 80s, then dwindled. Recently, it has a renewed following because of Chris Gay and Mike Lewis. There may not be that many CRW competitors, but the CRW discipline is in a growth stage now. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

It is refreshing to see jumpers become interested in what USPA is doing. Here are a couple of suggestions: 1. Contact the entire Competition Comm. A motion needs to pass the committee first. If you can get it defeated there, you do not have to worry about the rest of the BOD. If a motion does pass the committee, then you need to find support for your cause among the other BOD members. 2. In your arguments, focus on the sport promotion aspect. With the USPA roster dwindling, any type of sport promotion would benefit USPA. I have seen most spectacular skysurf jumps. Are there videos out there promoting this to the general public? There are lots of commercials with skysurfing. Compile a list of those. Show how Nationals supported these commercials. 3. Take a hard look at the numbers. There are very real economic drivers that go into holding a competition. For example, Nationals hosts sometimes set entry fees on a per discipline basis. The fees have to cover judges' expenses and per-diems as well as a number of other costs besides jumps. If only two teams are expected to compete in Skysurfing, those two teams will have to pick up the tab. That would further inhibit future skysurfers from competing. 4. Find out why skysurfing has lost its following. I have no idea on why the heyday years of the x-games had lots of skysurfers and today there are only a few skysurfers. Perhaps it is because no one is teaching jumpers to become skysurfers? Maybe it is because there are no regional type competitions? 5. The history of skysurfing will not disappear if there is no USPA National skysurfing competition. That's kind of a weak argument. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

I think you need more stuff to yak about. What do they do at a USPA Board Meeting? Committee Agendas Most of the Committee Agendas are on there. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Kallend - you are being a bit myopic there. Anyone that uses a pull-out, aka pud, has direct control over when the pin is pulled. That is one of its advantages. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

The original intent was to get some 25-jump whipper-snapper to go back to a lower WL. repeat: You never know, maybe some questions can be added to SIM 6-10 or 6-11. Please check to see that you used the correct email addy. It works. Try again. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Projected Landing Point (PLP) The Projected Landing Point (PLP) is that point on the ground that neither rises or falls as you fly in a steady state. To locate the PLP….. The PLP is also known as the 'accuracy trick' or 'stationary point'. How to Use the PLP to figure out your pattern. Once you have mastered determining the PLP, you can use it to determine your landing pattern. This is easiest in no-wind conditions. Say you see that your PLP is x many feet in front of you. If you continued to fly on your current heading, that is where you would land. What you want to do is make a pattern approach to the ground that includes a downwind, base and final legs. These legs are 90 degree turns from each other. In no-winds all you have to do is wrap the distance to your PLP around a pattern. In the graphic the blue line represents the distance to the PLP. Each of three patterns, yellow, red and green, shows how that distance gets wrapped into the pattern distances. (I did not exactly measure, but I hope you get the idea.) This is actually quite easy for most people. The mind in wonderful in doing stuff like this automatically. When you drive your car you can tell when you need to turn to make a street. The spatial (distances and speeds) information that our mind processes and tells us about is incredible. With winds - later. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

