nbblood

I'll let him know. Not sure what his email is. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

And he's still the best guitar player on the planet despite all that.....IMO. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

No, the Safire I jumped didn't have the mod. I only had one hard opening on the Nitron, but it was a good one. I didn't think of it as a "soft" opening canopy, but it wasn't bad either. I think the HMA lines don't even stretch as much as Spectra. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

Wow, two of the hardest openings I've ever had were on those two canopies. Of course THE hardest one I ever had was on a Spectre. Any canopy will spank you on occasion. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

I guess you haven't seen the DZ lately. Check out this page and this one too to see an updated version of the DZ. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

Alright, I'm a dumb-ass and missed it. Sorry. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

Um...is there some kind of deadline for this? Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

This all sounds good, but here's the problem: People are not going to pay $15,000 for an AAD to prevent an misfire in a plane due to pressurization. There simply is not that many occasions when this situation presents itself and it's not going to be worth the "super-expensive" "military accuracy". Personally, I'd be surprised if the AAD companies were even considering this option due to the cost vs. benefit. Swoops can be accounted for by a simple on/off button. Why spend all this money on a device for that? How often does the situation as experienced in Thailand really happen? Not very and only under special circumstances. I just don't see AAD companies making major changes due to this. It's just not worth the cost. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

I recently listed quite a bit of equipment in the classifieds. I have been very happy with the service and have had success selling the gear I've listed. However, I've run into some buyers that are very skeptical about the transaction and have had trouble reaching agreements for payment on occasion. I really don't blame the buyers for their skepticism with all the online scams that occur on all kinds of websites these days. Although, I've been able to reach agreements in all cases and transactions occurred without incident to this point. I think some sort of feedback system would help buyers and sellers to have some confidence with the person they are dealing with. For example, I list an item. A buyer purchases the item. When I mark the item as sold, I list the buyers username. The buyer then has the opportunity to return to the classifieds and file a positive or negative feedback. I get a score based on my positive and negative feedbacks from buyers. Very similar to eBay's procedure. My feedback rating can be seen in the classifieds on any item I list. Likewise, buyer feedback rating could be provided with the email that is forwarded when contacting the seller. I don't know how difficult something like this would be to set up, but I'm sure it would benefit both buyers and sellers trying to avoid scams. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

A quick check of population of KC shows the population closer to 2 million when you count the KS and MO sides. There are also several towns/cities within reasonable driving distance that would boost the numbers even higher. There are cities about the same size that support multiple turbine DZs. Salt Lake comes to mind. I'm not sure why KC has trouble supporting a turbine DZ. I think SDKC and MRVS will have serious impacts from this DZ opening. I guess we'll see. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

2:10:1 6 Tandem jumps on Saturday to wrap up my Tandem Rating. 4 freefly fun jumps after that. Beer for my new rating. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

I've sold stuff on classifieds before when buyers weren't comfortable sending money in advance. In those cases I contacted their home DZ and shipped to a rigger or DZ employee that I felt comfortable with. That way they could inspect it before sending money and I felt pretty comfortable that I wasn't sending my gear off, never to be seen again. That's one option. I've also bought stuff off the classifieds, sent money in advance, then the seller shipped the gear. I've never had any problems, but I do pay attention to who I'm dealing with. A lot of the people that post on classifieds are regular posters, some are not. You may or may not be comfortable sending them money in advance. Sometimes it helps to get a phone number and talk on the phone. There are also escrow services available online that you can use to make the transaction. This makes the transaction more complicated and costs money, but it is more secure. Anyway, you need to be cautious, but I've never had a problem dealing with people on the classifieds. Usually a scam is pretty apparent. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

Yes, I'm aware that there are a ton of variations of these types. I just thought I'd keep it simple.....like kind of at the sixth grade level. I also think Wendy's right This student's parachutes are surely single layer fabric in different shapes. The results should be interesting. But I took the question as he wanted to know about modern parachutes used in skydiving/military operations. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

Just demoed a Vengeance a couple weeks ago. It was definitely fun. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

