riggerrob

Please use the SARCASM font when you give this sort of advice to junior jumpers. This reminds me of a conversation during a riggers' course. For the equipment selection exercise, I suggested an A licensed jumper was planning to start BASE jumping next year. Our token British rigger candidate was hoping mad at the notion of a BASE jumper anywhere near his DZ!!!!!!!!!!!! I suggested that a good coach could keep the young jumper busy perfecting accuracy techniques over the next 200 jumps.

Good article and I agree 100 percent with the authors, perhaps because I contemplated carrying a gun to elementary school. I was picked upon as a loner. My grade 2 teacher always used me as a bad example "to encourage the others." Half of the time I spent kneeling in the corner of the classroom, I wondered what crime I had committed. The same group of 5 or 6 bullies waited for me beside the (open air) hockey rink every day at lunch time. Deep snow drifts closed most other routes home. Even though I knew that half of what the bullies said was inaccurate, after a few hundred times, I gauled at my soul. My brothers often ganged up against me at bed time. My parents frequently spanked me ... often for sins committed by my siblings. I was miserable and depressed. I tried complaining to my mother, but she was too busy with my younger brother and sister. My younger brother had health problems. I mentally picked out a .22 caliber semi-automatic pistol from my father's collection (hint: my father was a member of the Canadian Olympic shooting team). I plotted how I would carry the pistol in my bag, then pull it out when confronted by the gang of bullies. I would tell them to "leave me alone." If they persisted in tormenting me, I planed to shoot each of them once in the belly. Then I contemplated the aftermath. I knew that I would be thrown in jail ... a jail already full of juvenile bullies. I also knew that no adult would listen seriously to my problems ... so shooting bullies would not solve any of my problems ... only make my problems worse. I never contemplated suicide when I was in elementary school. Suicide did not cross my mind until many years later. Suicide is a story for another day.

FLQ were inspired by the recent revolution in Cuba and the on-going "troubles" in Northern Ireland. Mind you, Irish Catholics - living in Quebec - tended to hold themselves distinct from French-speaking Roman Catholics in Quebec. Many towns had separate (Irish) English Catholic school boards that were completely separate from the French Catholic school boards. After the "FLQ Crisis" the kidnappers traded a hostage for passage to Cuba, where they live din exile for a few years. I was flabbergasted when the kidnappers were allowed to return to Canada and even more flabbergasted when one of them was elected to sit in the "Assemble' Nationale."

Try calling the DZs in the drier parts of Europe, like Portugal or Spain. Ask them how many loads do fly per day. Two dozen loads per day give you the chance to make a dozen or more jumps per day. Ask them which months have the clearest weather. Also ask about bunk houses near the DZ. Go to bed early every evening and consistently stand in front of manifest when the window opens every morning. Buy or rent two or three rigs and pay packers. You would be wisest to get large 7-cells (e.g. Triathlon) close to the size of you Black Jack 260. Tell manifest that you want to do as many jumps as possible per day. Bribe manifest with cookies, recreational drugs, sexual favors or whatever it takes to get you back in the air quickly. Keep plenty of snacks and water handy to keep your energy levels up. And don't just fling yourself out of an airplane 50 times per week. Hire a local coach to critique your landings. Even better if your coach videos your landings. Aim for stand-up landings with the pea gravel bowl because that is the biggest landing area you will find below many BASE exit points. Ask manifest if you can do hop-and-pops from 1,000 meters (... er ... 3,000 feet) and focus on perfectly stable exits followed by deployment just behind the airplane.

This story reminds me of a trick used by the Dutch Resistance during World War 2. Many of their pass-words had uniquely-Dutch pronunciations. Since few Germans had the throat muscles needed to pronounce the words properly, infiltrators were quickly identified by ear. Modern Dutch and Afrikaans are based upon the same old Dutch roots. ... kind of like the similarities between the modern Quebec French dialect (joual) and old-Parisian French ... merely separated by 300 years.

