LouYoung

Back in the day when I was cycling quite a bit my friends and I would spend hours and hours climbing uphill knowing that each stroke of the pedal would get us that much closer to the view at the top. More importantly, it would get us that much more time and speed on the downhill side of the ride. Every now and then while riding up a forest service road or even a paved summit road a pick-up truck full of guys and bicycles would pass us only to unload the gang at the top so they could bomb down the easy side of the mountain without putting in the work to get up there. This would anger us. I'm not sure why. Maybe it didn't really anger us, maybe it was more of an annoyance to see "those poseurs" getting a lift to the top. "They're not really a part of the scene." "They don't understand the meaning of cycling." Whatever it was, the hardcore cyclists looked down on those who didn't "earn their altitude." Is there the same sort of attitude in BASE? Should you have to hike or climb to the top of the object to be hardcore? Or is taking a ski lift, gondola, elevator, or even getting a lift to the top in a car sneered at? Anyone ever climbed an antenna that had a working elevator? Lou PS - Of course, this attitude of ours didn't stop us from going to Sandi Peak Ski Resort one summer to ride the lifts to the top with our bikes so that we could bomb down the hill without putting in the effort. It was a seriously fun day with about 4 hours on the bike... all downhill!

Mirage G3 Container complete with a Spectre 170 7-cell canopy, (factory relined less than 50 jumps ago), Cypres 4 year checkup and new battery Aug '02, and Firelite 190 reserve canopy (both main and reserve repack -out of date- are responsibility of the buyer). I jumped the rig less than 50 times and I was told in 2002 when I bought it that it had roughly 1000 jumps on the entire rig. The Serial numbers and manufacture dates are: Mirage Container #1728 6 Aug '99 Reserve #FL5238R 7-12-93 Cypres Expert #40C126625CC7226X 6-98 Main Canopy SP170-001157 7-98 Thanks in advance!

Any chance that'll ever be offered on some kind of optical disc later? (VCD, DVD, etc.)

I hear ya. I ordered mine last week, too. It was rough trying to translate everything so that I knew what to click on, but it's worth it just to get a good copy of the wingsuit mountain swoop! I hope it gets here soon! Lou

I'm not a rigger, nor do I really have much experience skydiving and no experience flying a reserve, but here's my thoughts: A reserve parachute is just a regular parachute, is it not? It might have stronger seams and be designed to be more docile (not eliptical or ZP) and have a lower aspect ratio, but it's really just a parachute. If I can pack and jump a regular F-111 9-cell main 1000 times and still fly and land it, why would a reserve wear out after 60 re-packs and no jumps? Why is a used reserve with 5 jumps on it worth less than a used reserve with no jumps? A main sells for nearly retail even though it has 100 jumps on it. Even PD's packing manual states that packing doesn't wear out a canopy, so pack and re-pack to your heart's content for practice. If the argument that you want your reserve to be as new and as fresh as possible when you have you use it because it's your last resort, then why would you jump a main with 300 jumps on it? If a reserve with 300 jumps and re-packs on it is SO bad and nearly guaranteed to mal, what makes it different than a main? Would you jump a main over and over again if it was nearly guaranteed to mal? What makes a reserve so fragile?

I've also jumped a 70 to 80 foot high cliff at Lake Powell. Twice. It was too much fun to do once. The first time I jumped I thought that maybe it might be too high when I started hearing the wind really pick up speed. Half way down I'm thinking, "Uh oh." My previous highest jump was only 35 feet or so. Later in the day I saw someone dive off the same cliff. Woo! Lou

Here's mine. It's a little messy.

Just wanted to drop my opinion in the water, so to speak. I'd definately rather have a DVD than VHS. In fact, I'd probably not buy VHS at all, since I don't have a VCR at home, but I do have a DVD player.

Nice toe in img10.

And he cut the steering line to clear it!

Funny. Today while we were all grounded due to wind and I asked about learning to PRO pack an instructor suggested that I'd probably have to pay someone for their time to teach me. On the plus side, two other instructors gave me copious hints and tricks and checked my progress after a few tries... for free even! Guess which direction the beer goes next time.

It was helpful for Bytch to point me in the right direction on the container size (manufacturer's website, duh!). Most other manufacturers don't have that info. on the website, so I just quit looking thinking that it was some super secret info. that they didn't want anyone to have. Based on the container and reserve size, I'm not going to pursue this deal any further. The guy was asking 2800. Lou

Thanks for the help!

Could someone help me out by telling me what street price should be for this rig? Javelin J7N Black and Silver container mfg. april 96, Raven IV Reserve mfg. July 95, Spectre 190 Main w/ 700 jumps, Expert Cypress new Dec 2001. Canopy is Black, Silver, Blue, White. Microlines. NO Velcro. RSL Also, could someone explain Javelin sizing codes? Thanks! Lou

Are you sure? My FTP program has me at 190kbps. Edit: Actually just dropped me down to 170.

