dorbie

It's still moldering up in the attic. Don't tell anyone this though, okay? Your secret is safe.

Which includes good equipment choices.

Thanks for the info.

So who plays China (with an assist from Russia)? And where's Laos for them to run away with impunity?

What did you mean by this? I mean, AFAIK the US forces have been systematically disarming the Iraqi population. I've seen video of them confiscating any arms they find in house to house raids. The first thing that sprang to mind when I read this is how did these brave souls manage to hide their AK-47s for so long (it's not really a great mystery) what's not so clear is whether some pencil pusher will have a squad pay a visit and grab their guns since that is (or was) the common practice. Maybe they've stopped doing that after realizing that a well armed militia.......... you know the rest.

Or worse.... repeatedly latching onto the Vietnam war as the inevitable mould for all US conflicts when the differences vastly outweight the remote similarities despite the rhetoric. If it's not some fantasy about how Napoleon couldn't do it with muskets its some nonsense about how various contorted and selective observations mean "this will be another Vietnam". Goldfish!

Deja-vu all over again. It was said before taking back Kuwait, it was said before Afghanistan and it was said before Iraq, heck Peter Arnett gushed about how the US was bogged down in Iraq in the middle of the most rapid and crushing advance in military history. I'm not advocating one position or another but geeze this is like watching a goldfish swim around a bowl. It doesn't matter how often someone makes silly claims about a country not being invaded successfully centurys or even millenia ago with bows and swords followed by a prompt successful modern invasion, the concept never seems to lose its attraction. Anyone with a knowledge of recent history should be intimately familiar with how silly historical analogies like this are w.r.t. the use of overwhelming force. We have more to learn from the blitzkrieg and recent US actions so thanks for the history lesson to conveniently match your political agenda but no thanks.

Good for you, by "government" you draw no distinction between dictatorships who use WMDs against their own populace and nacent popular democracies, and by "insurgent" you draw no distinction between political opponents who dare to speak out and terrorists who employ tactics like detonating bombs near places of worship targeting innocent men women and children. You've hit a new high in moral equivalence, congratulations, the only way you could make more progress is to wear a blindfold and pair of earplugs. P.S. of course the key to understanding your support for evil is the use of "conservatives" in your post. If the right is right you don't care if the left is wrong, just so long as it's anti-right.

I wonder how long it took the Marines to show up and confiscate their AK-47s.

Depends, what's showing on the TV?

Your first jump course would cover most of this, especially the appropriate actions when you have a two out. Avoiding, recognizing and handling emergencies like this is a big part of any first jump course. Go take one and jump already. Your instructors will teach you how to handle the different modes of two out scenarios. Without the right level familiarity and comfort it may be best to just listen to what they teach rather than getting bogged down in nuanced opinions of online debates. Go on a first jump course, listen to your instructors and jump.

Story time! Someone once had a cutaway on a sunset load, and the cutaway main canopy landed in front of a couple of houses about a half-mile away. Someone called the police, figuring there was a dead person under the canopy. Meanwhile, the drop zone gopher drove over and recovered the canopy, picking it up and putting it in the back of the pickup truck, and returned to the DZ. Well, that's when things got interesting. We were all standing around talking, having cracked our beer open after that last load of the day. A sheriff's car arrives, the cop hops out, wanders over authoritatively, and says; "Where are you hiding the body!" "Huh?" "We have witnesses that saw you removing a body from a parachute accident scene!" We finally managed to convince him of what "really" happened. But it took some doing... OK, great story, but what did you do with the body REALLY?

I did my first jump course at the DZ you seem to have attended and is was excellent, friendly, well paced and questions were encouraged. In fact the tuition was almost interactive. Maybe you misread the tone of the instructor or maybe you caught a good instructor on a bad day. You need to take your complaint to the guy who runs the training there (S&TA) (AFAIK the DZO isn't there on a day to day basis). My experience was the exact opposite from yours at the same DZ and I'm pretty sure they would not be happy that you or anyone else felt abused. The wind situation sounds familiar, get used to it

