AndyMan

Absolutely. I'm 100% convinced that an ex-gf of mine from many moons ago had at least 3 separate distinct personailities. One of them was a child. No, the relationship didn't last much longer after that... _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I said "it's just a matter of time"... But when I do, I won't be living in a trailer on a DZ. More likely, I'll probably open a bakery, or a sandwhich shop, something like that. It's not that I don't want to work, I just want to work for myself, generating something tangible. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I such amazingly at Math... Which is really very odd, because I'm a computer geek, and excel exceptionally at computer logic. It's just that when you replace the complex grammar of programming with the rules of math... I completely clue out. It took me 3 tries to pass 12th grade high school math. Finally got it at night school... _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Is there any kind of a low battery indicator on the remote? Does the remote take recharbale batteries? _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1047691;#1047691 _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

This is largely a continuation of this thread. __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

You'll love this. The closest thing I have to a skydiving injury... I did running. Ovulsion fracture at the ankle. I did it running to the plane along the grass tarmac, I rolled my ankle. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

You needed a dremel to remove the hand strap? I haven't seen a 105 up close, but on my PC120, it was just 3 screws I could access from inside the tape compartment... For the record, while the MACK waranty sucks for many other reasons, they did not take issue with my removed hand-strap. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

If the either the coach or camera jumper hoses the exit, and colides with the student. He knocks the teeth out of the student, or worse. Student sues for costs of reconstructive dental surgery. Although, I think the biggest risk here is with first jump students, so a coach has fewer concerns then a camera jumper. For the record, I'm both a coach and a camera jumper. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Almost never. To insulate themselves from the same risk, DZ's almost entirely hire instructors as independent contractors. If instructors were employees, the DZ is responsible for how they work. If isntructors are independent contractors, then the DZ does is not responsible for what they do. Most instructors are independent contractors, not employees. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Hi there. Me again. First of all, if you get a license from the CSPA or USPA, in both cases that license will be respected from around the world, and you'll be able to show up at a DZ with either and jump without hassle. From that perspective, it really doesn't matter which you get. USPA licenses are respected in Canada, and CSPA licenses are respected in the states. However, there's an issue, and that's insurance. With membership in both the CSPA and USPA, one of the benefits of membership is called "3rd party liability insurance". This insurance covers damage that you may do while landing off the DZ. If you damage crops while landing, or a fence while walking back, this insurance covers you. As a Canadian resident, USPA insurance will not cover you while jumping in Canada. It will cover an American visiting Canada, but it won't cover a Canadian resident jumping in Canada. Likewise, CSPA won't cover an American resident jumping in the states... So, you'll need to have CSPA membership, so that you'll have CSPA insurance while jumping in Canada. When I started jumping, I was living in Toronto and would drive weekly down to a DZ in upstate New York, because they had a big plane. I was trained there jumped there mostly. When I later went to Skydive Toronto, they made me buy a CSPA membership so that I'd have insurance while jumping in Canada. From what I've seen: Instruction is very good in both countries, but some DZ's are better then others. Both CSPA and USPA are well respected internationally. Personally, the choice that I made was that I choose the DZ that I jumped at predominantly, and got ratings in that countries organization. (uspa). I maintained a membership in CSPA just for the insurance. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Two things I learned when I was at Carleton U. 1) Beer and Pizza are kinda like sex. Even when they're not so good, they're still good. 2) Never pass up an OK beer on the way to a better beer. Now that I'm out in the real world, I think skydiving needs to be added to the first, and dropzones pertain to the second. Cheers, and welcome to the sport and the forums... _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I'm as guilty as the next on choosing Windows Media as the codec of choice, largely because of its common acceptance. I'm THRILLED to see the development of an open source video codec. Surprisingly, its comming from the BBC. From Slashdot: "Need To Know this week has a piece about Dirac, a BBC R&D project to produce a video codec, which has been released as an Open Source project. From BBCi: 'Dirac is a general-purpose video codec aimed at resolutions from QCIF (180x144) to HDTV (1920x1080) progressive or interlaced... Our algorithm seems to give a two-fold reduction in bit rate over MPEG-2 for high definition video (e.g. 1920x1080 pixels), its original target application. It has been further developed to optimise it for internet streaming resolutions.'" I hope we'll see integration into Media Player and Premiere. