riggerrob

Has the Society of Automotive Engineers (or Parachute Industry Association) written a standard for the number of Teslas that a magnet needs to generate? I just used rare earth magnet (purchased from Lee Valley Tools) when I added magnetic riser covers to my Vector 1.5. If anything, they were too weak because the down-wind riser cover opened when I turned sideways to the wind (relevant while crawling out on the Cessna strut with IAD students).

Both produce toxic smoke when you burn them. The difference is that burning fossil fuel gets your buttocks high enough to skydive. I never did understand the utility of tobacco?????????

Dear gowlerk, That reminds me of the 2011 Stanley Cup (hockey) riots in Vancouver. One of my co-workers was driving a #20 bus towards downtown when a bunch of rowdy young men tried to board his bus. When he asked where they were going, they replied "To the riot downtown." He slammed the door in their faces! Hah! Hah! A few minutes later, all buses were told to short-turn before they reached downtown.

That act was written after a few B.C. gang-bangers shot a few other B.C. gang-bangers. Some of those gang-bangers had armored vests and armored SUVs. Since the police did want to be out-gunned or out-armored, they banned armor for ordinary civilians. We wonder if they have ever issued armor permits for diplomats or corporate CEOs????????

Struth! That half-time show was sung by a bunch of 50-year-old rappers. Even M&M reprised his hit from 30 years ago.

Will someone please publish the diameter of Vector red-cap, reserve, pilot-chutes versus the diameter of standard, white-cap pilot-chutes?

The last few years that I taught the first jump course, I taught line-twists, closed end cells and slider-not-all-the-way down as "nuisances." They have happened to me on so many jumps that it is not even a conscious effort for me to correct them.

I agree with Joe. How do I say this in a "politically correct" fashion? I have jumped from 30-ish different types of airplanes and Beech Crafts are on my list of favorites after: Airvan, Allouette II, A-Star, Bell Jet Ranger, Bell UH-1 Huey, Breezy, most of the single-engined Cessnas, C-130 Hercules, CH-47 Chinook, DHC-4 Cariboo, DHC-5 Buffalo, DHC-6 Twin Otter, Dornier 27, Dornier 228, Douglas DC-3, Maule, Pilatus Porter, Quest Kodiak, Shorts Skyvan, etc. My favorite jump planes have tail gates and I just wear ear plugs to limit hearing loss. Even cheap foam ear plugs reduce noise below fatigue levels and I only suffered minor hearing loss over 40 years of jumping.

Hello Jerome old buddy, What is your mailing address? I can mail you a total of four RW-6-84 rings with screw-in lower bars. I also have a few of the screw-on, extra-large, D-Rings that paratroopers currently use.

May I suggest installing different-colored risers to the two different canopies? Different-colored risers will give you a second reminder of which canopy you are landing.

While I agree with most of what Jerry Baumchen said vis a vis FAA, USPA, AD, etc. we do not share the same confidence in the written law. May I suggest that it would be un-wise to involve the FAA in this alleged problem. Perhaps this is more of an issue for the Parachute Industry Association. USPA had a confused response to all the problems with blast handles and plastic ripcord handles. USPA banned USAF anti-wind, blast handles, then mysteriously dropped the ban a few years later. They dropped the ban because blast handles had disappeared from USPA DZs ... BECAUSE ... USPA decided to no longer clutter BSRs with a ban on a piece of hardware that had disappeared. Please note that I am referring to the thin, white plastic handles made by Strong Enterprises during the late 1970s. While the thicker and stronger fiberglass-filled handles were also banned by CSPA (circa 1985) I never saw a cracked fiberglass handle. The last time I saw a plastic ripcord handle was in France, circa 1987 when I mentioned it to the DZO, he had not heard of USPA's or CSPA's bans on plastic ripcord handles. The handle in question was cracked bad enough that I could have easily broken it with my bare hands. As an side, it is rumored that United Parachute Technologies has already introduced a reserve pilot-chute - with a smaller cap - for the smallest variants of Vector 2 Micron. Will some-one from the Vector factory please confirm this rumor??????

