dorbie

It's a filter, to keep yahoos away from newly minted AFF grads until they're A licensed and have a sporting chance of surviving bad advice.

I thought it was excellently done, don't expect better on a TV drama if you know anything about a subject. I really wonder what it would take for some skydivers to be satisfied with a skydiving scene, after this I think some folks are just conditioned to dislike any attempt at dramatization. Some of the dialogue and acting was hokey at the start but the skydive was great, the helmet-cam and the mal was as authentic as you could hope for, the technical discussion of the rig was pretty good. They obviously had some competent advisers. Job well done!

He already has enough information and "mentoring" to be dangerous. After AFF 7 he'll know a bit more about what he doesn't know, he won't go off the reservation while training, why would he need to? When complete he'll also be able to solo at a DZ and do coach jumps with his friends from altitude and be as safe as any other skydiver while there. Throughout this he'll meet some experienced grizzled AFFIs who are not as foolhardy as his 250 jump wonder of a buddy. He's stayed alive and healthy for many years as a very young seasoned PG pilot including acro and all sorts of flying. You cannot predict what any student will do with their skydiving instruction, l hear some of the crazy fools go off and BASE jump!!! This paraglider pilot can get access to student gear and instructors, and PG training is longer term than skydiving from personal experience. SIV and XC clinics with towing to altitude could probably be traded if there were an experienced PG who was also an AFFI. I've attended one of these SIV clinics, it was well run and great fun.

He's jumping with others who are facilitating this, his buddy is licensed and has ~250 jumps and doesn't seem to ahem, view the situation the same way I do, the 'student' was loaned a rig by someone. It very much raises judgement questions. At the same time I'm mindful of stories like Bill Booth's first skydive. One guy might get away with it, he's taking a chance he doesn't even recognize, if this was systematic students would be going in on a regular basis. P.S. he thinks this is some kind of mentoring and he'll be OK, that if he has a mal he can chop and there's not much to know. His perception of the situation is not the same as your and is clouded by a very long history of PG and PG Instruction. Consider skydivers going for ground launching mentoring, from a PG perspective it falls short, but admittedly that's not the perfect analogy.

I have a friend who is starting to learn to skydive with what seems like inadequate supervision and instruction. After some initial tunnel time (5 min?) he's made two solo jumps from a Balloon, no AAD, no static line and pulling using BoC and what seems like minimal ground school (e.g. didn't know what a horseshoe mal was). I've seen video of his second jump, it was actually very stable despite jumping from a balloon, a slight over rotation was corrected by body position as he built up airspeed. However this does not alleviate my concern for his safety. This does not seem like a safe intro to freefall (by modern standards). I've encouraged him to seek qualified instruction, he cannot afford it. He is a very very experienced Paraglider pilot and instructor and would be able to arrange a trade for training to P2 level in exchange for training to AFF graduation. These are about equivalent in $ value and training level although a P2 would probably get you more independence w.r.t. flying some sites. PG training is a slightly longer term deal that skydiving jumps, you'd get ground handling experience for several days and initial flights under radio guidance, then longer flights, there's really no hard limit to the amount of ground school, ground handling or flight instruction you'll get. It depends on aptitude and your availability. P.G. instruction would be with multiple instructors at one of the best most organized training facilities in North America and include all equipment rental, you will be required to provide or purchase your own radio and helmet and he would expect an equivalent deal paying for his own jump tickets but getting gear as if he's a signed up AFF student. So, I hope this is interesting enough to merit some space in this forum and if anyone in San Diego Elsinore or Perris is interested please reply or PM. He's going to skydive anyway so getting him some ground school and supervised jumps from altitude would keep him safer IMHO.

Learning what works is one thing, learning what doesn't can be fatal. There's an asymmetric relationship between these two lessons in our sport. You cannot know a priori what lesson you're about to learn. Moreover, this being the kind of advice that might mitigate against a relatively rare event you may actually take away the wrong lesson. No gear maker is perfect, never claimed it, they're still the better option for info on their designs. Your comment on what can vs. will kill you suggests my related point was lost on you.

