Antidote

Mostly to US people/people at large DZs. My home is a small Cessna dropzone - club based. No pakcers around and if we do pack for each other, we don't charge for it. Culture in Russia was different, but the DZ was much bigger. Plenty of packers, and plenty who used them. How often do you pack your own canopy? For me, it's basically after every jump. If you use a packer, is it pure convenience?

Glad you're Ok dude. A PC in tow is not something that's fun to experience. Just how did you misroute the bridle? What container? Just curious

That's just because you're spoiled DancingFlame. You know those Antonovs/Mi-8 are nearby. I know they're not, so I'm hungry for 'em :D. DUnno how much you jump in the winter in Russia. Our (quite small) dz is open year round, so if the weather is reasonable, we jump :). Grega, we kinda thought you sounded like Arnie in the film. So you're now Gregor "Da Terminator" George in skydiving circles

It's on skydivingmovies now. Link

Password got lost after I didn't use it for a while. Heh. I'm lazy - sue me You're lazy. I'll sue you. Do it dude. There's three of us on our wee little FF team and much practise is needed 2 on 2. Could use someone to fly HD with :D. C'mon, get da terminator on board and come over. Heh, that's what my bank lady told me. I did around 400 last year - about the limit on what you can do in DK due to weather etc. Plenty of Hop n' Pops in the winter. At -30c at alt, frost bite is a big issue, so we sorta did low alt jumps when we could. Fun, but not as fun as high alt FF jumps. I'm just glad the temperature is somewhat lower now . Now if I could just learn how to do non hard-karate-chop style docks in HD....oooops, scaring you away from the Russia trip, aren't I?

Well, I'm done editing the Russia 2004 video. Went over there last July with a whopping 163 jumps to my credit. Came back three weeks later, having almost doubled that amount. Couple of DZ.com characters in the video. AltiChick is seen twice - once in a very unusual freefly jump and once when we, ehm, try to do a speedstar. Grega "The Terminator" and Jerry11 "Julenissen" are in there too. There's a short clip of one of Padraigs buddies getting his rw suit hung up on the Mi-8. Fun trip, got to meet some cool dudes. JC and Luigi where there. The 39 sqft canopy was landed. Tim "F*cking Asshole" Strauss was there but spent most of his time chasing women and eating pizza. Got some coached jumps with him and Juan Carlo. Anyway, the video can be found here. Right click, save target as. If the server stops sending, just right click and save as again and it'll start again where it left off. My beer video, so don't be too harsh with the critique

Hahah, that's K "Special K" Larsen. I'm the dude in the yellow pants. My jump #350 IIRC- Notice how quickly I decide to get outta the way when I see his reserve handle flapping about. In the uncut video it's very clear how it became dislodged - bumped hard into another jumper. Mr Special K was unaware of it during the entire jump. Nice to see non Danes have found the site of choice for Danish skydivers. Some pretty funny videos in there. Hey Jerry - you coming to Russia this year too? We're going - same time as last year.

My rule of thumb is that if I don't have to use some effort to get it closed, it's too loose. Not talking gargantuan megamucles-use-all-my-weight-and-power thing. Just if you effortlessly can close it, it's generally an indication of the loop being too long.

The Sabre 2 is for sure a great canopy. For ease of landing/bottom flare, it beats my Safire-2 hands down. Opted for the Safire-2 because it felt crispier in the air, at least at my size and wing load. Besides, if I went for a Sabre 2, I'd be doing nothing but takeoff landings with that massive flare that canopy has! . It sure isn't a fast opening canopy though (the Safire-2). The Sabre's I've tried have been snappy and quick (but not uncomfortable), whereas relatively new Safires tend (IMHO) to like to take it easy. Then when they get a bit worn, they get more snappy. Of course the Icarus IKAROOOS! VS PD fun war going on at my DZ had absolutely no influence in my decision to go for a Safire 2 119 rather than a Sabre 2 120