We discussed Joe Rogan over lunch yesterday. I remember Joe Rogan from when he hosted "Fear Factor" on TV and have have respected some of his more recent interviews, but lost track of the most recent controversy. My buddy is more of a Joe Rogan fan than I, so he filled in the details. He claims that the main opposition to Joe Rogan is monetary. Apparently Joe Rogan attracts up to 11 million listeners per pod-cast ... more than the next 5 news shows combined. Please note that this statistic only applies to the specific time-slot when Rogan is on-the-air. This distracts listeners away from more traditional news sources, sapping their revenues. Another problem is Mr. Rogan insisting that his shows be free for listeners, which further spas ad revenues from traditional news media. While I may not agree with all of Joe Rogan's guests, I support Joe's right to free-speech. If you limit yourself to only one news source or only one side of an argument, you limit your total knowledge. Since I don't expect to hear the-whole-truth from any single news source, I need to consult 4 or 5 sources before making up my mind. Update: Brother gowlerk just corrected me by saying that pod-casts can be listened to any time the listener wants to listen. This provides an even greater distraction from traditional media ... meaning that they lose even more listeners (and ad revenue) whenever a listener listens to a Joe Rogan pod-cast. I used to listen to the ocassional Joe Rogan pod-cast - on youtube - and respected his research and open-minded discussions.

Consider that "white supermacy" was the LAW in North America 150 years ago. Even Metis (half-breeds) were "forcibly evicted" (read shot) when they delayed a white-funded railway. My how times have changed.

Another politician putting her foot in her mouth!!!!!!!!! And they wonder why so few voters actually vote during federal elections???????? .... er .... take politicians seriously ....

I will only take those "Hitler" accusations seriously when they start publishing statistics about how many communists, half-wits, homosexuals, Jews, Roma, Poles, Ukrainians, etc. have been slaughtered by the Trudeau gov't.

My brother live sin Ottawa, a mere 2 or 3 kilometers from Parliament Hill. He said that trucker protests have not affected his way of life. OTOH he did express sympathy with the "silent majority" of working-class truckers who are ignored by the Trudeau Liberal gov't. His political views are more conservative than mine.

Dear Jerry, Your headline reminds me of a book "Eat Your Weakest Man" written by a Master Warrant Officer Rui Amaral about the Canadian Airborne Regiment. The book told his version of the mission to Somalia and the last days of the Canadian Airborne Regiment. We saw how that "Eat Your Weakest Man" attitude led to the down-fall and disbandment of the Canadian Airborne Regiment.

When I am teasing men half my age because I am out-climbing them.

The story is long and complicated and depends upon which side you chose to believe. It all started about 1,000 years ago when some Vikings were invited to rule Kiev and the Ukraine. Later, Muscovites usurped the Ukrainian tradition and absorbed/stole Ukrainian culture. Since the Northern European Plain has few natural defenses, Russia has been the path of invasion for more armies than we can count. Over the centuries, Moscow has repeatedly invaded neighbors to increase the size of military buffer zones around Moscow. Over the years, Moscow/Russia/USSR has been repeatedly invaded by Austrians, English, French, Germans, Lithuanians, Swedes, Ottoman Turks, Poles, Prussians, Tatars, etc. As a result of all these invasions, Russia is paranoid about being invaded again. Currently Mr. Poutine fears invasion from Western Europe, specifically NATO. OTOH NATO - and most Western European leaders - is far too mature to attempt invading Russia AGAIN. The European Community is also reluctant to admit the Ukraine until the country cures its corruption problems. The Ukrainian government has been corrupt since the country gained independence from the USSR circa 1990. The other issue is that during the height of the USSR, the Soviet Navy maintained massive naval bases on the Black Sea, specifically Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. Given the Crimea's mild weather, plenty of Soviet sailors retired to the Crimea and grew to out-number Ukrainians (remain skeptical of any statistics). Circa 2014, the Russian-speaking minority (again be skeptical about statistics)

