riggerrob

Sure wind is not a perfect energy source, because it does not blow 24/7. Do not worry about back-up power sources because they are already up and running: hydro-electric, nuclear reactors, coal, petroleum, natural gas, bio-mass, trash, geo-thermal, etc. all make great back-ups to wind turbines. Try to think of wind turbines as giving a reservoir a pause to raise its water levels before it has to power the city again.

The bhudda reminds us that "pain is inevitable, while suffering is optional." People can chose whether or not to suffer from living too close to wind turbines. After growing up beside railroad tracks, working near airports and living near highways, I am very good at ignoring steady noises.

... With the huge amounts now being produced by fracking, NG costs are back down where they were a few years back. Kind of interesting. A group called CalPine (or something like that) built a bunch of NG fired plants all over the country. When NG prices spiked, they went under and the finished (or nearly finished) plants went for fire sale prices. ............................................................. The flip side of natural gas price cycles is about to hit us. Alberta, British Columbia, Australia, etc. are currently investing billions of dollars to export liquified natural gas to asian markets. With all this over-investment, we will soon have a glut of LNG forcing Western Canada and OZ to "give away" LNG to keep LNG infrastructure functioning. Asians will burn through most of Western Canada's NG reserves in 30 or 40 years, then leave the white bastards to freeze in the dark. Sorry folks, but NG is only the least expensive form of energy in the short run.

...................................................................................... Yes!

Think of professional aerobatic pilots, such as the Blue Angels, flying in tight formation. From a distance, it looks like they are motionless relative to each other, as if locked in stone. But a cockpit video shows that the aircraft are constantly moving relative to each other, with the pilots making constant micro corrections to stay only a few feet apart. Same with staying relative to someone. It's a constant feedback loop of eye-body coordination. At your experience level, you don't perceive the change in fall rate and respond as quickly as someone with more experience. With more jumps (and maybe good visualization practice) you'll improve your perception and speed up your reactions to the point that your corrections will be almost imperceptible, just like the Blue Angels. Another piece of the puzzle is that you will get better at nailing a "target" fall rate the group is using and then continuing that speed, regardless of what maneuvers you're doing. The other day I was on a coach jump, doing two way drills, and was having a helluva time matching the student's fall rate. During the debrief he told me "I was experimenting with different fall rates the whole time." No wonder I couldn't target the "right" speed. I told him that when doing RW, try to nail a steady fall rate, matching the other person. ............................................................................... Agreed. When I teach the basics of freefall formations to junior jumpers, I tell them to dive towards the base and stop a yard (metre) or two outside the formation. Then I tell them to pause just outside the formation for a couple or four seconds. Once they have exactly matched the rate of the base, they are allowed to dock. When teaching sequential formations, I tell them to pause between formations - to match fall rates - before moving to the next formation. Sure, this approach slows down the initial learning process a bit, but also builds solid skills that become second-nature when doing more complex sequential formations.

............................................................................... 1) cargo door Cessna 206 is my favorite airplane for doing tandems. The door is large enough that the student does not need to "help" with the exit and the airplane is small enough that it quickly fills and I can do a dozen working jumps in a day. With a Cessna 206, you do not have to wait for a dozen other jumpers to finish packing, finish reviewing their latest folly on video, find their goggles, etc. They are also cheap enough to fly that you can launch the occasional "one tandem" load without bankrupting the DZO. I am all about turning tandem students quickly and sending them home happy. 2) I have jumped a variety of Beech 18s with doors ranging in size from the original small oval that bruised a few ten-way speed star competitors. The tall rectangular, air-stair door on post-war H18s is much easier to get tandem students out. The easiest Beech 18s have double-wide cargo doors (ala. DC-3) that are almost as big as Twin Otter doors. 3) Sure most parachutists only use the small, inward-hinged personnel door on Antonov AN2s, but the cargo door can be opened as big as a DC-3's. 4) Sorry, but I have only dropped rubber dummies out of CASA 212s. We never climbed high enough to deploy a sport main canopy. Arava has medium-sized personnel doors on the sides, but the entire tail cone can be removed to load bulky cargo or drop large, linked formations.