If an airline delivers an illegal immigrant, they are obliged to immediately fly them back to the country where the flight originated. The airline often gets fined. They also get stuck with the cost of the return air fare. Granted, the airline's lawyers may try to bill the naughty illegal immigrant ... but you all know how much I admire and respect lawyers ... Funny that the woman in this story did not speak Afrikaans. All the South Africans and Rhodesians that I have met all speak the basics of Afrikaans, even if their mother-tongue is English or Xhosa.

Dear Tom, You are thinking along the lines of Brandywine Falls on the road up to Whistler. B.C. It falls 66 meters (200 feet) into a deeply incised, back-cut stream channel. Brandywine looks like a miniature version of Niagara Falls complete with jagged rocks and fast-flowing water, so Vancouver-area BASE jumpers simply visit it during the winter months when the landing area is frozen over. I am sure there are another hundred similar waterfalls and cliffs up the coast, but few of them have road access and many would need a lumber barge floated in to provide a dry landing area. Now B.C. BASE jumpers just need the assistance of a bored helicopter pilot to scout out all those cliffs.

Ho hum. Another reason to fear lawyers.

Our family lost a friend during an August 24, 1969 FLQ robbery. Alfred Pinisch was a political refugee from Communist Eastern Europe (Hungary?). I met Alfred many times when he competed against my father in local rifle matches. Alfred was working at International Firearms in Montreal when the FLQ tried to steal guns to arm their military wing. A pair of beat cops were first on scene and one accidentally shot Alfred. The beat cop never recovered from his guilt and drank himself to death.

Yes Jerry, I remember that day well. Probably 1967, when Canada was celebrating 100 years of confederation. President deGaulle spent a long, hot, summer's day touring the North Shore of the Saint Lawrence River from Trois Rivieres to somewhere close to Montreal. He had heard a variety of political slogans shouted repeatedly over the course of the day "Vive la Quebec libres!" was among them. Towards the end of that long, hot day, deGaulle was invited to give a speech at Sainte ???? de ???? When he spouted "Vive la Quebec libre!" some in the audience were horrified! Many perceived it as an attempt at meddling in the internal affairs of another nation ... something just not done in diplomatic circles. The rest of deGaulle's tour was hastily cancelled and he flew home a day or two later. Please remember that this was back int eh days when the Front de Liberation du Quebec's favorite sport was bombing (federal) mail boxes and killing the occaissional post office worker as collateral damage. Back then we genuinely feared a bloody civil war..

Funny how even the Swiss tend to prefer American vocabulary. Swizerland has 4 official languages: French, German, Italian and Romanche. Any official Swiss gov't document can be published in French, German or Italian About a decade ago, I was invited to teach a parachute rigging course in Switzerland. Most Swiss are bilingual or tri-lingua. Since we were in the "Vallee" region near the French border, we settled on French as the dominate language for the course. Before the course, I e-mailed out a series of pre-course quizes in English and French. The quizes encouraged students to look up various topics in manuals written by Dan Poynter, Sandy Reid (FAA Parachute Rigger Manual) or (Frenchman) Eric Fradet. Students balked at using some of Eric's terminology, since they were already familiar with American terminology. Terms like "pilot-chute" versus "extracteur." Ironically this was around the time the US Army adopted an "extractor" for their AT-11 static-line system. Hah! Hah!

