Eule

I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Having said that: That's about what I've done when I've sold one of my cars. It's not a rig, but it _is_ usually a non-trivial chunk of money. "Eule, having free and clear title to a 1991 Ford Escort, VIN 1FAPP(whatever), is selling that vehicle, as-is, to Superman32 for $amount on (date)." I also sign/ transfer the official legal title, which is probably sufficient documentation, but I like giving and having the "receipt". The thing that Jeff posted is about the same thing, but written in lawyer instead of English. Having it in English instead of lawyer might help people who are only expecting a handshake to not freak out about signing a piece of paper. I'd say yes. When you do this, you could check with them to see if there are any modifications or changes that need to be done. I think normally your rigger would do this, but asking is free and you might learn something interesting. Also, if the manufacturer comes up with a required modification in the future, they have a way to get in touch with you. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

One that comes immediately to mind is Mike Mullins. He has a King Air - not a huge plane, but he has hot-rodded it out to get to altitude fast. Really fast. He uses it at his own dropzone, and also tours around other dropzones with it. It was very popular when he brought it to a local 182 DZ one weekend this spring. I've pondered basic DZ economics by figuring that a jump ticket is pretty close to the marginal cost of putting one more jumper up. In other words, the profit margin on an individual jump ticket is small. It's also probably true that many (most?) DZ's don't plan on having full loads of fun jumpers all the time - they probably plan on each load having a certain number of tandems or AFF/IAD/SL students that will make them more money. I haven't gone very far with it because clearly DZs can make money, but I am semi-curious as to the actual numbers. A slight twist on it is to have something like an Otter and rent it out to DZs that already have "big" planes, on days when their "big" plane is down. I saw that happen a couple of weekends ago at a DZ that has an Otter that was getting new engines put on it - they brought in another Otter to keep things moving. Just looking at pictures on the net of what a Beech 18 is, I might suggest you get something a tad newer. What you want is the airplane equivalent of a Honda Accord or a Buick Regal or a Ford Crown Vic. Something that they made thousands of, that every A&P guy knows how to work on, and that has relatively cheap and plentiful parts. A 182 is probably a good example of this for a "small" plane. Even with all that, if there are some common things that break on the plane you pick and they aren't too heavy or huge, you might take spares with you, or maybe keep them at home with someone who can FedEx them to you as needed. This way, when it breaks, all you have to do is hand the spare part to a local A&P guy and have him change it out. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I can't figure out what opens .psf files. But those two .psf files each had normal JPEGs lurking inside, which I have attached. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Wow! I've heard that the Wright brothers were pretty good jump pilots - is that true? :) Welcome! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

You might already know this, but the class you will go through for AFF is a lot longer (several hours) than the class you had before your tandem jumps (1 hour or less). The instructor will talk about how to control the canopy, there will be videos about it, and you will practice it. You will also learn about stability in freefall -- that's also one of the reasons that you have two instructors for the first few AFF jumps. I know a jumper that's probably about the same size as you - 50 kilos, about 1.65 m tall. She's got over 100 jumps now. There isn't a Dutch-language forum here, but there is a French-language one: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?forum=30; . You might ask in the "General" forum for links to Dutch-language skydiving sites. Welcome! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Fly to someplace warm over Thanksgiving (Florida, Arizona, California) and do it then. :) That's probably in the ball park. It depends a lot on what part of the country you're in, the individual dropzone, and so on. Around here (Oklahoma, Texas) you might pay $250-$300 for the first jump course and first jump, $150-$200 for your next two two-instructor jumps, $100-$150 for four one- instructor jumps, and $50-$75 for the 18 or so additional jumps you need (minimum) to get an A license. This puts the total cost at around $1850-$2650. Some people go right through in 7 AFF jumps and 25 jumps total to A and some people (like me) take more than that. This assumes you don't have any gear of your own and are using the DZ's gear. You'll probably buy one or two things of your own, like a log book ($10) and maybe some goggles ($15). You'll also have to spend about $50 to join USPA. Depending on how far away the DZ is, the fuel to get there may be a consideration. Then there's beer. At a minimum, you will owe a case of beer for your first jump and a case of beer when you get your A. None of the skydivers I know consider Natural Light to be beer, so you're looking at spending $25 or more per case. This does assume you're of legal age; if you're not, your fellow skydivers will be most happy to keep track for you so you can catch up when you're old enough. Welcome! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

>And no, I don't know how to make it clicky!! Type Then paste in the URL (link) Then type It will look like this when you're composing the message: --- Hey everybody! Check out this link: http://www.google.com --- Do "preview post" and you should see the URL as a clicky Then do "post reply" to make the post Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Please deposit fifty cents for the next five kilobytes. Thank you. http://www.para.co.za/docs/PASA%20Media%20Release%201%20November%202005.htm First graf: Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