Politicians like to tell us that the playing field is level. For example, B.C. politicians like to tell us that the medical care playing field is level. I call B.S. because the rich have always been able to buy whatever level of medical care they like, including "medical vacations" to resorts in the Carribbean that grant surgical privileges to the best Canadian and American surgeons. We also have the False Creek Surgical Clinic in downtown Vancouver. Secondly, Workmans' Compensation Borad pre-pays for time in operating rooms, with the goal of returning injured workers to gainful employment as quickly as possible. Thirdly, the general public gets an "average" level of care, frequently waiting 2 or 3 years for knee surgery. Finally, the poor get whatever level of medical care remaining.

Unfortunately, the Pope is not powerful enough to change the minds of every Catholic on the planet. Sometimes he has to wait for an entire generation to die of old age before he can slowly change Catholic dogma. The same thing happens in every other large organization: churches, royal families, political parties, CSPA, Transport Canada, etc.

Thanks for informing us about this new book. The bigger debate reminds me of a church sermon that I wrote a few years back. The sermon's title was "Religion or science? What is your best guess?" The sermon starts with the notion that the Bible is a "best guess" based upon human knowledge at the time it was written by early Jews. When they lacked an explanation, they just added "God in the gaps." Over the years, geneticists, archeologists, climatologists, biologists, astronomers, etc. have added to this knowledge and confirmed some of the basic concepts written in the Bible. I want to be clear when I state that there are few errors in the Bible, rather there are large gaps in the knowledge of the original authors. As scientists dig up more evidence, we slowly fill in gaps in the that knowledge. Much of what we believe as "scientific fact" will be laughed at a few decades in the future. Every year scientific "fact" has to be re-written in light of new evidence. During my lifetime, I have seen the introduction of plate tectonics, genetics, the Big Bang, quantum mechanics, home computers, etc. My studies of climatology (see Bryan Fagan's numerous books) confirm the basis for the biblical story of Noah's Ark. There is ample sedimentary evidence from Lake Winnipeg to the Black Sea confirming a huge flood roughly 7,000 years before Jesus Christ. For example, I don't believe that the Big Bang is the total explanation of how our universe was created, rather, it believe that the Big Bang is just one phase of a constantly recurring cycle of expansion and contraction of our galaxy. Those celestial cycles last so many billions of years that they are too big for the human mind to graps, so we settle for the much shorter and simpler "Big Bang" Theory.

3 Ring confluence wrap is easy to inspect on most rigs. Just pull the wrap part-way out of its protective "mud flap." If I can't do that, I slide a finger inside to feel the stitching. I have sewn a few hundred WMW stitches and know what they feel like with my eyes closed. Otherwise, most of the harness joints that are covered (e.g. back straps) are inspected at the factory before the back pad is closed. Given the wrap-around configuration of most back straps, even neglected stitching would make little difference. There is a good reason that hip junctions are covered by fabric leg pads: to protect them against abbrassion when you slide landings.

Most cliff-jumping instructors will want you to show logbooks filled with at least 200 skydives before they will teach you the finer points of cliff-diving. Cliff-diving is often called BASE Jumping: buildings, antennas, spans (bridges) and earth (cliffs). Frankly, it will take you most of 200 jumps to learn the packing and precision landing skills needed to survive higher-risk BASE jumps. I mentioned precision landing skills because many popular BASE sites have tiny landing areas hemmed in by trees, railroads, large rocks and fast-flowing rivers, so your only safe option is landing on a small sand bar.

Yes! Dust devils make jumping waaaaaaay more exciting. We saw plenty of them during California summers, especially near the hills in Hemet. I have even seen dust devils as far North as Pitt Meadows, Canada (49 th parallel).