swilson

Any more news about the release date? All of the literature I have read pointed toward February, but I haven't been able to find anything saying it has actually happened...

M6x1.0 is just a touch smaller than than 1/4"-20NC, is the equivalent of 25.4 threads per inch, and is a standard metric thread. Could this be what you are seeing? I haven't actually handled this flash...

Not entirely true. SOME of us are jumping all year long here. Things should improve now that the minor "lack of an airplane" issue has been recently rectified...

A really nice 300m antenna, with a good stiff wind straight down the wire.

Apart from the optical stabilization, this camera will most likely be used for BASE jumps and not skydives (knowing Andreas...). Are hard drives a problem in the BASE environment?

Thanks Bill. I figured it was something like that.

I'm not sure I understand what I am seeing here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXpnxMH3hds&feature=related It looks like they are using static line deployed drogues for solo student jumpers. To me, you wouldn't have much trouble with pitch or roll control right off the bat, but would this teach correct body position? Not saying it's a good idea, not saying it's a bad idea. I'm simply interested to learn what kind of rigs they are using, if/how they are modified, and what their typical student progression looks like. Does anyone have more information on this?

Norway requires either an AAD or an RSL. Apparently one is as good as the other. Somehow.

Phenolic laminates are possibly another choice. They're quite hard and wear resistant, but with the fabric they have quite a lot of strength and depending on the grade, are not brittle. They're pretty cheap too.

I actually know very little about maritime shipping, hence the question as to whether laws prevented such a thing.

Not sure if this belongs here or in Bonfire, but seeing as it has to do with guns... With the seemingly increasing pirate activity around Africa, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7733482.stm why is it that these ships are not armed well enough to repel pirate attacks? I would think that a few well placed 20mm guns would be able to at least make them think twice about hijacking a ship. Are there International Maritime laws against carrying defensive weapons on board, even given the current climate? I realize that you will need people trained in their use and maintenance on the crew, but surely that inconvenience far outweighs the inconvenience of being held for ransom...

Drifting a mile in freefall? I have a bit of a problem believing that. If you were a plastic bag drifting with the wind, then sure. But we don't "drift" that well. Half a mile of freefall drift would be pushing it for VERY strong uppers.

Yeah, Spinal Meningitis... potentially fatal disease, if it don't kill you, it makes you deaf. I lived in Birmingham for a number of years, now live 35 minutes east in a small quiet town. I've jumped at Gold Coast and Emerald Coast DZs in the past. Been a while though. OR meningitis can do random things like make you completely deaf in one ear, while the other ear functions 100% normal...

A couple years ago, I went low on a swoop at the end of a long day and skipped myself off the ground pretty hard. I was very lucky and had no injuries beyond some scrapes and nasty bruises. Shortly after it happened, I sat down and started looking at why it happened. #1 on the list was that I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. I had been drinking water throughout the day, but it had been very hot, and I had been on the run all day long. All this added up to me being a couple seconds slow in recognizing I was deep in the corner. Like you, I'm much more conscious now of how important it is to eat.

If you wipe the areas to be taped with pure methanol (rubbing and denatured alcohols have oils in them) or just a dab of acetone, 3M makes some good quality two-sided tape that should work in between the helmet and hook velcro.

A heads-up for people to inspect their gear, and a comment on customer service... I purchased a set of TY17 risers from Rigging Innovations late last year, and have now put approximately 30 jumps on them. My reserve recently needed a repack, and my rigger noticed that the large rings on the risers showed a considerable amount of denting from the harness rings (see pictures) which is inconsistent with the number of jumps on the risers. The rings are still round, so the ability to cut away would not have been affected. I am jumping a Xaos 27 that opens really nicely, so there have not been any undue stresses applied with hard openings. I contacted RI about this, and their immediate response was that they were making me a new set of risers, and to send my risers back to them for further investigation. I want to say a big thank-you to Kit Sanders and Sandy Reid for their excellent customer service. Sandy also mentioned that while it is not uncommon for riser rings to get small dents over time, they should not be as pronounced and as soon as in this case.