Why, yes, I did. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

Ok, I'm going to try and help out a little too. 1. First of all, the difference between square and round parachutes used in skydiving/military parachuting is more than just the shape. Round parachutes are simply a round piece of material, a single layer, that provides drag and slows descent. Modern square parachutes are much more complex. They have an upper skin and lower skin and are divided into cells. The front end is open allowing air to fill the cells and the tail is closed capturing the air and creating a pressurized wing. Square parachutes fly through the air instead of simply providing drag to slow descent. In military tactical jumps, round parachutes are better because they are less maneuverable in the air which prevents excessive canopy collisions during large tactical jumps. Ram air parachutes are more maneuverable and provide lift allowing a much softer landing. This makes them much preferred in sport skydiving. 2. How close to the ground a parachute will work depends on a lot of things. There are many things to do to slow down or quicken the opening of the parachute. This is probably a little too complex to explain at this point. However, skydiving parachutes typically open in 300-1000 feet of altitude. This is very rough and general figures. However, BASE jumpers use quicker opening parachutes and jump from altitudes less than 200 feet sometimes. 3. How often a parachute fails is difficult to determine. However, cutaway numbers in recent years have averaged roughly 1 in every 1000 skydives. That means for every 1000 jumps, 1 time a main parachute will malfunction to the point a skydiver cuts away and deploys the reserve. Again, this is very general and rough. 4. I'm in the Army. There are several parachutes that the Army has used over the years. The -10 model is the most common for tactical jumps. We also use steerable rounds such as the -1B and -1C but they are not generally used during large tactical jumps as they are more maneuverable and would likely lead to more canopy collisions with many people in the air. During High-Altitude/Low Opening (HALO) operations, jumpers use square ram-air parachutes such as found in sport skydiving. However, they are much bigger than typical sport parachutes to account for the additional weight of combat equipment. These are typically small unit insertions, generally special operations forces. I believe the other branches of the military use the same models for tactical jumps as the Army. 5. The reserve parachute is not necessarily smaller than the main. In many cases it is actually larger. Generally main and reserve sizes are roughly the same for a particular jumper, but it depends on that jumper's canopy selection. Hope this helps you out some. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

Yep....thanks for the tip! Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

I very much appreciate my packer and it goes both ways. He also appreciates my business. There are many things that I do to make sure my packer is taken care of. If you're a packer, I'm the customer YOU want. First, I stow my brakes, un-collapse the slider, and cock the pilot chute. I replace any broken locking and line stows, so when he gets to it, he's just got to pack. Over the course of the day I'll bring him a Red Bull or two and at the end of the day, beer. I always tip well too. In return, he makes sure I've always got a rig ready for every load. I always make the back to back to back to back's. He never lets me down. He doesn't fret on the occasion when I don't get to the slider or pilot chute because I drop the rig and grab the other on the way through the packing room. He knows he has my loyalty. I won't drop my rig to another packer just because he's busy at the moment. I know, when I get down I'll have a rig ready because of the same type of loyalty. Some say, if you do all the things I do, why hire a packer. I think it's worth taking care of the packer so he'll take care of you. When it's busy with a hundred rigs on the ground, I always know mine will be ready on time. When it's busy I'll make 12-15 jumps a day, and....oh by the way....if you pack for me you probably pack for my wife too who made the same loads. Now, who doesn't want to be my packer??....Sorry, position currently filled. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

1200 gallons of what? That makes a difference. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

Shayla.....just looks like a Shayla, no hidden significance. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

I've been on Nickelback's new album for a while now. Particularly "Someone That You're With" and "Animals". But my favorite has always been and probably always will be Van Halen. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

Skydive Spaceland, brother, first jump's on me. It's been a while. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

Mykel, I know it's a tough road, but hang in there. We'll be eating sushi in Houston and laughing about catheters before you know it. Be strong. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

I think I gotta go with Denise Richards in Wild Things. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.

Ah, I could be wrong, that's just what I heard. Thanks for the correction. Blues, Nathan If you wait 'til the last minute, it'll only take a minute.