riggerrob

Just out of the rain following Armistice Day Parade in Port Moody. Thankfully, the rain held off until the parade was dismissed. Bumped into an old soldier/gunnery sargeant who served with my brother in Bosnia and Afghanistan. He invited me to help fire the salute. I was honoured to pull the lanyard for one of the 21 shots fired this morning. The Seymour Artillery Company brought their antique, muzzle-loading, 6-pounder cannon. Gunners wore red serve topped with white pith helmets. Afterwards, I chatted with gunners. One was a US Army SF (retired) who had served on Germany during the Cold War. He was surprised when I asked if he had been stationed in Bad Tolz!

Backing councilman on this debate ..... but from a different angle. New jumpers never learned how to fly older designs. For example, back when (mid 1990s) Micro Raven 120 and 109 were introduced, (the dear departed) Al Frizby sang sarcastic songs about "stupid fat white men" jumping tiny reserves. I sang back-up in the choir. A decade later, tiny Micro Ravens were popular with fun jumpers in Pitt Meadows. A young jumper wanted to load a Micro Raven at 1.6 pounds per square foot. Since the reserve was airworthy, I repacked it, but warned him about the risks. He dismissed me as a dumpy, old, gray-bearded Master Riger. A few months later, he made an entire parade of mistakes and broke a bunch of bones. Micro Ravens fell out of fashion faster than a greased anvil! May I suggest an alternative solution? Only pack gear that is younger than the user. Only pack 5- cell reserves for people who have a hundred jumps on 5-cell mains. If they had a bunch of jumps back when leather Frap-Hats were fashionable, they should be allowed to continue jumping with a leather frap-hat. If someone had a thousand jumps before electronic AADs were invented (1991) then they should be allowed to jump without an AAD. Etc. This attitude allows POPS, SOS, etc. to continue jumping familiar gear, but also ensures that year will fade from the DZ over the next decade.

Wendy and raff offer good advice. My favourite form of exercise is hiking on steep, forested trails. Steep trails get my lungs breathing hard for half an hour. Rough trails force me to lift my eyes and pay attention to my surroundings. Forests and trees and moss and eagle all encourage mindfulness. All of which help lift me out of my own mental rut. Since I struggle to get my ass off the couch some days, I leave the decision to God. If God provides a bright, sunny day - and I have no errands planned after work - then the decision has been made. I have no choice. I have to hop off the bus halfway home and hike up the side Burnaby Mountain. Similarly, if Sunday afternoon is sunny, then God has decided that I should go for a hike after church. Again, I is God's decision and God's decision trumps my procrastination or excuses. That logic got me climbing the Grouse Grind on my 60th birthday. I had been procrastinating for the last decade, but three months of regular afternoon hikes and mild weather took the decision out of my hands. I was committed to hiking up the Grouse Grind. Try to think of walks in the park as short vacations.

........ Does the free healthcare for all truly cover all? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Refugees to Canada usually get free healthcare for the first year. After that, refugees are expected to BUY their healthcare ... the same way as other Canadian citizens. When I say that Canadian citizens BUY healthcare, I mean that we pay more taxes than Americans and roughly 40 percent of our taxes are used to pay for basic medical services. Prescription drugs, eyeglasses, dental work, private hospital rooms, physio-therapy, crutches, etc. are not covered by basic Medicare. All those extra medical expenses are paid out of the patients' pocket or supplemental medical insurance. For example, over the last year I have enjoyed (?) 2 root-canals and 3 dental crowns. I only paid a pittance because my Union negotiated substantial extra dental insurance with the municipal bus company we work for (almost a government job). Many senior Union brothers stick around for the medical benefits. Many stick around too long because they fear loss of medical insurance when they retire. In the end Canadians still pay for "free" medical care. We just pay out of a different pocket than our American neighbors

That's because for Canadians most of their tuition cost is subsidized, foreign students pay full price. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Truth! A few years back I considered studying at British Columbia Institute of Technology. Tuition would have been $7,000. The head of BCIT's Aviation Program explained to me that "a kid from India would pay $30,000," because the provincial government sees subsidizing trades colleges as cheaper than paying unemployment. AND well-paid technicians pay far more taxes than minimum-wage earners

