likvidskaj

It's all simple - and if airplane prop's span (add mass and rotation speed) would be as in chopper's main rotor, an airplane would counter-rotate around it's longiditunal axes like hell too. That's why airplane designers put some input into engine mount inclination or into vertical stabilizer (often those two are not at the exact line with airplane's longitudinal axes). Mustangs and similar fighter planes are notorious by having tremendous torque forces - and that is especially true when you fly them at large angles of attack or abruptly apply power while mushing the plane. P-38s were (are) a bit dangerous because both engines were "critical" and you have to be a stick and rudder master to fly Lightnings with one engine out. Tony La Vier was such a master - his airshow routine was to kill one engine on his P-38 and make a complete aerobatic sequence - which was really a mastery of flight with such a strong P-factor force (that sweet force has killed many people flying or riding in twins - the blue line on your airspeed indicator is a holy grail if one engine says goodbye).

Just one note: those cca 30 million people were not Russian but so called Soviets (all those people from the ex SSSR). And another note: those guys/gals who are willing to consciously die for they country are the material heroes are made of - but as I recall, only two percent of all soldiers are really ready to do such a thing. And another: every war is fought because of civilians and they are casualties in every f***ing war. After all, no one (these days) is a born soldier; every combat soldier was a civilian first and than is trained to be a sodlier. In many wars civilians just wore uniforms (if they were lucky enough to have one) and fought. But were they real soldiers? In my part of the world even an old grandma can make a pretty good damage with a machine-gun (and that shit really has happened). War stinks in every way you smell it.

It's easy to be a general once the battle is over (that's an old saying from my part of Europe, maybe you guys in US have a similar one). What happened with A-bombing those two towns is horrible by any means but any kind of running the war is in fact an horrible act. No war in history of homo sapiens was, is and will not be humane. I think we ("ordinary citizens", "common people" etc.) are still more shocked, even today, that such a destructive force was accomplished with only two bombs (one per town) rather than, e.g. so called carpet bombing used so much near the end od the WW2 in Europe. The relative number of victims (per town) was pretty much the same, if not larger, but A-bombing was much safer and more efficient, even more time-efficient. So, the descision to speed-up the end of war that way was good in my opinion, but it really shows the horrors inherent to our species. And that is the REAL problem.

Gee, I'm sorry folks, yesterday was not sunday but wednesday (we have a day off here in Croatia at 6/22 due to some holyday, so I automatically wrote sunday since today is the working day)! Blue skies!

Yesterday (sunday) I've experienced a fantastic visual and I'm still smiling! Robert told me he want to try his (yet unseen) new toy, and he'll buzz me while I'm open to have a reference in flight. Of course, I said let's do it. I exited one guy before him, went into a dive (no wingsuit) and dumped at 5000' according to plan. My job was simple, to keep stady preplaned heading and he'll do all corrections if neccessary. I'was flying my canopy straight into the sun, the skies were blue, and just like in a dog-fight, I've spotted him flying his mean black machine (it looks mean even on the ground while "empty", I tell you) straight at me, coming from the sun, and just like a jet fighter plane, curved his almost flat flight to correct for my forward speed. Bigger and bigger he was and that silhuette coming down at me just above the horizon looked like an all metal, black, rock-firm jet fighter plane. Whooossshhh! As he passed me some 100 ft to my left (it was a safe jump) exactly at my altitude and continued at straight line, I've immediatelly turned toward his tail but he was flying so fast and so flat that I was just sitting there with my mouth open and eyeballed him. I'm not a wingsuit flier but I just had to share this with you. A fantastic visual indeed! I'm at work now but all I can think of is yesterday's experience. Blue skies to you all!

Hvala, dobro, kako ste vi? By the way, your spelling's excellent!

I'm talking about the state of mind, not the actual incident. It is only an illustration of what might go on more often (excuse me for my bad english here but I don't have time to be grammatically correct) if "red alerts" become more frequent. Those shithead terrorists will make their goal without a drop of their stinking sweat if panic overcame the life in US. The White House and the Congress obviously are the primary targets (as the goverment buildings are in any other country - by nature of logic) but such a red alert can happen everywhere, anytime, in any large city. The question is how to prevent an overreaction (which triggers panic among the citizens) in a case where the threat is pretty dubious. That is the point. It's a fine balance and very hard on those who make decisions, of course. Ok, I'll say no more on this theme, I undertand your concern about this delicate problem. Take care!

Yes, I agree, they probably would ask that. They would ask the smilar question if some car-bomb explode in the crowd. They'll probably blame the traffic police for that one. The sad thing is one can never know when, where and how such a thing could happen and that's the other component of terrorism - to make people scared and to exhaust them psychologically even with some random and basicaly harmless event like that lost Cessna's wondering about.