I love cookie's gear, very thoughtful and they work to eliminate snagpoints like no other, that new dbox with low profile attachment is awesome. However, on impact you want your head to deccelerate gradually as the liner is crushed, perhaps sacrificially to spread the impact over time and reduce the g-forces and therefore minimize head injury. It is not clear that a liner that becomes rigid and imobile is a good impact absorber. It may offer comfort and some protection but the key question is how good is it at 'absorbing' impacts when in it's in it's rigid state. They make ski hat liners out of this stuff, so it's probably designed to mitigate impact forces. I'd like to hear the case for it though. The sillyputty demo is not convincing.

Screwups can be unrecoverable and fatal it pays to listen to those who have learned the lessons for us. There's a degree of safety that can come with the humility to learn from our betters in the sport. Not just the prolific opinions but master riggers and contemplative gear manufacturers who often make recommendations based on marginally improving your odds over a range of conditions and hundreds of thousands of jumps. Ignoring it may not kill you but if enough people ignore it might just kill someone somewhere sometime eventually. Your gear manufacturer is qualified to offer an opinion on this. Snags on containers, flaps, gromets and reserve trays are still killing people. Take their advice on how to avoid this with their design.

I have an Icaro helmet (different model but similar w.r.t. chin) for paragliding and I have jumped it skydiving several times. In the end I concluded that it is not suitable. The protection is excellent, much better than any skydiving helmet I've seen, but the chin is way too long and is open beneath. I also had to use gaffers tape on the visor for my jumps. It's the wrong tool for the job. Not just because of visibility but the way it catches air during free-fall depending on head orientation and the protrusion of the chin bumping risers under canopy. If someone cloned these with a lower profile chin, a neck seal and a visor latch it would probably be a great helmet.

Your information is out of date, they have another vertical wind tunnel near Universal Studios now (iFly Hollywood).

When I was just off AFF but without my A license I was handed a rental rig and the pilot chute was kinda stuffed in untidily with some fabric out. So I pulled it out and repacked it feeling pretty good about myself until vigilant AFFI pointed out as I was boarding that the foot of bridle hanging in a loop under my rig was unacceptable. Still, nothing wrong with knowing the gear and doing a thorough gear check limited though it will be. If nothing else you'll learn something. Even with your own gear you'll be trusting the diligence and skill of a rigger and the design & construction of your rig. Of course you could wait until you get your rigger's ticket before you commence your training.

I doubt it, but I'm sorry if that's true, it's just some second rate image sharing site and nothing dinged my system defences. Here is the same image on flikr, view in safety: http://www.flickr.com/photos/secretlentil/1580204857/ Not a rigger afterall.

Must be a rigger: http://www.imagevat.com/view/237

But often that 'success' is coupled with not giving the women much of a choice in the matter. Combined with giving the guy multiple choice.

There was no misinterpretation, I agree that's what you said. We have every right to attack people waging war against us from a safe haven in a nation that claims not to be at war with us. If you choose to think that these people were not assisted by Syria committing covert acts of war against the USA that's your business. The Syrian cover-up suggests otherwise as do their captured agents in Iraq. I'm pretty sure there was no sound practical alternative, other than allowing 25 trained terrorist murderers to sneak in per month and wreak mayhem. Having seen what one; Timothy McVeigh or two; John Malvo & Dad can do, 25 a month seems like a flow worth stopping. We had already been successful in stemming the flood, hopefully this helps further.

Sovreignty is important however when terrorists use it as a shield from which to attack us it invites a violation of that sovreignty. The Syrian secret service has been helping these guys, much as you'd like to claim plausible deniability and immunity from attack for the guys murdering our troops and Iraqi civillians it just doesn't fly. The result from this well planned and well executed operation makes it clear that this was a legitimate target. The difficult questions now are those Syria is left to answer, but those are the questions you have no interest in asking.

Of course, for you the important fight will always be the one we're not involved in or is not going as well until someone of the correct political affiliation orders some shots fired. This does seem like an indication you think Iraq is going well though.