In the office I've done some things. Like usual, one guy used to keep his pens in a coffee cup. I took superglue and put a drop on each pen whereever it touched another pen. When he took one pen out, then all came out together in the shape as they were in the mug. I once stole a guy's desk. I took everything off the desk, hid the desk in another room, then put every that was on the desk on the floor in the same position. Then pushed his chair up to the monitor that was sitting on the floor. He actually spent the whole day sitting in the chair with the keyboard on his lap looking down at his monitor. Talk about a sore neck. He complained once of people stacking stuff on his desk so one night we put the water cooler on top of his desk and then stacked boxes all around the desk. After he removed the boxes he saw the water cooler and started cursing. In a home: I picked a friend's lock and stole only his couch while he was on vacation. Same friend, different vacation: filled all spaces in his house with packing peanuts - kitchen drawers, cabinets, oven, freezer, washing machine, inside the ceral boxes, peanut butter jar. He came home and we planned to go out to dinner. I got paranoid about him doing something back to me, since he didn't mention the peanut packing joke, so I made a pre-emptive strike. I staked out his apt. and watched him leave, then I quickly broke into his apt, taped the shower curtain to the walls and filled up the shower to top with packing peanuts. Then quickly raced to the restaurant to have dinner with him. He was finding peanuts in his apt. for years. He got me back by breaking into my apt. and putting little green circle stickers on EVERYTHING and then putting biological dye powder in a gelcap and sticking it inside my shower head. Then he put a "Quarantine - Green Dot Virus" sign on my front door. The next morning when I'm taking a shower the dye burst and colored me green! Grr! He offered a truce as I was planning to brick up his front door while he slept. Other ideas: Toss a fruitfly infested grapefruit into a air duct. They'll multiply fast and be all over his home. Also, if he's alergic to an animal (cats, for example) round up a bunch of them and stick them in his house while he's away. Lou

Ah! One of my favorite topics. Here's some pics of some of my rentals. My favorite is the old Neon. 1) Dry lake bed outside of Vegas, racing around cones for fastest time. 2) More of same 3) My buddy and me and the dirty car 4) Another event but this time in Pahrump 5) We weren't the only ones with this idea. All these were rentals Unfortunately, I couldn't find any pics of the rental with all four wheels off the ground. *damn* Lou

I used to scuba dive and am still certified, but I really only was heavy into for one summer. I've mountain biked a lot and still do off and on, so I just voted for mountain biking, since that was the question. I've only done super small amatuer freeclimbing stuff as far as rock climbing, but I've noticed a lot of people around here posting about it. I'm sure a lot of the BASE jumpers would dig that kind of stuff, since they could have fun in both directions. ;)

And if you're going to do it, you'd want it bigger than 1000 feet. What's the tallest antenna? Somewhere over 2000? Anyone think some guy wires could hold up a mile high antenna structure?

I told you the OD on the OTC would work!

Oh yeah, I'm reading all right. My boss would be pissed. If fact, in late 2001 I started reading blincmagazine.com every day for a few months (until my other hobbies de-railed the effort). I didn't even know dropzone.com existed (if it even did at that time). I think I've read every article in the KnowledgeBASE. And I'm planning on spending the majority of my plane jumps practicing skills that might make me a better BASE jumper - lots of canopy drills and a bunch of tracking practice. Going to try to get in some still air jumps at the Holiday Boogie if there's a balloon available. At some point, I need to feel what it's like to be in the scene and know what it's like at jump time, even if it's from the bottom of the object. Lou

I've been a skydiver for a number of years, but not a lot of jumps. From the get-go, I've always been interested in BASE. I just recently started jumping again and have never been so serious about it (having a good job and available cash hasn't hurt one bit). I'm hoping to jump my ass off from planes all winter and then take a FJC for BASE in the spring. Is it too early to start looking for contacts and maybe start doing some ground crew? I'm worried that if I start too early that I might not be able to ignore the itch and I don't want to rush the jump before I've learned enough. I'm guessing Phoenix (AZ at least) is chock full o' BASE jumpers but I've never actually met one, as far as I know anyway. When I was skydiving in '94-'95 there were some guys at my DZ showing some video from one of their BASE trips and all the non-BASE jumpers in the area were pushing me away, telling me not to watch those crazies and "don't even think about ever doing that!" So what's the verdict, should I put the word out now or a few months before the FJC? Lou

How sure are you guys that the speed of sound is temperature dependent? I'm pretty sure it's density of the medium dependent (although air density is affected by temperature). In fact, try to measure the speed of sound in water (very dense). It's much faster than in air. At altitude the speed of sound should be slower since the air is less dense. A sonic boom isn't a momentary thing. An aircraft doesn't make a sonic boom as is passes through Mach 1. A pressure wave is generated starting at Mach 1 and you hear a boom when that pressure wave passes by your ears. People ten miles away from you will hear the same boom when the wave passes by their ears. If you look at a boat on a lake, you can consider the wake generated by the front of the boat (the V-shaped wave) to be a "sonic boom" in the sense that the wake starts to be generated once the boat starts moving faster than the water can carry the wave. As the wave passes by you, sitting in your inflated tire tube, you're rocked by the "shock" wave. A while later, the wave will rock your buddy in a tube 100 ft away. If the boat is far enough away from the shore, the wave will dissipate before anyone on the shore experiences the rocking. To answer the original question, I'm guessing that the sonic boom can happen at any altitude where there's a medium to generate a shock wave. If it's too high however, and the medium is too thin, the wave will never reach the surface for you to hear it. Lou

Me too. Use Google.

Interesting! Thanks! Lou