This type of question does not test the test-takers' knowledge. In the question, you change three parameters: canopy make and model, canopy size and canopy WL. Whatever the person answers, you do not know if they relate it to the make/model or size or WL or a combination of the factors. The question does not illicit positive confirmation of a jumper's knowledge. Next year when the Acme 120 is introduced, will the fundamentals change? . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Life is sometimes amazing. That quiz took me 30 minutes to write. That is an incredibly short amount of time. Anyone that has written an exam, especially multiple choice questions, can testify to that. I posted it, even though I knew it was imperfect, because I wanted feedback and I wanted to show that someone with 25 jumps total would not know the same things as someone jumping a 1.4 WL. If I put the word DRAFT on it, then I can always claim 'I meant to say… yadda, yadda, yadda'. I asked myself, if I was face to face with this jumper, what would I ask him to get him to realize for himself that he did not know enough about canopy control to jump a 1.4 WL. IOW, I was asking questions that I do not expect every 25-jump jumper to know, but I do expect that someone under a 1.4 WL better know before they need the info. This all goes back to my personal philosophy about risk taking being a 3-step method. 1. a learning process, 2. a skill acquisition stage and 3. a challenge stage. WRT the comments: I agree that the Canopy A vs Canopy B sentence structure can be better. There were some questions that I omitted that also included Canopy C and Canopy D. C and D were elliptical canopies with the same WL as A and B, respectively. If you restructure the q Canopy B will have _____ airspeed than Canopy A. a higher a lower the same indeterminate to say The higher WL canopy will have _____ airspeed than the lower WL canopy. a higher a lower the same indeterminate you get into too many 'higher', 'lower' phrases. That can be confusing too. Let me know what you think. Re Q 21 'initial conditions' I'll admit I let some esoteric nomenclature slip in. Initial Conditions means anything such as the speed and angle of the canopy at the start of the natural recovery, density altitude, wind speed, etc That Q was really meant to address initial velocity (speed and angle), so I'll rework it. effect vs affect I'll get my grammar expert, who writes AP English exams, to tell me what to do. MS Word did not flag it either way. Q16: should it be 'natural recovery arc' or do you mean 'natural recovery'? I do mean natural recovery. The word 'arc' implies a section of a circular path. Natural recovery trajectories may or may not follow an arc. One last thing, for those of you that have read the quiz, please forward your answers with commentary to me, in confidence. This does two things. It helps rewrite the questions. It helps me identify 'problem' areas. You never know, maybe some questions can be added to SIM 6-10 or 6-11. I can MakeItHappen. A special request to Ron, BillVon, SkyBytch and Derek: You already know that a WL BSR won't get into the SIM. This can be a step on the educational path. Your feedback would be appreciated. Just checking additional posts--- Your questions would make more sense to me if we had the same definition of 'natural recovery'. Please send me your replies. Thanks . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

This is an interesting and re-occurring problem. Attached is a draft Canopy Control Quiz. Ask the jumper to take it and send his responses to me. It will remain confidential. Anyone else may also take the quiz and send results to me. Please do not post your answers here. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

That happens a lot. I can't help but think that you have missed the point. Tell me, Jason, if you were told by your Dr. that you had to be castrated or lose your life, which would you choose? That is a personal choice, now isn't it? Of course, that type of choice is significantly different than you wanting a penis enhancement versus living with what nature endowed you with. Now what if you did opt for castration because of some medical condition. Then you learned that certain types of penis enhancements could give you back your body image and 'manhood'. That would be another personal choice. Do you think that choice is really on the same level as the guy that just wants to make himself bigger, with no medical reasons behind it? . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

http://hometown.aol.com/base194/Trash/trash.htm From L to R, top to bottom: 1 Nick and Ivan Henry 2 Nick and Al Krueger 3 Nick and Bob Butt 4 Nick and that packer guy who's name I always forget (Mick is it?) 5 Linda Hardesty and Nick 6 Dan Cook and Nick 7. John Brasher, Larry Walsh, John Bull, Bob Butt, Patty Christman, Norm van Pelt, Fred Basile, Al Krueger and someone I don't know. oh and Nick too. 8 Mike Owens, Nancy Sardella and Nick 9 Paul Moran, Nick and ??? 10 Chet Bennett, Nick and Bud Krueger 11 Nick and ?? 12 Linda Witte and Nick Nick was pretty choked up about being inducted into Air Trash. Congrats Nick. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Perhaps there is a generational gap here. I was talking about c 1970. Somehow, I get the feeling that you were not even born by then. My sister and I both had padded training bras. BTW, have you ever heard of a 'training jock strap'? - me neither The whole point of my previous post was to get folks to realize that women that may have 'fake' breasts might have them because of a medical condition, namely breast cancer. Some of the earlier posters may not have considered this. I hope they would see that there are situations where artificial breasts are appropriate or that a woman with a double mastectomy may wish to have no breasts at all. I would hope that they think about what they said and how that may come across to a woman that has or may one day have breast cancer. Society's emphasis on breast size and carriage leaves much to be desired. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