And you live where? (profile not filled out). ltdiver Well, I'm from the land where wars catch up with every other generation. The thing is - those wars (through many centuries) were fought on our own soil which is opposite to US experience. The last US war fought on it's own soil was The Civil War as you call it. That's makes a big difference in perception of wars and dangers inherent to wars and combat (ok, some Japaneese paper-baloons were sent to bomb US but that was more a desperate try to scare shit out of citizens which of course doesn't work that way at all). The kind of war I'm talking about is the kind where civilians are directly endangered by the enemy troops (not only their guns, aviation or navy but their knifes in a ritual slaughter) in a bloodiest manner one could imagine. And all that on a "big scale" basis. That's why this D.C. event looks ridiculous to me. Terrorism is the meanest way to achieve some goals, a cowards' way if you want (the 9/11 made me mad as hell at those motherfuckers) but to evacuate a downtown due to some C-150, I mean, come on folks! The country is Croatia and that'll explain everything, I hope. But luckily, this little country is not known only for it's history of wars, it's known for it's role in parachuting history as well (to say nothing of other things). So, don't let those creeps scare you more than they wish to. US is a proud country, don't be triggered by every fart you hear. That's my private opinion, nothing more. Blue skies to you all!

Is Rust still in jail? That guy has really stirred the Russian defense system. And that D.C. thing yesterday - it seems there's bit of paranoia rules the lives in US these days IMHO.

Svetlana Kapanina (Russia) in Su-31 & Peter Beseney (Hungary) in Extra 300! Masters of the flying art. Fantastic!

Just finished Jevto Dedijer's BASE66 and continued to read Leon Lederman's The God Particle.

Mine was so stupid that I've become aware of it's danger 20 years after the jump itself. It was my first freefall, I had some 17 military (static-line & drogue chute combined jumps with only two jumps in my club before the army). Well, after I've served I continued to fly sailplanes but I wanted to jump, so my friend (a chief instructor in my club) said, hell, no problem. At that time our military pilots had some night dropping excersises and they asked civilian jumper to do the jumping, which of course all of the clubs in the country excepted gladly. It's been more than two years since my last (static-line) jump and but the problem was those jumps had to freefalls - the planes were AN-26s and the exit speed was 200 mph (I jumped those in the army but only with that static-line/drogue chute combination). I said OK, no problem and there I was in the middle of the night with the T-4 on my back and the Z-5 reserve on my chest (a russian round which was old even 25 years ago). Of course, the night was dark as hell, no full moon or stuff and the landing zone was far out on the plowed fields (don't ask why) disected with those water cannals. There were no ground lights, no nothing. The ramp opened, the jump run begun, a dim red to green lihts fired and there I went, with that warm smell of jet fuel and a mighty whooooooosshhhhhh (you have actually to slow down to terminal after exiting that AN-26). Of course, I've tumbled, didn't see a thing but I felt the wind and the sound changing around me. The altitude was 4 grand so after a 4-5 seconds I pulled and that T-4 smashed me good but I felt extatic with joy. It was pretty windy down there (way above the legal limit for round night jumps) and I hit some rock hard hump of plowed dirt and - of course broke my leg (actually, I find out that it's broken the other day - so full of adrenaline I was, we had to walk over a mile that night but that ment nothing to me). The whole thing was ilegal big-time and I was aware of that but everything went well. I started to jump again as soon as my bone crack healed and didn't think much of the whole event - but if you ask me now would I let someone to do the same thing I'd be scared shitless, I wouldn't have the guts as my instructor friend had back then. Hvala, stari, srest cemo se opet!

Bursting Out by Jethro Tull (but this is for old farts like me I supose)

A fantastic and a rare example of The Wrong Stuff with no need for a casket.

Thanks! Interesting stuff indeed!

And who knows - if some day high-performance wingsuits (with high-performace pilots) will actually be able to land, maybe some future aerobatic wingsuits will be able to achieve an upward vertical penetration like aerobatic airplanes do. That would be somethig! Who knows

As I recall, there's another good song on the same tape: "...there is a thunder in my eyes ...and I'll never be the same..." but I can't remember the whole stuff. Anyone?

Besides the smell of a new gear, the best smell to me is the smell of an airfield grass behind the revving propeller, especially when I'm going to board for a jump. Those distinctive atoms and molecules always do strange (but good

Finally some interesting tunnel shots! Yeeehaaaah!

Hahahahahahaha, me too, hahahahaha... Seriously, I don't want to trash this thread (and we are close to do it this way), and it's pretty late here so I'm going to hit the bed. Have a nice day and blue skies!

Hahahahahahahaha. No. (You like to watch?)

Ok now, I'm likvidskaj (or liquidsky in English), and I am NOT Robert. Robert IS my friend, no doubt about that, but he has nothing to do with my insisting on wind-tunnel shots of Jari while the tunnel is operating. The fact is: my interest in aerodynamics started a bit earlier than Robert's (since I've started to fly sailplanes as a kid, and I'm a couple of years older than Robert) so that's the main reason that I've asked for that pics (to tell you the whole truth, Robert called me about my posts and he was a bit concerned that they really could start a "war" between jumpers, but I didn't see the matter that way). I would still like to see the shots from the tunnel, especially after I've red the post about that French tunnel tests - I just hope we'll all be able to read about that in one of our magazines since the PIA convention was just recently held (and see the pictures, of course). So, me and Robert have many things in common and we are a long-time friends but he had absolutely nothing to do with my posts. Dario Petrovic Zagreb, Croatia

SportDeath (that's the book I like to read every once in a while :-)), that's more than interesting fact about Pete! Is it possible to tell us more about that accident if that's not too intimate and too personal thing to be revealed this way? At the Meet, Pete was trying to organise an international big-way (with competitors from each participating country) for the closing ceremony but unfortunately the weather srcrewed up everything.

Well, I don't know about his WS flying, we didn't have time to cover all the stuff (since I had a job to do at the Meet and he was engaged in other business).