riggerrob

Godwin's Law: the longer a discussion progresses, the more like that some one will make an analogy with Adolf Hitler. For the record, I fear the hard-right just as much as I fear the hard-left. Religious zealots of every faith also scare me.

Large numbers of Californians have already moved to Arizona, Utah, Oregon, Idaho, etc. to escape high taxes. We have seen a similar migration in British Columbia over the last 20 years. As house prices exceeded $1 million dollars in Vancouver, people started retiring to the Okanagan Valley. So many Vancouverites moved to the Okanagan Valley that house prices soared and are almost as expensive as Vancouver.

Yes. Stepped hip joints can be silly when you consider how loosely they hold a back-pad to the jumper's spine. Most of the jumpers pictured above could benefit from belly bands, but those belly-bands would need to be routed on the same level as their lateral straps.

I will suggest Bill Cole, but he lipped off too many CSPA Board Members to ever earn their vote. Hah! Hah! CSPA is equally dis-pleased with my suggestion that the first parachute jump in Canadian skies was in September 1888. A Mr. Larsen jumped from a hot-air balloon over Sherbrooke, Quebec ... near my home town. CSPA are even more miffed when I quote Mr. Molson, the retired curator of the Rockcliffe Museum. The Molson Family Foundation has financed plenty of historical and archeological research about industrial revolution era Canadian history.

CALIBRE Magazine, Volume 10/Issue 1 contains a 4-page article about Roger Kotanko's death during a police raid. It details publicaly-available information about the bungled police raid, but raises more questions than it answers. Police refuse to answer questions during the investigation. The article does not mention any of Roger's skydiving experience.

Back when Rigging Innovations introduced ringed harnesses, we only had a few (maybe 5 percent of production) custom-made harnesses returned because of poor fit. Half of those poorly-fitted harnesses had been measured by the owner. Hint: you cannot accurately self-measure, ergo you need a second, trained person (tailor or rigger) to measure properly. Half of our problems were with leg pads that were too long. This was part of R.I.'s process of learning how to size ringed harnesses. We found that ringed harnesses could be worn much tighter - and still allow above-previous-generations of flexibility. OTOH The majority of harnesses - that I re-sized between 1994 and 1997 - were for second owners who were a different size than the original owner. This was also when free-flying came in to fashion along with ringed harnesses, butt-bungees, etc. Bottom line: if you are smaller than the average skydiver, you will probably need a custom-sized harness and should hire a rigger to help measure you.

Joseph Stalin missed a golden opportunity in 1945. He could have established a neutral corridor across Central Europe to include: Finland, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Yugoslavia, etc. A well monitored neutral corridor would protect both Capitalist and communist military interests and might have prevent the current blood-shed in Ukraine.

That huge "air brake" also looks like a convenient landing pad. Is it painted with non-skid?

Disney figured out that their customers include more than just traditional, nuclear families with a husband, wife and 2.5 children. Nuclear families may have been the norm when I was born 64 years ago, but the world has changed a lot since then. Disney is following the money. Disney is far too wise to exclude single mothers. Which reminds me of a friend who is a single mother to two children. She was widowed after her husband fell from a ladder. Would it be wise for Disney to exclude her family? ... because they are no longer a traditional nuclear family? Would it be polite for Disney to exclude her non-nuclear family?

The larger the organization, the less likely a message will be passed properly. The more layers in the organization, the less likely the message will be passed properly. If management made a decision, but nobody told the man with the wrench ... did management really make a decision? I used to see this sort of foolishness every day when I served in the Canadian Armed Forces (1974 to 1987).

