Trae

In reply to " Help us out. Could you point to the two cases you think are the best examples?" .......................... The waiver got beat in Australia in the mid 90's but the decision was over-ruled on appeal.

In reply to "how about air-to-air combat with other wingsuits? " .......................... Paint ball wingsuit combat ....white suits ...twin hitters......arright Shrage musac (pardon spells) ? Rodeo gunners?

in reply to "just very hesitant out of nowhere..help me... " ....................... Sometimes fear is worth listening to. If it's that bad perhaps you should take a look at the people you're jumping with. Do you trust the instructors? does the gear look good? Are you being treated well at the DZ? eg are people friendly or is it like death warmed up? Some warped skydivers delight in scaring the bejeezers out of students/novices. This can seriously affect a persons feelings of being in safe hands. If this is the case then perhaps you should hunt around a bit and find a DZ more professional where the intructors and skydivers present exude more of a sense of trust and responsibility. If it's more your own created anxiety just be careful that you don't put yourself into a situation beyond your control. Long slow breaths can help and positive affirmations also have their place. If you can , look out the window a lot on the climb to height . It's often (always ) beautiful out there and looking at the ground gets you orientated and can help you adjust to what you're about to do. Do you get anxious crossing a busy road.? .. perhaps not . This is heaps more dangerous than skydiving. perhaps you can get your confidence up by doing this but hey be careful

There's quite a few cases if you dig for them...nice an hidden in this sport due to obvious vested interests. no-one wants the blame for killing some-one through gross negligence (not much better than murder)....avoiding the large compensation payments kinda get their interest. This is one of THE most unpopular things in skydiving ...especially for the negligent persons and their support networks. Talk about wanting to keep it quiet. The odd false hero is lurking hoping no-one finds out that they were responsible for yet another persons death ...eg just because they were in a hurry to get to the bar. eg just because they wouldn't pay the extra for decent maintenance eg just because they didn't really know what they were doing. Trying to pin down people that specialise in blaming others for their own negligence can be tricky ....slimy beggars. Blame the dead ones ......... too easy. Tricking whoufos and star blinded skydivers about the reality of fatal incidents is also just too easy.

in reply to "How to encourage it?" ........................ Put a woman in there first and watch the guys turn up to buffet.

in reply to "If the airspeed were also variable, you could even fly a canopy in such a tunnel. " ................................ yes please. Perhaps some sort of open slope/ramp could be used . This could even be combined with the type of vertical tunnel that discharges upwards.(the vertical freefall simulator bit may need to be underground) The 'wasted' air blast could be directed across an adjustable shaped slope. One setting for wingsuits ...another for canopies. With slope soaring you sometimes get to sit in a fairly small pocket of lift. Sometimes what creates the lift is only a smallish rise. If you move away from this lift you fly out and down (usually ) if the slope was shaped right it wouldn't matter if you flew out of the lift as you could just fall/fly down on to the prepared landing slope.

inreply to "Long term tip of the week; Bio fuels & fuel cells baby! ' ................. Where did all the car and trucks and people go? I've been pedalling down this road for months now and can't find a single person around....just all these abandoned vehichles and open houses.... with little dogs running out occassionally. heaps of food though ..not hungry... just getting lonely . if I keep pedalling surely I'll end up finding some-one somewhere.....not like last time ..............

in reply to "I don't think that would happen. Simpler is better. " It might BE simple if it was designed simple. in reply to "Are you going to basejump some quasi hybrid skydiving container? I doubt anybody else will. " ........................ If it worked well sure I would. The future is a VERY big place.

on the subject of stats...... .....has any-one ever worked out the statistically most dangerous DZ's to jump at.? and when it was most dangerous? eg Sunday morning or after big parties. Over the years some DZ's have had what appeared to be little spates (spats?) of fatalities. From direct experience this could often be put down to a new influx of jumpers/instructors/pace setters that repeated the same old mistakes that they didn't know had already happened. This was often when they didn't/wouldn't /couldn't listen to people that had already learnt the hard lessons. One trend I've noticed is that at some DZ's they don't get the fatality rate down until a bit of a spate makes everyone more safety conscious. eg's of this can be painful to friends of the deceased and some people just don't seem to be able to separate their emotions enough to actually learn something from their friends death. Then it may repeat itself until the lesson is learnt.

