dorbie

The game interface is flawed, you can adjust the aircraft's pitch in mid flight.

304.97 ft There is a secret to attaining this kind of distance.

That's why you select a channel on the order page. It just filters the chosen frequency band. It's generic equipment, you could buy the same equipment from thier site and get yourself a See B.S. blocker.

Yea I was going with a literal interpretation of the regs, however I was skeptical that a dropzone would let you do this, hence my "opinions may vary" caveat.

OMG they have competitions where they shoot civilians!!!

I seriously doubt the school board passed anything banning all pictures of guns. I'd guess this is more like some moron at the school who decided to make it up on the spot and extrapolate wildly, possibly based on their own dislike for what the photo represented.

Look they have a zero tollerance policy towards pictures of guns, it's really "progressive". You can bet the aforementioned school board is suitably busy today dealing with this issue. Payback is a bitch.

I wonder if the Rev. Jesse Jackson is on that list

I am curious what you think my attitude is towards AAD's? I hope your answer to this question will help me explain better my point. Derek I think I already get your point and have tried to point out where we agree earlier, however my post you quoted was only intended to highlight the capriciousness of citing a regulation as a differentiating factor in a debate over what is fundamentally the personal risks skydivers should be prepared to accept. That's not something you did. I think I agree with you on the principal that you shouldn't be relying on these devices or using them as a salve for your inability or fear of pulling etc. I disagree with relegating them to second class devices we should be prepared to jump without (even in a thought experiment / litmus test). I don't see an AAD as different from a reserve w.r.t. risk mitigation except that one might make a jump about 500-1000 times safer and the other makes it less than 2X safer on the average (*very* rough guestimates). I see these as simple abstract motivators that compel me to jump with an AAD, nothing else, just because shit happens. If a skydiver wouldn't be prepared to jump without one that might simply be prudent and it's not for anyone to tell them they therefore shouldn't be jumping at all. I do agree that if a skydiver has issues with pulling or deliberately goes low & takes more risk because he thinks an AAD will save him he shouldn't be jumping (they're taking a huge risk and probably don't even appreciate it if you see my earlier post on probability). I don't see that as directly related to a simple choice based on historical data that an AAD makes a jump much safer, shit can happen and it's a jumper's choice and nobody else's if they would or wouldn't jump without one. I still haven't stated whether I personally would consider jumping without one.

Conversely if the FAA mandated AADs tomorrow would that change the attitude of being prepared to accept the risk of jumping without one? Some ink on paper in D.C. doesn't change your odds of survival in the air with the same equipment. An appeal to the authority of FARs that suggests your approach to risk is somehow altered w.r.t. one piece of life saving equipment and not another is not a compelling case. In Australia, AADs are "needed" for all skydivers below "D" license level. Obviously jumping there Bill would instantly change his attitude to that piece of hardware then.

Conversely if the FAA mandated AADs tomorrow would that change the attitude of being prepared to accept the risk of jumping without one? Some ink on paper in D.C. doesn't change your odds of survival in the air with the same equipment. An appeal to the authority of FARs that suggests your approach to risk is somehow altered w.r.t. one piece of life saving equipment and not another is not a compelling case.

I think you have a third choice, you could get a coach to accompany the student on the skydive with you. P.S. different dropzones may have a different opinions on this.

Heh; statements like that worry me. If I went completely by the book to say that I should chop anything that wasn't inflated by "five," then I'd have (at least) three reserve rides at 38 jumps. And each of those times, as I reached "five" and began to think, "Crap, I'm going to have to cut this" the canopy inflated by the time I was arching in preparation for emergency procedures. I guess it comes down to things being fuzzy; these particular jumps had a canopy that snivelled for slightly longer than I'd been told canopies should open in, and they all opened correctly within two seconds of that tolerance. Part of this could be a memory problem; I honestly couldn't tell you if my count that got up to "seven" was just opening at "seven" or if it was already partially inflated at "seven." This is something for me to look out for next time. Follow-up question, then; if "five" is the upper limit for a count, do you want a landable canopy at "five," or is one that's just starting to open good for you? (Anticipated answer: Don't go through your hard deck without a landable canopy.) I think you've answered your own question. A couple more seconds and you had a good canopy. Some canopies snivel for a long time, mine does and I like it, I never plan to pull at anywhere near 2k, in fact I'm not allowed technically speaking. I've ridden hop & pop loads down when other jumpers were getting out at 2k and that suits me just fine. You don't want to be chopping a good canopy but you don't want to be waiting until you're increasing your risk by not chopping. You're allowed to look at your canopy as it deploys, if you get in the habit of this you'll start to recognize that it's openning normally. Those jumps when you waited a second or two past your count and wound up with a good canopy are what you call experience. Learn from it but don't take the wrong lesson, i.e. don't wait too long.

The rule may be relaxed with appropriate authority. USPA basic safety regulations come in two catecories, those that can be waived and those that can't. Those that can be waived are further classified by the authority needed to file a waiver.

I think technically you're still a student until you get your A license. Page 7 section 2.1 E 6. b. of the 2005 SIM deals with this. "All students engaging in group freefall jumps must be accompanied by a USPA Coach until the student has obtained a USPA A license." http://www.uspa.org/publications/manuals.pdf/SIM2005.pdf Where I learned anyone jumping with students who'd graduated AFF needed at least a coach rating but I know at least one dropzone that is more strict and limits this to AFFIs.

