riggerrob

7' 3" long by 5' 9" tall. 2.2 meters x 1.75 meters That tall a cabin means that most skydivers will be able to stand upright in Sky Courier.

If you watch some of "history legends'" videos on www.youtube.com you will realize that much of what is being done today - in South Eastern Ukraine - is merely unfinished business left over from 2014. Russia/Soviet Union only controlled Crimea for a couple of hundred years because they needed an ice-free port for international trade. During that period, large numbers of Russian-speaking sailors were posted to Sebastapol and many retired there, producing a Russian-speaking majority. When the USSR collapsed economically in 1989, they were too poor to retain large bureaucracies in many of the 'stans, Balkans, Ukraine, etc. so wrote an odd sort of co-government with Keeve. While Crimea has a marvellously warm climate - by Russian standards - it is also a dry climate and Crimean farmers depended upon water pumped in from the Dneiper River hundreds of kilometers to the North. After the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea, Ukrainians dumped hundreds of tons of concrete rubble in the North Crimean Canal. They later build a proper concrete dam to completely close water exports to Crimea. During the first day (24 February 2022) of the current invasion, Russian troops reached the shores of the Dneiper river, due north of Crimea. Then they made a big show of dynamiting the rubble dam. It will probably take them months to completely restore water flow to Crimea, maybe not even in time for the 2022 farming season. Meanwhile, fighting continues around Mariupol to clear a land link from Russia to Crimea. The invasion of Northern Ukraine is more of a political issue, with more resistance than expected. Mind you, Russian troops still needed to schedule re-fueling stops on the outskirts of Keeve before they could capture the capital city. The slow an messy fighting around Keeve and Kharkov makes us wonder if that is just a smokescreen for Russia's real goals. Finally, if Russians continue their invasion Northwards along the Dneiper River, they may force the Ukrainian Army to retreat from Eastern Ukraine rather than risk encirclement. One possible bad conclusion sees the new Ukrainian/Russian border along the Dneiper River. Peace negotiations are stumbling forward at an awkward pace. Some of the Russian demands are ridiculous, but others are doable. For example, Ukraine can cheerfully agree to Russian demands to root out all "fascists" in Ukraine. Since the Ukrainian President Zelinski is from a Jewish family, and most Ukrainian families have miserable memories of the German Fascist occupation during World War 2. This looks easy on paper, but the devil is in the details because the Russian definition of "fascist" really means "anti-Mr. Poutine." If Ukraine are smart, they will insist on judges from the Hague monitoring the "de-fascism" process in Ukraine. At the least, Ukraine will lose the Russian-speaking majority provinces in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, but retain the ice-free port of Odessa. Ukraine will also lose control of the North Crimean Canal and some of the shoreline of the Dnieper River. One miserable compromise is losing all territories East of the Dnieper River. The worst case scenario sees Ukraine reverting to being the puppet state of Russia that she has been on-and-off for hundreds of years.

Basik is the odd-one-out with an exposed free-bag. I have only repacked a single Basik reserve, but it went together almost as easily as a Javelin and I got it closed on my second try. Pity, because an exposed free-bag is easier to deploy as containers get smaller and narrower in the rush to make your butt look bigger! Hah! Hah! One thing that I found odd about the Basik freebag was that it had Cordura on the exposed portion, but F-111 on the hidden portion (against pack tray). I assume that Basik did that to save an ounce (gram) or two. Ever since we got to 1990s vintage reserve densities, I have considered F-111 freebags to be silly because they are too easily damaged by ham-fisted riggers. I am amazed that more freebags are not torn by ham-fisted riggers. ??????? Yes, I have sewn patches on a few freebags made of F-111 usually after they landed in thorn bushes. As an aside, circa 1980, many containers were made of only a single layer of para-pack in an effort to make them as light-weight as possible. Those single-layer containers (e.g. early SST Racer) were easy to damage by dragging across asphalt. If you really worried about sunlight or abrassion damage, you would make the exposed portion of the freebag double or triple layer with Cordura outside and a UV blocking fabric like Dyvatane (sp?) on the inside. Dyvatane is a thick, felt-like fabric used by movie crews when they want to film "night" scenes during daytime. They cover windows with Dyvatane to block daylight. A dozen other fabrics (e.g. acrylic) can also block UV light.