The simplest probable explanation is that he didn't like it. But something else - as I understand it, most US military jump training is static line from maybe 1000 feet or so. Not a whole lot of time to do different body positions, or just enjoy the view - or to get under your reserve, for that matter. Or maybe one of his buddies got hurt jumping. Not that it makes a lot of difference, but it might explain the reaction. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I'm in my early 30s. When I got out of high school, I started going to college for an engineering degree. Three semesters into it, I figured out that I didn't really want to do that. I took one semester off, then went back to college and got a comp sci degree. Every "real job" (i.e., comes with insurance and/or pays enough money to make a serious dent in the rent/mortgage/bills) that I've had for the past ten years has been as a result of having that degree. One thing I noticed, particularly after I switched to the comp sci degree, is that there were some people that really seemed to be struggling. In talking to a few of them, one thing seemed to be common: they had decided on the comp sci degree by looking at some list of "Degrees that will make you a lot of money" and picking one. They didn't really care about computers one way or the other - they just wanted the cash - so they couldn't bring themselves to really get into the studies. The people (like me) who had been playing with computers since they were in grade school and who would probably play with computers whether they were getting paid or not seemed to do a lot better in the program. Since then, I have worked at a different university as an adjunct professor and I see the same thing. I mostly work with mechanical engineering students and the ones that swap car engines on the weekends for fun seem to do better at it than the people that are there only because "engineering == big bucks". My "standard" advice to somebody just out of high school or early in college is to figure out what you _really_ want to do, and study that in college. Sometimes you think you want to do something, then you start to study it and figure out you really don't like it - when that happens it's OK to change your major. Over half of the college graduates I know didn't get a degree in the same thing they were majoring in when they started college. Changing your major twelve times is probably not a really good idea, but changing it once, twice, or maybe even three times can work. Something else. When I was in college, the placement office would give seminars on how to write up and send out your resume and things like that. One of the things they said is that whenever a company places a job ad, they'll get a huge stack of resumes, and they have to filter it down somehow. I sort of believed this, but I never experienced it for myself until a year or so ago. The small company I was working for needed to hire someone for a fairly specialized technical position. The ad ran once in the paper on Sunday. The salary wasn't in the ad, but anybody doing some basic web searches would have figured out that it was a small company and probably not able to be completely competitive with some of the "big name" companies in town. Despite all that, we got a stack of like 25 resumes. My boss looked through them and handed the whole stack to me, because I understood a little better what kind of skills the company was looking for. I didn't filter by degree; I went through the whole stack and tried to see who had relevant experience. On the other hand, my boss made it clear that I could take my time to do that; he wasn't expecting quick answers. Once I read through that, I could see how some HR person at a large company could put out an ad for an entry-level job, get a stack of 100 resumes, and either spend a week going through them all, or figure out a way to get rid of some of them. Having a degree or not is a quick way to do that, since that's usually prominently shown on a resume. Something else that has already been mentioned: the "f-ck you" fund. This is absolutely the right thing to do IMHO. Once you're working, as soon as you can, get some money stashed back that's enough to live on for a few months. Usually this will be at least a few thousand dollars. Don't spend this pile of money on a new rig or on a Vegas weekend with lots of hookers and beer or whatever. Just keep it in the bank, maybe in a CD or similar. At some point in your working life, you'll probably get into a job that isn't exactly what you want, but the people there will try to force unreasonable things on you, because they believe that you _have_ to work there. They'll try to convince you that if you pull that cutaway, you're gonna die. When you do pull it and fall away, they'll say, "See!!!" Then you pull the reserve money (that they didn't know about) and float on down. The look on their faces when this happens is really great - try to get video. In a further analogy with jumping, if you find yourself pulling the reserve money handle often, you might need to sit down and consider why that is. But pulling it only when you _really_ need it can save your sanity and is usually fun as well. I hope this helps! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I think so. After I got home on my second or third weekend of jumping, the other half asked, "So, how's the skydiving going?" I just sort of looked myself up and down, stretched my arms, wiggled my fingers, and said, "Apparently, pretty good!" :) Have you told any of your co-workers that you're jumping? A couple of weekends ago, I was waiting to get on a load and talked to a lady who was getting ready to do a tandem. She volunteered that her brother (a firefighter) and some of his co-workers were supposed to come out and do tandems with her, but as Saturday approached, they all called to cancel, so she came by herself. Right after she jumped she called him and gave him a hard time about it. Welcome! Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Go watch some nature films about peregrine falcons. You'll quickly get ideas on ways to further reduce your grocery bill AND skydive at the same time! :) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Start at http://www.dropzone.com/dropzone/ ; it probably doesn't have every dropzone in the world and some of them it does have are closed, but it should be pretty close. Use the "Browse by world region" box to get the numbers you are after. There are 789 DZs total if I do the math right. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