IOW Hollywood sex scandals are primarily an attempt to distract us from shenanigans in the White House. To cover my own butt ...... a scary concept given some of the sexual miss-deeds ..... I originally asked why rumours about "casting couches" have been ignored until now. As for Kevin Spacey .... traditionally powerful men (Alexander the Great, JFK, etc.) have been able to f**k anyone they wanted to .... as long as they did not produce too many illegitimate children. I suspect that LBTQ are upset that Spacey admitted to pedophelia. Most LGBTQ try to distance themselves from man-boy-love because that is considered the worst form of sexual deviance and gives the general public an excuse to hate gays. Truth is, the majority of LGBTQ are only interested in consenting adults. Child molestation is more closely related to straight males' fear of being gang-raped in prison.

Returning to the OP: why Weinstein? .... and why now? For decades we have heard dirty jokes about "casting couches" and a bewildering array of sexual escapades in Hollywood. Why has the media suddenly turned against Weinstein? Were they trying to oust him and all other methods failed? Why are they suddenly diggin up dirt on dozens of other Hollywood elites? Do critics believe that today's shocking accusations will change a century-old culture?

Which shape of skull fits best in ICE helmet: round and wide???? ...... or long and narrow?

When an Australian gets confused, does he head spin counter-clockwise?

United Naions sanctions were busted when that PAC 750 was sold to North Korea. A New Zealand court has convicted Pacific Aerospace Limited executives of violating UN sanctions against illegal trading. After reading a series of e-mails, the NZ court is not buying the alibi about a Chinese trader committing all the sins. Now the NZ court is deciding whether to fine PAC executives or imprison them or both. The UN imposed sanctions on NK in an effort to convince NK to halt their development of nuclear bombs and Intercontinental Ballistic Missles. NK has recently test-fired missiles to demonstrate their ability to strike countries thousands of miles away. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Guam, Canada, USA, and dozens of island nations are afraid the NK will detonate nuclear bombs over their countries. PAL is only prolonging the misery by selling hardware to NK. It looks like NK is using that PAC 750 to develop hardware for military drones. Scary! I just hope that PAL emerges from this intact and continues to build one of the better jump-planes on this planet.

Abbottsford, B.C., Canada still has a Porter. It is ex-Australian Army and has the ugliest desert camouflage paint job I have ever seen! Abby's Porter is assisted by a Quest Kodiak and a gaggle of piston-pounding Cessnas.

Inaccurate portrayal of parachutes is part of a Hollywood, advertisers, Illuminati, SBS, big oil, CIA, Homeland Security, NIS, Jewish bankers, GSG9, JTF3, etc. PLOT to keep Al Queda, daesh, ISIS, Boko Haram, ISIL, Symbionese Liberation Army, etc. guessing about First World military technology.

Why are you upset? This is standard legal practice. No lawyer wants the jury or judge to hear "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." Lawyers always manipulate witnesses to limit testimony to less than half of the truth and only the half of the truth that supports their side of the argument. I have been shouted down by a lawyer ("I ask the questions here ") who refused to answer my question. He was clearly trying to limit the amount of evidence that I could reveal in court. He also asked some preposterous leading questions that could only have been answered by an octopus. That lawyer was later implicated in "contempt outside the court." Sometimes justice delayed is worse than no justice.

I prefer zippered turtlenecks that allow me to minimize sweat while hustling to the airplane. As we near exit altitude, I zip turtlenecks all the way up. I also use my chin strap to secure fleece neck warmers. The strap secures the fleece high enough to keep my face warm, but low enough to full vision.

......... Vskydiver makes some one piece shoulder-to-head baklava kind of things. Holds the hair in place and good for the cold. -------------------------------------------------- Silly me! All this time I have been eating baklavas sold at my neighbourhood Greek restaurant. Hah! Hah! Please caution VKskydiver that if she wears a headscarf or face scarf, she will be banned from riding public buses in Quebec. Hah! Hah!