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Very possible. ZP canopies do need to an active flare. What do I mean by an active flare? The evolution of flaring since the days of Delta Clouds is that first we started teaching a "2-stage flare", which is exactly like you describe. 1st stage is toggles to the shoulders for the plane-out, second stage is toggles to crotch for the landing. The 2-stage flare was popular for a while, then canopies evolved to needing a "3-stage" flare. The 3-stages are toggles to ears, chest, crotch. Now with the latest round of canopies (saber2, etc), the 3-stage isn't even enough. Canopies now need what I call an "active flare", which ultimately has an infinate number of stages. Canopies are now providing enonugh feedback that the pilot should be using the full range of points on the canopy to get them the best landing. This only comes through trial and error. Yes, do start with a 2-stage flare. Don't try it so high that you burn off all your airspeed before you land. Make sure you're starting your flare where you want the canopy to plane-out. Once you've figured out that a 2-stage flare won't kill you then try adding that third stage. Once you've realised that third stage won't cause a femur, then explore the range of motion between the different points, and learn the feel of the canopy. It's a tactile thing. It's something you've got to learn over time. One thing I do know for sure, is that if you're doing a one stage, fast, sudden %100 flare - you're instantly killing the lift of the canopy before it has time to plane you out. Think of what would happen if a glider were to suddenly go 90degrees nose up in full flight. It'd kill the effect of the wing, and it'd drop out of the sky. As always, practice up high to get the feeling before you bring it down low. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Absolutely not. A canopy is a flying wing. Wings create lift. Lift is what keeps a plane flying, and its what keeps you off the ground. Wings generate lift through some complex patterns of aerodynamics. The nutshell is that the airflow moving over the top of the wing generates lift. The more airflow moving over the top, the more lift it creates. Conversely, the less airflow moving over the top of the wing, the less lift it creates. The problem that you're having in no wind conditions, is that towards the end of your flare your canopy is running out of lift, even though you're still moving forward. Approaching in half brakes might seem like a good idea because it will slow your ground speed, but it will not work. In addition to slowing your groundspeed, you're also reducing the amount of air passing over your canopy, which will reduce the amount of lift your canopy is generating. Just like before, your canopy will run out of lift before you come to a complete stop. Figure it this way. There is a magic speed, which can be expressed in MPH of airspeed, where your canopy will not produce enough lift to keep you off the ground. This magic number is dependant on a whole lot of things, and is different for everyone. Mostly though, this magic number is dependent on the shape of the wing (rectangular? eliptical) , the amount of suspended weight (wingloading), and the amount of drag induced by the shape of your body, the lines, and the pilotchute. This magic number represents the stall speed of your canopy under normal circumstances if you do everything right. You can easily increase the stall speed of your canopy, but its pretty much impossible to reduce it beyond this magic number. This is the essense of what you're complaining about. Under a moderately loaded triathlon, this magic number - the minimum stall speed, is probably somewhere around 5 MPH. You can easily make the canopy stall at a higher airspeed, (which can be dangerous), but you'll have trouble getting the stall speed much lower. If you're jumping in absolutely no wind, you'll have somewhere around 5 MPH of forward speed after you've wringed every last bit of flare from your canopy. Your only choice is to run it off or slide it off. This isn't so bad... 5 MPH really isn't that hard to run. If you refuse to run 5 MPH, then you can easily counter this by not jumping when there's no wind. If you're landing into a 5 mph headwind, then this magic number = windspeed, which effectively reduces the magic number to 0. What I would suggest to you, is that you keep practicing your flares. First do it up high, then during actual landings. Learn how to wring every last ounce of flare from your canopy. Learn how to feel how much flare is left, based on forward speed and your position underneath the canopy (you pitch forward during the flare). Ignore anyone who says that you need to either gain speed (say, during a hook turn), or reduce speed (by approaching in half brakes) to improve your landings. Either they don't understand the basics of aerodynamics, or they're trying to get you to hurt yourself. Only once you've mastered landings from normal "full-flight" - and I really do mean mastered, then you can start to complicate things by adding speed, or reducing speed to your landings. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

