jtlmd

God almighty, what a tale.

Shifting the discussion from the original question of Does A Baglock Stand You Up is an unwitting example of the old aphorism, "If you cannot prove X, then prove Y and pretend it is the same thing".

Hmmm....not too hard to guess who this mystery person is. JTL

This video service is excellent. I wonder what it costs for the little DZ here to be able to do this. JT Lee Minnesota

Good point. I was not envisioning a six-foot rope connecting the cell phone to one's ankle. Nonetheless, you have made the ultimate wise suggestion: no telephonic shenanigans while airborne--period.

Yes, or an anti-miracle depending on semantics.

Looks like I will have to buy a sports bra or else figure out how to put a cell phone inside my boxer shorts. That means installing another zipper separate from the main zipper on jump suit also. After reviewing FAR 91.15, I still think a lanyard is a darn good idea for keeping the damn phone "on board" at all times after you unstow it from its secret place in the bra. Especially so given that, in the rare event of "bombs away", the source of the missile would be exactly traced to you. This assumes that some farmer gets hit in the head by the cell phone, etc. admittedly low likelihood but not zero. JTL

As for the "phone call while under canopy" I presume that: 1. You have some kind of lanyard attached to the cell phone or its case so that it cannot be dropped from the sky in violation of FAR whatever-it-is ? 2. You have put in the DZ phone number as a "speed dial" choice so that there is no need to fumble with gloved(?) fingers, etc. ? Good story with happy ending....

Age 63 Male Avg = 0.21

I like that adverb "uterinely". JTL

Down in Texas we always said "you'all" for the plural. It is pronounced "yawl". JTL

There is an old saying from the bomber pilots in WW Two: "....when we saw the flack coming up through the clouds, we always knew we were right over the target...".

Thanks. Very interesting looking through the many comments. Seems that many folks are confusing aortic dissection with aortic rupture. They are not the same thing by any means. I saw one comment by a poster who opined that a dissection would "kill you instantly". Not necessarily. Pretty interesting how often the word "aorta" shows up in the forum search engine output. JT Lee MD Saint Paul MN

I would be very curious to know the details of the case where someone had "the aorta torn from the heart" secondary to a hard opening. Do you have any details on this ? James T. Lee, MD Saint Paul MN

Thanks for the inside poop on "microfractures". I have never heard of that before. Just be careful in that ring--some of your guys have been killed doing stunts. I shall continue to study the Pile Driver. Looks like to me if it is not done exactly by BOTH parties, the coroner might be easing into the story. I do notice that the "victim" in the Pile Driver has his hands on the lower legs of the "attacker" so maybe this is what keeps the head from hitting the mat. Of course, the tremendous "bang" from feet landing on the surface is part of the effect I think. All due respect of course !!! What is your ring name and where can we see you on TV ? I think it is cool as hell that we have our own wrestler in the sky diving world. It will drive the non-wrestling types completely nuts.

I have enjoyed reading these comments from a warrior of the ring. I have lots of respect for the pro wrasslers because Minnesota is home to many of the greats (e.g. Baron von Raschke the Clawmaster, Adnon Al Kasie, Jumpin' Jim Brunzelle, and many many more). One thing I don't seem to understand in your comments is that part about the conventional PLF "putting the energy into your head and neck area". How is that ? Seems to me that the conventional PLF transfers the kinetic energy into the rotational movement across the back with the feet and legs of opposite side ending up "slapping the ground" at the end of the maneuver. What have I missed here ? Oh yes--one more thing. How do you guys keep from getting killed by the Pile Driver move ? Is this an optical illusion or what ? Thanks. J.T. Lee, MD St Paul MN

The student in the video I sent you had to cutaway if I recall correctly--wound em up too much.

Sent to you by email directly tonight. JTL

There must be an epidemic! The one I saw last month is on an internet site called skydive movies (?). It generated LOTS of critical comments in the feedback window about the instructor's activities during and after the student deployed while whirling like a pencil sharpener.

I have seen that video. Hard to fathom that the student was allowed to wind it up that much with no intervention by the guru. Geeking the camera was sort of like farting in church, but what would I know--I don't have 3000 jumps and I have never farted or been to church.

As a very new beginner but a long time pilot and surgeon, I could not agree more with the idea that an "eventful" AFF experience is paradoxically very valuable. There are dozens of analogies in both surgical training and aviation training. My "event" was loss of altitude awareness at the bottom end of my first AFF 3 ride. The "panic" actually was like being in a time warp--total focus on something else besides pulling and actually kind of like being hypnotized. It was highly embarrassing to have my ripcord taken to the DZ in the hands of the main side JM but I can assure you that altitude awareness was burned into my mind that morning. I believe that we were in the low threes by the time my main was fully inflated. A very experienced woman at our DZ told me that this event was one of the "best" things that can happen because it happened very early in the progression. I think she is right and so are you. JTL

Pitiful, just pitiful.

agree

Been watching for pots and pans here. None seen yet. These posts are more helpful than you know and I am sure that all of us who are new appreciate the mature and HONEST comments of the various silverbacks.

They'll be 3 points, a spot on the ground, your original spot 5000 ft above and your new spot 100 feet over. So 5000 squared + 100 squared = 25,010,000. So, the square root of 25,010,000 is 5,001. Even though you moved 100 feet up there you are only 1 foot farther from the original point on the ground in distance. I like this answer almost as much as the one about "you're all on crack" but the original question, I think, had to do with what the perception of a viewer on the ground would be (???). Because the actual distance to the falling parachute would differ by such a small amount per the calculations above, there sure could not be much optical illusion effect caused by a change in distance between observer and parachute as the parachute glides along. The one variable that was not mentioned here was that the canopy does not remain at same altitude--it is descending (assuming no brakes) at about 3:1 glide ratio. If it moved 100 feet laterally it would sink simultaneously by only about 30 feet, a minuscule part of 5000 feet, so there is no optical illusion due to the chute "getting closer" and seeming larger thereby to the ground observer. Assuming no winds at 5000 feet, at typical speeds of student canopies, about 12 mph ???, the 100 foot "lateral" movement would take about 6 seconds. I believe the ground observer standing directly under the time zero position would see a canopy at time zero and the same canopy at time zero plus 6 seconds and they would look exactly the same size. To the naked eye, there would be some appreciation of slight movement over the 6 seconds, but not much with the canopy one mile up in the sky. As the canopy got closer to earth the same 100 foot forward travel would become progressively more obvious to the ground observer. Really close to the ground (e.g. at 300 feet) a 100 foot lateral movement would look like a 100 foot lateral movement at 300 feet altitude--huge.