mdrejhon

Hi, I have now created a new Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_wind_tunnel Everyone, please go proofread it for me. (You can see that I am the author of that article by clicking on the History tab, and you'll see my name listed) This is a free encyclopedia, and it did not have any information about vertical wind tunnels. Damn shame, so I added one! Table Of Contents: - Bodyflight - Types of Vertical Wind Tunnels - History - External Links I have linked to the Bodyflight Network (two links) as well as Aerodium, Skyventure, and Vertical Wind Tunnel Corporation. (I suspect these are the "big 3" of modern recreational VWT's, with SkyVenture being the main one) I am wondering if I can get a permission-granted or public domain photo or two of a windtunnel building (i.e. Skyventure Orlando), as well as one or two photos of humans flying in mid-air. Or you can add those to the article yourself if you know how to edit a Wikipedia article.

I saw it too! Very neat, vertical wind tunnels shown to a mass audience -- I wonder if this will translate into ncreased popularity for indoor skydiving; Indoor machines are getting more popular though; we do need a few outdoor portable VWT's properly functioning so that they can be used as demo's at events like these! Interestingly, one of the first commercial bodyflight VWT (open to public) was invented in Canada (link) and it was called the Aerodium. While it is a dated model of VWT, and it doesn't seem to be as popular as SkyVenture these days, it's pretty impressive to see this being shown on television in front of a mass audience. A few friends of mine expressed interest in trying a windtunnel and I told them about SkyVenture New Hampshire opening soon.

Now, now... If you want to organize a gay BASE boogie, wait 5 years. I might want to be a part of it after I'm properly trained and good on accuracy canopies, and gone to Apex BASE school. (or something like that) P.S. I think there's about 4 or 5 BASE jumpers among our attendees. Nouvel-Air will NOT be doing BASE jumps, but at least, you'll probably be able to say hello to potential new BASE buddies for other, um, legal BASE events elsewhere for another time in the year. (Bridge Day, Perrine, Norway, etc)

From a blog... Question: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Answer: If a woodchuck would chuck a woodchuck would chuck a woodchucks worth of wood, and if a woodchuck won't chuck a woodchuck would still chuck a woodchucks worth of wood, because if a woodchuck won't chuck a woodchuck wouldn't chuck and no wood would get chucked, if no wood were woodchuck-chucked then no wood would a woodchuck be chucking, and therefore no wood would therefore be a woodchucks worth of wood. But...if a woodchuck would chuck a woodchuck would chuck and some wood would get chucked, if some wood were woodchuck-chucked then some wood would a woodchuck be chucking, and therefore some wood would therefore be a woodchucks worth of wood. So if a woodchuck can't chuck or a woodchuck won't chuck, or a woodchuck could or would, a woodchuck can not help but chuck a woodchucks worth of wood.

New milestone. 30 experienced skydivers confirming "Yes" that they are able to come. (There are about 60+ expressing interest). I'll doublecheck with every one personally around monthly, to make sure their answer does not change so our headcount remains roughly accurate. People are welcome to show unannounced, but please Register anyway (even if you're not 100% sure if you're able to come). The numbers keep increasing, and we haven't even begun advertising yet (March/April/May).

I think so. Actually, there was a very small group of gay skydivers sometime back in 1994 by John Grisak, according to the rec.skydiving archive on Google Groups. (Anybody still know John Grisak and whether or not he is still jumping?). Since this is located in Texas, I would bet that Kirsten Johnson is familiar with this this timeline is, incidentially, almost 13 years ago. There's also the RainbowSkydivers mailing list on Yahoo Groups, which intermittently surges with new traffic and dies down. The RainbowSkydivers mailing list was the genesis for Rainbow Boogie, and a few of us took up the cause (with myself, probably being the primary person, since I'm the one who spent the most man-hours lately on this effort) There is precedent for many attempts to setup gay skydiving group, but gay skydivers are a worldwide dispersed lot. The abscence of any real organized effort (i.e. Rainbow Boogie) to get everyone into one place, makes a lot of people lose hope about ever meeting other gay skydivers. A lot of us have had the same feelings. Many have already told me privately "Finally -- about time!". Let's thank the existence of Internet, for making this possible without too much initial financial outlay.