Cessna just received FAA type-certification for their new, twin-engined 408 Sky Courier cargo plane. The cabin is sized for a trio of LD3 baggage containers holding up to 6,000 pounds of cargo, loaded through a large door on the left side, immediately aft of the high-mounted wing. The high cruxiform tail will challenge truck drivers to hit it. It is powered by a pair of Pratt & Whitney PT6A-65SC turboprop engines turning McCauley C779 propellers. Launch customer FedEx Express had ordered 50 Sky Couriers with an option to purchase 50 more. Cessna also plan to offer a passenger version with 19 seats.

Canopy fabric is supposed to withstand more than a 40 pound pull before it tears. See the tensile tests required on 1980s vintage round canopies suspected of suffering from acid mesh. Also consider that Performance Designs required all their reserves to be tensile-tested to 30 pounds for a good 30 years. I only saw 5 reserves fail 40 pound tensile tests during the entire period that I rigged (almost 40 years). The first reserve looked more like tent fabric than parachute fabric. The second failed reserve was a 1970s-vintage square reserve built by Para-Flite, before they started using F111. Then I pull-tested holes in a pair of military surplus canopies that had a few hundred jumps as mains before they were packed into pilot emergency parachutes. The last torn reserve was made by Performance Designs and passed pull-test in a dozen other corners, so my only explanation was that it had been pull-tested twice in the same area. Bottom line, if a 30 pound pull will damage your reserve, you are already having a bad day.

Again, you are thinking way too hard. When urethane peels off of para-pack or Cordura, it just flakes off then falls off. Almost zero chance of it affecting the canopy fabric. Most batches of para-pack and Cordura have urethane coating as water-proofing for the their primary roll: luggage. The parachute industry is below 1 percent of the "rag trade" so only order small batches of fabric woven to a handful of PIA specs. (e.g. F-111 or Zero-P for canopy fabric.

Russian population decline is not a new problem. A Russin aboy - born in 1920 - had only a 20 percent chance of surviving 1945. Instead it dates back to the 19202, during Stalin's first round of political purges. Stalin killed or imprisoned millions of people that he suspected fo opposing him during the Communist revolution. Millions of Ukrainians and Georgians starved to death during the 1930s famines. Millions of Soviet soldiers died during World War 2. All these casualties caused shortages of young men to sire a "Baby Boom" after World War 2. The drop in birth rates has recurred in several waves after 1946. The latest problem is a shortage of young women of child-bearing age. Other Russian limits to birth rates are racism, aging, alcoholism and abortion. Russians have always feared people-of-other-colors after more more invasions than the average historian can count, ergo few Africans, Asians, etc. want to emmigrate to Russia. Aging relates to the previous paragraph about war losses. Alcoholism is rampant among Russian men, causing brewers' droop and other medical problems. Abortion is the most popular method of birth control in Russia, partly because of the shortage of pre-natal care, condoms, pills, diaphrams, IUDs, etc.

Upper wind limits should be based upon the concept of "when student canopies start landing backwards" ... instead of the current jumble of numbers. It is also dumb for experienced jumpers to be under canopy when winds are strong enough to back them up when faced into the wind. Take this logic from a grumpy old TI who has suffered plenty of bruises, but no fractures during landings. Also consider the concept of when turbulence collapses canopies - at low altitudes - wiser jumpers stay on the ground.

Has anyone else noticed that Russians achieved their major southern objectives (e.g. Dnieper River) during the first day of the war? Part of the hang-over from their 2014 invasion of Crimea was the lack of water. Crimea has a dry climate and had depended upon fresh water pumped in from the Dnieper River for the last 50 odd years. After the 2014 invasion Ukraine dammed the North Crimean Canal in 2 places. The first dam was merely concrete chunks and rubble dumped into the canal. The second - more permanent - solution was building a concrete dam, but never opening the sluice gates. Crimean agricultural production dropped by 40 percent. While Moscow made a big PR production about new donated farm equipment returning production levels to almost pre-2014 levels, I remain skeptical. This PR "maskovka" reminds me too much of the PR "successes" published about Soviet-era collective farms. Sarcasm alert!!!!!! During the first day (February 24, 2022) Russian troops marched out of Crimea and all the way to the shores of the Dnieper River. Then they made a big show of dynamiting the rubble dam. It made for great news footage with explosions and flames and black smoke and flying chunks of concrete and screaming and shouting and running abouting. How much rubble was removed is a second question. Which shifts our focus to the fighting around Mariopul. Russians need to capture that city on the Sea of Azov (East of Crimea) to secure a land route connecting the Crimea to mother Russia. Ukrainian soldiers have stubbornly defended Mariopul, but are running low on supplies. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces east of the Dnieper River risk being cut off if they merely sit in defensive lines. This may end up as a battle for control of the few bridges crossing the Dnieper River. Finally, resistance proved stiffer than expected on the approaches to Keeve and Kharkov. After a couple of days marching, Soviet troops consolidated on the outskirts of Keeve to re-supply. Russia can afford to play the long game while besieging Keeve. But we have to wonder if all the "sturm und drang" around Keeve is merely political smoke and mirrors. Hint: go look at maps published by historical legends on www.youtube.com.