Language politics can get real stupid, real quick. Starting around the time I was born, the Quiet Revolution radically changed Quebec language politics. Back then Canada was dominated by a handful of English-owned banks headquartered in Montreal. Montreal was the biggest and most heavily industrialized city in Canada. Just as soon as they slipped the bonds of Union Nationale hold on power, rising Quebecouis politicians decided that after 200 years of oppression by the British, Union Nationale, Roman Catholic Church, major banks, etc. it was their turn to oppress some one else. Too bad nobody bothered to remind Quebecouis that they suffered under a rather boring occupation. Brits did not bother with the usual rape, pillage and plunder (compare with recent Ukrainian experiences at the hands of Russian invaders.) During a single generation, Quebec went from an almost feudal, agricultural backwater to hippy-dippy, free-love, more liberal than they can handle, etc. This several generation gap also brought a dramatic drop in fertility rates. Circa 1960, Quebec had the highest birth rate in North America, but that rapidly dropped to the lowest birth rate in North America. Since they feared being out-numbered in their own province, Quebec politicians introduced a variety of laws to force immigrants to attend French-language elementary schools, etc. Insignificant Frenchmen wanted to immigrate to Quebec. OTOH plenty of Haitians and North Africans wanted to immigrate to Canada. Granted, they were Catholic and they spoke French, but - HEAVEN FORBID - they were black! Horror of horrors! Funny, but my mother taught kindergarten for 20 plus years and she always had a few immigrant kids in her class?????? The principal always found a way to sneak in the best and brightest immigrant kids. 45 years ago I grew weary of that sort of language politics, so I moved out of Quebec. The last time I went back was for my father's funeral, just before COVID-19 hit. He was my last family member still living in our home town. Sadly, most of my Anglophone high school classmates had long moved out. But the most amusing part was all the recent immigrants and refugees from Muslim nations: Afghanistan, Kosovo, Lebanon, Syria, etc. Few of these refugees speak French when they arrive. Their women dressed more like Catholic nuns than modern Quebecouise women. Hah! Hah! Bottom line, Quebec politicians have a history of shooting themselves in the foot with language legislation.

Why does this remind me of anti-draft protests in the USA 50-some-odd years ago? I distinctly remember American teenagers burning their draft cards in public protests.

Even simpler is to tie a piece of toilet paper tube to the bottom end of your strip. To help it withstand freefall winds, you might need to telescope 2 or 3 pieces of toilet paper tube.

Some of those "conservative action groups" need to grow a sense of humor. The worst thing they can do is draw attention to a small group of students who poke fun at XYZ. If those conservatives were wiser, they would simply ignore mischievious students until the students lose interest.

Over on www.homebuiltairplanes.com we discussed an even simpler method for spreading ashes from an airplane. Just take a long strip of [canopy] fabric and pore the ashes along the center-line. Fold the edges in lengthwise, then roll up the strip. Once out in freefall, allow the strip to unroll and release the ashes.

Pop-Top chest-mounted container was designed by Dan Poynter to help shorten the line-up for Ten an Speed Star competitors.. John Sherman's first piggyback container was the Super Swooper Tandem introduced during the mid-1970s. SST was a Strong Pop-Top chest type container sewn on top of a crude main container. Circa 179, Sherman introduced the SST Racer with a tapered, wedge-shaped reserve container to reduce the risk of snagging the top of the door frame. Back then Racers were the sleekest and slimmest rig on the market. Other manufacturers soon joined the race towards slimmer containers by plagersizing through-loops, etc. from Racer ... and the race was on!!!!! Eventually, Sherman/Jump Shack/Parachute Labs dropped the "SST" part of the name and simply called most of their containers "Racers." Over the years, Racer got so many minor improvements that they are no longer compatible with original Pop-Top components. I thing

I suspect that many Russian soldiers are afraid to shoot at drones for fear they will attract attention (e.g. artillery), the same way as the North Vietnamese Army tried to ignore Cessna O-1 and O-2 Bird Dog spotter planes, in hopes that they would just fly away.

Bubonic plague, Spanish Flu, smallpox, measles, polio, AIDS, SARS, COVID-19, monkey pox and whatever-comes-next are with us forever. We are unlikely to see much reduction in plagues until human population thins circa 2050. A massive increase in fuel prices might limit travel and slow transmission, but we are still going to suffer a series of plagues during my lifetime. Half the people on my morning commuter bus wore masks, even though they are no longer officially required. Hand shaking has also fallen out of fashion. Standing within 2 meters of strangers is longer socially acceptable.

