mdrejhon

It might be a better idea to refer them to www.dropzone.com That way, we can critique them more properly I tried to post a link to www.dropzone.com from my own myspace account, but I need to be a member for 7 days before posting. Of course, dropzone.com is not the perfect place either and the answer "TALK TO INSTRUCTOR!" is the right one, BUT better information can obviously be had here than on myspace (I think that everyone would agree with me here). And some of us can post links to articles geared towards newbie skydivers, to help them save their lives properly! And moderators can keep an eye on personal attacks.

I just found out today I just got published in ToBe magazine (a Canadian gay newspaper): Skydiving for a Rainbow (on www.tobe.ca). This is the first time something skydiving-related has been published about me in some mainstream magazine... BEER! It talks about my Deaf World Record participation, my 100th jump, my first night jump, as well as my organizing the Rainbow Boogie 2006 event (a gay boogie with planned 3-figure attendance).

This deserves to be on www.skydivingmovies.com even if it's mostly CGI. It's still funny stuff.

Me, me, me! Here's my night jump. I like the city lights at night too as well. I jumped solo since this was my first night jump. You can see my "I did it" smile.

I'll have to doublecheck a few things with NouvelAir. There are possible safety considerations with leather harnesses not designed for skydiving (i.e. accidentally pulling a PC through a floating harness, and causing a horseshoe mal), However, chaps are probably OK for a leather load. A leather load would be a fun thing to do -- within limits, of course (there would be a no nudes policy I think). The leather outfit would have to be appropriately cleared by the safety officer at the dropzone. I'll be setting up a calendar of events in the next few weeks/months (straight loads, mixed loads, world's biggest gay formation skydive 20-way, 2/3/4-way organizing for the novice jumpers, freefly, etc.). We have Kirsten Johnson confirmed as the load organizer for the queer bigways (queer in the good sense, of course) . We still need additional volunteers to help organize for other types of other loads such as freefly (especially if bigger than 3-way), CRW loads (2, 3 and 4-way CRW), etc. Sometime in the next few weeks, I'll be sending an email to all those registered asking about their discipline of interest, and make sure everyone is accomodated with appropriately qualified load organizers/volunteers.

It's blatantly obvious Nintendo got the idea from this: WIRED.COM: Four skydivers jump play Nintendo DS in freefall for 60 seconds. 2005-04-25

Hey! I didn't know there was going to be a hot tub at Skyventure NH

Maybe in the year 802,701 A.D. Bonus points, if you know the year reference.

Hey... First of all, compared to you old timers, I am simply an approx 100-jump klutz myself. I read a lot of amazing stories in the Skydiving History forum. It is a little sad that a lot of this history goes unrecorded. Many of us, relative newbies in comparision, don't even know what a round parachute looks like except in history books or cartoons, and that some of today's dropzones sometimes give A licenses to near-brainless sack of potatoes that barely know how to save their lives.... But that said... hats off to you old timers (yourself included), you deserve a lot of my respect!

Good one!!

My Sabre 1 just about stalls (flutters and wavers, sometimes bowtie) when I really bury my toggles. My earlier rental Sabre's would stall when I pulled 2/3rds of the way down. Can be attributable to older lines that have shrunk in length. I am NOT an instructor but everyone really should be taught this: Any canopy can stall when the toggles are far enough. Longer steering lines make it harder to stall a canopy. For a canopy that does not stall at toggle burry, simply wrap steering line around wrist and bury again. That eventually does the trick. (Don't do this without prior approval though)

Try to type the font size number. You can usually type intermediate font sizes. Put the cursor where it says "72", hit backspace two times, and type "750" and hit enter. Use approximately point 750 for that size. Works perfectly in Microsoft Word. Decrease the paper margins to 0.5 inches. If using landscape, or two digits, you may have to use a size smaller than 750 point or thereabouts. Such as 400 or so.

Leather load? Although I am not (yet) into leather like some guys are, I wonder if I should get someone to organize a "leather load". The world's first leather load.