I agree with everything Wendy said except for her 5th point. Human birth rates are declining and populations will start declining around 2050. Human birth rates have been declining since circa 1970. Once young women get enough education that they can earn dollars outside of the house, they also realize that modern medicine has reduced infant mortality rates to the point that most of their children will survive to adulthood. Ergo little need to birth more than 2 or 3 children. First World birth rates have been below replacement rates (2.2 children per woman) for even longer. Second World birth rates have also been declining to below replacement rates. It is only a few Third World countries that still have high birth rates. See Nigeria which is the most populous country in Africa and projected to exceed the population of main land China by 2050. How Nigeria can feed that many mouths with a swampy Southern coast-line and an arid northern third is a mystery to me??????? Low birth rates force First World countries to accept thousands of immigrants per year to do lower-paying jobs. For example, British Columbia has to import hundreds of seasonal Mexican farm laborers (fruit-pickers) every summer because Canadian citizens do not want to work long days for minimum wage. Several first world countries are already experiencing serious labor shortages because of low birth rates. Main land China's "One Child Policy" may have solved a population problem, but it created other problems. Gender-specific abortions reduced the number of baby girls to the point that main land China now suffers from a shortage of brides ... conversely ... an excess of un-married young men. Un-married young men are far more likely to riot, etc. OTOH low birth rates can drive global politics in unpleasant ways. Consider the current Russian problem of too few young men of military age. If you look back a century, a Russian boy born in 1920 had only a 20 percent chance of surviving World War 2 (ended in 1945). Many millions of those deaths were during battle, but huge numbers also died during the Russian Revolution, Ukrainian Civil War,, Stalin's Purges, Holomodor Famine, occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s, Chechin Wars, etc. Russia also suffered low birth rates during the confusing period after the Iron Curtain fell. Current Russian birth rates are hampered by age, alcoholism and abortions. Age problems are the results of a series of waves of birth rate slumps echoing back to the 1930s. With shortages of young men of marriageable age, few young Russian women want to raise families as single mothers. Alcoholism is caused by all the cheap vodka causing "brewer's droop" and shortening the lives of Russian men since Tzarist times. Finally, abortion is the only form of pre-natal care available to to millions of Russian women. Mr. Poutine felt compelled to invade Ukraine this year, because he knew that if he waited another decade, he would not be able to field enough soldiers. Russia is reluctant to admit immigrants who are visible minorities. This xenophobia is understandable given all the times that Russia has been invaded by: Austrians, British, French, Germans, Hungarians, Kyrgyrs, Lithuanians, Ottomans, Poles, Swedes, Sythians, Turks, Vikings, etc. Moscow suffers from too few natural lines of defense across the North European Plain. THE NEP extends from the Normandy Coast all the way to the Ural Mountains. I want to make it clear that I understand the paranoia that drives Mr. Poutine's current invasion of Ukraine, but Mr. Poutine's paranoid does not justify the current slaughter in Ukraine.

Reference the debate about NATO allies not paying their fair share .... May I compare with the notion that the USA is many billions of dollars behind on their payments to the United Nations? The USA pays its UN commitments in other ways. For example: "5 I" countries (Australia, Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and USA) lose money every time they send troops on UN peace-keeping missions. The UN pays a fixed number of dollars per soldier/police peacekeeper serving in the disputed country. But "5 I" countries "go heavy" supplying their troops with trucks, APCs, helicopters, mortars, heavy machineguns, snipers, field hospitals, surveillance drones, extensive communications, intelligence officers and robust supply chains. Those robust supply chains "push" forward water, food, clothing, tents, sleeping bags, blankets, bandages, toilet paper, batteries, ammunition, truck spare parts, petroleum, oil and lubricants, and hundreds of other consumable supplies. "5 I" peacekeepers quickly out-spend their UN budgets. The advantage is that the vast majority of "5 I" soldiers return home at the end of their UN missions. In comparison, poorer nations (Carribbean or African) collect the same number of dollars from the UN, but their officers pocket most of the dollars. Junior ranking peace-keepers arrive in-country with barely their rifles and the uniforms on their backs. Junior soldiers rarely see their UN pay. Meanwhile, they need to request supplies through lengthy UN supply chains that include sending out requests for bids, evaluating bids, etc.

