AndyMan

This is true. I've just spent the last 10 minutes trying to find a fatality report, but I couldn't find it. The short story is that about 2 years ago a guy with 3500 jumps has a pilot chute in tow, and spent the rest of his life trying to manually pull out the bridle. If he'd just chopped and pulled, well... there's a lot of "if he'd just..." whenever we talk about fatalities. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

You missed the point, which is you probably shouldn't take advice on extreme canopy choices from someone with two hundred jumps, is extremely uncurrent, and jumps at a wingloading approaching that of some of the best pilots in the world. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

I picked up a pair of Wiley-X's. http://www.wiley-x.com/ They're sunglasses, and goggles, all in one. Very cool. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

The infected party MIGHT be known as ROBLONG1, and gets his Internet access from Prodigy. Hmm.... splitrock.net.... isn't that Val? Val? Have you been practicing unsafe internet again? _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

Me too! ;) _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

I recently sold a triathlon with around 300 jumps for $1000. I think you'd be lucky to get it for $800. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

Remember, these are cummulative, so if you want to know how far you've gone after a certain time you have to add them up. 1...... 30 2..... (30+60) = 90 3.... (90+120) = 230 4.... (230+240) = 470 5.... (470+480) = 950 Also remember that this is only exactly correct in a vacume. I'd hate to dry to come up with a formula that considers drag. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

SkyMama! (i think, my other pooter crashed so I can't check....) _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

That was going to be my guess, too. I've had one jumps where I think my fingers ended up inbetween the risers when they snapped tight. The snap caused my fingers to bleed from the cuticles... that was ugly. Be carefull where you put your hands if you want to hold onto the risers during deployment. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

Tide has always worked well for me.... Especially the liquid stuff. Pre-treat the stains and rub the fabric against itself, then just do a normal load. it's worked every time for me, but I have a dark jumpsuit. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

Oh, now this just CRIES out for an explanation. My mind is SERIOUSLY wandering.... ;) _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

The car shopping yesterday was frustring. I'm still indecisive between the bwm 325 wagon, the audi a4 wagon, and the nissan xterra. I can't actually do anything until I sell my prelude, which I need to do in Canada because it has Canadian title. So it'll be a few weeks. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

I do. I was at Eloy a few weeks ago when one of these guys when in. Aparently he had abour 70 jumps, and did a low 180 degree toggle turn. He was medivac'd out here. There's even a story going around (and I have NO idea if this is true or not....) that he told one of his friends that he intended to hook it in on that jump. This however is completely irrelevant, because whether he stated his intentions or not, he still made a very poor choice. Everytime somebody makes a poor choice, I can't help but think it's rooted in lack of education. This guy should've known that you simply can't do 180 hard toggle turns at a hundred feet! Why didn't he know this? He should've had a canopy control course available to him that would teach him how to safely speed up his landings - maybe by using double fronts, if he wanted to. I can picture a scene where a younger jumper walks up to an experienced jumper and asks "hey, how do I do hook landings?" - the experienced jumper probably laughs, and his answer is something like "you don't. come back in 8,000jumps and then you can try it." This actually isn't a fictional answer - I had this given to me, a while ago. I walked away frustrated, even toying with the idea of just trying it without instruction. Thankfully, I made a GOOD choice. The correct answer should've been "you want to be very carefull with those. Maybe on days like this where there's a bit of wind you want to experiment with pulling both front risers to speed your landing, then work on more advanced approaches later." Whenever I hear of a younger jumper femer'ing himself or worse doing a low turn, I can't help but think that high performance landings are so new to this sport, the instruction just hasn't kept up. We need to pick up the instruction so it'll catch up with what people are actually doing. I guess the German guy today had lots of experience, so I'm probably posting this rant in the wrong thread. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

I did biking this weekend, since I can't jump because of the remenants of a cold. It was great, until my pedal fell off and I didn't have a socket set handy. My only cost was lunch. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

Generally, 9.8 meters/sec^2 - or 9.8 meters the first second, 19.6 meters the second second, 39.2 meters the third..., etc. This works until you start to approach terminal velocity. 9.8 meters = roughly 30 feet. So you fall roughly 30 feet the first second, 60 feet the second, 120 feet the third, 240, 480, etc. However, terminal velocity is somewhere around 600 feet/sec so your acceleration curve will start to flatten out after 6 seconds, roughly. 9.8 meters/sec^2 works perfectly in a vacume, but in our atmosphere it's mostly accurate for the first couple of seconds. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

