dorbie

Not if you're watching the plane.

I'll tell you why the hell I should care. I care because unwanted babies born to poor parents are statistically not good for society. I care because unwanted and unplanned children don't generally get a fair start. They are more likely to be poor, more likely to be abused, more likely to abuse drugs and more likely to become criminals. The point I was making is not exclusively to do with kids born to poor parents, as usual you're confusing two issues. Your concern isn't justification for forcing all parents to raise their kids to your social engineering plan and against their preferences, especially when you're utterly indiscriminate in the application of your methods. This is not about my christian ideal (your preconceptions about me just don't hold water on that score). Your anti-christian bigotry really stands out when you spout crap about others christian ideals. I'm explaining to closed minds why some parents resist certain policies, nothing else, something that's ludicrously been suggested is because christians fear sex. (That's the kind of brazenly bigoted and flawed claim seems to be fashionable in some circles.) They have an absolute RIGHT to raise THEIR kids to THEIR christian ideals without you sticking your big nose in their private family affairs. Yup SOME kids will have sex, that doesn't mean you have the right to jump in and interfere with every parent's right to raise their kids as they see fit and according to their beliefs. Deal with it. And don't go assuming things about my religious beliefs or how I would raise my kids because I disagree with fascist social engineering.

There are a heck of a lot of them around suggesting that they don't actually fear sex. The real issue for them is pretty obvious when you set aside anti-christian bigotry. Many parents, not just christians, want to control their kids exposure to sexual materials both in terms of content and the age at which they are exposed, and many object to some of the moral guidance passed off as sex education. IMHO the political polarization in this country, exemplified by your biased post engenders a distrust, the unholy alliance of the left with unbridled liberalism and right with christian zealotry causes this distrust. Why the hell should you care if a christian kid in the south is taught about condoms at a young age, oh wait, you just made it a political issue and claim it's about fighting poverty. You paint with a broad brush and wonder why parents don't want you in their classrooms teaching their kids about sex.

So you tried the penis enlarger and know it doesn't work? From your own post, which apparently you didn't bother to read: "A federal law that took effect last year bans use of misleading subject lines and the sending of commercial e-mail messages that appear to be from friends. It also bans use of multiple e-mail addresses or domain names to hide senders' identities". He's just a con-artist in a new disguise. Does the 1st Amendment protect con-artists? I think not. Answer the damned question!

A packer at the DZ where I learned liked to tell of the time when he couldn't find his reserve handle when he had a mal on a military jump. He clawed through his clothing and the skin on his belly drawing blood and never even realized it until he was down and someone pointed it out. He lived, I forget exactly how, maybe he found his handle or his mal cleared, that wasn't the point of the story.

I read of a incident where a certificate of some sort had been attached to the harness webbing through the reserve handle and it couldn't be pulled.

Another good Hitchens read: http://slate.msn.com/id/2128193/

Does this mean we'll all have a Fuckday instead of a Birthday? Edit: bah someone beat me to it, mine's better though.

Meniscus did it for me too. Tried to get by without the ACL repair but in the end did progressive damage to my meniscus despite strength training (not skydiving related). Very true that people are different. I had ACL reconstruction done and meniscus repaired on the 1st of September (100% ACL tear). A patellar allograft drilling through Tibia & Femur (hurt like a MF the first two days). I was walking without crutches after a week, now 5 weeks later I'm totally fine with no discomfort and full range of motion & good strength as measured by my physiotherapist. I'm sure there's added risk jumping so soon, but most surgeons tend to encounter skydiving in the ER and think everyone is pounding it in & lucky to walk away from every landing. I've skydived and PLFd a downwinder on my paraglider (no choice) on a beach (best surface for a downwind PLF if you ask me) and I was fine, YMMV (and your wing). It affects what I fly and in what conditions, but I still try to get a taste of some falling & flying.

Enforcing the law might help the next poor sod the uninsured illegal pulls a hit & run on. There's a reason for these laws beyond revenue raising. Accidents happen, but a hit & run by an uninsured broke asshole can be financially devastating for the victim(s). Wouldn't surprise me if the hit & run guy drove home from the courthouse. Best to keep the cell vacant incase they need to throw a jump pilot who had an accident in it.

http://www.zombietime.com/oklahoma_suicide_bombing/

Does he still get 70 virgins for trying though? Even fucktards need to get some in paradise.

If the file doesn't play for you and/or hangs IE then right click on this direct link and use "Save Target As" http://www.para-net.org/paramag/archives/directlive/direct221/images/DL221.mov You'll then be able to play the file using the quicktime player.

Not according to the manual. It is designed to not fire under canopy, regardless of what you do. Derek That used to be true. It is important as the pilot in command of your canopy that you stay current on the correct operation of your equipment: http://cypres.cc/Sites/englisch/Skydiving_Small_Canopies.htm As Airtec and numerous posters have explained very clearly, higher swoop speeds have moved the flight envelope for some canopies and jumpers into the activation envelope for the AADs. The AAD in this case operated exactly as designed, predicted and published.

