rmsmith

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Everything posted by rmsmith

  1. rmsmith
    The center of lift along the top surface plays a huge roll in the canopy's recovery to natural glide. Canopies like the Spectre have the center of lift forward near the nose, which gives it a short radius recovery arc and also makes it very stable in windy turbulent conditions. One the other hand, canopies like the Crossfire have the center of lift moved back away from the nose, which tends to increase the radius of the recovery arc and give the canopy a flatter glide. However, the trade off is poor handling in turbulence. Several photos have been posted here of x-braced canopies folded under or folded in half due to turbulence. The swoop toyz might be fun, but they are not good all-around canopies for the general fun jumpers among us.
  2. rmsmith
    OK, I understand your position now.
  3. rmsmith
    You're right, I am confused. As a contractor, what service are you providing to your clients? Do your clients ride up in your airplane? Did they arrive at the airport as a result of your advertising?
  4. rmsmith
    Tell 'ya what, I've got an old Spectre 107 with plenty of jumps on it making the fabric easy to pack. I'll trade 'ya straight up, one 'fer one, for that Katana!
  5. rmsmith
    As long as you are the only one losing-out, things will continue unabated. When the third party gets screwed, the ultimate employer and their insurance carrier will see the claim unless of course you have something to lose.
  6. rmsmith
    It will hold up until the employee/contractor become injured or causes injury while on the job leaving the state to pay the expenses. Usually a claim will be made against the employer's insurance company. The pizza delivery kids driving their own car fall into this trap when they cause a wreck and substantial damage to another person's car. The kid's insurance, if he has any at all, isn't for commercial deliveries, and the employer's blanket policy ends up with the bill. The government knows this scam, the big auto insurers know this scam, but the problem of the lack of proper coverage is simply passed along to those in the lower ranks of society. In the end though, the kid never gets his car repaired; he ends up the real loser. Unofficially: "There's more where they came from."
  7. rmsmith
    Why would California ban this rifle; was there an incident with one of these?
  8. rmsmith
    I'd turn Missy Nelson loose there with a bucket of Neon Pink paint!
  9. rmsmith
    OK, here goes...
  10. rmsmith
    One of my rigs has a Sabre2-210, which is loaded at 1.2:1 -- near the end of the chart. It's been a great flying canopy, but the openings were always brisk, i.e., a brief snivel then the slider hit the risers. On one opening I got slammed really hard, so I talked to PD about it, and they sent me a slider that was three inches larger in the chord dimension. The larger slider now gives very nice openings, but the canopy now has more time to hunt for a heading. Overall, it's a great canopy, and it's a pleasure to toss the pilot chute!
  11. rmsmith
    Great post there TK! I am a USPA member, and I know that the USPA is working with a limited insurance market. However, I am not sure if the USPA is developing an insurance solution to address all their individual members, or are they working on a GM-DZ solution that will eventually mean compulsory USPA membership to be able to skydive. I'm sure the Comrades among us won't be bothered by a single provider, but I'd find it to be a disturbing development that would lead to run-away costs in the future. At some point this liability extortion will reach a limit, financial or political. I really like the national solution that the ski industry settled upon, as stated by a previous poster above. Personally, I think Bill Booth did the right thing with the Uninsured RWS reconfiguration; the best target is no target!
  12. rmsmith
    At your age you should be in the military.
  13. rmsmith
    The Bunn coffee maker has a stainless steel warm water tank within the body of the machine itself. It can crank out a 10-cup pot in about 3-minutes. Note that they maintain a tank of hot water, which is not an issue in a colder climate, but it wouldn't cut it in a home with the air conditioner on too.
  14. rmsmith
    OK, so the DZO(s) aircraft are covered by the insurance that an individual member has being a member of the USPA, or is this a benefit of the DZO being a USPA GM-DZ? In other words, would a NON-USPA GM-DZ be covered for damage caused by a current USPA individual member?
  15. rmsmith
    But the DZO(s) aircraft in the air or on the ground are not third party chattel are they?
  16. rmsmith
    The person who causes an accident. The deductible makes people think twice before filing a claim particularly for smaller claims, say $500.00 or less for example.
  17. rmsmith
    Could you explain the plane in flight, plane on ground, and auto on ground? I would think that the DZO would cover damage to his airplanes in the air or ground in the price of the jump. Walmart eats it when a customer drops the digital camera they are looking at and it goes through the glass counter-top. I think the auto on the ground would be covered by the owners policy just like if a kid pushes a shopping cart or his mountian bike into your car causing damage. That's part of the risk of owning chattel. I grew up in a family business, and we ate lots of mistakes by customers; it's part of doing business.
  18. rmsmith
    So you are saying that it is the individual members who have nothing to lose since the organization as a whole picks up the bill for their bad decisions. So it still is a tragedy of the commons situation. If no insurance is not an option then maybe it's time to introduce a hefty deductible into the equation.
  19. rmsmith
    I'd like to hear more about this style of protection as I firmly believe that each time the USPA comes up with more money for the same policy, the same lawyers are going to carve out a huge share of it. The trick is not to be a target in the first place!
  20. rmsmith
    A friend's younger brother fell in love with a bimbo from a disfunctional family. At a party he went to take a squirt and discovered his friend putting the bone to his beloved bimbo in the bathroom. Unable to contain his grief he departed this cruel world by hanging himself in the garage. His brother, my friend, discovered him a day or two later...his neck stretched out like a giraffe. The bimbo thought it was so "kewl" that someone was that much in love with her as she would later brag to her "Section-8" friends. He's gone, and she's got three "angels" each from different fathers. She has never worked a day in her life, yet the goodies have never stopped coming her way. You will never be able to change gears with the economy of a bimbo, Sean; stay in school!
  21. rmsmith
    You're correct, I don't understand the logic being applied here. The problem I see with a group policy is that there is little incentive for a DZO to reduce risk at their DZ such as bury the power lines, don't park the neighbor's King Air near the landing area, remove barbed-wire fences or mark them, etc., in an effort to reduce the expense of claims. Maybe I'm wrong, but if the DZO were purchasing their own policies they would be much more attentive to potential hazards. The group policy opens the door to a tragedy of the commons situation. For example, a large employer's health care policy forbids discrimination regarding obesity. Since the expense is spread through the group little incentive exists for the obese individual to reduce weight.
  22. rmsmith
    I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I also scuba dive and ski too. So far, nobody has appeared on the beach to license me and deny me access to the ocean unless I buy a policy, and the ski slope operators have a considerable investment in infrastructure, but I don't need to belong to a group or obtain a license to hit the slopes. So what is it with the sky and USPA anyway?
  23. rmsmith
    This was a good idea in an age of poor communication. However, with the Internet someone can easily find the DZ nearest them in just a few minutes. I would like to believe that most DZO(s) use a website today rather than ads in the sports section of the local paper.
  24. rmsmith
    This is a defective approach at reducing expenses! But the resulting general member claims are minimal when compared to the demo's claims, right?
  25. rmsmith
    The military teams have the UCMJ to deal with their Peacocks, and insurance isn't an issue for the DoD.