(modes of transport I've broken this week) 2:0:0 I spent saturday car shopping.... No purchases yet. Today I dug out my bike, and went for a bit of a treck. I discovered a cute little bistro in a lush garden hidden at the side of the chicago river downtown. I had no idea it was there. I had a small lunch of wine and cheese... it was too easy sitting in this garden oasis watching the boats go by to imagine myself on the banks of the seine in france. It brought back some fond memories. Anyways, I got back on my bike, did a few more miles before my pedals fell off. Literally. Not knowing where any bike shops were nearby, and failing to find any by-standers with a spare wrench, i walked my bike home. it was a LONG walk, but I did walk through some of Chicago's neater neighborhoods. A good weekend, despite the lack of jumping. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

1) Do you think the uspa is doing a good job? yes. 2) Do you feel membership dues are a good value for the money? yes 3) Do you feel they are looking out after "joe upjumper"? generally, yes. 4) what would you like to see them do that they are not doing now? nothing jumps out. 5) How do you feel about the group member program? I LIKE the idea of a "DZ certification", and the group membership serves this purpose. I like the idea that whuffo's can walk into a DZ and not get the "fandango" experience. The group member program seems to set a bar for DZ standards.... not a very high bar mind you, but at least there's a bar. 6) what do you feel they doing that they should not be doing now? arguing. 7) Do you really care what the uspa does? of course! 8) Do you feel that swooping should be added to the nationals? Yes. Swooping should be in the nationals for the exact same reason every other genre of skydiving is. Competition accelerates growth, learning, and evolution of technique. 9) Do you feel membership to the uspa should be manditory? That shoul be up to the DZ. It should not be a requirement for group membership. 10) If you feel the uspa is broke. How would you fix it? I'm not sure.... the only thing that frustrated me in recent history was the clusterfuck called the last election. That a popular candidate was denied a place on the ballot, then won through a write in campaign was fundamentally rediculous. 11) Would you like to have a real time, town hall type chat with the national directors (internet relay chat)? If there was a good moderator, yes. I'd hate to see the mud slinging-fest it would be if it was wide open. 12)What single thing should be on the uspa's top priority list? FAA / government relations. As we saw in September, the biggest threat this sport has is from governmental inteference (aka regulation). It's just too easy for the whole sport to be shut down, we can be kicked out of airports, and we can't seem to get a reasonable repack schedule. The USPA must continue to be a good voice for us in Washington. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

I thought you were in Urbana...? Or was that just for school? Keep in mind, 9 minute planes are nice. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

Dude... if you're gonna drive that far, drop by hinckley some time. Most of the staff are ex-sky knights.... and they left for a reason! _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

Generally, but yeah. The Audi was quite a bit more then the BMW. It's just interesting that the BMW guys would be confident enough to sit back and let me make my own choices. The nissan guy was over the top, the audi guy was somewhere in the middle. That would be the Nissan. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

I'm recovering from a pretty nasty cold. I took the day and went car shopping, actually. The BWM dealers were an absolute pleasure to deal with. They were honest, upfront, and really let me understood how the pricing structure worked. The Audi guys were not quite as nice, but were seriously trying to upset me on upgrades. Dealing with the Nissan guys were like pulling teeth... the salesman spent a full 45 minutes running back and forth talking with "the manager" before he FINALLy came up with the numbers I'd pulled off the Nissan website before leaving. Argh! Well, I still don't know what car I'm gonna get... _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

Well I got the word from the boss today... I can't have the A6 until the fall.... so I'm gonna go car shopping. The short list is the BWM 325I Sports Wagon, the Audi Allroad Quatro, and the Nissan Xtera. I might add one of the Subaru wagons to the list. Thoughts anyone? Anything I should also consider? _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

Yup, it should make your pooter run a lot faster. Sending stuff to the recycle bin won't help, unless you actually empty the recycle bin. The space isnt' freed up until you actually empty it. Empty the bin before you defrag. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

Why? Buy a hard helmet instead, and actually get some protection. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

IIRC, defrag under windows 9X will simply restart every time somthing writes to the disk. Windows 2000 and XP will simply work around the changes. _Am ICQ: 5578907 MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com AIM: andrewdmetcalfe Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999