Good question. Here's some useful information: Arrival July 26/27th, Departure August 1st recommended: I do recommend all experienced skydivers to arrive July 26th/27th anyway -- and leave on August 1st, this gives all of us more time to get to know each other. The tandems will probably be focused on the 28-31st being advertised. Nouvel-Air is one of Canada's biggest dropzones.. They hosted the Canadian Nationals, and approximately a thousand people were there (this includes spectators). They confirm they can handle several hundred of tandems in one weekend so there is no limit to the number of people I can recruit. Tandems The weekend will probably be busy because Nouvel-Air is going to set up a booth at OutGames and a shuttle between Montreal and the dropzone. I am sure Nouvel-Air will probably continue to recruit for tandems all the way to the end of Pride Week, August 6th, beyond the end of the boogie. I'll probably be at Nouvel-Air till then anyway. Montreal Pride Week lasts till August 6th. Attendance As it stands now, we have over 70 interested and at least 35 confirmed (with airfares purchased from UK, USA, Europe, NZ, and a number of roadtrips being planned). I'm now "recruiting" from other places such as via my online profile on www.myspace.com/rainbowskydive and I have found another 3 potential visitors from there. I'm going to take out planned advertisements in certain skydiving magazines. Also, dropzone regulars and plenty of open-minded straight guys will attend too (this isn't even included in the attendance count), so that will add to the boogie atmosphere. Including spectators (friends of friends, etc), there'll easily be 3-figures of people during the weekend if the weather is good. Last Minute Cancellations I know that in a boogie, people cancel at the last minute. People may end up bankrupt by WFFC or some other boogie and decide not to come to ours. So I need to make sure there is a really comfortable safety margin just be safe. Registration is optional but strongly RECOMMENDED Please register at www.rainbowskydive.com/register so that I can keep track of attendance and keep in touch with you, status updates, co-ordinating carpools and rides from airport, and related etc.

This doesn't work - the forum is protecting itself against directly linked images. Can you link to the rcgroups.com thread that contains this attachment? Anyway, there are other photographs of an exploded lithium battery. They are not common, but a catastrophic lithium battery failure they can be quite dramatic. There's a lot of safeguards that this almost never happens though.

This is classic... (From a MySpace profile, and a couple of other websites)

Do you mean flying simultaneously with a whuffo friend at the same time together in the tunnel? (I doubt they'd let you do that at first but eventually they would let you... The question is the amount of tunnel time to get cleared for RW) Or do you mean visiting together? I don't see why not -- SkyVenture caters to both whuffos and skydivers and switches between them all the time... One after the other, of course. :-) That was my experience when I went...

That's really interesting! Tree landing survival, if you're stuck in a remote area. The jump from 15 feet couldn't have been fun, though...! I hope Discovery Channel paid for the rig, which no doubt probably stayed stuck in the tree in the middle of nowhere

That's an instructor with his priorities set straight! Saving the student rather than the shoe!

Up to 24 jumpers. But usually 22-23 jumpers max capacity. At least in the Twin Otters that I fly in, and have used side benches and straddle benches.

Usually I would just do something similiar to: rm -v filespec 2>&1 >~/.rmlog.txt Basically it outputs both STDOUT and STDERR, and put the logfile into a separate directory, such as my home directory. Add -r and -f options as necessary (Danger, Danger, Will Robinson.) The "2>&1" is shell specific though, this varies from shell to shell. (It redirects STDERR to STDOUT. STDERR being used for error messages, and STDOUT used for regular messages)

Yay! But let's have a moment of silence for the sacrifical 100-Jump Wonder with the Golden Parachute Rig that we sent to the volcano for appeasement of the SkyGods of the Blue Skies... Whatever he did, it worked!

Don't forget the successful Viking landers and orbiters, and the failed Mars Observer. NASA's statistics look better when we include those. (6 out of 8, or 8 out of 10 depending on interpretition as to whether the Viking Orbiter and Viking Lander are separate missions or not, because two pairs of orbiter/lander launched connected, and separated when arriving at Mars - Viking 1 Orbiter, Viking 1 Lander, Viking 2 Orbiter, Viking 2 Lander - all from the mid 70's). The three major failed NASA Mars missions, would be the Mars Observer and Mars Polar Lander, as well as Mars Climate Orbiter. In addition, there's the question of whether the Deep Space 2 impact-landers (mission failure) should be included in this statistic. These were landers attached to one of the successful orbiter missions. Russa's success rate for Mars, on the other hand, are quite dismal historically in comparision to NASA when you breakdown Mars mission successes between the two countries. (The above statistics exclude European missions, of course, such as the failed Beagle 2 lander or the successful Mars Express orbiter)

One correction. Viking 1 and Viking 2 did not use aerobraking, to the best of my knowledge. However, all the other NASA landers did use aerobraking capture. Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Express, Mars Odyssey, all of which are still operating today. (The other two currently operating Mars missions are the Spirit and Opportunity rovers). There are now 6 active (alive) spacecraft on or around Mars! (Correct me if I am wrong)

There's supposedly a real incident story somewhere about a tandem student saving his life. Anyone who can link to it?