What do you suggest is a better option? Would it make a difference if there were two shareholders? (say, my wife?) _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

What are the requirements for how seatbelts are attached to the airframe? Specifically I'm wondering about how Fayards planes tend to be setup, where the seatbelts are attached to benches with surprisingly thin bolts, then the benches are again bolted to the airframe. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Something to think about. By dropping off the old man, they likely saved his life. If the accident killed one of the kids, it almost certainly would have killed him, too. Personally, I see dropping off the old guy as an act of charity. They wanted the car, not a hostage. The villain that i see here is the woman who left her father in the car when she ran inside. I have as much disdain for her as I do for those who leave their infants in the car during the hot summer or cold winter. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Since you're in for a long drive anyways, you might want to consider driving to Chicago instead of Toronto. Its a shorter drive, prices are cheaper, dropzone is bigger, plus you get to jump from a real airplane. If Chicago's too far, there's a few dz's in wisconsin and Minnesota you should take a look at. The closest DZ to you is prolly one of the two DZ's in Minnesota, both near the Twin Cities. If you make it to Chicago, look me up. I'm a Canadian ex-pat, I spent many summers up your way, I spent wayy too much time in Atikokan... Egads that place is marvelous... _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

For every person that curses the opnenings of the original Saber, there's 5 people who love the things to pieces. As Spoon says, it's no secret. People should do research before buying gear, and only buy gear thats appropriate to how they jump. The opening characteristics of older large Saber1's are well known. I do not understand why someone would jump a canopy for years, while complaining of hard openings and neck damage. If its hurting your neck, maybe its time to change canopies, or have the canopy modified to slow its opening. Every canopy can open hard, some are more likely then others. If you're sensitive to hard openings, choose your canopy accordingly. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Hey! You cut out my ear! I object! I'm not Van gogh! _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

I administer Spam Assassin on a network with 50 or so users. On average, we'll get about 5 false-positives in spam-assassin per month. What I've done is I create a folder called "Bulk-email", and have all SA positives put there. This keeps users happy because it keeps the emails out of their INBOX, but it also doesn't delete the messages. Quotas ensure that people go into their Bulk-email folder periodically to delete spam. This is when they peruse their messages looking for false positives, so that they can move those mesages before deleting. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

Rasberry and chocolate. Is Nummy. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

The only way I can see myself not being named if something goes bad is to ensure it appears that I do not have "deep pockets". That's more what I'm interested in. I doubt very much I would ever pay out, but I'm sure I could probably be bankrupted defending myself. I'm not willing to put faith in the waiver protecting me, because it's the cost of litigation I'm concerned about more then the actual judgement. Yes, a waiver might save me in the end, but I'm still broke from attorneys fees. Are you a lawyer? I spoke to Skydive Chicago's attorney at their Spring Expo, and his advice was that a corporation would offer me no protection at all, for the reasons I outlined in a previous post. Plaintiffs can pierce the veil of the corporation and go after the individual in responsible, which would be me. This is directly contradicted by what Tom said. I am interested in the idea of having a corporation hold the assets, but I'm not sure if my wife will go for this. I'm also curious as to what exactly a "personal trust" is, and what is involved in administering one? _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

The Cypres just simply isn't an issue anymore. If a TSA rep is going to speak up, its going to be the simple existance of a parachute that freaks him out. He's not going to spend the time to analyse whats packed in the parachute or not. The only question I've ever gotten even remotely regarding the Cypres is "is this parachute equipted with gas charges?". They asked this question even before I got to the x-ray machine, because this airport SOP was to ask the question. Why did they ask the question? Because the reg's specifically mention that they aren't allowed. In reality, this question wasn't even related to the Cypres, because the guy asking didn't know what a Cypres was, hadn't seen the x-ray, and wa sonly asking because his boss told him to ask everyone with a parachute. Cypres cards don't help anymore. TSA will either object to the parachute as a whole, or it will allow it to pass. If they object, the correct answer for skydivers is to present them with a copy of this form: http://www.uspa.org/news/images/TSA_ltr_to_USPA.pdf, which they have diligently printed out before leaving for the airport. _Am __ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.