riggerrob

I worry about combat exhaustion amongst Ukrainian soldiers fighting on the southern and Eastern fronts. Since the start of the war, they have been fighting roughly 82 days with little rest and few replacements. They are rapidly approaching the 90 day threshold for psychological casualties. This 90 day threshold was noticed by Canadian Army operations Research scientists in the aftermath of the Second World War. They noticed that Canadian soldiers suffered dramatically more psychological casualties after 90 days in the front line. Since Canadian infantry regiments suffered much higher casualties than forecast, they were chronically short of replacements. For example the Black Watch Regiment of Canada suffered 350 percent casualties during less than a year of fighting in Northwestern Europe (France, Belgium, Netherlands and into Germany). Canadian infantry regiments re-rolled all their drivers, cooks, clerks, signallers, etc. as infantrymen, but still fell well short of replacement levels. Then the Canadian Army gutted non-infantry regiments to provide more infantry, but few of these replacements had the months of infantry training required to defeat battle-hardened Germans. So they just threw exhausted veterans back into the battle. At best, an infantry regiment might be told to hold their most recent conquest for a few days as the rest of the army continued the advance. But the Canadian Army was too short of manpower to give regiments significant rest periods away from the front line. If treated poorly, battle exhaustion can stagnate into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, so it is important to promptly de-brief these men and integrate them back into civilian society as soon as possible after fighting ceases.

Why are you guys wasting time babbling about an American ex-president and A-10s? The USAF is the only air force to fly A-10s and they have repeatedly tried to retire them. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Air Force started this most recent war with about 60 Sukhoi 25 Grach (NATO reporting name Frogfoot) ground attack airplanes. SU-25 is a dedicated, armored, sub-sonic, ground attack airplane roughly comparable to A-10. Both the Russian and Ukrainian air forces have used thier SU-25s to bomb and rocket ground targets. Both suffered Su-25 losses over Ukraine.

Finland bloodied the Russian bear's nose back in 1939 and they will bloody it again if Russia is foolish enough to invade again in the near future. Also remember that Finland has a first class electronics industry and power tools industries.

I have written a 2,000 word article to answer your question. I am just waiting until KITPLANES Magazine publishes my article entitled "Where can you stuff a parachute?" The first article is aimed at helping kitplane, aerobatic and glider pilots chose the PEP container (back, long back or seat) that best fits their cockpit.. Then I will subject my article entitled "Round or Square Parachute?" My article will be controversial because it questions ancient dogma about pilot emergency parachutes (PEPs). Much of that dogma was cast in concrete back when I was young and beautiful (1970s) but since then I have seen civilian skydiving schools transition from all-rounds to all squares. I have worked with a wide variety of student gear while dispatching S/L and IAD students. I am also an accompanied freefall instructor and tandem instructor examiner. So my second article may sound like a series of "no shit, there I was ... " stories, but it details how my attitudes have changed over the last 40 years. I am also a rigger and have packed squares into PEPs made by Butler (custom-built Beta back, long back and seat containers), Para-Phernalia (Softie back), Rigging Innovations (Aviator back) and Ron Dionne (back). I even did a half dozen live jumps on Aviator prototypes. I concluded that large docile (280 square feet) Precision P124A canopies are boring and much less likely to injure a pilot in distress than an old-school round parachute (e.g. Strong 26 foot conical). I just learned that Para-Tec in Germany will also sell you a "Wingman" back PEP containing a large square reserve. In short, Ed Scott trains new jump-pilots at "Jumpers Away" and he recommends square pilot emergency parachutes for jump pilots: specifically Rigging Innovations' P124A/Aviator series. Mr. Scott includes a few hours of ground school about squares packed into PEPs, and an optional tandem jump to give the new pilot some experience at steering a square.

Yes, line stowage pouches have always been on the bottom/back side of D-bags. By that we mean that the line stow pouch/pocket lays against the pack tray, towards the back-pad. Other line stow configurations are limited to pilot emergency parachutes (EP). When we were developing the P124A/Aviator pilot emergency parachute, the long (20 inches or 30 cm) deployment bags were awkward to stand on end to stow lines, and I got tired of remembering which direction I had rolled the D-bag, so I suggested installing the pouch on the top or outer face of the D-bag. That became the production standard on Aviators. More recently, Para-Phernalia announced that riggers have the option of packing with the line-stow pouch on top or bottom. Para-Tec's (Germany) "Wingman" series of PEPs are also designed around square canopies, but their D-bags have line stow pouches sewn to the backside or bottom side of the D-bag.

Where is the "MASKirovka" emoji when you need it?

We need to distinguish between Russians who fled the USSR a long time ago, versus those who still live in Russia and support Mr. Poutine. I have taught and rigged for several Russians who immigrated to Canada 20 or 30 years ago. They are the wiser group.

Dear Mr. Hundredth Monkey, Please limit your comments to sex crimes committed within Ukraine and during 2022. Most online forums ban discussion of pedophilia.