First thought: I want to see how this is done. Second thought: Will this help avoid a nut-under malfunction? Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I've watched another jumper do this a couple of times off of the 182. One time, another jumper who was still in the plane was videoing it, so the guy on the wing made sure to look back into the door and geek the camera. He then started looking at each one of us in turn. The pilot had turned to look too, and when they made eye contact, the pilot developed a very BIG grin and smoothly, but quickly, tweaked the yoke. The jumper gave the pilot a dirty look as he fell away. :) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

My entire skydiving career (all 34 jumps of it) has been out of the same 1959 182B. It's been stripped for jumping; only the pilot gets a seat, but there are seat belts and padding on the floor. I usually sit behind the pilot, facing the rear - pilots vary on if they want me to use their seat as a backrest or not. 10K to 11K is pretty normal depending on how many jumpers and how hot it is outside. I did get to go to 12.5K in it once when it was just me and one other jumper on the first load of the day. I don't know how common this is on 182 jump planes, but ours does have a step on it - a metal plate that's clamped to the strut at one end and hangs out over the tire on the other. On the ground it clears the tire by an inch or so; in the air, when you step on it, the far end is supported by the tire. One of our pilots installs a glass cockpit upgrade when he flies. OK, that sounds more impressive than a Garmin GPS attached to the yoke with Velcro. :) Once this summer, a jumper managed to bang his head into the side window on the ride up and knock it out of the frame. I thought that might be it for the day but they tried another load and found that it really wasn't that windy inside, so we kept jumping. My "big plane" experience so far has been limited to visiting a DZ that had a Twin Otter. It was in the air when I got there and I didn't know what they had. Manifest started to call the next load and she kept on going after the fourth name and I thought, "can you DO that?" (I got there late in the day and didn't end up making a load.) I've also been reading threads here about waiting for the "green light" and having trouble talking to the pilot, and I thought, "What? The pilot is right next to you; can't you just turn your head and talk to him?" The DZO lusts after a '65 or newer 182. Apparently the body is wider, and so is the engine cowl, so it's possible to install a slightly bigger engine and get to altitude faster. If he gets one, I think he might add the wing extensions as well - ours doesn't have them but I have seen a 182 with them fitted. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

For those of us (anyone? Bueller?) that don't have or don't do Word, here's the same thing in PDF and PNG. I don't have much else to add; my goal right now is to _stop_ doing RW, as this means that I won't have an instructor hanging on to me anymore. :) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Personally? Nothing yet. A couple of jumpers I know llost their wigs on an Elvis jump. The one that didn't lose his had secured it with a small bungee cord under his chin. Someone else I know "lost" a complete rig. He knew where it was, but he couldn't get at it. Eventually the judge made the Park Service give it back. :) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

What I have done for some of my jumps is to log the vital statistics (date, place, altitude, etc) and a basic description in the paper log book, and then to do a fuller write-up on the jump on my laptop. When I save these, the file name is the jump number, so I can reference the jumps back and forth. Right now they are just text files; I have thought of doing something fancier like a spreadsheet or database but I haven't gotten a round tuit yet. Looking at my last several jumps, this is what is in the paper logbook: jump number, date, place, aircraft type ("C182"), equipment ("Acme 250"), altitude, delay/total time, maneuver, description And on the computer: date, place, tail number, names of others on the jump, parachute number *, which jumpsuit *, who the pilot was, time of day, narrative of jump * Since I don't have my own rig or suit yet, I always get one of the DZ's and I like to note which one I got. If nothing else, I write down the vital statistics in the log book right after each jump. If I plan to write the extended description on the computer, I try to do it that same day, preferably before I've had too many beers - I forget too much detail if I try to do it the next day. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I don't think she has an account here (if she does I don't know what it is) but the better half of the DZO at the place where I jump is going out there. We were talking about costume ideas at the DZ a few weeks ago, but I don't know what she finally decided on. I told her about the campground but she is going to stay with some tunnel rat out there, I think. :) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I finally ground off the corners on one of my square tuits and tried it at work - Firefox 1.0.6 + User Agent Switcher on XP Pro - and, as expected, it didn't work. Waah. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I wonder if you could rig up a small SCUBA bottle and regulator to give the saw a constant intake air pressure so it would run. Another way... You'd need a jumper that could fly with about 25 to 30 pounds of extra weight, reasonably distributed on his or her body. The chainsaw would also have to have a universal (brush-type) motor. I figure 80 D-cells would run a typical chainsaw for at least a couple of minutes. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I did, thanks! Have you jumped a round yet? Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

http://60sjumper.skydiveworld.com/altus.htm mentions snakes, dogs, cats, a pig, lawn chairs, hamburgers, etc. I thought I read the following at the above site, but I couldn't find it. It was something like, "Back then we could drink beer on the ride to altitude, but only the pilot was allowed to throw his cans out the window." Yesterday I was working with pipe and vinyl hoses (engineering project). When I first read the above, I understood "tube" as "device to convey liquid" and wondered if you thought milk tasted better in freefall or were trying to get a milkshake or something. Then I saw the part about the cow being dead and figured it out. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.