Eule

Buy a regular ticket and ask if you can bring your "backpack". At altitude, say "Screw this, it's too scary" and put on the rig and jump. :) Seriously... Call some places that advertise 2 way rides and ask. I imagine the balloon operators are somewhat of a tight-knit group, sort of like dropzones, and if the one you call first doesn't do it they might know someone who will. You might also ask in the "events and places to jump" forum. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I used to. It was kind of fun seeing the guy I used to work for get sent to the big house for 25 years. :) I am still on student status myself, and have only ever jumped at one dropzone (and one wind tunnel), so discount my advice appropriately. I think that you can make it a good thing but it will take a little more work than just doing all your student stuff at one place. Plan on spending some time at the new dropzone talking to an instructor about where you are at in your training. Your log book is supposed to do all this but talking it out with them may be more helpful. Also, many instructors know how to operate telephones and computers... maybe having your new instructor get in touch with your previous one would be useful. (And if they don't know how to operate a telephone, you can show them.) At the new dropzone, be up front with them that your job situation might result in you disappearing on short notice. It's not a problem, but they can then make sure it's a bit easier for you to switch if you have to. For instance, after one of my student jumps, my instructor wrote a relatively short entry in my log book. The next day he asked if he could write a little more about that jump, since he was concerned that if I went somewhere else, the short description would be incomplete or confusing to anyone besides me and him. Eule

I haven't done this yet, but: I have a ham license and I've pondered taking a radio with me. I might do a hop-n-pop from 11K just to see how far I can talk on a 5 watt handheld, having pre-arranged for some others on the ground to be listening. Or, strap a repeater to myself and let pairs of people on the ground talk to each other over much longer distances than normal while I'm in free fall. Of course, I need to get a few more jumps in before I start fiddling with extra hardware on the jump. Eule

The internal combustion engine is the worst thing you could ever use to propel an aircraft, except for pretty much everything else that's been tried. Like darkwing said, it's all about the energy density. In non-technical terms, batteries weigh a shitload. From http://www.tinaja.com/glib/energfun.pdf : Here are a few common... ENERGY DENSITY COMPARISONS Gasoline 9000 Wh/l 13,500 Wh/Kg LNG 7216 Wh/l 12,100 Wh/Kg Propane 6600 Wh/l 13,900 Wh/Kg Ethanol 6100 WH/l 7,850 Wh/Kg Liquid H2 2600 Wh/l 39,000 Wh/Kg (uncontained) 150 Bar H2 405 WH/l 39,000 Wh/Kg (uncontained) Lithium 250 Wh/l 350 Wh/Kg Flywheel 210 Wh/l 120 Wh/Kg Liquid N2 65 Wh/l 55 Wh/Kg Lead Acid 40 Wh/l 25 Wh/Kg Compr Air 17 Wh/l 34 Wh/Kg STP H2 2.7 Wh/l 39,000 Wh/Kg (uncontained) In practical terms, 50 gallons of 100LL weighs about 300 pounds and has about 1.8 megawatt-hours of chemical energy. The engine throws away something like two-thirds of that, so you actually put about 610 kilowatt-hours into the prop. If you wanted to replace that with an electric motor and batteries, the electric motor would probably be a little lighter than the gasoline engine. The motor, controller, and wiring will be something like 85% efficient, so to put 610 kilowatt-hours into the prop, you need about 720 kilowatt-hours from the batteries. If you used high-dollar lithium batteries, you'd need around 4500 pounds of batteries. If you used plain old lead-acid batteries, you'd need about 63,000 pounds of batteries. My personal opinion, speaking only for myself, is that elemental hydrogen is bogus. If gasoline goes up to one hundred times its current price, hydrogen might be useful, but other than that it's not too great. Nukes won't help aircraft much, but they might make a comeback for feeding the power grid. We have to do something intelligent with the waste, though. Possibly. I think you'd probably see some mix of biodiesel (veggie oil) and petrodiesel (from crude oil), or at least some additives to the biodiesel to help out at low temperatures. Biodiesel thickens up at higher temperatures than petrodiesel. In cars that run BD100 (100% biodiesel), this is handled one of two ways. When you start up in the morning, you can use a small electric heater to melt a bit of the veggie oil enough so that it can be pumped to the engine. Once you're off and running, the waste heat from the engine (coolant/exhaust) is enough to keep the fuel liquid. The other way is to have a little tank of petrodiesel. Right before you shut the engine down, you switch to the petrodiesel tank and let the engine run for a bit until the lines are full of petrodiesel. Then you shut down. When you come back, you run on petrodiesel until the waste heat has warmed up the biodiesel tank, then you switch back to biodesel. Some people just "cut" their petrodiesel with varying amounts of biodiesel - BD20 (20% bio, 80% petro) seems to be popular. This mix avoids some of the gelling problems, so you don't have to install special hardware on the car. It's not pure renewable, but it makes the nonrenewable stuff go further. The low-temperature problem is worse for jets, because they fly through colder air than most cars ever see. And yes, when a vehicle is running fuel with enough biodiesel in it, the exhaust does smell like French fries or a chip shop. In general, the link I gave above is interesting reading on the basics of energy sources, both for transportation and in general. I don't agree with all of the opinions in it but the facts are pretty sound, I think. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