Ammunition fires release spectacular amounts of energy. Similar video shows Russian T-72s, etc. being destroyed the same way in Chechnya, back during the 1990s. Chechyn rebels waited until Russian tanks entered the city of Grozny, then rebels dropped Molotov cocktails down their hatches. Trivia, the "Molotov cocktail" weapon was named after the Soviet Minister for Foreign Affairs: Vyacheslav Molotov during the 1930s and 1940s. They were first used to destroy Soviet supplied tanks during the Spanish Civil War (1936).

To the OP: stop questioning local procedures and just go with the local program. You do not know hat you do not know. That first jump is a huge sensory over-load that you will only understand after you have been through it. I have worked as a pilot, rigger, TI, S/L jump-master, IAD instructor, accompanied freefall instructor, etc. at a variety of DZs running a variety of student progression programs. I am glad that most DZs now insist on a tandem first. Tandem speeds up ground school while reducing uncertainty and the numbers of students wandering off to land in the forest. Even if it only means that I have to extract a single student from a tree, that is enough. Tandem gets the student past that HUGE sensory overload. Tandems number 2 and number 3 teach the basics of altitude awareness, stable body position and opening the main parachute at a reasonable altitude. After 3 tandems, the training value of tandems diminishes dramatically. The ideal training program starts with a tandem or three followed by a few minutes in a wind tunnel, then 3 to 5 S/L or IAD jumps. Once the student has demonstrated that he/she can steer a parachute to a safe landing, we take them up with freefall instructors to teach the basics of accompanied freefall. After they achieve SOLO status, students need another dozen-ish jumps with coaches to complete their packing, spotting, etc. skills needed for an A License. an steer him/herself to a safe landing field, then we start teaching freefall skills. Do not try to rush the learning process. too much rushing will create errors and require you to repeat a level.

Have any T-18 Armata tanks been seen fighting in Ukraine?

Eagerly awaiting the book. Will it be strictly chronological or divided into over-lapping themes (e.g. influence of 10-man speed stars on container design)?

We will never drill for the last barrel of oil because it will be too deep, too far offshore and too crude. By then synthetic gasoline will be less expensive. Less expensive is relative because only wealthy antique automobile owners (think Clive Cussler and Jay Leno) will be able to afford to drive their cars.

Not to worry. In a few more years, oil - and jump tickets - will become so prohibitively expensive that only the rich will be able to afford to skydive. Everyone else will turn to BASE jumping.

This just means that criminals will make huge profits importing MAP. Wealthy women will get genuine MAP, but only God knows what sort of adulterated MAP poor women will be able to afford. In the worst case scenario, the low-grade MAP only half-kills the fetus and the poor woman is forced to birth and raise a deformed child that she cannot afford. This reminds me of a recent conversation with a street-dwelling addict. She was keeping an eye on another street-level addict who was semi-conscious in a coffee shop. She called for a Narcan anti-dote, but in her second sentence questioned the validity of Narcan considered how adulterated street drugs are these days: amphetamine, fentanol, ketamine, heroine, horse-tranquilizer, morphine, methadone, methamphetamines, cocaine, baking soda, opium, rat poison, speed, etc.

This remind some of a similar debate in Canada a decade or so ago. I forget whether the issue was abortion or gay marriage or ... but the key point was that it was far too much of a political hot-potato for elected Members of Parliament to openly vote their opinion on the floor of the House of Commons, so those elected "cowards" bumped the sensitive issue to the Supreme Court of Canada. Yes, I just called a bunch of dully-elected Members of the House of Commons "cowards." Members of Parliament should be obliged to vote in support of the majority of their constituents (voters). This reminds me of a conversation that I had with our elected, Conservative, back-bencher. At the end of a town-hall meeting, he tossed out the concept of reviewing abortion legislation. I told him that the abortion boat sailed 30 years ago! After exhaustive court battles (Doctor Henry Morgenthaler et. al.) was legalized in Canada and the majority of Canadians were content with that decision. I told him that I considered a renewed public debate to be a waste of time and money. I also told him that I considered a renewed debate to be a distraction from more important issues. I concluded by telling him that I would not vote for him a second time if he wasted time on a renewed abortion debate. As an aside, I grew up in Quebec during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s when Dr. Henry Morgenthaler was repeatedly arrested and tried for performing illegal abortions. Eventually Canadian courts concluded that it was easier to legalize abortions than to re-try Morgenthaler AGAIN! The 1950s, 1960s and 1970s were the era of the "Quiet Revolution" that saw Quebec transform from the most conservative and most catholic part of North America to the least religious part of North America. It was a single-generation transformation from a pseudo-feudal society to the hippy generation.

Struth!

MASKirovka! MASKirovka: a Russian word meaning "deception."

Dear jakee, Warfare is never as simple or as pretty as portrayed in the history books. History books are written by the victors. One of the reasons that victors need so many decades - to write memoirs - is that a fireplace can only burn so many embarrassing documents per hour. Hah! Hah!

Yes and flying is fun. This reminds me of when I leased a Cessna 172 to keep our small Nova Scotia drop zone jumping. I had just spent the morning in the pilot's seat - flying jumpers to altitude - when the manifest lady asked me if I wanted to take a break and do something "fun" like skydive. I replied that I was having too much fun in the pilot's seat and would cheerfully fly most of the afternoon.