North Crimean Canal. Has anyone else noticed that the Russian Army acheived their objectives in Southern Ukraine during the first day of this invasion? Back during the 2014 invasion, Russia occupied the Crimea but failed to secure water supplies. Since Crimea has few natural sources of ground-water, they depnd upon fresh water pumped from the Deiper River a few hundred kilometers to the North. In late 2014, the Ukrainian gov't filled the North Crimean Canal with blocks of concrete, stopping the flow of fresh water to Crimea. Crimean farmers have suffered serious droughts ever since. Agricultural production dropped by double digits. Moscow tried to relieve pressure by sending millons of rubles worth of farm machinery to Crimea, the cheerfully announced that productivity was returning to pre-war levels. That reminds me of Soviet-era "maskovka" and collective farming practices.

Not the first time this has happened. Back during the late 1990s, I remember one know drug dealer accusing a TI of selling drugs. Yes, the accusee had done prison time for drug-related crimes, but that was years earlier and I had not seen him do any recreational drugs (stronger than alcohol) during the 2 or 3 years that I knew him. "Mr. Kettle, may I introduce you to Mr. Pot?"

A simple review of medical records (family doctor and pharmacist) should confirm whether or not the TI is still taking that medication. For example, I only took Gravol for one week (circa 1984) but hated the side effects (e.g. copper taste in my mouth) and quit taking Gravol. I have not touched the drug since. I suspect that there is a lot more to this story than USPA have published.

I am backing Jerry Baumchen on the cloud regulations. The problem reared its ugly head back during the 1960s when a bunch of skydivers jumped from a World War 2 surplus B-25 Mitchell bomber. They were over clouds and mistakenly exited over Lake Erie. Most of them drowned after they landed their Para-Commanders in the lake. Part of the blame can be ascribed to crude electronic navigation instruments and part of the blame can be put I on an FAA air traffic controller who followed the wrong airplane (a single-engined Beechcraft Bonanza) on ATC radar. ATC gave the B-25 pilot permission to drop when the Bonanaza was over the DZ. Too bad that the B-25 was many miles to the North. The FAA vowed "never again" and banned all jumps through clouds. Since then electronic navigation instruments have improved vastly, to the point that GPS is far more reliable than human skydiving instructors "spotting" by looking out the door. As far back as the 1980s, I was jumping (not North American airspace) when the pilot told me to exit, based upon his reading of VOR. The worst I ever had to do was walk from the far end of the runway. Ever since then I have cheerfully exited when pilots tell me to. Mind, you, I also back up their judgement with sideways glances at landmarks off to the side of the airport. Quite often I called the spot as "early" or "late" just based on landmarks off to the side of the airport. Modern GPS is far more accurate.

If you want to be picky: no! Tanks typically have a crew of only 4 or 5 and a main gun in the 100 to 120 mm caliber. Tanks' primary mission is destroying enemy targets by direct fire (visual range). Tanks' frontal armor is typically 100 to 150 mm thick, enough to defeat their own main gun. OTOH armored personnel carriers primary mission is moving foot soldiers across battlefields. APCs range in size from 8 to 24 seats. Armament rarely exceeds 12.5 or 20 mm heavy machine guns. Armor is much thinner, barely enough to protect occupants against rifle fire (8 mm).

Dear REDAKTOR, Glad to hear from you. Which corner of Ukraine do you jump in? Which corner of Ukraine do you live in? Have Russian soldiers driven through your town? Have you handed them sunflower seeds? Hah! Hah! Please tell us more details from "the man on the street." P.S. Most Canadians think the current invasion is silly, stupid, reckless, etc.