Sorry. But check out the link below - it says "Cypres constantly checks 7 criteria....." Huh! Some kind person has been feeding me tech info behind the scenes. I havent read it all yet but there is a pic here of a 3/32" braided steel cable that the cypres cut. Maybe it was just a strength demonstration, Ill check it out in detail. http://www.cypres.cc/Downloads/6_7_1_information_material/CYPRES_presentation_folder_r5_engl.pdf However, http://www.makeithappen.com/spsj/cypresloop.htm says its polyurethane cord. Thanks Define criteria... I assume something like elapsed time, pressure, derivative of pressure, analysis of variations in derivative of pressure, guestimate of sit vs belly based on the above and fall rate & altitude derived from all of the above. All driven by two things, one internally generated; time and pressure. It's a strength demo. Do you know how a closing loop and pin work? If you know this then you'd understand perfectly when it's stated that the reserve closing loop passes through a hole that is aligned with the cypress cutter. The reserve opens in one of two ways, either the pin gets pulled to start the deployment sequence or the cypress cutting charge fires and propells the cutter through the closing loop to sever it, starting deployment even though the pin is still in place. You should go on a first jump course and JUMP. Many of your questions would be answered.

I have one of these with the D-ring. The main flap is very secure and has never come open accidentally, although my rig only has about 100 jumps on it. w.r.t. articulated harness being close to the handle, both handles (cutaway and reserve) are consistently there when I reach for them. Maybe being near the articulation helps in this regard, I really don't see why people have any issue with the handle positioning, I'd never mistake the reserve for the articulated harness ring(if that's the concern?). The reserve cable is on the long side, it does extend well into the handle, maybe by 2.5 inches or more, most of the length of the handle, I don't see this as a problem, it stays inside the loop of the D ring, maybe it could be a bit shorter. I've seen video where cable flexion caused premature reserve deployment immediately after exit so a bit of play in the cable may be a good thing. I don't have any doubts about being able to pull that handle to the limit of the cable and well beyond to pull the pin. I'm still gear agnostic. My biggest issue with my Odyssey rig is it doesn't have a "skyhook" RSL and that might push me to a Relative Workshop rig if I was buying today, not the niggles you posted.

No, there isn't. The suggestion is do not accept a risk level because you have a Cypres that you wouldn't accept without a Cypres. Having an AAD in your rig is good. Derek But there is less risk with an AAD, that's why I choose to jump with one. That's why having an AAD in your rig is good. By jumping with an AAD I accept less risk on every jump I make, it's a very deliberate choice. I choose to jump like it wasn't there because that removes a reliance on a possible point of failure (either human, electronic or mechanical) that would undermine the benefit of having the device. Let's say it halves my risk on a skydive (for the sake of argument, if you look at the historical record that's not unreasonable although the surge in swooping/low turn incidents confuses that), remove that device and it doubles the danger to me, I might choose not to jump and that would be a personal choice, it has nothing to do with how I jump with the knowledge of an AAD. I'm not complacent enough to think I'm different from many others with far more experience who've gone in with no AAD. The two issues are separate, how much risk I'm prepared to accept on a skydive is not tied directly to my refusal to rely 100% on an emergency piece of equipment for use as the ultimate contingency. I don't rely on my AAD for the same reason that I insist on jumping with one, I think it's safer.

How many people have lost altitude awareness because their altimeter didn't work? I know of a bunch. You ought to see that tandem video. Derek You're being pretty selective with my post AND taking a part where I said AAD and applying your comment about altimeters. Did you even bother to read the text immeaditely after the part you quoted?

As you should know that's the difference between a critical and non critical point of failure. You should never intentionally make an AAD a critical piece of equipment is all that's being said, although should it be needed it becomes one. I think you are intimately familiar with this concept. The message seems a bit inane, I know of nobody who intends to have an AAD fire on them. Everyone seems to agree that you never rely on this and you skydive as if it isn't there. I find posts that mention a creeping reliance on audibles valuable and it is good to be warned that altitude awareness is not just about making sure your altimeter needle is above your pull altitude number on a plastic dial.

wanna make that bet? i have 0 hours of air time in a helio.. and i can guarantee you i can fly one better than you.. know anyone who wants to risk their helio? Do get video... Bob (helicopter CFII) No need to wait for video, here's someone with a similar delusion.......... and a helicopter. http://www.alexisparkinn.com/photogallery/Videos/heli_crash_(self_taught).wmv Listening to the audio at the end is central to the full enjoyment of this movie.