Canadian Royal Commission inquires are frequently excuses to delay decisions for many years - sometimes decades - until funding becomes available. Meanwhile, the ongoing bureaucracy wastes millions of dollars. Just look at the long string of Canadian Defense procurement fiascos: Sea King helicopter replacement, DHC-5 Buffalo replacement, CF-18 replacement, CH-47 Chinook helicopter replacement, Centurion tank replacement, Leopard I tank replacement, etc.

You may call me a boring old libertarian, Unitarian/Universalist, but I get embarrassed when right-wingers talk loudly about a third-party's sexuality. What need-to-know do they have about some third-party's sexuality? I don't believe that I have a need-to-know about some one else's sexual history until we agree to sexual intercourse. Even then, my need-to-know is limited to sexually-transmitted-diseases. May I suggest that nosey right-wingers get their noses out of third-party's sexuality?

Which reminds me of the latest political silliness in Canada. Some critics complained that a recent political (federal Conservative Party) rally in Alberta contained too few visible minorities. First off, Canada contains a much smaller percentage of "visible minorities" than the USA, so it is silly to try to hold any Canadian political rally to the same racial quotas as the USA. Secondly, African-Americans are scarcer in Canada because slaver was never profitable. Thirdly, Canadian law restricted immigration of non-whites until 1962, ergo we still have fewer visible minorities. Fourthly, within a few generations of immigration, most immigrants inter-marry with other races, blurring racial distinctions. I cannot be bothered to waste brain cells to determine whether some-one is a half-breed, quadroon, octroon, etc. Finally, since Alberta is far from the coast (traditional immigration entrances) the province has fewer visible minorities than coastal provinces. Granted, Alberta does include small numbers of African, Asian, Jewish, Muslem, South Asian, Polynesian, etc. but they are still a tiny percentage of the provincial population. Bottom line, trying to hold Canadian politicians to American racial quotas is silly.

What? I have dropped hundreds of static-line and IAD students from 2,800 or 3,000 feet because that was the norm (USPA and CSPA BSRs) back then (1982 to 2006). Dumbing-down AFFers first hop-and-pop to 4500' is a dis-service. Maybe do their first hop-and-pop from 5,000' - to get them over their fears - but then step down hop-and-pops to 3,000 feet because the primary reason for hop-and-pops is to get them over the fear and hesitation of doing hop-and-pops if they are limited by low clouds or an engine quits. I once had to spend half a day sewing back together a student container because a recently graduated freefall student tumbled an exit from a King Air flying at 4,000 feet. He deployed his main while tumbling and partially tore the reserve container away from the main container. He tumbled the exit because he was flustered about having to exit so "LOW." They were limited by low clouds that day. I have had to do similar repairs to Javelins, Sidewinders, Talons, Vectors, etc. after unstable openings. I later talked the Sidewinder manufacturer into adding triangular flaps to reduce the risk of main lines ripping off reserve containers. Then I sewed those little triangles onto our dozen student Sidewinders.

Does anyone remember how Russia quickly dispensed with all those troublesome, Muslim "stans" (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrghistan, Tajikistan, etc. after the Iron Curtain collapsed? Russia tried to retain across to Chechnian oil, but they proved a bloody process. Russia tried to retreat to the old Russian-speaking, Orthodox Christian, white-skinned core of Russia after the Iron Curtain fell.

Mr. Poutine is just using the Russian Orthodox Church to support his bloody regime. The Russian Orthodox Church are little more than puppets in this respect. ROC rank right up there with Mr. Poutine's pet Night Wolves. Hah! Hah! One thing the USA got right - from the start - was separation of church and state. They did it for two reasons: first, the Pope was too many thousands of miles away to make timely decisions about the 13 Colonies. Secondly, many American colonists were descended from refugees who had fled the numerous religious wars that had ravaged Europe: Spanish Reconquista, 30 Years War, English Civil War, suppression of Hugenots, suppression of Jews, Spanish Inquisition, Siege of Vienna, Great Northern War, etc. and the last thing they wanted was a return of that same foolishness. Thankfully, the majority of Canadians have adopted American attitudes towards religious wars and belive in separation of church and state. I don't know if it is enshrined in the latest version of Rights and Freedoms, but the average Canadian citizen wants gov't to stay out of religion.

