pilotdave

Do they update you on order status by any chance? Week 7 is going fine from this end. hint hint. Dave

That is SO last week! http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2128600 Thanks for the upload though! Dave

I'm not sure there's anyone in the world that doesn't realize that, except apparently for some new skydivers. People are missing the point about this being a persuasive paper. You don't have to believe it to write it. You just need to write it in a way that convinces others. A paper that says lion taming is dangerous doesn't persuade anybody to believe anything. Everybody knows lion taming is dangerous. It's obvious. Now go write a paper that says lion taming is SAFE and if you can get others to believe it, whether or not you do, mission accomplished. A+. It's not hard to spin skydiving as being "safe." How many SKYDIVERS have said right here on dropzone.com that skydiving is safe? Tons of em. If some people that hurl themselves out of planes, hoping to be saved by some paper thin nylon and some strings, believe that what they're doing is SAFE, it shouldn't be too hard to write a persuasive paper on the subject to a non-skydiving audience. Just because it's not true doesn't mean ya can't write a convincing argument for it. We might not call skydiving safe, but we do think of it as being "safe enough" right? Otherwise we wouldn't do it. I don't think in terms of safe and unsafe. It's one giant gray area. It's a matter of risk level. Is flying in a plane safe? Safer than skydiving? Sure. But safe? Depends on your definition of safe. An alcoholic lion tamer might think of skydiving as pretty damn safe... Dave

When I downsized a few years ago, I decided I wanted a sabre2 135 with ~100 jumps on it so it'd still be nice a new, but worn in enough to be a little easier to pack. But I also knew that I was being a little too picky. Then within a month of deciding I was ready to downsize, I found a perfect sabre2 135 with ~100 jumps and even in colors that matched my stuff, for almost 25% off the new (dealer) price. And he lived not too far away so I figured we could do it in person. Turned out his sister lived in the same town as me, so she was able to hold the canopy while my check cleared. Worked out absolutely perfect. Don't give up! Dave

Seems innocent enough to me. College persuasive paper. Skydiving's a pretty good topic. Writing that it isn't safe isn't all that interesting. Persuading someone to believe it is safe is much harder. Don't get me wrong, if a new jumper believes skydiving IS safe, they should be corrected. But this type of paper would be more interesting to me than a persuasive paper about the benefits of abortion or something like that. Dave

How does the filter attach to a waycool (blue eye) lens? I have one, bought used, that has a filter attached. I can't tell how it comes off, in case I ever do have to replace it. And don't want to pull too hard until I know I'm pulling in the right direction.

Depends on the size/weight of the helicopter. 100 feet under a 70,000 lb CH-53E, downwash is ~85 knots. At 45,000 lb and 100 feet below, downwash is ~23 knots (according to the flight manual). It's really related to "rotor disc loading" (ie wing loading for a helicopter), not weight. Dave

How much will your book cost? Dave

Has he considered selling drugs? I hear it's a growing business. Seriously though, I agree with you. On my site, I've added "I'm a tool but..." before each comment that someone made cause I thought he was being an idiot. Adding some links to a few manufacturers (only one so far) isn't the end of the world and it doesn't change the meaning of a post. I think it'd be nice if those links were marked, and of course the bugs need to be worked out, but this just doesn't matter much. If companies could buy ANY word, it would get out of hand. But a few product/company names is no big deal. Dave

I think it could be worse. Many forums use the commercial IntelliTXT service that does the same basic thing, but in a more annoying way. Sangiro, I would make one suggestion. Keywords should look different from regular links, as not to confuse users into thinking the person that posted the message created the link. To me, it's dishonest otherwise. I like a dotted underline instead of a solid underline for sponsored links. Pilotdave

They proved pennies go up when released in freefall, so they fall at less than 120ish... Then they built a little vertical wind tunnel (a tube with a blower below it) and found an approximate fallrate. Then made a gun that could shoot a penny at that speed. I think they ended up shooting each other in the ass or something to prove it wouldn't penetrate skin. Myth busted. Dave

Holy crap.... sangiro, how much would it cost to buy the word Boobies??? Dave

It was about whether or not a penny thown off a tall building could kill someone... testing the fall rate of pennies by comparing them to the ~120 mph fall rate of a tandem. Dave

Fast/[semi-]automatic reserve deployments can save lives...any RSL can do that. The skyhook is fast(er), [semi-]automatic, and most importantly, clean. The faster opening isn't THAT important. The fact that it's a safer RSL by giving clean deployments is. How many people that won't jump a standard RSL would jump a skyhook? Thats what makes it a good safety feature. BTW, racers have such a bad reputation among so many jumpers that don't own one. But jumpers that own them LOVE them. You mentioned you think has the "most ideal design from a safety standpoint". Can you explain why? The only thing I've heard is they have the cleanest reserve pilot chute launch due to the external pop top. But I've heard they can be fitted with a death trap of an RSL and the oh-so-debated speed bag which riggers are now recommending be removed from all racers at my DZ (which doesn't make it unsafe, maybe just misunderstood). So can you please give some actual, emotionless information about what gives them the "most ideal design from a safety standpoint?" Dave

When I bought my canopy used a few years ago, I went through this. It came on slinks, but some had opened up in transit and some lines had fallen off. And the lines were all terribly tangled. I figured there was no harm in taking a shot at attaching it to my container, so I started laying it out and trying to untangle it. 5 hours later, I finally had it attached to my risers and I knew I never wanted to be a rigger.

Yeah, I uploaded a 45 meg file last night... I was disappointed that my connection ONLY allowed a tranfer rate of ~550 kb/s, not the 4000+ I was seeing at work. SO much better than the typical 40 kb/s I had been getting. Dave

But they're probably already skydiving if they're reading this.

I don't know anyone in the video, but I'm guessing the person in the background that turned around and pulled instead of tracking wasn't very experienced... Probably not someone you'd want to be heading toward while in line twists or something like that. I agree that you can get away with that stuff if you really plan for it and maybe are a little lucky... check out the movie Cutaway. They turned away from each other and pulled over and over in that movie cause it looks good on film. But that's very experienced jumpers that carefully planned it. This was (probably) not. EDIT: scene from cutaway http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1012 I don't think this was the most dangerous thing in the world... but I do think it's dangerous to have the attitude that tracking is optional. Dave

Screen capture attached in case anyone can't download the video. The people pulling in front of the camera don't seem as bad as the people that just aren't tracking more than a couple seconds for no good reason. But I think everyone should stick with the plan, whatever it is... Both people that just pulled in that pic pulled as some others STARTED tracking, or before. Dave

No offense to anyone involved, but ummm, well, what do ya expect from this guy?: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=2680

BTW, the complete clip from the show is available at http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=964. It contains a lot of detail about how it was done. Not as simple as shooting a flare at a canopy. Dave

BTW, I don't think this has been posted before... Making of the Grand Vitara BASE commercial: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=3229 Way more "real" than I expected. (Sorry for helping the thread drift

Link: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=3541 Dave

Just modified the upload system a little to improve the speed. Tested before and after (from a very fast connection at work). Before: 50-70 kb/s. After: 4300 kb/s. Holy crap. Probably not a sustainable speed, but the 12 meg file I was testing finished uploading before the speed had time to stabilize. Maybe 5 seconds total. Your results may vary, but it should be faster than before. Please let me know if you have any problems uploading, and what kind of speeds you're getting. Dave

Well, you can shorten it up by not having both units for temp and wind speed, and you can probably get rid of the really high altitudes too. I don't think there's much need to know the winds at 30K very often. Dave