411 total.. and over 200 on that canopy... i had been doing 270s (when conditions were right) for 50ish jumps...nearly always to high.. an infinitely better outcome than to low and i knew (know) the difference between a 'good turn' that leaves you your full control range and a 'just dug out and saved my ass' one that planes out above ground only because you used all your flare to make it.. that was my critical mistake (with several less significant ones contributing to it up to that point)... coming back from a long spot on rear risers to the field on the other side of the DZ where i hadnt landed (recently.. over a year) i completely blew my sight picture while trying to focus on getting a smoother turn and set up to low.. also the same smoother turn i had been working on for several jumps prior (when a sharper less effective turn would have taken less total altitude and planed out faster)...and the combination of steeper dive and absolutely terrible set up used up all the altitude i had left myself... You obviously learned something from your mistake. You mentioned getting a canopy with a longer recovery arc. Other than teh specifics of your incident is there anything else you would teach someone to help them avoid bouncing like you did or do you see it as a risk that goes with the territory? What would you say to someone on the DZ over a beer if you saw them doing exactly what you were doing around the time you bounced?

As has been said it isn't a skydiving incident but I'll try to shed some light on this anyway, the first part isn't really the interesting part of the post. It looks like he had some kind of canopy malfunction, I'd guess he hit the edge of a thermal, it induced a partial collapse and line twists and although he partially recovered he may have had some damage or line snags which left him in a spiraling dive he couldn't recover from. Paragliders have a higher aspect ratio and more risers than parachutes have and it's easier to get the nose folding under, and it looks like all sorts of things were happening to his canopy including the nose folding and big ears with the wing tips possibly tangling with lines. Ultimately he couldn't recover from this. As he lost altitude he decided he wasn't going to recover in time and threw out his reserve. You can see him looking and reaching for his reserve half way through the video, down by his right butt cheek. He pulls the handle and has the reserve attached to the handle on a bridle for a moment before he throws it. This highlights a few major differences between skydiving gear and paragliding gear. Unlike skydiving rigs a paraglider has no cutaway system, so they throw out their reserve whithout cutting away the paraglider canopy. The paraglider reserve is a simple round with a low descent rate and no directional control, AFAIK it's just on a line rather than multiple risers. When you deploy a paraglider's reserve you grab a handle near your butt and physically throw the reserve out into clear air, pulling the pin and tossing out the bag in a single motion, so in theory you have a choice of where it is to be deployed. Once the round reserve is out the theory is that it should slow their descent and allow them to reel in their paragliding canopy. What looks like a dangerous downplane to a skydiver on the video is just the pilot keeping his paraglider out of the way of his round reserve overhead. When he's stuck in the tree he doesn't make any attempt to secure himself to the tree, and winds up falling to the ground.

No doubt! I would rather take my chances under canopy then find myself in a situation in which we were now too low to get out because of some asshole that wanted better seperation. I would come back from the grave to kick his ass. What a lot of folks don't realize is that bail out altitudes are different for different AC and the conditions are drastically different. It also seems it's a mistake to assume that because the aircraft is in stable flight and you can reach and stand in the doorway that the situation won't deteriorate. Get out when you can, it's just frigging obvious you shouldn't be waiting in the door. There's absolutely nothing to guarantee that you won't be pinned under a dozen skydivers in the nose of a spinning plane if you don't get out while you can. Altitude won't save you under those circumstances.

My first jump course covered this and I did a crosswind landing while I was still on AFF rather than a low turn after a long spot (I still got chewed out for the decision making process that got me in that situation

Are you SURE you can do it EVERY TIME you need? When you are in stress, when you are landing with a lot of people around (e.g. after a 60-way). Unless you are, you shouldn't downsize. Are you able to land your current canopy using rears? What if you get a broken steering line? Human body is pretty fragile... It's not in the requirements that you have to do this under stress after a 60 way etc. Demonstrating this once would not make anyone more able to perform under these circumstances or "every time".

Did you check out the swimwear section? Seems like a recipe for a quick trip to the bottom.