The dictionary.com snips posted already are from old versions of the Jargon File. news:alt.usage.english can also be a useful place to look for etymologies: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/browse_thread/thread/4a6207c5238ee2e3/ This thread cites a reference to the mid-1970s in Canada: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/browse_thread/thread/67ac0d6c01c30207/ The web site for alt.usage.english might also give you some pointers. Before I ever went to a DZ, I was aware of "swoop" meaning approximately "to fly a canopy horizontally fairly close to the ground". But at the DZ, it was also used to mean "stolen." For instance, after the beer light, Andy leaves the BS session to go to the restroom. Chris comes out of the other room and sits in the chair Andy was sitting in. Andy comes back and says "Hey, you swooped my chair!" Maybe everybody else knows this, but it was the first time I'd heard it. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Update: Today (Tuesday 6 September) it was back down to about US$2.95/gal. I don't know what the FBO at the DZ airport was doing this weekend, but the pilot is a flight instructor at a local university and he said 100LL hadn't gone up more than a few cents. He remarked that avgas was actually cheaper than mogas, which doesn't happen very often. I didn't hear anybody at the DZ gritching about jump tickets going up, so I don't think they did. (I'm a problem child, still going through AFF, so my jump tickets have a little more margin in them, I think.) For non-US readers: It's normal for our gas prices to go up by 5 or 10% around the Labor Day holiday - it's a three-day weekend and lots of people go out of town. (Labor Day was 5 Sep this year.) The prices come back down fairly quickly in the week after the holiday. This year it went up more than that, but the "normal" holiday increase is making the overall increase look worse. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Since I recently started jumping, I say about the same thing to friends and acquaintances who have just found out that I'm jumping. It usually goes something like this... Them: You're _crazy_, man! Whuffo you jump out of [you know the rest...] Me: (explains it a little bit) Them: I still think you're crazy... Hey, I saw some guys on TV jumping off of a cliff and then landing with a parachute, are you ever gonna do that? Me: Yeah! That's BASE jumping. I'd never do that. BASE people are crazy. Them: (mind boggles) Seriously - at this point, I would like to see some BASE jumps in person, from different angles ("exit" point, landing area, off to the side) but I don't think I want to do it -- disregarding the fact that I have way not enough "regular" jumps to even think about it. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Does the tape run and just play snow, or does it refuse to run, or is there a broken end dangling out, or ? If it's just the outer casing that's warped, you might be able to swap the reels into a new casing. Buy a pack of cheap new tapes. Record an hour of random TV on one of them, then practice taking the tape apart (most of them are held together with screws, not glued) and putting it back together and watching it to make sure you did it right. Once you can do this without having too many parts left over or tape all over your kitchen, try swapping the reels from one of the broken tapes into a new housing. See http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/sam/vcrrx.htm#vxrdb for more detail. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I'm still a newbie but I'm going about it like Peej said. I wear eyeglasses so I have to use the big goggles that fit over them. The DZ I jump at has a couple of pairs of the "big" goggles, and I had my favorite ones that were the least beat up. For the first several weekends I could get these on every jump since nobody else needed them. Then one weekend someone else that wore eyeglasses used the "good" pair of big goggles right before I did, and they were sweaty and funky when I picked them up. So I bought my own pair. :) The only other thing I've bought is a logbook cover, after a near-fatal McDonalds attack on my logbook. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