Over Easter Dinner, I compared the current siege of Mariupol with the 1990 Oka Crisis near Montreal, Canada. After he surrendered, Mohawk Warrior Ronaldo Casalpro (nom du guerre: Ronald "Lasagna" Cross) was beaten by the Quebec Provincial Police. Two QPP officers were suspended, but never formally punished. The rest of the Mohawks refused to surrender to the QPP because they KNEW that they would also be beaten. QPP lost control of the perimeter around the Oka Reservation by mid-August 1990, so were supplemented by (federal) Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Eventually the Canadian Army - specifically the Royal 22nd Regiment (aka. VanDoos) - slowly squeezed Mohawks into surrendering. Given the extensive media coverage, the 22nd Regiment maintained rigid discipline within their ranks and professionally completed their task without further deaths. My younger brother was serving in the Canadian Army and was sent to Oka to assist the 22nd Regiment. His opinions about the professionalism of the QPP cannot be repeated in polite company. Fast forward to today, Ukrainian soldiers stubbornly defend the ruins of a steel mill in Mariupol, Ukraine because they KNOW that Russian soldiers WILL kill them if they surrender. Earlier rumors claimed that Russian soldiers strip-searched Ukrainians fleeing along "humanitarian corridors." Any Ukrainians with evidence of runic alphabet or fascist leanings were killed and many other were marched near-naked away from the road (aka. humanitarian corridor) in freezing weather. The Russian Army recently aired video of Ukrainian soldiers surrendering. One of the P.O.W.s was Don Zvonyk, with a distinctive tattoo on his chest. But 5 days later, Russian officials in Donyetsk sent photos to his mother. The photos showed the dead soldier's distinctive tattoo. When Zvonyk's family retrieved his body from the morgue, they noticed a "large wound in back of head." CNN TV News 2022 May 2. Warfare in Eastern Europe had always been fought on a vastly different basis than in Western Europe. During World War 2, neither the (fascist) Nazi Germans nor Soviet (Russian) Army accepted significant numbers of prisoners of war and many thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of P.O.W.s starved or froze to death on the Russian Front. Any one trying to apply the Geneva convention or "rules of war" to the current crisis in Ukraine is woefully naive about the nature of warfare outside of civilized Western Europe.

Good points dear shadeland, Also consider that USPA, and many canopy coaches consider any canopy smaller than 150 square feet to be "heavily-loaded" because their short suspension lines allow fast turns. ... turns faster than some skydivers' brains can comprehend.

We answered your question on an earlier thread. Please use the search thread next time this question comes up. PISA Hornets are well-behaved, mid-range sport canopies with 9-cells and ZP fabric. Hornets compete directly with other mid-range canopies like Sabres, Safires and Pilots. Our school had four rental Hornet 190s and a few more Hornets of various sizes among sport jumpers. They all flew fine and I only had to reline them after many hundreds of jumps on Spectra suspension lines. Malfunctions and injuries were rare.

I skydived for 40 years because skydiving helped keep my dopamine levels up. for some reason, my body does not naturally generate the same levels of dopamine as most other people. In order to kick-start dopamine production, I need to do something mildly dangerous like running or flying or skydiving. With regular skydives, my body learned to generate regular amounts of dopamine. Another theory is that schoolyard bullies and regular spankings at home conditioned me to expect "X" amounts of fear and pain in my life. All those beatings programmed me to expect "X" amount of adrenaline per day. As an adult, I learned how to avoid bullies, but still expected those same levels of fear of and pain. I experimented with a variety of ways to artificially generate those same levels of fear and pain. I Drove fast until I realized the foolishness of that. Drinking to excess just left me feeling hung-over the next day. I never found a recreational drug that generated comfortable levels of adrenaline. Bar room brawling soon proved an awkward way to get my adrenaline levels up. I climbed rocks until the sport quit scaring me. I rode bicycles too fast until I lost too much skin during too many "high speed dismounts". I flew airplanes until I could no longer afford to rent Cessnas enough to stay current. Running helped. But skydiving was the only regular adrenaline generator that I could consume on a regular basis. So I quit my regular job and pursued skydiving as a full-time career for 18 years. I only quit skydiving after the nearest DZ closed and I got into an argument with the next nearest DZO. Since the next nearest DZO and I were never going to agree on the use of seat-belts, I concluded that it was foolish to fly in his airplanes without seat-belts and I quit skydiving completely. I still miss the cameraderie and adrenaline rush of skydiving.

Some students are auditory learners. Some students are visual learners. Some students are tactile learners. Some students learn form smell ... go ask your dog ... Hah! Hah! Some students learn best when they read instructions. Some students learn better from static diagrams. Some students learn better from cartoons. Some students learn better from photographs. Some students learn better from maps, while others are totally baffled by maps. Some students learn best from videos. I can only do math when I see numbers written on a page. All students only truly learn after they have practiced the new skill a few times. Bottom line, you probably have students with a half-dozen learning styles and the more different ways you present the material, the better your chances of catching the attention of every student.