wolfriverjoe

Perhaps, but how many times has Pastrana jumped vs Cani? How many times did Pastrana practice this stunt before the real thing? How many flights with an intentional cutaway of the 37 before landing a normal canopy did Cani make before landing the 37 the first time? (answer: lots) Yes, these stunts are interesting and exciting, but I still question how much they are "advancing" the sport. Yes, skydiving has risks, but there is a difference between highly experienced, proffessional stuntmen doing a carefully calculated, well planned and rehearsed "gag", and these kind of publicity stunts. I'd like to know how it would have been promoted if it hadn't worked out right. You think there's any reason that no DZ except that one and "third world" countries would allow it? "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Follow the advice of the pros. Read the sticky in the Photog&Video forum. Work very hard on your RW flying. Find a camera flier at your DZ who is willing to mentor you. After you see the videos of what went wrong, or almost went wrong you will better understand why the requirements are what they are. The guy who is teaching me has a "when tandems go bad" collection that convinced me how much better I will need to be before I start videoing tandems. It's a lot harder than it looks. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Well, it was a news story. They tend to make the background look like they want it to. They also tend to go for the "classic scientist" crap. Pouring liquid nitrogen is such a stereotype. The liquid nitrogen flask looks real enough. I handled one of those a few years ago. (true story) Freshman college physics, the teacher got a couple gallons from a bovine husbandry outfit (frozen bull semen). He knew somebody there, the nitrogen was only a couple bucks, but the flask was worth a couple hundred. After a few standard tricks in class, the atronomy club used the rest to make and sell "instant ice cream". Mix up the heavy cream, flavors, fruit, whatever, add liquid nitrogen. Because of the speed of the freezing, the ice crystals are very small, the ice cream very smooth, and of course, a great show making it. Lots of fun. Good fund raiser. Back to business, there was no real information in the news story. Nothing we can use here anyway. That is more about the reporting and editing by the news crew than about Tom K. They aren't going to go into the detail we want in a 3 minute news spot. It may have been the news crew's idea to put the labels on, and have the map on the computer, or Tom K could well have done it for their benifit without being asked. I don't see it having any effect on his results or credibility. I want to know specifics about what he found. What are the discrepancies, how long was the money buried, where was it before it was buried at Tina Bar, all that stuff. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Tom K video was mostly a teaser. A news piece for those who haven't bothered to read all 6000+ posts. Interesting that he thinks most witness testimony is wrong, but he doesn't say how it is wrong, or what he thinks is right. BTW, in the General forum, there is a thread "I want to see pictures of cool looking rigs" Post 92 has 2 pics of belly reserves attached to old style rigs. Pretty decent shots of how they hook. I still wonder if Cooper couldn't have attached the training dummy somewhere on the NB6. Not a strong enough connection for the reserve to work (it wouldn't have anyway) but well enough to stay. 377 said it wouldn't hook on the main web straps. What about the chest strap, hardware somewhere, or ?? "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Especially the big dog looking at you with the "You aren't going to show this to anybody, are you?" expression. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Unless you have reasons to make stops, the Indy, Louisville, Nashville, Chattanooga, Atlanta, Macon route is best. Be careful on the Monteagle hill (about mile 125 on I-24 between Nashville and Chattanooga) Slow trucks and a lot of scorch marks on the shoulder from overheated cars that burned up. The rest stops usually have attendants and are reasonably safe. I drive truck and I've been down that route a bunch of times. For a car with 151,000 on it, paying $200 for a good tune up is both reasonable and a really good idea. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

I agree 100%. but to play devils advocate - what happens when executives start jumping out of highrise windows with static lines wrapped around their legs or clipped onto their belt buckles instead of waiting for firemen to get them when the situation DOES NOT call for such emergency actions ? Easy-They sue the living shit out of the people who made the system, the people who designed the system, the company that printed the instructions that specifially said "USE ONLY IF THERE IS NO OTHER ALTERNATIVE", the "executive toy store" that sold them the system, the shipping company that delivered the system, the company that made the box it came in, the company that made the fabric the system was made out of, and anybody else they can think of. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