I heard a rumor that someone has an AADvark with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) for sale. It won't be able to open a parachute, though. (joking.) Actually, I believe the dropzone is a dealer for AAD's as I saw Nouvel-Air listed on the Vigil.aero website. You might want to inquire about that, since Vigil's are somewhat more inexpensive than a new Cypres2. (Personally, I use a Cypres2 myself - got a spanking good deal last year on a unit with 10 years of lifetime left)

While this may be one of the many reasons, and some of the people are attracted to this, this shouldn't be focussed on as a primary reason. One needs to understand the group mentality, the desire to party with like-minded people, whether it be a a girl's group, or a trekkie convention, or the Woodstock event, being part of a skiing club, or enjoying a black entertainment event. Just like the curious non-trekkies at the Trekkie convention, or the white guys enjoying a black concert, there are straight guys coming to the boogie too, who like the atmosphere around gay people, even if they are not into the sex side of things. Everyone is invited, as we say, if it interests you; For many, it does provide a more welcoming atmosphere. For some (especially single guys), obviously, easier to stare and flirt in a gay targeted event. Much like it's more comfortable for straights to flirt at a dance club than at mass in the church. At a dance club if someone flirts accidentally with part of a married couple dancing, will just often yield polite thanks but no thanks and the married couple keeps dancing and enjoy the atmosphere, because in a dance club it is expected a little flirting goes on anyway. But if done in a church instead, it is perceived as a great insult. The occasional open-minded straight friends who enter a gay bar with their gay friends, often find it a kick that they are being flirted at even if they are not turned on by men. And just like many girls often like to look for female friends, skiiers may meet new skiier friends at a ski club, gay skydivers are sometimes also looking for other gay skydiver friends too and a boogie like this provides an advantage. One can keep going on with so many examples -- there are dozens of gay skydivers that want to know other gay skydivers (and in fact, a few of them could care less about being accepted by straights!). Everyone has a different primary reason or set of reasons they want to go to a Rainbow Boogie; Additionally, it is easier for single people to "sociallize" with others too as well -- some of you know how gay men can be, for example. No doubt, it is often easier for a guy to meet a new boyfriend at at a gay event. There are many reasons why a Rainbow Boogie is such a good (not just the ones being talked about in this thread, and reasons I haven't even thought of). For some, it's a specific reason, for others it's another reason, and for yet others, a combination of reasons, etc. The attraction of a group mentality is a very powerful thing, whether it's a topic, a nationality, a gender, an interest, an inclination, etc. Even if we only want to hang out with such a group once in a while. A very good answer. We don't necessarily NEED Rainbow Boogie, but there's already a proven huge demand (WANT) for a Rainbow Boogie.

About 1 meter altitude. ...In a SkyVenture windtunnel. (I can't believe none of you thought of this up to now.)

Most people prefer to talk about major boogies in the Bonfire rather than the Events area. Whether it be MOAB, WFFC, Lost Prarie, RoamingDZ, Dublin, and other boogies/events/festivals. Not many boogies are publicized right now, so ours do seem to be getting a lot more attention right now with popular Bonfire and Speaker Corner threads. Some say I am pretty early with the boogie planning (although I don't think so!). Originally, the Event one wasn't meant to be the discussion thread, while the Bonfire one is. However, the threads apparently started to serve a similiar purpose, so I understand the need to close one of them -- as you can see from my posting in the Events thread, I requested it to be the Events thread to be closed.

While everyone else is busy bumping up the popular Speaker Corner Thread about Gay Day's, I prefer to make posts in this thread. At the moment, I remember one of you mentioned that you had a spare 20x20 tent to bring. I am trying to remember which one of you dropzone.com members that was. Please get back to me by PM. (We are planning on renting tents anyway with the help of sponsors, but we are looking at all opportunities of savings of course.)

-- That is a very funny one. A good reason for a "Just Because" Boogie.

Hi, (Brrr, that is very cold looking. I don't think I can stand -37 degrees at 13K, until I buy new gloves, although the weather is going to start warming up in March anyway...) I have gotten all the necessary information I need from this thread, and the new information I have now is that there are various different kinds of gloves. Safer gloves (those of which are used for skiing too) that are grippy and suitable for skydiving, and those that are not. Like some of the neoprene ones that are very grippy and tight. It's possible those at the dropzone were wearing one of those "safer" ski gloves that are deemed suitable for skydiving too. If there is anybody I have offended about my post - including those I may have implied were wearing unsafe skiing gloves - I apologize. It's all in the best intentions, of course. Thanks to everyone for the helpful information about the various kinds of warmer gloves that are safe for skydiving.

It isn't a pissing contest. I don't see one here.

I am no expert, but keep an eye on www.diverdriver.com -- a jump pilot's forum. (Just to help you cast a wide net)

But... but... we already have a Dropzone.com Time Capsule, don't we?

It may be right now, but it may not be in the future. Be noted that there are millions transistors in some of the chips that go into some of the newer AAD's, yet they still manage to KISS. The truth, is that there is more computing power in, say, a Vigil AAD, than the full-room ENIAC computer in the 1940's. It wasn't KISS back then. A full "computer screen" on an AAD (the Vigil LCD), heaven forbid - That's a KISS violation back in the old engineer days. Now it is relatively simple today to have a display screen like that these days, in a watch, a cellphone, an MP3 player, or whatnot. Such display driver silicon typically hundreds of thousands of transistors, often millions, in what used to be mind-bogglingly complicated electronics circuitry. Why complicate things, and perhaps leave the screen off the AAD? Let's KISS. It may never happen, but it's amazing how complicated what electronics inside an AAD, used to be in the old days. It's incredible the amount of effort that goes into designing a chip. Even though off-the-shelf chip components are often standardized and used in many products (i.e. the same chip that in say a digital camera, is often also used in an MP3 player -- such as an LCD screen driver chip) now, it can't be ignored that the initial design of the chip is an enormously complex undertaking in the first place. and often nowadays, many the AAD manufacturers just use well-tested off-the-shelf chips mixed with only just a few custom components. I may look young (32), but I have been computer programming for 20 years (started age 11), so I have a good concept of how things that used to be complex, are relatively simple today. I also have some basic electronics knowledge background, and understand the concept of silicon AND, NAND, OR, NOR, NOT circuitry, along with capacitors, resistors, etc. I'm more computer programmer now, but I appreciate the computing that goes inside a chip that powers an AAD, or that powers a GPS, or any other thing. Who knows - tomorrow a freefall trajectory tracker might output very simple numeric vector values, from a single-chip-package multi-axis rotation-compensating accelerometer chip. By then such chips could have been well-tested for 10 or 15 years in consumer products such as dead-reckoning in handheld GPS units and GPS-equipped cellphones. Obviously, it would have to be very simple, massmarket single-chip plug-and-play (to an engineer) solution, before it happens. And that time, then it wouldn't be a KISS violation.

There is an AAD Classifieds you can keep your eye on! However, it looks like it's all sold out of the cheaper AAD's right now. But at the very least, there are a few from $400 to $600 that seem to have more years left. Also, rigs are available for rental and there are a lot of fun things happening on the ground. Nouvel-Air has just told us that we get our very own clubhouse building with a deck for the duration of the event!

Since the Bonfire (posted by me) and the Speaker Corner (posted by someone else) threads are so damn popular, we might as well close this less popular thread now. I kinda fell guilty about the cross post to the Bonfire, if it "looks" like one even though the message content are somewhat different. (skymama, go ahead. But do it gently and nicely, please.)

Good reminder. In case that is not possible, there are almost 30 rigs available for rental (Sabre's and Navigator's, all in Javelin containers), and you can always have fun with the people on the ground too! Alternatively, get an older Cypres1 in its final 2 years for about $200-$400 used, they can be factory-checked and approved. There are a fair number of them in the dropzone.com Classifieds (button at top) P.S. For anyone who just noticed this post, there are popular discussion threads about the Rainbow Boogie: Bonfire Thread (Good) and Speaker Corner Thread (A sprinkle of Controversy)

There are almost 30 rigs available for rental (Sabre's and Navigator's, all in Javelin containers), and you can always have fun with the people on the ground too! Alternatively, get a Cypres1 on its final 2 years for about $200-$400 used.

Just FYI. I've now added a blog to the Rainbow Boogie website now -- www.rainbowboogie.com/news/

There's lots of precedent for this. It wouldn't be too different from a request for public comment, like from city planning, etc. It plays on human psychology. When an unfavourable change is threatened to be made, people are MORE likely to respond. It's just human nature...

The pros will have to figure out how to compensate for this kind of stuff, but one could theoretically put different axes of the accelerometer witin different areas of the same case (i.e. AAD casing). Then the center of gravity can be extrapolated this way from calculations from the different centripetal forces from different accelerometers inside the same casing or same chip. Or, theoretically even different corners of a single 3D chip component, if an accelerometer became sufficiently accurate enough to distinguish small differences in this centripetal force. Then it might not matter where the single "box" or "chip" (filled with accelerometers) was placed on a tumbling person. The mathematicians will have to deal with this; it's a little beyond my ballpark, and there are certain limitations, but as far as I know, tumbling can certainly be compensated for. There are many variables like a tumbling body that's rapidly accelerating or decelerating, such as a swooper doing funky tricks. So, that does complicate things. It's all complicated right now, but so was GPS electronics twenty years ago, bulky electronics with many chips. Now GPS is a single computer chip that outputs easily-decodable location information that even a High School computer programmer (with some basic high school Geography class knowledge) can understand. The smallness and improved simplicity of GPS electronics are why they are used in many cellphones now. I can buy a GPS chip, put it into a science fair type of project, and I don't even need to care shit about what complex math is going on inside the GPS -- today, I'd only care about the simple serial text output (NMEA standard) from the GPS chip that outputs lat/long/altitude information once a second. Who'd thought GPS would be simple enough that it'd be built into cellphones back then? The innovation handheld GPS units and other compact GPS is forcing improvements and innovations in accelerometer usage. Eventually, it is possible handheld GPS units would have accelerometers, and still dead-reckon properly even if the handheld unit is tumbling (such as a GPS unit attached to the hip or wrist, where it's rocking all over the place, or to a mountain bike handlebar). Once this happens, they may be accurate and simple enough for AAD's that it is no longer a KISS violation.

Welcome! We definitely look forward to seeing you at the event!