They forgot to mount a scratch monkey? Eule

120mph terminal velocity at -12F is like -60F wind chill factor. -9 Celsius. +16 Fahrenheit at today's exchange rate. -12 C is +11 F. The automagic calculator at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/windchill/index.shtml only goes up to 109 MPH, but the formula is handily provided. breaks out HP48SX +11 F at 120 MPH is a wind chill of -25 F (-32 C). +16 F at 120 MPH is a wind chill of -17 F (-27 C). The "frostbite time" bands don't have a formula, but at 60 MPH, wind chills of -19 F to -26 F take 30 minutes for frostbite. Therefore I conclude that CJK still has most of his fingers and is not typing with his nose. drop drop right-shift on Eule

What is this "jeta" of which you speak? Is that something for the funny airplanes that don't have the spinny things on the front? No worries at the DZ I jump at. The DZO may recruit a few more of us than usual to help wind the big rubber band really tight so we can get more altitude, but other than that it's business as usual. Some real data: Last Friday (26 August), car gas was selling for about US$2.50/gal . The FBO at the airport I jump at was selling 100LL for US$3.25/gal. By Monday 29 August, car gas was up to about US$2.70/gal, Wednesday 31 August US$2.90/gal, Friday 2 August US$3.20/gal. I don't have an updated price for 100LL, but since it was running about US$0.75/gal more than mogas, I wouldn't be surpised to find it in the neighborhood of US$3.95/gal on Saturday 3 September. On the other hand, the FBOs at the big general aviation airport here in Tulsa (KRVS) are still advertising US$3.28/gal 100LL on AirNav and both are "guaranteed" for whatever that's worth. For those in other parts of the world: at Friday's exchange rates, US$2.50/gal is about 39 UK pence/liter, 53 Euro cents/liter, or 86 Oz cents/liter. US$3.20/gal is about 46 UK pence/liter, 67 Euro cents/liter, or Oz $1.11/liter. I read a BBC story in the past few days that "one pound per liter" is the next psychologically important price being approached there; this is equivalent to around US$6.50/gallon (!). Eule