Recommendation Absolute minimum interference with the passenger. It is often their only skydiving experience and don't need a touchy feely pilot.

in reply to "My second reason for not doing that my resources are limited I don't think I'm going to have 3 rigs in the same time. Like a skydiving rig, main ZP150 or smaller, a hybrid Vector3 with skyhook and base canopy + a base rig ,even main shared with the previous. " ..................... Perhaps in the future the gear manufacturers will recognise this problem and make rigs that are more versatile so we don't have to buy so much stuff . eg a modular rig that could be altered as required..... so the same harness/container could be used for base as well as skydiving. This could reduce the gear requirements to 3 canopies (or two if you don't mind a slower canopy) and 1 container / harness .

in reply to "A couple of high ones. I'll post some more pics one of these days. " ................................ more perfection ................ nah too obvious now rl ruined it for me. the high pics will still be good

in reply to "Makes me want to walk on over there when I land and hand him a nice warm cup of my FIST! " ..................... Hopefully you've got a good buddy or two that will do unto others as they have done unto you .........IF they take you out.

in reply to "You must have been kidding. Its a really bad idea. ' Not kidding .this is a thread about possible future advancements.. Just done the math so it turns out the same/similar as some freefallers already experience quite legally and as recommended by many skydiving bodies around the world. I also said ..NOT really recommending it. Just talking about it ......as in a discussion. I like dumping way higher myself cause I like flying my moderately loaded canopy around.

Apparently this thing is more like a mine ( eg claymore ) or area saturation device. The scary version .... loaded to fire downwards from aircraft flying over head. Area saturation end result. Hide deep.. take O2 .... stay there.

Not mega death but try this...... WAKE UP DEAD. You/we are already dead ....we just don't know it yet When you finally realise that we're all as dead as dead can be you'll wake up ALIVE..... agin Heaven and hell are right next door to each other.

in reply to "Few DZOs will tolerate opening much below USPA recommendations. ' .................... yep and a good thing too... for most of us. However if the gear is designed to be use specific as in the skyhooked base canopy rig I'm wondering what would be acceptable seeing that it is quite different to plunging vertically down at 120mph+? under canopy by 1800' in SD is acceptable even though it's only about 10 seconds of the deck. Riding a mal to say 1400' (3sec high speed mal ) before initiating EPs has most reserves out by 1000'....still 5secs(approx) from impact. if this same margin for error was translated to WS/base-canopy/skyhook then a switched on WSer could happily dump at about 1600'-1700'.....if they were real quick on the EP trigger. Some would go a lot lower if the margin for error was minimised or removed . Not really recommending this but ......????

That's one fun loooking gadget..... but it's very different from the take -off and fly across the tree tops item I saw (only on film ) It had the pilot standing up and leaning to direct it. + multi jet support ...no wings. So what hapened to the switch-blade?

in reply to "how embarrassing would that be to get shot down by a silent skyray flyer? " ................. It'd hurt just as much. years ago I saw some footage of a gadget as big as a 44gallon drum powered by jets that took off and flew at high speed over long distances ..carrying one person. Apparently gyro stabilised . After a couple of decades of developement that same gadget would probably look like a UFO to our eyes. talk about hush ..nothing to be found about this now. The HP Skyray would be like it's retarded little brother.

in reply to "Is it just me or is this really absurd? " ........................ More like cheap and nasty than absurd. Bit like charging more to use newer more up to date student gear rather than the shabby ol' rig in the corner. This reeks of irresponsible greed . The student has a right to have any equipment provided to ensure a reasonable standard of training. Blaming the student as a slow learner or such is just more of the 'blame the student" to cover up for instructing inadequacy syndrome.

Sooo we're made of mathematics after all. not stardust and rainbows.

Some shots of this SkyRay on roids would be

100km in a modded Skyray with no motor and only using gravity would be some major achievment. Seeing what other info is available in the world of military aviation a bit of chatter here would be no big deal.

After a bump on the head it took years before the docs let me stop taking dilantin. They'd diagnosed me as probable and were covering their bets. Fear of a life on medication got me up and going again... that and a pet dog that i had to exercise every day. After countless tests and heaps of different docs I was set loose . I had only suffered seizures shortly after my injuries due to extra dural haematoma. Since then I've hardly even had a head ache bar some minor exceptions. I feel so lucky and humbled by the circs of people that post here. You guys are fantastic ....and deserve to have your dreams come true. All power to you .. may the gods of healing shine on you all.

in reply to "The entire trilogy from Jackson is PERFECT, and He is such an awesome and skilled director that it would be hard to imagine him ever making a mistake. He did not need New Line Entertainment to correct mistakes that he never made. " ...................... After the first movie I wanted to live in middle earth in perpetual elfdom. By the end of the third one I would have been happy to see the orcs win. PS without getting personal or any thing I'm wondering if some responses are reminiscent of the Roman games crowd when their fave gladiator refused to slaughterl any more unarmed christians? Could be a race memory just sneaking out.