AAD manufacturers' primary goal is keeping their customers alive. They want to encourage repeat business ... sell a new AAD 12.5, 15, 20, pick a number years down the road.

Good rebuttal. I will stop worrying about post-accident damage caused by carbon slivers. Let's move your last point to the forum for disabled skydivers. If a titanium plate short-circuits your brain, you probably suffered such a massive skull fracture that you are already dead. On a related note: is the stainless-steel plate in my knee a risk for short-circuiting my brain? Do I need to insert more than half of my leg? How do steel plates relate to head-up-the-ass syndrome? Hah! Hah!

***....... emails asking a question about kryptek cammo patterns ......... --------------------------------------------------------- Aha! Camouflage: the bounce-and-blend of this century. I got CADPAT camouflage on the butt of my (tandem) jumpsuit to hide grass stains. That suit is lucky if it gets washed twice a year! Hah! Hah! P.S. I had to supply the CADPAT Cordura because it was so new that it was not readily available.

This poll is my response to Quebec's newest law banning Muslim facial scarves on public buses. The law actually says: no concealed faces while receiving public services. This follows a similar law (a few years back) banning religious clothing and religious symbols on public employees and public buildings. Some see this law as an attempt to separate church from state .....from the way the Catholic Church dominated Quebec when I was born. Some see this law as an attack on Muslim women .... who are already oppressed too much. Some see this as a xenophobia reaction to any one who is not white, Catholic and French-speaking with a Québécois accent. I no longer count because of my less-than-perfect accent. Please remember that facial scarf-wearing Muslim women make up less than 1 percent of Canada's population. The majority of Muslim immigrants are fleeing civil war in their homeland and just want to raise their children in peaceful communities. Ergo less than 1 percent of (living in Canada) Muslim males commit violent crimes. Any other explanation?

Wow! All the posters agree on this topic: stopping needle exchange programs is a bad idea. My bias towards needle exchanges is based on what I see when driving buses through Vancouver's nastier neighbourhoods. Vancouver has instituted a variety of harm-reduction programs (needle exchanges, supervised injection sites, soup kitchens, open churches, etc.). The end result is a lower cost to the taxpayer and slower spread of infectious diseases among the general public. Since many Vancouer junkies work in the sex trade - to support their bad habits - they are at high risk of sharing their diseases with casual sex consumers and casual drug users. Customers in this gray area Rd the ones who take nasty diseaes home to their wives and kiddies. Journalist Malcolm Gladwell uses "Hockey Stick" theory to support needle exchange programs. Gladwell starts by stating that a tiny percentage of patients absorb the bulk of medical spending. If a visit to the emergency on costs tax-payers $10,000 (emergency room staff, X-Ray technicians, ambulances, police, fire crews, etc.) and the average junkie visits the emergency room more than 3 times per year ..... it quickly becomes cheaper to provide them with 3 hots and a cot and public health nurses. As an aside, Vancouver has lots of junkies, homeless, unemployable, soup kitchens, flop houses, needle exchange sites, etc. because Vancouver has the mildest climate in Canada. It rarely snows in Canada. These same homeless people would freeze to death in most other Canadian cities.

No, they aren't really all that stupid. Ignorant, prejudiced and judgmental perhaps, but not stupid. They read what they want to into their Bible, and ignore the rest. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Bible-thumpers are even worse than Hanlon's Razor because they chose to limit their knowledge. Hanlon's Razor says: "Never attribute to malice decisions that can be blamed on stupidity." ........ in this case: lack of knowledge.

Dear readers, My gut feeling is that helmet design has improved while other skydiving risks have declined. So now we need to review current helmets to determine if modern helmets better protection than older helmets. I want a shell hard enough to prevent penetration with a liner that will collapse slightly faster than my brain. No I do not want a carbon fibre shell. CF may be stronger than most other materials, but when CF shatters it strews nasty little carbon splinters all over the crash site. If you think carbon splinters are bad for your body .... think about all the weird and wonderful ways CF splinters can short-circuit your electronic gadgets!!!! How many of you are old enough to remember the first Gulf War? Can you remember how the first wave of Coalition bombers carried carbon fibres to short out Saddam's communications? I have narrowed my choice of open-face helmets to three: Bonehead X-Sport Cookie Fuel. Tonfly ICE Tonfly comes with a variety of European and American safety ratings for other sports. Is Tonfly worth the extra money? Which shape of head does Tonfly fit best: short and wide ..... or ...... long and narrow (horse)?