Sadly, mental health care is priority last in too many aspects of society. My current employer (Coast Mountain Bus Company) is one of the few that take mental health seriously. In the immediate aftermath of a traffic accident, drivers are offered mental health defusing. Basically, they have the option of talking over their traffic accident with a trained, mental health semi-pro. The key is immediate therapy to get them down from the adrenaline rush in the immediate aftermath of an accident. Then the bus company maintains strict confidentiality so that the driver is allowed to slowly forget the accident. Over time (e.g. 90 days), the trauma is allowed to slowly subside. The bus company does things this way, because they want drivers to calm down and refocus on the road as quickly as possible after an accident. OTOH the worst way to handle traumatic accidents is to repeatedly remind someone of the worst day of their life. Reminders only grind the miserable day into long term memory. Grinding too many times converts a once-off into a Prolonged Traumatic Stress Disorder. Other big organizations (e.g. Canadian Armed Forces and Transport Canada) take exactly the opposite approach, quietly labelling people as crazy and incapable of responsibility, but flatly refusing to tell the individual. TC goes a step further by taking your money and medical application, but TC bureaucrats quietly decided to not issue the medical but never explain why. The lack of explanation can be frustrating. In the worst bureaucratic method, some one is labelled as crazy, but confidentiality prevents the organization from telling anyone that he/she is going crazy, ergo they never get mental health treatment. What a messed up world we live in. Ye, I admit that some of the above sounds like the ravings of a madman. Six or more doctors agree with my diagnosis of PTSD, but Workmens' Compensation refuses to pay for long-term psychiatric counselling.

LEOs SHOULD do firearms refresher training every few months. Sadly not all LEOs do. I remember my dad (Canadian Olympic Team shooter and army reserve officer) lamenting some of the scarier mistakes (negligent discharges, holes in the ceiling, etc.) when local LEOs rented the local indoor pistol range for annual refresher training. OTOH, my ex-brother-in-law never fired his pistol during a 20 year law-enforcement career. He enjoyed policing, just not the guns part of policing.

How many jumps have you done during the last month? How many of those landing were gentle stand-ups? How many of those landings did you need to slide off excess speed? How many of those landings did you tumble? What advice did local canopy coaches give?

Dear Kallend, Are you suggesting regular refresher training? ... or perhaps fire "X" number of rounds per quarter to stay current? ... as recommended by the better military and law-enforcement firearms instructors? I always found it amusing when Canadian gun clubs annually extended an "invitation" to hunters to "sight in" their rifles at the start of deer season. Practically, it was more like an excuse to remind hunters of which end the bullets came out. Hah! Hah!

What does work in Canada are firearms safety courses and mental health reviews before you can earn a firearms Possession and Acquisition License. I couple of years ago I wanted to renew my PAL, so re-took the FSC and re-applied for my PAL via the RCMP. Since all aspects of Canadian gov't slowed down during COVID, I was not surprised that it took more than 6 months, but after a year I started asking questions. When I eventually got a human on the telephone, the asked me a few questions about my mental health like "Have you contemplated killing anyone?" I also re-assured the RCMP that I had recently discussed with my doctor quitting the psychiatric medications that I was taking for PTSD. My new card arrived in the mail a month later. As an aside, Transport Canada refused to renew my pilot medical because of those psychiatric medications. I was on the meds because of PTSD. My PTSD was not so much caused by an airplane crash, rather it was caused by a law suit that dragged out for 9 years after the crash.

May I make a radical suggestion? Tie the part of the Second Amendment about "right to bear arms" to the part about "well regulated militia" and require every new gun owner to enroll in a gov't recognized gun club and complete basic fire arms training at that gun club. To meet the "militia" requirement, insist that each gun club include a few active duty or retired military or police officers. Most gun clubs already contain large numbers of retired military. That is similar to the current standard in most other countries (e.g. Canada).