Two summers ago a friend of mine was hammered by a 210 pilot. From the ground, the opening sounded like a shotgun going off, and she suffered two compression fractures in her lower back. Packing *may* have been a contributing factor, but I know for a fact that the slider was at the top when it was packed. This particular canopy was not known for hard openings.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but salt water, in and of itself, shouldn't hurt nylon. The problem is when a salt water saturated canopy (container, webbing, ...) dries. The salt crystallizes among the threads as it dries, and starts abrading them every time the fabric flexes, weakening the fabric. I suspect that if you let it dry out (while your tub full of chlorinated tapwater is degassing), but minimize the handling while it is dry, i.e. don't jump it, it won't hurt anything. Metal and electronics excluded of course.

Hmmm... substitute "Polish" for "American". There'd be an uproar. Having seen the video, he went pretty much passive when the RCMP walked into the room with him. You mean to tell me that FOUR officers could not have physically restrained him, put handcuffs on him, and led him wherever they wanted him to go, without any risk to themselves OR to him? I call bullshit.

If button rifling creates stress patterns in the barrel, these stress patterns would presumably follow the rifling in a spiral. Should it not then stand to reason that the failure path(s) *also* follow the rifling, instead of following very straight lines? When a threaded fastener fails, especially with cut threads (as opposed to rolled threads), it usually fails at the root of the thread, and the fracture surface is most often an inclined plane, aligning with the thread.

Play around with the attached Excel file by changing only the numbers in blue. Distance covered over the ground is shown as a function of wind speed, assuming a tailwind. You can see that it doesn't take much of a tailwind for deep brakes to give you the farthest distance over the ground, because it keeps you in the air for a longer time. The descent rate and forward speed numbers I used were educated guesses based on how long my canopy rides are on hop 'n pops. If you have better numbers, by all means try them and see what it does. Of course, this is only a crude mathematical model, and does not take into account different winds at different altitudes, and so on, so YMMV...

If he's using it properly, it's almost impossible to bend. If not, it's ridiculously easy to bend. In the attached pictures, using it like in 0369, you should never bend it. But you have to put even pressure on all your fingers, and not pull more with the inner or outer fingers. If you use a closed fist when you are pulling on it, the pressure is generally pretty even. If you use it as in 0370, with your fingers spread, the increased leverage will bend it pretty easily. If your fingers are skinnier than mine, and you can easily fit three fingers in the middle, as in 0371, there is no support on the one end, which will also bend it.

The Unified thread number series machine screws are designated by the size, followed by the number of threads per inch. The size "code" is given by (number x 0.013")+0.060". So your 6-32 would have a nominal major diameter of (6 x 0.013) + 0.060 = 0.138". A clearance drill would be 9/64". The "correct" tap drill is calculated by (major diameter - 1/number of threads per inch). In this case, tap drill size would be 0.138-1/32 = 0.138-0.031 = 0.107". You can use either a #36 or a 7/64" drill.

I am using regular rubber bands for the locking stows, and have been using small rubber bands cut in half lengthwise, similar to what you would use on a tailgate on a BASE canopy, for the rest. The HMA lines are so soft and limp that the little rubber bands last for a long time - I just replaced my first one after some 250 jumps.

To answer this satisfactorily, you will have to define "limited experience". One of the reasons people do this, or at least the reason I did it, is that the flight characteristics and techniques of the "oversize" high performance canopies more closely approximate those of the smaller high performance canopies. When you learn how to fly the oversize HP canopy safely, smoothly and efficiently, and decide to downsize, the adjustments are smaller. Of course, this depends a lot on what your end goals are, i.e. you just want to get to the ground safely, or you eventually want to swoop sub-100 square foot crossbraces. Personally, I put 300 jumps on a Sabre 150, and downsized to a Katana 135 after doing some jumps on a CF2 150 and Stilletto 135. I now have a little over 200 jumps on the Katana, have switched off a couple times with a ST135 in the meantime, and VERY much prefer the Katana over the Stilletto. With that said, I still have a lot to learn on the Katana before I downsize again, but those skills will be more directly transferable to smaller HP canopies. Did I follow the right path? Who knows. I can tell you that hop'n pops and canopy piloting jumps are sure a lot of fun, and canopy control courses are worth the investment...