I don't understand this picture. There are supposed to be two rows of three things with big fins right behind the spinny thing. Is that part off to the right of the picture? Looks like it's not quite housebroken yet. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Won't work. http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/nogas.asp http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/gasout.asp Some other popular but useless things that will shortly get heavily promoted once again are magnets that go around your fuel line and little propellers that go in your air intake. If you really want to save money on gas, try this: - Put some air in your tires! Around 80% of the cars in the United States are running underinflated tires. Look in the glove box or door jamb for a sticker, or in the owner's manual, for what your tire pressures should be. Note that the number molded into the side of your tire (generally 35, 44, or 50 PSI) is the maximum the _tire_ can take, not necessarily what is good for your car. If you put all four tires up to the maximum molded into the tire, at best you'll get a really rough ride and at worst you'll make your car handle dangerously badly. The "chrome pen" tire gauges are not too accurate; most of the round dial ones are better. The digital ones are great and aren't that expensive ($10). Don't forget to check the spare, too. - Remove all extra junk from your car. Some people even go so far as to get an AAA membership and leave the spare and jack out, at least when driving in town. On a trip, have the spare with you. - Get a tune-up. On many newer cars, this isn't much more than changing the filters, spark plugs, and spark plug wires, but it can help. If your car has over about 75,000 miles, consider changing the oxygen sensor - about $40 to $80 for the part, plus labor (or do it yourself). If your car has grease fittings, put grease in them. Repack the wheel bearings if they're not sealed. - Many people think that there is a light installed in the dash that says "check engine" and when it comes on, it means "Your car is old" and the proper action is to keep driving. What this light is trying to tell you is that something is broken in the fuel system or emission control system of your engine. Depending on why it's on, fixing the problem that turned it on can improve your gas mileage considerably. Some auto parts stores will scan the trouble codes for free (in hopes of selling you a part). There are some larger changes you can make, too, like driving less or carpooling, that are less popular but will also save gas. When it's time to buy your next car, you get a chance to set your fuel costs for the next several years. If you're a farmer or a plumber or something like that, you _need_ that 3/4 ton truck to do your job. If you haul your boat to and from the lake once a year, buy a Malibu or Accord or whatever and rent a truck the two times a year you need it. Test-drive a Prius or an Escape hybrid. If your next car is a little farther out, we will hopefully see an influx of "real cars" that seat 4 or 5 people yet get 40-50 mpg in about 2007 or 2008. These have a regular engine and aren't hybrids. They are diesels. This is not your father's 1981 Chevrolet 350 diesel that smoked and rattled and broke the crankshaft in half. This is a 4 cylinder turbodiesel that drives and accelerates like a gas-engined car and doesn't rattle and smoke. The reason why these are a few years out is that it's going to take another year or so for the legal sulfur content in US diesel fuel to drop enough to make these engines work - the exhaust treatment they do to avoid smoke won't work with high-sulfur diesel. These cars are already built and selling in Europe; they are basically waiting on the fuel to change to come to the US. Further out, we may get diesel hybrids, which can get really insane fuel mileage (60-70 mpg) in a "real car". At least I can keep an eye on the oil supply when I'm at the DZ. If you buy gas in the 48 states, there's a fairly good chance that the gas or the crude to make it was at some point next door to or under the DZ I jump at. http://www.terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=13&Z=14&X=439&Y=2487&W=3 Eule

I've got 25 jumps, but I still need to get back to you on that. :) I have heard of people taking over 50 to do AFF and I know someone that took over 90 on static line, so I don't feel too bad yet. So far, my more recent jumps have been better, as I have learned to relax more and not turn when I don't want to. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

When I was in high school, one of my friends moved to a new house close to the local airport, which often had jumpers in the evenings. We'd watch them come down from the back yard, or I'd pull over and watch them come down when I was driving to his house. I thought it was cool and something that would be fun to try someday. I saw the Golden Knights a couple of times at airshows and thought it was cool and would be fun to try someday. On various trips (family vacations, then business trips) over the years, I'd see ads or brochures for tandems and think it would be fun to try someday. I saw some of the popular movies that have skydiving sequences, but that didn't seem to inspire me as much as actually seeing jumpers in person or thinking about doing it myself. For reasons unknown, I started thinking about it again earlier this spring. In May, I quit my day-time job and subsequently got into a "what the hell" mindset. I started reading on the net and got a copy of Poynter and Turoff's book. I found out about wingsuits and thought it would be really cool to fly one, but figured out that I'd need a bunch of "regular" jumps before that, which would also be fun to do. After learning about it, I figured there wasn't any reason not to jump. I deicded I'd try to get some people to talk me out of it, in case my logic was faulty. I asked about it on a mailing list I'm on and didn't find any jumpers; I asked about it in another forum and got iinteresting arguments about safety, which is what I wanted, and found one jumper. I told a couple of my good friends about it during a Memorial Day campout, and they didn't talk me out of it either. After procrastinating a bit, I made an appointment, took the class, and did my AFF 1 on 11 June. It's taking me just a few more than 7 jumps to get through it, but I'm gonna get through it. Eule

