pilotdave

Hmmm, for me, maybe 3 or 4.

I was kind of surprised at what I saw at a DZ last weekend. It was too windy to jump, so I suggested to a couple of recent AFF graduates that they could learn to pack. They asked one instructor who told them one particular rigger usually teaches packing, and he has a class tomorrow. I have no problem with an instructor not wanting to spend a day teaching students to pack (it's not his job), but I was pretty disappointed that a packing class was his only suggestion (they couldn't stay overnight for it eiher). Being a low timer, I wouldn't be comfortable teaching someone how to pack, but I don't think it requires a very experienced rigger either. Personally I payed $50 to learn to pack and I don't think I got any more out of it than if I had learned from another jumper. It just would have been nice to see someone volunteer to teach them on a windy day. With all those skydivers just standing around including a lot of AFF grads, I think a windy day should turn into a safety day type of thing. Dave

Mickey Mouse. Duh. Dave

In case you've been trying to get in, something is wrong with the web page, but the FTP server is still working fine. Just use ftp://ftp.skydivingmovies.com to connect. Dave

I heard one which I don't think I'd believe except that I heard it from a guy that was there, so I'm pretty sure it's true. The guy that told me the story was a jumper at Orange, MA back in the 60s (and hasn't jumped since the 60s). On one jump he was on a load with his brother and a student. His brother went first and he watched. He saw him deploy, but the canopy just streamered all the way down. He landed in the woods and just went right through the treetops and out of site. Realizing that he just witnessed his brother's death, he was just a tad freaked out. The student asked what happened, and he replied that it was nothing and off the student went. He had the pilot climb a little higher, then jumped himself. He drifted away from the DZ and was aiming to land on a golf course. As he touched down, a car came flying toward him honking the horn. The peole in the car were yelling "he's alive! he's alive!" Turned out what happened is his canopy snagged on a tree. It bent the trunk over and he literally swung all the way around it, shredding his jumpsuit. His helmet fell down over his eyes. Someone nearby heard the crack of the tree breaking and came running out. The jumper was hanging from the tree not moving. The guy yelled up to him "are you ok??" He replied, "Am I dead? I can't see anything..." The guy told him to take the helmet off. He ended up with nothing but scratches. When his brother (the guy that told me the story) got to him, he asked if he wanted to go to the hospital. He said "No. i want to go to a bar!" Times were different. Thank goodness they've changed! Dave

I think the main side leaves as the student deploys, and the reserve side holds on till the student gets pulled out of his grip. Dave

I've only gotten a couple friends to try it. Most of my close friends say they would if it didn't cost so much. Others say HELL NO. I'm the president of the University of Maryland's club, so about once a month I get to attempt to convince a room full (or half full, or more likely mostly empty) of people that they should try it. Works fine till I get to my powerpoint slide with the prices. One thing is I never really try to convince anyone to do it. I tell them how much fun it is, what it feels like, and all that, and show videos that make it look fun, but I'm careful to leave the decision to each person. The last thing I want to do is talk a friend into doing something they don't really want to do and have them get hurt. Dave

Haven't been to Orange yet, but I keep hearing good things about it. I went to Delmarva. While flying I heard the jump planes at both Orange and X-keys. Made the wrong choice I guess. Orange is kind of a pain in the ass for me to fly to because of the washington flight restricton area (I'm on the very opposite side of it), but I'll do it some day. Dave

My suggestion: drive farther. I'm in College Park, MD, not THAT far away. We have Orange, Delmarva, Cross Keys, and Parachutes are Fun all somewhere around 2 hours away. Since "Fredneck" is in the middle of nowhere I'm sure the drive is a bit longer, but it's definitely worth it. Or do what I do... fly to the DZ. Of course yesterday I flew out as early as I could (plane needed some work done in the morning so I was delayed a little), and I stayed as late as I could (needed to be back before sunset because I haven't done a night checkout flight with a club instructor), and I got no jumps in. One load had gone up an hour before I arrived and another went up about 5 minutes after I left. But at least instead of waiting around all day I took people for plane rides instead. Dave

A new jump plane? Never heard of such a thing! Jump planes should be broken in a little with 10 to 30 years of hard labor first.

I thought about opening up photoshop, but i dotn think those pics need any editing. Dave

Hehe, yeah, I'm in aerospace engineering. Today I had a class on aileron reversal at high speed due to wing twist. In another class we've been studying supersonic engine inlets, and in a 3rd today we started learning how to calculate the total parasite drag on a plane. And yet, I never did have to go back and solve for the trajectory of the rock when you account for air resistance. I did have to model a pendulum swinging with air resistance once though and create an animation of it. I MISS NEWTON! Dave

I captured the first ever swoop of a cobalt 25 BEFORE it even happened! That's gotta be worth a t-shirt at least!

If you really want to do shirts, here's a VERY easy way: http://www.cafepress.com. Design the image, upload it, place it on whatever crap you want. I've heard some of the stuff is pretty nice. I have a few shirts from them and they are not very high quality. They use a process similar to (or identical to?) the iron-on transfers you can make yourself. But they do a good job putting them on and everything. The advantage is you can design full color images and there is no minimum order or anything. Dave

Suuuuuure, go on believing that. Just kidding. Dave Lucky #7

Oh man, when the USPA tries to sue Kazaa over illegal copies of the SIM being shared, we'll have reached a new low. So, so sad. Dave

[replybtw, the online version is available to non-USPA members too - if you feel your dues entitle you to have free access to it, then shouldn't you be up in arms that something you "paid" for is available to people who haven't paid? I think so. If I didn't think they'd have to double our dues to pay for it, I'd say the USPA should have a members-only site like AOPA or EAA does. I mean, seriously, how many people that are reading this could program a members only site for USPA in an hour or less? Heck, even my skydiving club had a members only page for a while. Dave

I agree that PDF is a better format than HTML for a document of this type. If they have it, I don't see why they wouldn't put it up on their site. On the other hand, the html version they have up seems perfectly reasonable to me. Yes, to print the whole thing you will have to click on 12 links and print 12 separate sections and you won't get page numbers. The html version is clearly designed for online use. But it's there and free. USPA is a big business, not some non-profit organization to promote skydiving safety, right? Pretty nice of them to give us anything with our dues. Dave

Count me in. I have a repack due in 5 days and I've done 14 jumps since my last repack. The sad part is I probably haven't ever broken 20 jumps on one repack cycle (well, ok, I'm only on my 3rd or so). Dave

I haven't actually gotten it to ask me for a username. what software are you using? Dave

Missed the beginning and end, but here's a clip they had on real tv tonight. Its a bunch of pondswooping clips from the ranch I think. At the end, after I stopped recording, the host mentions how fun it looks. Although they show some nice wipeouts, there are no injuries and no dumb comments about the danger of it. They even replayed it during the credits. /from tv/tnn_realtv_pondswoop.wmv (7 megs) Sorry about the sound quality. Not sure why it's so bad or what I can do about it. Dave

moved to /misc/ Dave

Don't have the CNN video, but there are a couple on my server... doggy1 and doggy2.mpg in /misc/. Dave

Yeah, but that takes all that thought to come up with the "check this out" part. All I was mentally capable of was the url and /url tags.

Server is probably full. Try again later. Or else just use anonymous for the username and anything for the password. Dave