faulknerwn

Why are you concerned about the partial poptop? Generaly the more flaps in the way the longer its gonna take for your pilot chute to get out and your reserve open because the pilot chute has to do more work to get IMO the airstream. I know people complain about racers but I've never heard about the partial poptop of a javelin.

On the really hot days in Texas we have sometimes had the opposite problem. Downsized a student a bit ( still below 1-1 though ) because twice in one weekend we had students take a half hour to land. One student pulled at 5500 and got up to 7500 before he started coming down. It's common even on my 120s on those days for me to gain altitude on my downwind leg. Multiple times after letting off double fronts I had so much lift I didn't have to flare at all. The thermals get crazy in tx when it's hot. The tandem masters have learned where to fly so they can actually come down and land. I once got a ways out on a crw jump but covered 3 miles from 3000 feet by following the thermals back from the highway. Fun stuff!

I like a wee bit older and heavier these days :)

I work at skydive temple and we are a friendly dropzone with lots of folks willing to jump with you. Not sure if you have your own gear yet, but San Marcos does require aads. That may or not matter to you.

And not just schools but the mall, the movies, college campuses, churches... Having armed guards everywhere just turns us into a police state - it seems like making it harder to stop crazy people from getting guns is the only helpful thing. Gang bangers shooting each other are always going to have access to guns But a lot of the people in these recent killings were more loners and anti-social. They probably didn't have active "underground" criminal friends. They mostly didn't have any friends... So it would be harder to get weapons for them. I understand why normal people want guns. But I also think we should be able to make it a lot harder for these nut jobs to get them. I don't think a full on ban would do any good. Living in tx I am aware of how people to react to that. But I think maybe required background checks for all gun sales might help.

I would disagree with that. To get tobacco all I have to do is go in a local corner store. I could get marijuana but it would definitely take more effort. Even for underage kids, it's still easier to find a 17 year old friend to go into the local Exxon than to find pot ( at least in most states!) If ar-15s or whatever were to be banned, there is no doubt you could still get them. Would it be as easy as walking into your local Walmart? No way. Right now I can honestly say that if I wanted to get heroin or coke or meth - I don't know where I would get it. I know where I would start asking, but if someone I know is selling that stuff, I don't know about it. But alcohol, which is legal, is available at 50 plus stores within a 10 mile radius. Legality makes a huge difference.

Your ideas sound reasonable to me - but as someone pointed out we do want to allow hunting. Question - has anyone in either party brought up ideas like these? It seems like that dems want to ban stuff and reps want to ban nothing and no one is taking a middle ground.

Automatic weapons may be hard to get - but as far as I understand it semi-automatic weapons can still have really large capacities but just require pulling the trigger in between shots. I'm not super familiar with these - but could a shooter still not get several rounds a second off? I'm not sure but I would think that outside of a war zone that a semi-automatic could cause just as much damage as an automatic. Magazine capacity seems more important As was pointed out above though, the power of the weapon does matter. I'm not sure of the difference in power between these weapons in question and others.

Sure. That would help prevent random insults :) I understand both sides of the gun control argument but still want a way to stop all these mass murders from happening.

This is a serous question - so I please ask you not turn this into an insult match. There have been multiple mass shootings this year. Even if people had been armed - like say a schoolteacher - the gunman would still probably have killed 15 kids before he was killed. Practically all of them shot themselves - they clearly went into these massacres expecting to die. I live in Texas and practically everyone I know is really well armed. Many/most of those guns have been gotten from friends or on places like Craigslist and such where no background checks or anything else were required. I don't have a theoretical problem with people owning all these guns - but I do want a way to keep the weapons out of the hands of crazy folks. Background checks are at least a start but tons of people are really anti required background checks Having more people armed may halve the number of people the nut jobs can kill, but it seems like the far better plan is to keep weapons out of the hands of the crazy people. And the crazy people go into these mass murder situations expecting to die so fear of being shot isn't much motivation So my question is - how can we let regular folks own their guns - while keeping them out of the hands of the crazy people? I'm really interested in legitimate ideas. My Texas friends tend to be anti-background check and stuff like that - and they would pass because I don't think any of them would go nuts. I am really interested in legitimate ideas and in keeping this a civilized thread and discussion. I see both sides. I understand that rapid fire weapons can be fun to play with, but I also don't anyone think legitimately needs them. I would like to see the best of both worlds - there is such a crazy amount of guns in thsi country that banning them now wouldn't make a dent for a hundred years. That's not the solution. But there has to be some way of stopping the crazies. I think that greatly improving mental health care in this country would help. But beyond that?

I hope you guys have good safety reasons why you want to buy a curv. I'm not saying anything bad about them - but purchasing a life saving device based purely on looks is idiotic. Do research on the safety side of any rig before you buy it. Ask riggers what they think. Investigate the pros and ons of skyhooks, rsls. In Some rigs aads function far better in than others. Know that. But being good looking is an incredibly poor choice for choosig a rig. But I bet 90 percent of skydivers couldn't discuss safety pros and cons of various rigs. And that's really sad for life saving devices.

Welcome to skydiving :). You Mae my job easy today - I like that!

We had some Hungarian guys visiting where I used to work. They traveled all over while they were here and sped like crazy. Got pulled over several times but you can't even read a Hungarian drivers license so they got warnings every time. Plus they always pretended to not speak English :)

Mine for a couple of years now says that every jump I make is from 20000 feet with a 5 second freefall :). Luckily the altimeter part still works fine!!!

I live in Texas so my vote doesn't really matter. If the price gets good enough ill consider moving to Ohio and making some good cash :)

I couldn't vote cuz I was half and half :). I had all my accuracies for my d license before I got off of student status, but it took me 48 jumps to get off of student status! Laugh. So canopy stuff - great - freefall stuff - miserable !!!!

Jumpshack actually made a DVD of how to pack their rigs. You could contact them for a copy of it.

My favorite was a few years ago. There is a California crwdog named ken Oka who is famous for handing out pull-up cords with his name on him. I was in Tokyo on business about 6 years ago and went out to the Tokyo skydiving center where almost no one spoke English. I was hanging out and looked over at one point - and saw a Ken Oka pull-up cord tied to someone's gear bag. I was like - I know him!!!'nnm

Everyone knows Kevin bacons 7 degrees of separation - I am betting that at least among experienced skydivers - someone can name someone who knows both people. We have such a small community :). It's a game I'm curious about - I am pretty sure bill von is the only other moderator here I've ever met in real life - but I'd bet there is somebody here who knows both me and any of the others. - I.e 1 degree of separation. I think this could be a fun game - name 2 experienced jumpers from different areas - and make a chain between them. Anyone want to play?

And if people are waiting for the green light to start spotting you are way too late. You should be spotting from the 2 minute light so you know what is happening. I've certainly waited on green many times before, but I've also gotten hosed because the first group waited for the best spot for them. Spotting should start way before the green light.

Out of curiosity - did it have hip rings? From the various rigs I've jumped, it seems that rigs with hip rings can have leg straps which move way farther and make it easier to fall out the hole than ones without.

Skydive Dallas is the nearest big dz. I believe there are one or two small Cessna dropzones in the area but don't recall their names right now. Skydive 35 is a weekend only dz not too far away as we'll.

I live in the Texas. It's no surprise no political commercials get shown here. It's always a lock for the republicans.

Standard racer closing method for twenty plus years :)

It didn't hurt that I get automatically alerted when certain keywords show up and I forwarded your ad to the crwdogs list :). You know lightnings go quick!!!!!