I have packed dozens of Smarts and hundreds of PD reserves. The first time I had to assemble and pack a Smart into a new size of Sidewinder (Canadian-made rig similar to a Vector 2), Al MacDonald was all worried about how well it fit. I replied "Al, I really only noticed the difference in pack volume when you asked me. The Smart might pack 5 percent bigger, but I was not conscious of the difference until you asked."

............................................................................. Butt-sweat is not the worst thing I have found in PEPs! I have washed old engine oil, puke and urine out of PEPs. I even re-placed four harnesses (a pair of Softies and two Telesis student rigs) from Brazil. The iron content of Amazonian soil corroded all the cadmium off the hardware and the underlying steel was turning a variety of shades of ugly red rust. Fortunately the rigs arrived before the rust frayed harness webbing. That was around the time stainless steel hardware came into fashion. Now I advise jumpers to buy stainless steel hardware so that I no longer have to worry about red rust abrading webbing. Sure stainless steel produces a bit of grey or black oxide when it corrodes, but that grey powder is too fine to fray webbing.

I gotta call you out a bit on this one. How the hell did you jump an AgCat when it is, #1 a single seat airplane, #2 if it had an intact hopper for spraying, there was no where to put a second seat like Gene Soucy's ShowCat. #3 if all the above it true, then you just admitted to breaking about 2 dozen regulations in the process of your bandit jump... SMH Sat on the wing. Same thing when I jumped an Eagle. And if you're worried about me breaking rules, you'll get writers cramp, making a list. .................................................................................. Even an "African-engineered" rope would have kept that Florida fatality attached to the airplane until he was high enough to deploy a canopy.

"This baby is certified to 1949 standards!" Oh, never mind. (Just a cheap shot for anyone who knows their TSO's.) ................................................................................ A few years back, Mike Johnston (Johnson sp?) gave me a written summary of dynamic tensile tests he had recently done on ringed Mirage harnesses. He concluded that two layers of Type 8 webbing was stronger than (the earlier pattern) because it stretched a little. Since this was shortly before Mike moved to UPT, it sounds like Mirage never submitted an application to the FAA to update their TSO. This was also around the time that the FAA was trying to update from TSO C23D. Maybe Mirage was merely waiting for the ink to dry ont eh new TSO standard. It would be nice if Mirage updated their TSO, but that would largely be a paperwork exercise, since they have re-tested most of the their components to the newer standards (the same way that UPT, R.I. and Racer have done). In the long run, remember that the TSO system is primarily about quality control. If a company can manufacture parachutes for 30 or 40 years - with few fatalities - then any additional test data is just window-dressing.

... Parachute de France made some nice rigs but their customer service was awful. Be aware that from Feb. 2015 they will no longer make sport rigs and finding spare parts will become difficult. ... Cheers .................................................................................. Saddened to hear that. Even though Parachutes de France quit selling to the North American market circa 1990, I still had the privilege of packing the ocasional Atom. I was event he first North American rigger to sew in the main top flap update. I was working in Perris Valley, California when a visiting Swiss jumper tore the top flap on his Atom. After three frantic days of trans-Atlantic FAXes, P.deF. sent me the update and I sewed it back together. The thing that impressed me was how snug Atoms packed, but the snugness did not become apparent until I closed the second reserve flap. The modern equivalent is the Icon made by Aerodyne. It is rumored that Aerodyne hired some of the best French designers when they updated their entire product line about a decade ago.

................................................................................ Hopefully the "Mark 2" pocket will have the bottom sewn shut. If they want to get fancy, they can sew in a clear plastic window.

.... In general, I see self supervision similar to private pilot students being cleared for solo flights. ............................................................................ For many years, CSPA offered "Solo Certificates" to PFF graduates who had more than 10 jumps. They had to complete a list of planning, aircraft, freefall, canopy and post-jump (e.g. packing) tasks before they took an oral quiz. After submitting a bit of paperwork to CSPA HQ, they were allowed to ride in the airplane alone, but they still had to do a few more jumps - with a coach - to complete all the skills required for an "A Certificate" (minimum 25 jumps).

If you complete your profile, we can offer better advice about other rigs that your local riggers are more likely to like ... er ... enjoy packing.

..................................................................................... You speak God's own truth!

I manipulate the closing pin and pull-up cord so that the pull-up cord is beneath the metal pin and rubbing against it not the loop as I remove it. ............................................................................... That doubles the life of any closing life. With careful packing the main closing loop in my Mirage lasted 300 jumps.