Back during the Viet Nam War (1964-1974 or there abouts) the CIA (or some other alphabet group) supplied the Loatian and Royal Thai Air Forces with T-28s, etc. to attack the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They had quick, slide-in, D panels on vertical fins that changed from day to day. RCAF C-130 Hercules use similar slide-in "United Nations" fin panels when flying relief supplies to disasters in Africa, etc.

6 October 1973 started with 3,000 Israeli soldiers in 180 tanks and manning 60 artillery guns facing a Syrian Army attacking with 28,000 soldiers, 800 tanks and 600 artillery pieces. Both sides received reinforcements during the battle for the Golan Heights. Israel repulsed the attack and marched towards the Syrian capital of Damascas until halted by a cease-fire. We doubted if Israel wanted the headache of occupying Damascus, but they did want to push Syrian artillery farther from the Israeli border.

That sailor serves a medal from the Ukraine Navy.

The Syrian Army lost 250 tanks, during 4 days of fighting when they tried to penetrate the Quneitra Gap in the Golan Heights, during the Kom Kippur War of 1973. Most of those Syrian tanks were killed by Israeli Centurion tanks. Israeli tankers also suffered heavy losses, but prevented Syria from regaining ground lost during 1967's Six Day War. Israel needed to deny Syria access to the Golan Heights because Syrian artillery had an annoying habit of shelling Israeli civilians living in the North End of the Jordan River Valley.

That was a conscious, Canadian self-correction. A few years back I got upset about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I also noticed that a Ukrainian-born, Vancouver-area skydiver-actor-stuntman resembled the head of Mr. Poutine's pet motorcycle gang: the Night Wolves. A bit more research revealed how authentic the Night Wolves really were. So I started writing a tongue-in-cheek, action-adventure script about a bungling bunch of Russian "patriots" whose mistakes land them in need doo-doo and help explain how an airliner got shot down. My Ukrainian-born buddy could do all kinds of fight scenes, BASE jumps, wing-suit fly-bys, etc. to maintain the fast pace of the story. One ficticious character was bald, always well-dressed and only seen in silhouette. I called him "Mr. Poutine" in the first draft. Upon reflection, I realized that the character looked too much like a certain Eastern European politician. Political rivals, journalists and critics who made unflattering remarks about him tended to die from mysterious poisins. So I handed a rough draft of the script to my Ukrainian-born friend and dropped the project. As I age, I fear death less and less, so maybe it is time to revive that satirical script. What do you think?

Good point! Russia's biggest problems and alcoholism, abortion and ageing, all reducing Russian birthrates below replacement rates. A Russian boy born during 1920 had only a 20 percent chance of surviving World War 2. All those casualties limited Russian birthrates during a series of waves. Poutine now fears that he will not have enough young soldiers (cough! cough! cannon-fodder) to resist the next invasion. Couple this with long-standing Russian fears of different-colored and different-religioned invaders from: Austria, France, Germany, Lithuanian, Mongolia, Poland, Sweden, Tatarstan, Turkey, etc. Remember that Moscow was first separated from Keeve by a Muslim invasion that forced the principality of Moscow to pay tribute to the Khanate. Since Russians fear outsiders, immigration rates are tiny and Russian street gangs often beat minorities. The end result is that Russian population is shrinking.

On a more cheerful note: that sounds like good skydiving weather1 How are Ukrainian skydivers reacting to the latest foolishness? Lets' hear from Ukrainian skydivers.

Dear Brenthutch, You are wandering off topic. Biden inherited a mess of an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, so he completed Trump's plan to withdraw all American troops from that Graveyard of Empires. Please do yourself a favor and review history to determine how many foreign empires have been able to conquer Afghanistan????????????????????

Dear Rustbucket 350, This why some skydiving schools start out with tandems to show you "the big picture" Then they shift to IAD or static-line (typically from 3,000 feet or 1 kilometer) to teach you the basics of steering a parachute and landing. If there is a vertical wind-tunnel nearby, they send student there for a few minut4es training before introducing them to accompanied freefall instructors.

Since rap and hip-hop came into fashion after I reached adulthood, I have difficulty relating to them. My version of "angry young man music" ended with Bob Seger. At one point I was dating a music professor and described rap as "just another genre of angry young man music." That did not go over well with her!!!!!! OTOH as an historian, I try to identify long-term cycles of weather, crop-failures, politics, warfare, art and music. If you live long enough, you will see waves in many aspects of society.,