Wise words. Keeping put of the situation is best. However, people will keep on putting themselves in bad situations. While most inexperienced people can't land safely in strong downwind (i.e safely as in minimal risk of injury/death), it's much better than doing a full toggle turn low and impacting at the same time as your canopy. Flat turns would make it a crosswind landing. For some, the option of downwind/crosswind do not enter their thoughts. So we need to teach better, but there will always be some who slip past or who simply forget. *IF* a person finds himself/herself very low and haven't practised flat turns, I hope said person does a crosswind/downwind landing, instead of a hard toggle turn. I'm tired of having friends die like that. Downwind landing may be shitty, but impacting at the same time as your canopy is worse. I agree with you completely. I'm just questioning whether we can teach everyone (including ourselves) to always think first. There will be people who 'slip through the cracks' so to speak. What to do? I don't know. In the last four months, I've witnessed two people do downwind landings and break or injure stuff. In the same period, I've had an acquaintance die from a low turn and witnessed a friends departure from this earth, also due to a low turn. I hope I do not come across as arguing with your points. I could not agree with them more. The addition I have to make is: what to do when conditions A, B C are in place and the jumper have tools Z, X at their disposal? Low non flat turn vs downwind landing, I'd want anyone to choose the latter. Of course, as you point out, it'd be much better if that situation was avoided alltogether by looking for outs, taking canopy control classes and thinking at least 1000 feet ahead. Not sure that's always going to be the case though.

Michele, I think atheists can be divided in two groups - strong and weak. The strong atheists assert that there is no god. A definitite statement that's hard to prove - ergo a bit like faith. The majority of atheists are weak atheists. They lack any belief towards any deity. There is nothing to it - no combined shared set of bleiefs a la Evil Atheist Conspiracy group. The only thing these people are sure to have in common is a lack of belief. As such, I'd dare say that beyond all the other dogmatic issues, this disqualifies them as belonging to a religion. Your point is valid, however it applies only to a minority of atheists (i.e those who claim that gods do not, for ceertain, exist). There's been lots of discussions and even polls on alt.atheism, and the overwhelming majority of atheists there simply lack belief in any deity. Saying a lack of belief is a belief is kinda like saying bald is a hair colour :). As far as agnosticism goes - agnostics can be both hard core Christians (or any other religious group) or hard core atheists. agnosticism n 1: a religious orientation of doubt; a denial of ultimate knowledge of the existence of God; "agnosticism holds that you can neither prove nor disprove God's existence" So, it's about whether gods existence can be proved or not. Not about whether it exists or not. That's the way I've read it, anyway. I don't find that a lack of religious beliefs is dangerous for the world overall. Stalin, for instance, did not do what he did because of lack of religious beliefs. He did it because he was powerhungry and because he could. He was NOT motivated by lack of belief, although said lack of belief could have resulted in him not fearing any afterlife consequences of his acts. Me, I'd vote for the "whoever has more active nutters ready toact on stupid stories", but that option isn't available. About gods and spirituality and whatnot - I dunno. If there is something, I'll find out when I die for sure. If there isn't, well, can't find that out when I'm dead, so then I'll never know.

Just had a brief look. Not too shabby. I've got the ption of writing a custom manifest system for our club or using some open source stuff. Will check it out more throughoutly.

Back breaking job to be sure. If you work as a packer for a living, it's pretty tough I'd imagine. Doing it to supplement your other income is a wee bit different. I earned a good deal more per hour packing than I do in my current line of work. Of course, I have ridiculously long days and lots of 'em, so that kinda makes the comparison weird. Dunno if they are the most important workers at a DZ: We have virtually no professional packers here and it's rather unusual to pay for a pack job (unless it's at the countrys only commercial DZ) and our DZs run pretty smoothly. Which has the added benefit that bitching about a packjob will only make yourself look bad

Wut, presidents have rights too! Cheney told me that! Your just beeing a badilist, looser! I bet yor one of then furry terorizers.