This is starting to go away, but: fear of the door when it's not me in it. On many of my jumps, there has been an accuracy jumper getting out at 4K before we go to 11K, or an experienced jumper getting out at 11K before the plane circles around again and I get out. I used to keep my seat belt fastened as long as I could, and hang onto the inside of the plane when the door was open for the other jumpers. Once it's me by the door and it comes open, I'm not worried about it - I look for the spot (if needed) and climb right out. On the last few jumps, I've been unfastening my seat belt as we pass 1K, and not hanging onto the plane when the door is open for the other jumpers. After that, it's probably performance anxiety - fear of screwing up. I am still fighting this one, although I am starting to get more moments of being able to relax and feel everything get real smooth in freefall. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I've gotten a few of these lately and have been pondering them. One thing to watch out for if trying this is a balance transfer fee. Usually it is some percentage of the balance transfer amount, and has a max and a min (like: fee is 5% of amount transferred, $25 min, $500 max). Very occasionally, the offer will say "no fee on transfers with this offer", but usually it is silent on this point and you have to look at the disclosure box on the back of the letter to find out about the fee. If the fee is small enough against the cost of a rig, you might still come out ahead to take advantage of 0% money, but you should find out about it before you buy. Also, if the 0% only applies to transfers, you could always charge the rig on your current card and then transfer that balance to the new one immediately. This requires a good understanding of your billing cycle and faith that the 0% card will send the check to your current card in a timely manner, to get out of paying a month or two of interest on your current card. If you're especially paranoid, or have a credit card with Chase (f*ckers), you might want to send your payments registered mail, return receipt requested, about two weeks ahead of time. I got rid of a Chase card because the payments that I sent in a couple of weeks early were "late" for enough months in a row to trigger an interest rate increase to something stupid. They later got spanked in a class-action lawsuit for this practice. Somewhat related - as of Thursday, everybody in the United States will be able to get a free copy of their credit report once a year, per federal law. It was rolled out in stages and the east coast is the last to get it, on 1 September. I didn't find any surprises on mine, but some people have found surprises on theirs. https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp In an attempt to be somewhat on topic, I will note that it was manifest at the DZ I go to that mentioned this to me - she works at a bank. Eule

#211 on the Turner Turnpike, which is where I turn off to go to the DZ. Oh, you mean out of the plane. Not enough experience yet. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

I'm not in the service, but a guy that got his A license this weekend at the DZ I go to is in the Air Force. I asked him if there is any sport jumping in the AF or if it's all "business" and he said it's almost all business. I am not sure where he is stationed but given the DZ location it almost has to be Tinker or Altus. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

90% of _everything_ is crud. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_Law :) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Problem: rec.skydiving consists of three people flaming each other. I like the dropzone.com _content_, but I'm not wild about the _interface_ . Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Usenet was designed for forums 15 years before forums were cool! http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1764476 :) Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Hello! I am wondering about including some kind of delimiter between the message typed by the user and his or her signature. Some people don't have a horiztontal rule or a couple of hard returns at the beginning of their signatures, so when I read their messages, I keep on reading into the signature and I then wonder why the last few words don't go with the rest of the post. A few people probably use the lack of a delimiter to their advantage - if their sig is something like "\n\nJ. Random User", they can include it as-is and avoid having to manually "sign" the message. Maybe the default would be to include a horizontal rule, which a user could then unset in his or her profile. Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

Hello! I've noticed a couple of grammar things on the main forum page, http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi . a) The Dropzone.com Gear and Rigging... -or- b) Discuss any gear related questions and issues here. Ask about gear... ...our own mistakes and honor those people... ...and sharing information and feedback... Eule PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.