[sarcasm] Kool. I was wondering how I could get more votes at the next election. Vote for me because I have the biggest Boobs - and they are real. [/sarcasm] When I was a girl, my Mom took me to the store to get a 'training bra'. I had no idea of what that meant. It was a padded bra that girls wore before their bodies sprouted the real thing. It was training for the societal expectations that women needed to be busty to be noticed or valued. I believe you omitted the option of no breasts. Many women have had double mastectomies for various reasons. They paid money for that too. Their life is more important than their Boobies. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

What was really different was the sound of the earthquake. The rumbling was much different than all the other earthquakes I've been in. It was distinctly different from trucks going by. Trucks shimmy the windows. This shimmied the walls. Gus Wing and I were in the Loma Prieta earthquake in Sacto. We were driving back from a Sacto tranny shop, where I had dropped off my PU truck. The freeway kinda moved, but it wasn't registered by either of us as an earthquake. I think Gus made some snide remark about a women driver too. It was like the road swerved. After I dropped him off at Plainfield Station and I returned to Skydance, was when we learned about the earthquake. Years earlier, I was up in Mammoth Lakes during a series of 5-ish quakes. I was new to CA then too. I ran outside. The other people in the private cabin left for Bishop. I asked the neighbors if I could stay with them. The quakes then had the same feel to them, but the noise was nothing like what I heard Sunday. The mountain cabins are definitely built better. Anyway, a house built in 1911 will probably come down faster than something newer. There's no damage, so I'm good for the next one. Still, I have a new 3-second rule: Key the next formation or run out of the house. BTW, how's your back? . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

I hate those +5 earthquakes…. I was sitting at my desk reading something. I feel and hear a rumble. Oh it's another earthquake. We get a lot of the 1-2 range out here. They only last 1-3 seconds. About 3 seconds into this earthquake the rumbling got much louder than 'normal' and RePete jumps off the couch and runs over to me. She gives me one of those 'I'm scared' looks. I'm about to pat her on the head and say not to worry, but then I notice some tiny relative motion between my house and the house next door. The rumbling noise intensifies even more. I decide it might be a good idea to run outside. I say to myself 'Remember this house was built in 1911.' I bolt for the back door as the rumbling continues. As I leave the house a picture falls of the wall. It's my earthquake detector picture. It only rests on a ledge. It's a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. Total time elapsed - about 7 seconds. The earthquake died out after that. I was about 25 miles from the center. see data plot charts zip map Baby aftershocks It's amazing how much noise a house makes when it's shaking. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Bummer How close had they been before that last jump? Liz If we were closer than one missed grip on previous dives, we would not have done all 6 dives. The formation was a 16-way jewel with 8-way opals off the center of each side of the jewel, in-out lines connected between the opals, off the end of the opals were donuts with a room person. It was an awesome weekend as usual. The weather Gods even gave us cool temps and thunderstorms Friday and Saturday nights. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