I'd call that peopleinism, but that's just me. Inventing words is funnalicious, after all. Seriously, feminism in general has a slightly negative connotation to it for many. While I support people who fit in Billvon's description on feminist, I tend to try to stay away from people who try to make non issues a battlefield. "You won't pack for me coz I am a woman! You packed for that guy over there! Sexist" "No, I won't pack for you because I don't like you. The dude over there is my friend." You don't like me because I am a WOMAN!" "Uhhm, you're a woman?" Same conversation, exchange woman for man. Both have happened to me.

Keep packing after you're done. Packers are good and need to eat too and everything, but being a decent packer is part of being a skydiver IMHO. "You jump it, you pack it" sorta thing

Tandems subsidize our jump tickets. As long as there's not too many of 'em (taking up too many slots), tandems are good. A basic method to bring down jump prices.

That's about as cheap as they get. I've often wondered about the massive cost of AFF around the world. I jump in a club. No one is paid anything for anything - everyone works for free. Which means an AFF student pays for his slot, as well as his instructor(s). Not more. Comparing that to normal AFF prices and there's a huge difference. Of course, that difference is what gives the DZ a big arsed turbine plane. Good for licensed jumpers . Expensive for students though.

Already doing that. That's life at a small Cessna DZ for ya - pretty tight knit

Was there last year. Going this year too. Travelling cost depends on what country you travel from. Prices in Russia are very cheap, at least compared to Denmark. A cab ride from the Kolomna DZ to town (20 minute ride, sometimes more sometimes less, depending on the particular Skoda you're riding in) cost about 150 Rubles. Jumps are somewhere around 270-300 rubles for a ride to 13k. Food is cheap. Big arse pizza at Viva piiiiiiizza will set you back around 180 rubles. Food at the DZ is decent, and much less than that. Think big breakfast for $2. Accomodation - tent at DZ is free. Bunkhouse has a nominal per night fee. When are you going to be there? We're a big group that leave for Kolomna around July 1st.

HD docks with my two team mates. Better control of forward/backward/sideslipping. Becoming better at HD to HD transitions. Learn to fly daffy style. Spent most of last season (about 300 out of 400 jumps) head up. This season I plan to spend 300 on HD, 100 on head up. Gonna achieve the goals by (hopefullly) going to RUssia for three weeks of intensive jumping/training. And generally try to be serious about the training and not do so many pure fun jumps.

What Wrongway said. I started in earnest with HD flying at around jump 400. At that time I could do transitions on all axis, regulate fall rate quite well, take grips on most people (maybe just once or twice during a skydive, but still) and generally get outta the way when I was below/above someone. In the head up position. HD flying is pretty hard. I can fall down the tube, move (rather slowly) backwards and forward, do 360s/turns and transitions. Can't really fly into a grip, but better fliers easily dock on me. No rush. HD may be cool looking but if you wanna be safe, you better be really good at the "base" head up position before you move on.

Nope. I'm pretty indifferent to all that stuff. As long as I'm reasonably clean and don't smell, I'm fine. Keep my haircut short, so I don't have to dry or brush it in the morning. The advantage of being an ugly fuck is that you have no looks to lose. I find it pretty amusing to watch people my age complain about losing their looks. "Yeah, pretty soon you're as ugly as me". Heheh, great fun

Very.

As you say, it's a community. I'm part of it. I won't push my religious or political beliefs or symbols on anyone, unless they ask for it. If we are to function as a community with minimal friction, we better be willing to find ways to coexist. Mind you, I don't want to ban religious activities at the DZ. But there are specific places for that. Churches, synagouges etc. HappyThoughts Yep potential. I am very intleli..le smart, so I purposedly used that word The DZ is primarily there to get us jumping. Its primary function is not a place of worship, unless you're talking Turbine planes or somesuch . So, you do your thing, I do mine, and let's try to take each other into consideration before we act?