So when they kill US soldiers in a war zone, they are murderous terrorists, and when we kill them in a country not at war, we are heroes? You are confused. They are disguised as civilians hiding behind civilians and carrying no national flag although in this case they are mostly Syrians. Yes they are indeed terrorists. A country may say it's not at war but if it commits an act of war it undermines that claim. I refer you once again to Article 51, I suggest you read it. Again you are confused, you at once want to claim we attacked them when they were not at war yet claim they were attacking us in a war zone. That's the central point isn't it and thanks for highlighting that. Article 51 is indeed a practical section of the U.N. charter that really helps cut through the bullshit. When some-one's attacking you all semantics aside, you can go after them in the name of self defense. In this case that's what happened. A decent working relationship with Syria is not a practical option when they are training and abetting terrorists to attack Iraqis and Americans. We can wish for it all we want but if we let terrorist training and harbouring go on in the name of relationships it's a fools quest. You should read the broadcast testimony of captured Syrian secret service agents. They were training these guys to behead people on video and practicing on animals. That's not war or insurgency it's terrorism.

The terrorist network decapitated in this attack clearly shows that it was authorized under article 51 of the U.N. charter. Perhaps you could spare some outrage for Syria having harboured a terrorist network intent on murdering U.S. soldiers.

US strike in Syria "decapitated" al Qaeda's facilitation network By Bill Roggio October 27, 2008 4:51 PM Al Qaeda leader Abu Ghadiya was killed in yesterday's strike inside Syria, a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal. But US special operations forces also inflicted a major blow to al Qaeda's foreign fighter network based in Syria. The entire senior leadership of Ghadiya's network was also killed in the raid, the official stated. Ghadiya was the leader of al Qaeda extensive network that funnels foreign fighters, weapons, and cash from Syria into Iraq along the entire length of the Syrian border. Ghadiya was first identified as the target of the raid inside Syria late last night here at The Long War Journal. The Associated Press reported Ghadiya was killed in the raid earlier today. Several US helicopters entered the town of town of Sukkariya near Abu Kamal in eastern Syria, just five miles from the Iraqi border. US commandos from the hunter-killer teams of Task Force 88 assaulted the buildings sheltering Ghadiya and his staff. The Syrian government has protested the attack, describing it as an act of "criminal and terrorist aggression" carried out by the US. The Syrian government claimed eight civilians, including women and children, were killed in the strike. But a journalist from The Associated Press who attended the funeral said that only the bodies of seven men were displayed. The US official said there were more killed in the raid than is being reported. "There are more than public numbers [in the Syrian press] are saying, those reported killed were the Syrian locals that worked with al Qaeda," the official told The Long War Journal. "There were non-Syrian al Qaeda operatives killed as well." Those killed include Ghadiya's brother and two cousins. "They also were part of the senior leadership," the official stated. "They're dead. We've decapitated the network." Others killed during the raid were not identified. The strike is thought to have a major impact on al Qaeda's operations inside Syria. Al Qaeda's ability to control the vast group of local "Syrian coordinators" who directly help al Qaeda recruits and operatives enter Iraq has been "crippled." etc. etc.

When you deny basic, human emotions and physical needs, that's insane. Ditto, what an awful dysfunctional thing for a father to do to their daughter.

Don't know about THAT... I wasn't going to mention it, but since YOU bring it up, I am the person who was chosen as the mentor for new teaching assistants AND new assistant professors, and I do have 5 "Excellence in Teaching" awards - two more than anyone else in the 115 year history of our school.

No.

Bullshit. It is not a PA it is being used EXACTLY appropriately in this thread to characterize the claim made that a question about the Moon vs. the Sun circling the Earth is meaningless. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pedantic

But then you're not arguing for the spinning Earth, merely the orbiting Earth. General Relativity also tells us that the space time distortion which determines the local motion of the Earth and the Sun has its center located well within the Sun's volume at all times whether you're using the Earth or the Sun as your frame of reference. You're basically advancing the same argument against the Earth orbiting the Sun as you did against the Moon orbiting the Earth. It's just more pedantic sophistry. The moon rotates about the Earth, ths Sun does not and you need only examine the space-time distortion caused by their masses to determine this.