There are a few ways to approach this. You can do a vortex lattice distributed along surfaces with vortex shedding, aka computational fluid dynamics. This might be beyond your education right now, although the equations for computational fluid dynamics are very similar to electrical charge distributions. see "Vortex Lattice Theory Applied to Parachute Canopy Configurations" by Jan Meyer and Jim Purvis, AIAA 8th Aerodynamic Decelerator and Balloon Technology Conference, 1984 A simpler, and potentially more useful, thing to do is to calculate the trajectory when changing from an initial configuration to a final configuration. Say state 1 is flat fly or head down or sitfly. Then at t=0 you change into state 2 that represents a track. Then provide the answer of what the trajectory is. Useful info from this would be separation distance, altitude lost and velocity versus time. You can parametrically represent Cl and Cd as step functions, linear functions or whatever your heart desires. A simple numerical method to update positions, velocities and accelerations is to use the constant acceleration equations of motion for very small time intervals. We used this in a line-sail code and several other parachute simulations at Sandia Labs. I can't find the reference for this one, but I think it is referenced in the AGARD report below. Line sail is the same phenomena that jumpers call line dump. Plus I am currently using this method to model swoop trajectories. See also AGARD-AG-319 Design and Testing of High-Performance Parachutes A tiny project I did one summer, in addition to my regular work for Sandia, was "Average Landing Force Dependence on Length and Direction of Landing, Parachute Velocity Components and Wind Speed." by Jan Meyer, AIAA 9th Aerodynamic Decelerator and Balloon Technology Conference, 1986 There are also some 'simple' mid-air retrieval systems that you can model easily. This is outside of skydiving, but it may work for a little project. Or you could adapt it to catching a cutaway canopy and show how dangerous that can potentially be. But we already know that - so what's the point? Other little projects may also upgrade these: How Far does a Jumper Fall After Pulling? Collision Course What Determines fall Rate? Keep in mind that most analyses like this will be lost on the average jumper. They want to know body positions at point A and point B. For that, you'd need wind tunnel experiments. If you want more info, please contact me directly. Follow the link in the footer for contact info. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

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Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

You always have a problem when I relate MY experiences and try to discount my perceptions and life experiences. I've been jumping for more than 24 years and have experienced these things first hand and have also seen them done to other women jumpers with the sexual intent behind them, then and now. I know and have seen first hand that there are sexual/gender related problems, even today, that make it harder for women to succeed in skydiving. If you want to look the other way and say these problems do not exist or discount the effect upon women, so be it. These are real problems that some women must face. A recent (last summer) event was when I was helping Jim Wallace with his water training. A guy sitting up on the BombShelter patio, that overlooks the pool, said he'd pay $10 to anyone that would throw me into the pool. This guy, someone I've known for close to 20 years is a TIT-man. He wanted to see me with a wet T-shirt. Someone took him up on the offer and did somehow manage to push me into the pool - against my struggling and protestations. This is the harassment that an USPA elected official, multiple World Record holder, multiple National Champion, accomplished jumper with 6000 jumps and 'Don't mess with Jan' has to face. Do you think it's easier for a new woman jumper that does not know about the potential harassments to deal with? Sometimes these harassments compromise safety and learning. The TIT-man always asks me to 'show my tits' when I ask him to fill out a ballot. I, of course, do not do that and he does vote for me. I still do not like the harassment and the innuendo. I can hear you say 'It's all fun and games. You are over the top.' It's not fun and games. It is harassment. I also continually see the 'silent woman' syndrome. A women suggests something that is immediately snuffed-out. A few minutes later a man suggests the identical thing. The suggestion is then adopted. I continually see keys diverted from the women jumpers and given to men jumpers when the dive flow suggests that the women jumpers (or any jumper in those slots) should have the key. You and AndyMan may have thought I said all jumps that have such-n-such attributes meant gender bias. What I said was that there are tell-tale signs of gender bias. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