Now that's something that I had not considered. So the light is bent a bit as it passes through denser air, causing a change in the appearance? (I'm thinking of how light is refracted at sunset to produce orange light as it comes through the atmosphere...) That's mainly atmospheric scattering and absorption. A better analogy is a stick visually bending when you dip it in water. Or heat haze when the air shimmers above hot terrain.

Don't let it trouble you, they just don't get it. The saddest part is that the original security through obscurity argument is complete bullshit, and a device like this should have an open data read protocol and protected firmware. That said there are a lot of easier ways to kill yourself or someone else. Compared to the pain of reprogramming this device snooping the wire is totally trivial so the original argument offered for keeping this obscure seems utterly ludicrous, but lucid thought is not compulsory. I wouldn't dream of touching an alti's firmware but I wouldn't hesitate to read the log data. All this aside if binary only was their issue (that's not even secure even without snooping the protocol) they could have trivially written an abstraction API over a binary interface library that only read log data and they'd be no worse off than a shipping application that reads the log. It takes a really gifted engineer to look at this problem and conclude you have to rewrite everything from the ground up or hand the protocol secretly to a monopoly 3rd party to exclusively add it to their software. It's just complete engineering tosh.

Why not? It looks like the bird was armed, check out that first photo again.

Well said. People going around saying the AAD caused a fatality are in perilous territory. The device worked exactly as designed and advertised and I'd be very concerned if it didn't. That AAD did exactly what I hope and demand my AAD will do given similar sensor input, that's how it offers me a last chance of life in a situation where I've otherwise killed myself. If I accidentally drive my car off a cliff the car didn't cause a fatality if it was functioning perfectly immediately beforehand. Everybody knows that jumping with an AAD has inherent risks but if used correctly they contribute greatly to safety. I know under some circumstances it could mean a two out, a downplane and death even for non swoopers, my first jump course covered this in detail, in fact since I was jumping a student cypres my first jump course and subsequent AFF instruction covered the additional dangers of any steep turns under 2k (cypres 1) causing a 2 out long after main deployment. It's something I accepted every jump and I still accept this now that I have a choice because the benefits outweigh the risks. The AAD maker even conducted test jumps in light of changing technology and issued instructions warning skydivers to avoid exactly what happened on this jump. You just can't make a device be all things to all people. We don't ignore the lessons of this incident by acknowledging this IMHO.

It has the same basic problem as earlier suggestions, i.e. remembering to press the button before you enter a swoop. How do you quantify that risk? One other relevant point is you don't need a timer to rearm, the AAD already infers when it's on the ground and when it's ascending for a jump and already arms itself during each ascent. The point is there are existing heuristics that make the timer idea pointless. So effectively this is the same basic idea as the swoop mode switch (edit: actually it's better, since it's a swoop mode trigger, you just don't need the timer to implement the rearm) I've been informed that multiple AAD makers are already testing AAD modifications to allow swooping that make the whole thing a bit of a foregone conclusion.

Most AADs would be left exactly as they are. In fact the only AADs that would be redesigned effectively don't exist (i.e. it's the lack of an AAD on a swoop jump that get's redesigned), and there will be a few more of those after this incident. I was unconvinced about this given that it would be dangerous to rely on a jumper to switch the AAD mode as an additional procedure but I have an idea for a rig mounted switch that has changed my mind.

I'll buy that logic. In today's litigous society I'm not sure Airtec could be convinced as easily, though. considering how fast the main is likely spinning to reach such a high vertical speed, coupled with the probable small size of the about to be deployed reserve. I think the point is getting confused a bit, nobody is suggesting the AAD be made more likely to fire with a spinning malfunction. It was just a possible scenario to illustrate that in some situations the original activation speed is safer than a higher one for parts of the skydive. Others exist, like dealing with a ball of crap and burning through 750ft AGL. The AAD will behave the same as it does today under these scenarios until instructed otherwise, and once instructed it will be LESS likely to fire not more. The only reason for the speed switch proposal is to preserve as much of the current behavior and benefit of existing AAD designs for as much of the skydive as possible, as a better alternative to going without an AAD for all or part of a skydive.

No, that is a scenario where the alternative is a bounce (more like a crater), so an AAD activation is desirable. If you think different you should have voted with your handles already. The scenario we're trying to avoid is a swoop two out and during the swoop the AAD would be on the higher speed setting (thanks to the canopy pilot) and so would not deploy until the higher speed threshold. If you manage to induce a malfunction or have a canopy collision etc. after you activate the high speed setting then you could be SOL (better get your EPs right). But you're SOL under many more scenarios without an AAD or with an on/off setting on your AAD. It's just an imperfect compromise to give some protection where none exists with alternatives. The biggest issue I have with the idea is the reliability of the pilot toggling the switch. That's the REAL downside and the unknown risk factor.

Not necessarily, there may be additional protection for example with a spinning mals with a descent rate that falls in the in the range between the two speeds. But you could choose to leave the switch in the higher speed position on exit. Probably

I absolutely agree with your observation, but you can't have the best of both worlds. All the higher activation speed does is provide an imperfect compromise by reducing the risk of a swoop activation while allowing protection for a range of scenarios that is otherwise unprotected. It definitely eliminates the chance of an AAD save for a number of scenarios, but that's no worse than deactivating an AAD or not jumping with an AAD.