The original concept was to use one list of spare parts (pumps, valves, solenoids, etc.) to supply three different versions assigned three different missions. They hoped to share 80 percent of parts. Planners hoped that a simplified spare parts list would reduce the cost of maintenance over the 50ish year life of the plane. USAF fighter was the easiest mission to fulfill because USAF bases have such long runways. When the USN wanted a carrier-capable version, their shorter runways (less than 1,000 feet/ 270 metres) required larger wings, stronger landing gear and arrestor hooks. Larger wings allow slower approaches while tougher undercarriages survives harsher (unflared) carrier landings. Finally, all jet fighters need arrestor hooks, but since the navy tends to reuse their arrestor hooks, they need retractable hooks. USMC runways are so ridiculously short that Marines asked for a Vertical Landing version. Vertical Landings required adding a lift fan to the forward fuselage and puffer ports. Fortunately, the lift fan fit into a compartment vacated by a fuel tank. Every version requires different software and training regimes. While some critics whine that F-35 is not "stealthy" enough ...... remember that it has always been a game of leap-frog between stealthier airplanes trying to sneak past progressively better acoustic/radar/sonar/infrared sensors. The latest sensors are so secretive that they paint their labels with stealth paint. Damned if I can read that label! Ha! Ha! New technology is so stealthy that the public does not even hear about until its replacement nears production. Ideally, a new technology completes its service life before the press hears about it (e.g. Aurora spaceplane). Every new generation is required to fly faster or farther or higher or more stealthily than the previous generation. Every improvement drives up costs to the point that only a handful of newly-designed airplanes enter service every decade. F-35 is an attempt at reducing the cost of supplying too many different airframes (USAF, USN, USMC, Royal Air Force, etc.). The other motivation for increasingly sophisticated airplanes is "the voters back home." No mother ever wants to hear that her son died because he flew into battle in anything but the best possible airplane. Any elected official who sent her dear departed son into battle with less than the best airplane ........ will not survive the next election.

-------------------------------------------------------------- They both worked at Sun Path (aka "Javelin factory) for many years.

My bias goes: 1 - Icon 2 - Infinity 3 - Vortex My comments are biased by fashions about down-sizing. I recently up-sized from a Stiletto 135 to a Pilot 168 .... because I am growing old and fat. Since current fashions are trending towards stuffing small reserves into to progressively smaller containers. Icon is based on Parachutes de France's Atom container. I packed a bunch of tight Atom's but really only noticed the tight pack density as I closed the 3rd and 4th flaps. The last two Icons that I assembled, inspected and packed required methodical packing, but still looked good when packed "soft as concrete." Another good feature of Icons is a free-bag that prevents the closing loop from ever touching canopy fabric. This feature also reduces the number of variables when tying the closing loop. All other rigs require more skill and more patience when packing "stupid tight." While tight rigs may make your butt look big ?????????? I never understand why current fashion trends are towards stiffer and stiffer containers????? Infinity? Tight Infinities require the same techniques as larger Infinities, Vectors, Mirages, etc. plus more patience. I disliked the move to 2 separate grommets in the middle of the reserve deployment bag. Two grommets allow the closing loop to rub against delicate canopy fabric. While I have only had to patch 2 reserves (damaged by closing loops), that was 2 patches too many. Vortex? I have only packed a few Vortexes ..... not enough to learn the finer points of packing Vortex. I struggle to stuff reserves into tight Vortex d-bags and struggle to close their tight side flaps. As another poster mentioned, exposed pilot-chute caps (ala Vortex) require extra skills to completely conceal delicate PC fabric and mesh.