yoink

Posted this in 2004 when I had a couple of hundred jumps. ***In a bar today a mate and I got playing pool with a couple of lads... we got talking about extreme sports and one of them says "yeah, we skydive... it's really cool". Great! This perks my interest so I ask where and how long they've been doing it... they look a little uncomfortable and say 'down south' and 'a while'... okaaaay.. time to have some fun with them Sly Me: wow! how high do you jump from? Them: "oh, usually 35,000 feet - about 2 miles" Me: sounds really cool! but what if your parachute doesn't work Them: Oh, I used to jump with two just in case, but only have one now. Me: How often do they fail? Them: once every three or four times you use it, I guess... I've made a coupla hundred jumps, so I know the risk - that's why I only use one... .... so apparently there's a UK DZ that jumps at 35 grand! I'm going - but only if I can pack my own gear! A mal every 4 jumps?!! The repack bill would be horrendous!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-25426411 Is it just me or must there be more to this? You DON'T arrest diplomats and treat them like that, particularly not for soft allegations like that. It'll be interesting to see what international opinion says about the Vienna convention. In related news, I still think the 'Diplomatic Immunity' defense is bullshit for personal stuff like this.

sounds like fun! If anyone buys it and wants to sell the main, I might be interested...

I don't know if PD reserves have a life expectancy on them. Some are only good for a certain number of years before they need to regularly go back for testing. 20 is a number that I seem to remember. As a big guy you may well never change your reserve - IF that's the case and IF there was a 20 year shelf life on that PD one, you'd only get about 7 years out of it rather than 20 for an extra $450. Others (maybe PD) stipulate a certain number of pack jobs, rather than shelf-life and if that's the case then the 2001 one is a bargain. There's essentially no difference in the two other than price. I'd call Sqaure one and ask them to hold it for you for a day, then I'd call PD and ask them.

Shit. I hate seeing this thread pop back up occasionally.

The lack of suspension would be a bitch, but I reckon the fact those bikes are 1/10th the weight of a trials bike might make up for it some. That and the ridiculous talent of the team.

There are all sorts of controls you could apply to make sure it's not abused. Limited number of uses per person per day. Long term members only.

Could we have some sort of automated system for flagging and removing spam posts? If every user had a 'report post' button that they could use for flagging spam, you could set filters to automatically bin posts if they collect a certain number of reports over a fixed period of time. Let the people police themselves... :P

Aren't you a lawyer? Can't you tell me the median time it takes for a civil rights changing law to actually make a noticable difference to the culture it's applied to? I'm betting at least 20 years. To think that it happens overnight is ridiculous.

There is nothing I look after more than my rig. Every time I use it I'm relying on it to quite literally save my life. To put it in the hands of people who don't know anything about it, won't respect it, and will store it with god knows what else is batshit crazy in my book. For all you know it could have been stored next to leaky batteries the next time you jump it. Seriously. A MASSIVE no from me. I understand you're struggling, and if it's that bad maybe it's time to sell the gear, get stuff in order and come back to skydiving later? The sky isn't going anywhere.

By making them rectangular?

I'd just like to say that as a non-rigger I LOVE these types of thread. They're absolutely fascinating. Thanks for the insights!

Pretty was not the first thing I thought of…..scary as shit did come to mind. Sparky Yeah. Not a landing pattern I'd like to make!

Yes.

As an owner I'd want final say in whether my rigger used a non-traditional approach in dealing with my equipment. I'd be furious if he'd guessed at something that might potentially degrade the materials. You can't make the choice for them to be a test subject.

1) Practice. 2) Pick a spot on the ground in your field of vision and keep your head still. If it seems to be moving UP you're not going to make it. If it's moving DOWN you're going to overshoot. The bit of the field that isn't moving up or down is where you're going to land if everything else stays the same. Now - DON'T FIXATE on doing this. Landing a little long is far better than colliding with someone because you're not looking around. a couple of seconds is more than enough...

As a general rule it is pretty early to be buying new, but as you know it's a little harder to find large used gear. ;) Even if you waited until 50 - 60 jumps to buy your own that still wouldn't be enough to make a big difference in finding canopies for you. A typical first canopy is probably in the 200 - 220 range. For you, a 220 would be a wingloading of over 1.3:1 - only recommended in excess of 300 jumps, so yeah, it probably makes sense in your circumstance to get your own gear a little earlier than normal. The downside of that is that you'll find it harder to sell on when you do want a smaller canopy - there just isn't the demand for a 280 Navigator vs something like a 220 Sabre2. C'est la vie. And when calculating wingloading it's Exit Weight --------------- Canopy Square footage so for you it'll be about 1.05:1 on a 280.

the experience you had is one thing. Your 'opinion' of it being unsafe is quite another, particularly when related to a student and talking about those types of canopies. It absolutely doesn't have to be 'right'... For example, the Icarus canopy states as it's recommended wingload anywhere from 0.5 up.

Nonsense. To the OP - sounds like you're on the right track to me.

Maybe I missed the discussion that picture refers to, because I don't get it. Can you provide a link?

Situationally and contextually dependent. You seem to be stuck on this idea of machismo, and if people don't meet it, it seems they're worth less to you. You'd have fit right in in Europe about 10 centuries ago.

This guy doesn't give-up easily, does he? First, we get it in English and no, in Spanish. Either way, what he's selling is illegal as hell. Chuck that you think he's actually selling anything is pretty funny!

It's a poor spin on a leading series of questions. It's a shitty series of graphs, for a start, but from my understanding they asked a group of people to identify their political leanings, and then to answer the following: 'Current Conditions' questions... Are you satisfied with the direction of the country? Are you satisfied with current economic policies? Do you think the Economy is improving? 'Blindly loyal to Obama' questions - (if that phrasing for a series of questions doesn't make you think the entire data is skewed, then what will?) Do you think the president is doing a god job? Would you class the handling of the economy as favorable or good? Do you think the implementation of Obamacare has been average or better? Extremist questions (If you answer yest to any of these your opinion is by definition 'extreme'... and we're supposed to think this is unbiased?) Do you think the government should be bigger with more services? Do you support Obamacare? Do you think the government should provide healthcare to all Americans? The questions themselves seem fair to me, but the categorization of them is ridiculous... Then there's the claim that the Democrats are 'overwhelmingly out of touch with the rest of the population' - sorry. But you can't show that from the data presented there. All you can say is that the majority of people who identify themselves as Democrats tend to think the government is doing OK, while the majority of people who aren't democrats, don't. No shit, Sherlock. Without any graphs or skewed categories I could make exactly the same claims for people who identify themselves as Republicans if I set up questions that were central to their political stance - if we did the graphs of it, the red and blue bars would change, and the Independants would probably remain about the same... Add to the fact that you source 'Investors.com' is heavily right-wing biased and it all becomes just more bullshit. Data does not equal good data...

So you're saying that if all the Storm Troopers were dressed in rubber armour it wouldn't conduct and they'd be protected? KINKY TROOPERS.