NickDG

>>it relaxes me after a stressfull day of work on wall street...

For a guy you can't go wrong with "The Planet of the Apes." It's monkeys riding horses . . . If I were your date I'd figure I'd hit the freaking jackpot. NickD

This is from the year I started jumping, 1975, and jumpsuits were already getting goofy looking. Stars on jumpsuits were big that year and we just swore we were so cool looking . . . I just realized how much my North American Mini-System looked like a Velcro closed BASE rig. NickD

While a student couldn't and shouldn't, we jumped round mains, and occasionally round reserves in high winds. How do you think the hook turn was invented? I did them with my Piglet all the time . . . NickD

Oh yeah? NickD

We used paddles and arrows for years too. I also found the paddles (acutally old tennis rackets with bright orange covers) useful for swatting a student's butt when they didn't pay attention . . . NickD

Okay, I'll fess-up, everyone shared in "Dead Man's Weed" that night . . . NickD

Th letters from the children are up now. Take a look and and maybe you can drop the price of a jump ticket on helping one out . . . http://www.santasheart.com/dev/ver2/index.php NickD

Very well done Vid . . . Hope all's well. NickD

You mean aside from the fact, "One Last Hit" is overly dramatic? Time changes attitudes in this sport and today the DZ is full of the "Just Say No" generation. It was a different story years ago. Once at Elsinore there was a visiting Instructor, with his own students who was just using our planes one day, and one of his students rode a bag lock in. When I went to check him I was all alone and he was dead. I saw one of his shoes had come off and there was a baggie of pot sticking out of his sock. I did what I did at that point and that's all I'll say about that . . . In those days we kept our dirty laundry more in-house. Also the pot then, when a lid of Mexican Leaf was 10 bucks, wasn't anywhere near as potent as buds are now. Drugs still exists in skydiving (just like in the general society) but more so on the ground than in the air. It's only more underground than it used to be. I also know we need to think about the other guy more than ever nowadays, as it was harder to kill another innocent skydiver, observer, or wuffo when you were landing a Strato Cloud. Now watch how hysterical everyone gets . . . NickD

One hundred sixty just as I left the step of a diving Cessna when jump testing the Amigo reserve for FreeFlite . . . NickD

This is probably one of "those" things that is bound to happen now and again. I can't fault the Air Marshals much. However, the part that bothers me a little bit is how they are throwing the phrase "non-compliant" around. We are Americans and are supposed to be somewhat non-compliant. This is also another case of the "furtive move" that allows police officers to kill someone no questions asked. I'll take my chances living in a gunned up society where some citizen asshole might take my life in a roadside dispute, but in general I expect a little better from law enforcement officers. The problem with Air Marshals, no matter how well trained, and unlike street cops who deal with major situations all the time, an Air Marshal's big moment comes once or twice in a career and you can’t expect them to have a well developed sense of what's "hinkey" and what's not. It won’t be too long before some drunk Shriner on his way to a convention gets filled with hot lead too . . . I've always thought there's a fortune to be made by anyone who starts an airline with no security checks, no Air Marshals, and no baggage inspections. They could call it, "PartyAir" the Airline for People with Courage . . . Fifty Bucks Anywhere we Go! You would board with the knowledge that if the plane is hijacked, and used as a weapon, it will be shot down (like any other full price airliner.) NickD

I grew up around the corner from the Dakota in New York City (this is the same building featured in the movie "Rosemary's Baby") and it really is a creepy looking structure. Anyway I recently saw an episode of "Headliners & Legends" on NBC concerning the nut case who shot John. I kept thinking, gee, this is just what this guy was after, notoriety and the chance to be "somebody." I thought about firing off an angry letter to the network, but in their pursuit of ratings they would probably count even negative letters as a good thing. I didn’t want them to even know I saw it . . . NickD

The best place to look is in places where people have seen them land. They break up into fragments and sometimes a good impact field will yield good ones for many years. If you saw that vid of the one that came down is Australia last week you can bet the professionals and amateurs (yes, some people make a good living doing this) are converging on that area. Here's a primer on how to find them . . . http://www.novaspace.com/METEOR/Find.html NickD

>>if there was a storm warning they were left set so that the top could rotate something like a weathervane to reduce stress on the structure during the storm.

I was working with a newish and young AFF JM who went up with a level five student at a particular DZ where the LZ is a few miles from the airport. The winds picked up to the point of a no-go situation for the student so I picked up the radio and called them back down. I also asked the pilot to make sure the JM (being new and all) remembered to turn off the student's FXC AAD. I knew it was the first time this particular student rode down in the plane and he'd be disappointed so I walked out to the plane to meet them and give him the "live to fly another day" speech. They taxied up and when the pilot opened the door of the Cessna, lo and behold, no Jumpmaster. "Where’s your Jumpmaster," I asked. "He jumped," the student answered. I was really trying to hid my anger, but the student picked up on it. "It's cool Nick," the student offered, "he asked if I minded and I said it was all right with me." I was boiling over now (but hiding it from the student) and needless to say I was ready to tell that jumpmaster to pack his nylon and clear the fuck out. I calmed down a bit by the time he got back and just "schooled" him for a half hour behind the hangar. He admitted to being selfish and taking a chance nothing would happen on the way down. "But, think man," I said, "you left him sitting there with a non-jumping pilot and his freaking AAD turned off!" That JM is now a well respected AFF Instructor in Southern California and I know when ever he has to bring a student down he sees me jumping up and down and screaming at him . . . velocity-96, if the winds were as high as you say I'm glad I wasn't there to see what you saw. Right now I'd be sitting on death row with Tookie Williams . . . NickD

>>in the loft (nice rugs usually) ....

Some harness and container manufacturers have online owner's manuals with pictures, diagrams, and explanations. Start with this one: http://www.sunpath.com/downloads/manuals/sp_owners_manual_rev02.pdf Feel free to come back with your questions. NickD

>>Eclipse is definitely a car, wasn't it a canopy... or maybe a container?

Lower aspect ratio canopies are more reliable during openings. They are less prone to tail flutters and full blown lineovers. (It's why higher aspect ratio 9-cell canopies aren't used for BASE jumping.) I'll also go further and say low aspect ratios are better in case you have to fire them into a mess above your head and they are less wild and easier to control in case they do have malfunction. Old five cell reserves, along the lines of the ParaFlite Safety Star were good, except they are bulky in today's terms and the landings really sucked. However, nowadays people are jumping such small 7-cell reserves the landings can suck anyway. You have to balance deployment reliability with good landings while keeping in mind you could already be injured before touchdown. If someone built a modern five cell reserve hybrid from newer light weight materials I think it would sell. BTW, the number of cells has nothing really to do with aspect ration, and I just used 5, 7, and 9 cells to make the point . . . NickD

Two cars from American Motors are the "Talon" and the "Javelin." NickD

>>Nick, I have my own list, informal, and for me alone. but its longer than it should be already.

Yes, Otay (lake) is/was Boarderland. There were some U.S. Navy SEALS running a DZ at Brown field recently but they closed as they are a bit busy with other stuff right now . . . And right, I forgot about Jamie Woodward. He owned three DZs at that time, the one in WA, Buckeye in AZ and Otay. And, who knows, I haven't been down there in a while so maybe I'm the one who's mixed up. NickD

>>like i said, Rope jumping is no game. not something to do on friday night with your drunk freinds and your weekend warrior $99 REI special climbing rope. be careful. in fact. dont do it.

I have a copy of "Groundrush" that Jakey autographed for me. The first $5,000 gets it . . . I'm also mentioned in the book so I'll add my own autograph to it if you want (or would that kill the value?) And it makes a great gift too . . . NickD