Agreeing with Billvon ... Over the last decade I have seen North American media severely dumbed-down. The decline started back during the 1990s when I worked in the Southern California skydiving industry: California City, Hemet. Perris and Elsinore, I soon concluded that the Los Angeles Times fixated on stories originating in the LA Basin. The LA Times only occassionally mentioned events in other states and largely ignored Europe, S during my days off, I drove 1 hour to a newspaper store that carried: Manchester Guardian, Paris Match, der Spiegel, Toronto Globe and Mail, etc. to understand the global picture. These days I read a half-dozen internet feeds and keep a PAPER copy of The Economist in my pocket. We have also seen North American severely polarized to the point that right-wingers only have to listen to their version of the "correct" news on a dozen different conservative news feeds. By the same token, I have to bite my tongue when my left-wing, tree-hugging friends get too excited about the latest "woke" news story. Bottom line, current trends towards polarization are scary because they only push voting blocs farther apart. .

If you can fix the problems created by lawyers charging too much ... then I will take you seriously. My experience has been that lawyers create more problems - than they solve - during personal injury lawsuits.

That brave Russian missile cruiser successfully intercepted a pair of Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missiles. Russian airplanes bombed the Neptune factory to prevent a reapeat.

Stop worrying about the money. Worrying will only make you tense up and mess up a dive. The schedule is written for the perfect student while most students require an "extra" dive or two complete all of the targeted learning objectives. I have concluded dozens of student logbook entries with "Go for a modified Level 2 with a few more practice pilot-chute touches near the top." When I suggest more PPCTs, that is because leading Canadian skydiving schools have been equipping students with hand-deploy pilot-chutes for more than 40 years.

Sometimes "green washing" is about burning the same amount of fossil fuel, but in some one elses' valley. For example, we see smog over Vancouver every summer. Most of that smog is created by automobiles burning fossil fuels. Electric cars help displace that smog to some other valley .. perhaps in the Himalayas where Chinese miners get much of their lithium. Who knows how "clean" Chinese mining practices are????????

Welcome to one of the few industrialized nations that lacks universal health care. The only people who benefit from this are lawyers. Since the poor cannot afford to pay for emergency health care, they simply default on medic bills. Some cheapskates try to blame doctors by filing "medical malpractice" lawsuits. While a few doctors make mistakes, the vast majority are competent and do the best they know how to cure patients. In a few cases, the wounded arrived so badly mangled (e.g. car wreck) that the best surgeon on the planet could not "make the victim whole." Since hospitals predict that a certain percentage of patients will default on medical bills, they up their rates make everyone else pay. Meanwhile, lawyers grow fat arguing the more obscure points of medical care for badly mangled patients ... time that would much better be devoted to paying surgeons, X-ray techs, physio-therapists, etc. The middle and working classes always get stuck with the tax bill.

Glancing through that manual suggests that those military Javelin free-bags are sized for reserve canopies in the 281 to 385 square foot range. Some civilian Student Javelins contain 280 square foot reserves, so you might be able to sell those military-surplus free-bags to a skydiving school. At the large end of the scale 385 gets into tandem weight ranges, but since Javelin never certified a civilian tandem, those sizes are not relevant for civilians. Sometimes you can substitute the next larger size of free-bag, but consult your local Master Rigger or the Javelin factory to confirm compatibility. With 500 pound bundles, military free-fallers get into tandem weight ranges, but again not relevant for civilian sales. Selling military surplus Javelin reserve pilot-chutes is easier because all Javelins use the same size of (rigid) pilot-chute cap. Double-check with the Javelin factory to confirm that military pilot-chutes are compatible with civilian Javelin containers.