faulknerwn

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Everything posted by faulknerwn

  1. faulknerwn
    I don't have anything to blow it out with tonight. Will try tomorrow. Tried tapping the gray metal thing a bunch when it was trying to light with no luck.. Thinking maybe some valve which is supposed to let propane through isn't opening...
  2. faulknerwn
    Tried lighting it manually with no luck. The ignitor makes noises like its trying to light (it is automatic) but doesn't work.. Seems like its not getting propane..
  3. faulknerwn
    There's a valve which releases a lot of water... I tried what one google website recommended which was run the kitchen stove for a bit to bleed the line but that made no difference. What my heater looks like:
  4. faulknerwn
    How do you fix that? Spent half an hour at least trying to get the frigging thing to light...
  5. faulknerwn
    The heater was working until I ran out of propane. I swapped in two brand new full tanks this morning, and have tried to light it off of both of them with no luck. ;-( And its not very windy either...
  6. faulknerwn
    The hot water heater in my RV refuses to ignite :-( It nomally lights automatically, and I have a fresh thing of propane, but its not working. The kitchen stove is working, so I know there is propane. The heater makes a clicking noise like it normally does when its trying to light, but nothing ever lights! I'm out of ideas? Anyone?
  7. faulknerwn
    Tons.. And what you're leaving out of your comparison - 100% of my skydiver friends also drive cars. So the number of people that I am friends with that drive cars is larger than the number that skydive by definition. But I've lost 2 friends to motorcycle wrecks, 1 to a car wreck, and 30+ to skydiving-related incidents...
  8. faulknerwn
    The Turbo Z/ZX canopies always were very fast for their size. From what I remember is that they can land well, but they're just not as easy to land well as other canopies. Their "sweet spot" for planing out is smaller.
  9. faulknerwn
    There was an old skydiver named Steve Morrell. Had more near-death experiences than you could count. His most interesting one was a near miss. He had been base-jumping in Saudi Arabia, had a cliff strike, and ended up in the hospital. He missed his flight home. His flight home was the Pan Am flight that exploded over Lockerby. He always wondered because he said he always kept his rig under the seat in front of him, and he could throw it on quick... That plane exploded in mid-air and was in 2 pieces way high in the sky.. How would it have looked that the only person who survived just happened to be coming from Saudi Arabia and just happened to have a parachute on board?
  10. faulknerwn
    Do a search on here - LOTS of skydivers have had eye surgery and I doubt any lasted that long without jumping! I went 2 weeks.. W
  11. faulknerwn
    Who's Flat Stanley?
  12. faulknerwn
    CRW Wrap Videos I have lots of! I could show them my head-on collision video - that's always a good one!
  13. faulknerwn
    Could be. They mention leaving 5 minutes for questions after the talk but still! I suspect older kids would ask more questions than 4 year olds
  14. faulknerwn
    Last week I attended a career day at a local elementary school - it was easy - just set up a tent outside and brought an unpacked parachute and a rig. Let the kids who walked by try on the rig and showed some skydiving video. So it was mentioned in the local paper and I got a call from another elementary school wanting us at their career day. It wasn't so bad so I said I didn't think a problem and send us info. I got the info today - they want 6 40 minute presentations on the job! Covering how I got started, training required, and other stuff. But yowsa - a 40!!!! minute talk? That's a LONG time! And having to re-do it 6 times? Their career day theme is "careers in flight". Besides convincing someone else to do this (my first goal :-) any suggestions on what to do for 40 minutes with a bunch of pre-k to 5th graders?
  15. faulknerwn
    I saw something similar about 6-7 years ago. A larger fellow had his reserve break a bunch of lines during reserve deployment (terminal - couldn't pull his main pc) and streamered. He found his main handle and deployed it barely in time... W
  16. faulknerwn
    Well, Skydive Temple has no plane this weekend. Skydive San Marcos only has a 182. Aggieland has a Cessna and 20+ tandems tomorrow. I'd try Spaceland or Waller for Saturday! W
  17. faulknerwn
    Hopefully you have more jumps than your profile says? A Vengeance loaded at 1.6 at 160 jumps? Any reason you're choosing a Triathalon instead of a Lightning? Toggles - big. Ya wanna be able to grab them without looking.. You want a reserve bigger than your 126 for sure. You're more likely to be landing a reserve with crap around you or in other questionable circumstances than in freefall. Containers are a toss-up. You want as snag-free as possible, and good reserve pin protection. Lots of CRWdogs prefer pullouts because its a more positive deployment, but that's not a necessity.
  18. faulknerwn
    Are you kidding me? They're supposed to hold off a crazed gunman while chatting with the cops at the same time? Especially since you probably had hundreds of calls going into 911 all at once? Most people can't talk on their cell phones and drive - I can't imagine trying to shoot and chat!
  19. faulknerwn
    What you're forgetting though is that 1 SL instructor can easily put out 3-4 students on a Cessna load, while for the first few AFF jumps it takes 2 instructors for one student..
  20. faulknerwn
    I've looked through some threads on here but have seen conflicting stuff. I'm looking to buy a decent digital still camera for freefall - most likely off of ebay - and I'm looking for cheap :-) I was all set to bid on a Canon 300d when I searched on here for that exact camera - instead of just best camera which came up with Canons - and the 300d seemed to be panned.. I'm wanting to buy a decent used camera for less than $400 if possible... Is the 300d that bad? The 350d? Any other suggestions? W
  21. faulknerwn
    The study wasn't done by police so I'm sure they weren't. The study was done by putting sensors on people's bicycles if I remember correctly so it measured the distance that every car passed them. It was done in a city so most of the riding would have been done on city streets - some with a bike lane and some without..
  22. faulknerwn
    What's really interesting though is relative safety. I'm on an Austin bicycling list, and the city is trying to pass a helmet law here so its a big to-do. But there was a study recently done (I forget which city) which measured how close cars passed bicyclists. Cars passed something like 6 inches closer to bicyclists wearing helmets than to ones who weren't. The study hypothesized that ones wearing helmets were viewed as more experienced riders by automobile drivers and so were passed closer. Other interesting results - male riders were given much less space when passing than females. (Chivalry?) Also riders who wore helmets were considerably more likely to get into an accident than ones without.. It was an interesting study.
  23. faulknerwn
    Yeah I spent a summer at Virginia Tech when I was a junior in high school. Its such a small little town, its hard to picture this happening in such a rural area.. What a shame...
  24. faulknerwn
    I completely agree. I own 6 Racers - all from the 90's - and they work fine. Several of them I feel very comfortable freeflying with even. And I've got a PD 150 with definitely more than 500 jumps on it which lands beautifully. I jump that whenever I want a "non-thinking" canopy - i.e. its sunset and I'm tired and I've made 8 jumps that day. It is nowhere close to being worn out. You have to judge the gear on an individual basis. And its hard to find a complete
  25. faulknerwn
    Here's our newest AFF student