Fair enough, I mentioned that caveat earlier the first time I made this claim however you're right canopy incidents make the historical data less useful. It would probably closer to 33% these days rather than 50% if you factor in suicide by canopy but I might suggest that freeflying could skew it back

I can't choose when that will happen, I spend my time avoiding that outcome, but the real issue is the probability of that happening no matter how hard I work to prevent it. It's agreed the AAD helps you out of some potentially fatal messes, however this is not some special case reserved for isolated dives. It's a series of highly undesirable outcomes from a skydive with a finite probability of one of them happening on each skydive you make. I don't split this off as some special case under which an AAD will help, surely you can do this and you might preffer to think of it this way. I look at it like it could happen on any skydive and eventually it might, the chance that it will is at the heart of those fatalities and the AAD saves that displaced them over the years. Viewed like this an AAD is a small (but very significant) improvement in safety on every jump not a huge probable save on some rare occasion where I'm in the shit, although it's certainly both. No it doesn't kallend's data was normalized per 10,000 jumps(edit, members, my bad, it still accounted for half of fatalities (at least)). If you're suggesting experience helps, I'd buy that it does, although I've seen no data to support that it makes sense, but experience can have it's traps and added risks for some too (e.g. reliance on audibles).

Aw crap, I was gonna suggest this guy but it turns out he really is a yank. Looks like it has to be this guy, that white horse of his really swung it.

I've been waiting for someone to bring this up. Pulling the plug is good enough for DeLay and his family unless he can score political points by being against it. Now for everyone who says a feeding tube is different from a ventilator, have at it. With DeLay you had agreement within the family, with Terri you have her entire family insisting she be kept alive and you have the husband who wants to pull the tube. That presents a tragic dilema. The situation is entirely different. If there is a split of opinion if is mainly due to this internal conflict for most people, not over any absolute right to be allowed to die a natural death.

You mean like tell your husband? I think I foresee potential problems.

That is never how I'll view risk, but you're entitled to make your own judgement calls & I mine. The risk with and without AADs is pretty much nailed down, it's not something a post or personal opinion alters, it's just the evidence before you. See kallend's graph, it's brutally honest. There are two ways of reacting to that data, you can either assume that you're better and different than the guys who went in or you can assume that you're probably at as much risk as they were on the average and it could happen to you. I assume the latter and so absolutely an AAD increases my chance of survival significantly IMHO, and it's not something I have a problem with, it's not that I worry about my ability to pull or think I'll lose awareness, it's just a conclusion derived from the undeniable evidence. If you think differently you should review your own risk appraisal in my opinion.

If you wouldn't make the jump w/o an AAD, how does having an AAD change your ability to handle the skydive? It doesn't affect my ability I'm as capable and as fallible with or without one, it does seriously affect the probability of surviving a skydive, that's a stone cold fact. Should I become unconsciouss due to a collision, have a medical problem, lose altitude awareness or some other unforseen screw up, there's a chance I'll survive. Historical statistics suggest I'm half as likely to die in a skydive with an AAD and that's a safety factor only a fool would ignore. You keep saying this is about overly relying on an AAD, it's not, it's just a recognition of the fact that there are AAD saves and the statistics are massively in favor of jumping with one. I totally agree and understand that you shouldn't be relying on your AAD to pull for you or using it as a safety net for your confidence or lack of ability. That is a separate issue from assuming I'm joe average and looking at the chances of dying on a skydive, seeing that an AAD makes that significantly less likely and insisting on jumping with one. The danger in relying on an AAD does not translate into not jumping with one if you wouldn't jump without one, because jumping without one actually increases my risk, and for me a tangible 2X increased risk that is clearly statistically demonstrable is a very good and sane reason not to jump. I think we agree on this but we just don't agree on your litmus test for whether you should jump. If someone backs out at double the risk that's their business. It's up to them whether they should jump or not.

Yup, I've said from the outset you should jump with an AAD as if you have no AAD. Everyone seems to agree on that, when people start saying you have no business making a jump if you wouldn't make it without specific pieces of life saving safety equipment well it gets ... contentious. The first skydiver I encountered (I was a whuffo) was a work colleague and the sole survivor of a 4-way because he was the sole owner of an AAD. My last coach was knocked unconcious while freeflying with no AAD, scared the shit out of him, luckily his dytter woke him up in freefall (he thinks), he doesn't know for sure how or why he survived that one. These kinds of stories are not uncommon. It could happen to you on your next jump (the one you're told you shouldn't make if you aren't prepared to discard your AAD).

I DON'T support what Jeb is doing, in fact I object to it, same with some idiotic politicians & pundits, that doesn't make Jeb a criminal. Your accusation remember. If you don't like Florida law then I recommend you move there and vote for change instead of making accusations of criminal wrongdoing because you hate the guys brother. Personally I wouldn't be surprised if Jeb get's hoist by own pitard for not acting, he's getting squeezed by some of his base in Florida and he only has himself to blame for interfering in the first place, but there were times when the case being made by Terri's family was very persuasive, they've heaped scorn on the husband to save the daughter and if that's all you hear you're inclined to side for sustaining her. If there's any suspicion it would be that impotently sending the state troopers to the hospital to do nothing was a ploy to make it look like he did something, but that's in my more cynical moments.

I agree, it's a disgrace, hopefully the cynics will be caught in their lies some day. You haven't merely supported Terri's right to die with dignity, you've opportunistically attacked Jeb Bush preemptively as a law breaker. "who better to go to". Ahh... one of them loopholes that would have made his actions perfectly legal, specifically his right to halt an order while it was being appealed. That's hardly a minor technicality or loophole. It's a fundamental right and if you think about it makes sense, if something's under appeal and she dies it's a bit late to undo the damage shoudl he win on appeal. Funny how you call a law a loophole when you don't like it's legal application by the guy, even calling him a criminal. I guess Jeb should apply only the laws you approve of when you approve of them to stay on the straight and narrow.