Hint, after you insert the pin, continue pulling (with your pull-up cord/power tool) to maintain a 1/2 inch (1 centimeter) of slack in the closing loop. Use your thumb-nail to press the closing loop against the last grommet. This will maintain that slack as you SLOWLY remove your pull-up tool. Lift thumb. Confirm that pin is inserted 3/4. Unpack at 3,000. Repeat. Theory, that little bit of slack vastly reduces tension, friction and abrasion on your closing loop. When you visit your rigger, ask him/her for a few spare closing loops. Keep those spare loops in your gear bag. Replace old loops at the first sign of fraying. Remember: closing loops are cheap, but airplane tails are expensive.

Speaking of jump-planes with hydraulic tail ramps ... Embraer just rolled out the KC-390 prototype. It is slightly bigger than a C-130 and its pair of turbofans will make it considerably faster. Embraer claims that their KC-390 will carry 80 para-troopers. Embraer is planning the first flight for early 2015. I wonder which lucky Brazilian Army paratroopers will be the first to jump the KC-390?

Beautiful puppies. Last year, my church "shared the plate" with Pacific Assistance Dogs. PAWS supports your type of work, mentoring young service dogs from Oregon. We often see them - in their yellow vests - training on the streets of Vancouver. When I offered to adopt one of their "failures" they replied that I was so far down the priority list .... after the blind ... after the deaf ... after the mobility impaired ... after the autistics ...

To paraphrase the POPS: "You don't quit playing because you got old, rather you get old because you quit playing."

............................................................................ Arava is like C-119 Flying Boxcar and Nordatlas in that you need to remove the tail cone before you jump off the "ramp." More modern military transports (Antonov, C-130 Hercules, C-17, Chinook, Skyvan, Transal, etc.) allow you to open AND CLOSE the ramp multiple times during the same flight.

Read every issue of "Parachutist" magazine you can find. Read every issue of "Blue Skies" magazine. Watch every skydiving video you can find ... even the videos that end with the hero on crutches. Take a rigging course. ... repeat ...

Maybe we could classify jump-planes by their type of door. May I suggest the following classification system? Once a jumper has made a few jumps from one airplane in that class (e.g. ramp) then we could coach them on the subtle differences between a Skyvan ramp and a Chinook ramp. Cessna side door - 170, 172, 175, 180, 182, 185, 205, 206 and 207. Small side door - Beech 18, Cessna 206 Medium-sized side door - Beaver, Cherokee Six, Dornier 27, King Air, Porter, Queen Air Large side door - Airvan, Antonov 2, Cessna Caravan, C-47, Dornier 28, Huey helicopter, Kodiak, Single Otter, Twin Otter Ramp - Arava, Buffalo, Cariboo, Chinook, Hercules, Skyvan

"The Interrogators" I just finished reading "The Interrogators" written by US Army reservist SSgt Makey (sp?). The scariest revelation from that book was the way Al Queda recruits fighters. The process starts with bored young men from North Africa or Arabia going to work in Europe. They find the money is good, but life can get lonely with no-one to cuddle at night. These lonely young men quickly learn how few Muslim women of marriable age live in Europe. Their ambition is to find stable work, marry, settle down and raise a few children to be soccer stars or go to college. Muslim "charities" prey on this loneliness by promising to help these young men find wives in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, etc. Muslim "charities" help these young men fly to Pakistan, put them up in hostels, educate them in madrassas, etc. then talk them into fulfilling their "muslim duties" by transporting medical supplies to some impoverished village up in the Afghan mountains. Along the way they a day or three's worth of instruction on how to fire a "Klash" rifle. Next thing they know, they are shoved to the front line of an assault on Forward Operating Base manned by American or British or Canadian "crusaders." They fire off all their ammo in the first minute of the assault, then try to flee the battlefield. Sadly, too many of them never survive their first battle. It is a sad commentary on any society that only uses its young men for cannon fodder. The saddest part is how "mad mullahs" can distort the words of the Koran to pervert the honest ambitions of lonely young men.

His worst sin was leaving the ignition on. The public is not bright enough to understand that you can still start most airplanes by turning the propeller ... just like during World War 1. Not much point to fining him, just insist that he fly his next dozen hours with an instructor.