I completely agree with you, except for the part where you feel insulted. Let me put it this way. You want to learn as much as possible on each and every jump, so do a lot of other jumpers. Sometimes, there are 'different' motivations on the behalf of the 'teachers'. You need to distinguish between the people that can and will help you, based on your ability versus the ones that only have a 'less than desirable goal' in mind. It is never your 'fault' for being attractive or beautiful, but those that 'move in' because of that are the ones to be wary of. You asked about those folks in your original post. Let's be clear here. No one is saying that you are manipulating the 'looks' angle. In fact quite the opposite is being said. People are telling you it's out there and to be cautious. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Even tho' this thread degenerated…. This appears to be a typical gender-biased' let me help you' scenario. Some tell-tale signs of gender bias, aka "I want in your pants." motivation: - The other(s) say you stay where you are at break-off, we'll track away from you. I have seen this philosophy used on many, many women jumpers, but never with a male jumper. It happened 20-30 years ago and it still happens today. If a new jumper cannot be responsible for a turn and track, they have no business being on any type of recreational load. - - Someone wants a kiss-pass at break-off and has a grip on you. The best way to extricate yourself from this is to rotate your arm down, turn and track. If need be, leverage separation by placing your feet upon their body and quickly straightening your legs. The on the ground follow up is to state in no uncertain terms, that break-off is a time for live saving measures of separating a safe distance from others. It is no time for a sexual advance. Most new jumpers do not realize that a 'kiss-pass' is something that is usually done after the regular dive is done, aka at break-off altitude. - - Information is withheld from you. IOW, the other jumper(s) do not explain how to deal with this, that or the other thing. They will compensate and cheat you out of a learning experience. In a post dive they might say something like 'I didn't want to confuse you or overload you. or I know you cannot do front floater. or etc' I have only seen this used with new women jumpers, never men jumpers. - - The dive is at a level targeted for someone with more experience or the dive has you 'stay in place - we will turn points around you' the entire time. Either way you get cheated. Ditto with the women only comment. Men won't engineer a dive where another new man 'stays put' and does nothing, but they frequently do it for new women jumpers. The targeted learning objective (TLO) in this case is to understand the social mechanisms at work. - - The organizer(s) never ask you if you feel comfortable with the dive or ask what altitude you want to break-off at. They say 'Oh - you can handle it.' or they say that everyone else knows you only have x jumps and will keep that in mind. - - The organizer(s) do not mention anything about gear checks, gear awareness during climbout, break off, tracking or canopy control. Someone that really wants to teach you at an early stage will realize that these things are just as important as how to do forward motion or recover from being low, etc. - - You get a slot that is 'not required' for the dive to proceed. IOW, if you do not make it into your slot, they will key and proceed to the following points. This means that you may be low, or zooming around or whatever. In any case, you are not benefiting from the dive. This can also become a major safety hazard. There was a woman with about 20 jumps that was put out last on a 20-way. The organizers' thinking was that if she didn't make it in - no big deal. She collided with another jumper during the dive to the formation. She was knocked out and went in (BC days). The other jumper suffered a broken leg/pelvis and was out for a year or so. - The big warning sign to see is that you are apparently attracting attention because you are a 'hot babe'. 'Hot-babe' only goes so far, then you need skydiving skill. My suggestion is to find the local skydivers that will not cut you any slack skill-wise, teach you and ensure that you learn. BTW, not all male jumpers fall into the 'I want in your pants' profile, but it may pay to read the Bonfire. If you do not experience Newbie Blues, then you may have a gender bias problem. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

You need to drink more water when you are out here. Lots more. Many out-of-towners do not drink enough water. They get headaches and muscle cramps. The prevention is to drink LOTS of water (or gatorade) - not soda pop. Out here, sweat evaporates very quickly and people do not realize how much water they are losing. I come from the midwest - Chicago area - the biggest adjustment was drinking LOTS of water all day long. The high altitude and O2 also dehydrates you. Drink more water when doing high altitude jumps. I wasn't even on the load. see How to eat when doing high altitude jumps This might also be useful too. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

I do not collapse my slider. Keely took a picture of me landing that showed the slider position. It's posted someplace on this web site, but I don't know where. It's no big deal. Ram-airs were jumped for years and years and years without collapsible sliders. For some reason my slider does not flap, thus it does not make any noise. Collapsible sliders were introduced to reduce drag. It had nothing to do with wear and tear on lines, line attachment points or bumpers. If you have a burr on the slider grommets, collapsing the slider will be the least of your concerns. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Thanks! Calculator Converter between DA & WL Hope this works for all the jumpers that can't do math. I'll prissy it up with more DAs and navigation. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker