AndyBoyd

You lost this one badly. Let it go.

Thanks, Kirk! You can engineer that one for us Saturday. :)

During a long weather hold at the DZ yesterday, a few of us got to talking about leg locks in the old 4-way dive pool. (We were really bored.) We found a block that seemed to be called the "Venezuelan Connection" on You Tube, but we couldn't find anything else. Does anyone recall any old blocks or randoms that included leg locks? And does anyone remember what exactly constituted a leg lock back then? We don't want to bust ourselves when we try these out!

"As John Mellencamp sang: "that's just the way it is. Some things will never change."" Wasn't that Bruce Hornsby? As far as the OP's question, of course people with more $ get better legal services, just like they get better medical care, better housing, better food, and more tunnel time. :)

Freefall def. "The accelerated motion toward the center of the Earth of a body acted on by the Earth's gravitational attraction." On this definition, tunnel time is not freefall, as there is no "accelerated motion towards the center of the earth." Skydivers flying in wind tunnels are clearly not moving towards the center of the earth. But look, this argument is all semantics. If you want to believe that you are "falling" when you are in a wind tunnel, that's OK by me.

There was a time in my life when skydiving paid the bills, or most of them, anyway. And I did get burned out on tandems, and yes, the sport was not as much fun as it was previously. So I went out and got a real job, and I now just skydive on the weekends, mostly as a LO, with the occasional AFF jump. For me, skydiving needs to be my release from the day to day stress of life, not the source of it. But, at the DZ I jump at, the full-time instructors are always seem to be having a good time and enjoying their jumps. So I guess it depends on the individual. Being a professional skydiver was not for me. Others seem to love it. If you just want to chuck a few drogues on the weekend, or do a few AFFs, I doubt you will get burned out.

I know there are sound arguments on both sides of this issue - this is just my two cents. I've never used an RSL on my sport rig. I always felt like I could control myself well enough after a cutaway to deploy my reserve with some stability. So far, I've been right. But when I was doing tandems, I used the RSL. My thinking was that after a cutaway, with a student potentially acting unpredictably, my best bet was to get a reserve out immediately. I had a nasty spinning cutaway on a tandem once where I believe the RSL saved my butt. The student was huge, we were spinning hard, and I'm not sure I could have controlled things after the cutaway. But the RSL deployed the reserve right away, and after kicking out of some line twists, we landed safely. So my personal view was that it was best for me to keep the RSL hooked up on tandems. But everyone has to make up their own minds on this issue. Just think about all the pros and cons carefully before you do.

At that alcohol content, I'm not sure it makes any sense to call it "beer." And at that price, it had better be nectar of the gods.

Spot-on post. There is nothing you can do to shield yourself 100% from lawsuits. And even if you win the lawsuit, it will still likely cost you big bucks. There may be a way to protect your $$ by incorporating your instructing "business" or creating some sort of trust for your kid's college fund, but these are far from foolproof. If you have a family to support, and are genuinely worried about your vulnerability to lawsuits (as you should be), dropping your ratings is the only way to be sure. But, look at it this way. Life is full of risks. You are potentially liable to a lawsuit everytime you drive a car, or even walk down the street. So, my advice is to drop your ratings, or take the sound advice of other posters regarding BSR's and basic common sense and carefulness, and live with the risk.

Slipped on the ice in my driveway taking out the garbage in February. Broke my ankle in 2 places. 6 weeks in a cast, 3 weeks in a boot, just now finishing up 3 months of physical therapy. I may be back in the air by the end of July.

I like the Islay whiskys - Laphroaig and Bowmore are good stuff.

You and DougH are most likely right. Still, if I were a DZO, I'd want some pretty solid legal advice before I allowed someone without the capacity to sign a waiver make a skydive.

I read this story in the Chicago Tribune this weeksnd, and it was heartwarming. Congratulations to this young man and his instructors. As an attorney, though, let me just toss out something for DZOs to think about. If it really is the case that people with Downs Syndrome have the intellectual ability of a child, how does that impact their legal capacity to sign a waiver? As we all know, children cannot legally sign waivers (which are basically contracts). I have not researched the law on this, but I suspect that waivers signed by individuals with Downs Syndrome may not be binding. If that is the case, DZOs are taking a huge risk by letting these folks skydive. A bad injury, or God forbid, a fatality, could result in a very costly lawsuit in which the waiver might not provide any protection. I would welcome the input of any other lawyers out there who might know more about this issue than me. I don't mean to rain on the parade, though. This is a great, feel-good story that places a very positive light on our sport.

There have been some pretty good attempts in this thread to define a slippery term. When I think of the term "terrorism," what comes to mind is (1) the intentional targeting of civilians, (2) the lack of clear affiliation with a recognized national military force, and (3) the breaking of domestic or international law. On this defininition, the individuals responsible for 9/11 are clearly terrorists. The individuals who attacked the USS Cole in Yemen would not be. The individuals who dropped the a-bombs in Japan would also not be terrorists. BTW, I have my own views on whether the a-bombing of Japan was justfied,but that is not the subject of this thread.

Has anyone jumped one? How is it different from a Spectre? Any positive or negative feedback on the canopy yet?

If a soldier's PTSD was acquired in one of the ways described in the regs, and required treatment by a medical officer, the answer seems to be yes, the injured soldier should get a purple heart.

Can anyone give the specific wording of the military regulation for awarding a purple heart? Does it require the wound to be physical? If not, I'd say that yes, purple hearts could be given if a physician diagnosed a soldier with legitimate combat induced PTSD. From what I've read about that condition, it can be every bit as debilitating as a physical wound. Full disclosure - I've never been in the military, and I've certainly never been in combat. Just my 2 cents.

The fear is that allowing states to require picture ID for voting will disenfranchise minorities and low-income individuals, who, for various reasons, are often not capable of easily obtaining these IDs. Minorities and low-income people tend to vote for Democratic candidates. I don't have a source to cite for this, but I recall reading in a newspaper article that every Indiana Republican legislator voted for this law, and every Indiana Democrat voted against it. If this is true, it leads me to believe that the real issue for the Indiana legislature was not voter fraud (there has been very little documented voter fraud in that state), but preventing minorities and low-income people from voting. Again, if that is true, it saddens me that this could occur, and that the SC would approve of it.

Christopher Irwin is an outstanding coach. christopher@tunneltime.com.

If you are talking about competition, you need lots of money, lots of free time, and the drive/desire to succeed. If you lack in any one of those areas, greatness will not happen. If you are talking about being a nice person on the DZ, helping others, promoting the sport, other personality qualities come into play. So I guess the answer to your question depends on how you define "greatness."

FYI, Key West seceded from the Union in 1982. Yes, everyone's tongue was planted firmly in their cheeks.

Warning - irrational rant ahead. Cell phones are the most annoying devices ever created by mankind. I commute to work, and once sat on the train listening to a woman talk to someone for 45 minutes on her cell phone about what kind of pizza they were going to order for dinner. I once listened to a doctor talk to someone about her patients on the cell phone for 45 minutes, so loudly everyone on the train could hear. These were personal, private details about various medical conditions that she broadcast to everyone on the train. I have heard lawyers talk about their clients, people talk about significant others... Cell phones, IMHO, have completely destroyed the concept of personal privacy. People today seem to feel free to tell the world about their personal lives, and the lives of their patients, clients, friends, and family, over the cell phone. I don't want to hear that stuff, folks. And the people you are talking to don't want the world to know whatever it is you are revealing. A little discretion goes a long way, folks. End of rant.

Quiet Riot was heavy metal??

I know I'll sound like an old man when I say this, but that's OK. I'm certainly no youngster anymore. :) Back when I got my rating, 1999, the AFF guys and girls were the top skydivers at the DZ. They were the ones who could be trusted to be there on time, everytime, whether it was an AFF dive or a sunset fun jump. If I recall correctly, there were just 3 AFF course directors at the time, Don Yarhling, Rick Horn, and Billy Rhodes. I took my course with Billy. Aside from law school and the bar exam, that AFF course was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I just barely passed. After I took that course, my thought was that, yeah, it was very hard, and very stressful. But if you could pass that course, you could take my mom on her AFF level 1. I can't say that about today's AFF course. I'm going to try not to hurt people's feelings when I say what I'm about to say. The AFF candidates today can only take the course that is offered to them. If they pass, they get their rating. Congrats. But... The folks I've seen getting their AFF ratings these past few years are no longer the top skydivers at the DZ. I've seen people with very limited experience in the sport, and very limited experience with flat flying, pass the current AFF course with no problems at all. These people cannot take my mom for her AFF level 1. I mean no disrespect to current AFF JM's. They passed the course and got their ratings. But the idea that you had to go through, in effect, a trial by fire, to get your AFF rating has become a thing of the past, and I do not think the sport is better for this development. By the way, I am sure that most, if not all of these new young AFF JM's will mature nicely into the sport and become outstanding JM's. No JM out there is perfect, and there are certainly a couple of AFF dives on which I wish I'd performed better. I truly hope this post doesn't sound mean-spirited. I have flaws, and I am far from the perfect skydiver. These are just my two cents about the current AFF course.

With the current political climate in the USA being so hostile towards illegal immigrants, now is not a good time to become involved in immigration fraud. Not that there ever was a good time to do that.....