There was a Wal-Mart emplyee (temp no less) trampled to death Friday morning. Merry fucking christmas. On a positive note: somebody put glue in the locks of a bunch of high-end stores Thursday night. Somewhere in South Carolina I think. They couldn't open up Friday morning. Bah Humbug "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[reply One story that I heard (about someone I know, and from someone I trust who has already posted to this thread) did involve a double shoulder dislocation. Wasn't there a Cypress save after a freefall collision where the guy got a hard helmet slammed into his spine that temporarily paralyzed him? IIRC he got feeling back in his hands just before landing under the reserve. He said he was in freefall after the collision, unable to move anything, "waiting for the Cypress to fire". Very different from what the OP meant, and the ONLY excuse that would be acceptable IMO. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Nice video. You didn't look all that scared going out the door, but you looked pretty nervous in the plane. That's pretty typical. I'm still nervous in the plane. Its really cool that you're going for AFF. I've been following the thread, but anything I posted would have just been repeating what everyone else said. It's a shame about losing the audio, the comments before, compared to the ones after are usually pretty fun. Did you say "awesome"??(90-95% at my DZ do) If you are interested, there are threads in Photog&Vid that discuss the copyright issues and You-Tube's reactions. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Bla bla bla= AGL- Above Ground Level. Self explanitory I hope. MSL- Mean Sea Level. What pilots use. Taking off at LAX and landing at Denver (or vice versa) you need to know field elevation relative to sea level and have an accurate idea of your altitude relative to sea level. Especially IFR where you might not see the ground until a few hundred feet. (Don't ask what happened to "above" in MSL). I don't know the spec's on the X-lander, but I was under the impression that most of the "Altimiter-Watch" units didn't update fast enough for skydiving. (might be wrong). "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

No, in this case banned is losing IMO. You are just no longer the most recent loser. I've never understood the idea of getting caught and sent to prison as being a good thing. If you were that good, you never would have gotten caught (compare Sam Giancana with Al Capone for instance). Man, I go away for 3 days and look what happens. Nice job all you folks on the forensics. Now I want to know what else he found. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Did you get kicked in the head in freefall or possibly destroy your head on a bad landing? I'd happily try to do this with the right TM and passenger strapped on front (not customer or student). OK, but who'd be the passenger? Don't misunderstand me, pushing limits and doing new and exciting stuff is cool. I still like watching the "Cars" segment in "Good Stuff". Freeflying, swooping, wingsuiting and even atmonauti (which I still believe is nothing more than tracking) are great. These were all "stupid and dangerous" in the beginning. Doing these things while fully understanding the risks is your choice and fine by me. Without these sort of jumps, we'd all still be jumping rounds. BUT, What advances are being made by doing them tandem? What is "exciting and cool" about being helplessly strapped to another jumper during these stunts. Tandems are already complex and risky jumps all by themselves. Look at the TI requirements and training. IIRC, its the only rating that requires a deliberate cutaway during training. For recurrency jumps, the "student" is requred to have a C license or better. I will repeat. Who is willing to ride as the tandem student during these stunts? I'm not all that experienced, but I see a ton of added risk doing these things tandem. As has been said previously, the tandem pair has very limited mobility, much added complexity, and very few options if something goes wrong. Can the student even reach the reserve handle if the TI is incapacitated? In the "Tandem Hybrid" video, the tandem group fall rather quickly away from the freeflyers. How fast is the drogue and it bridle rated for? How fast were they going? Also in the video, the "tandem stander" stumbled getting on their back. How close did he come to entangling the bridle? How close to deploying the main did he come? What other risks are there? I don't have enough experience to see all of them, so I'm sure there are more. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Talk to the people at your dad's oncologist. They usually have support groups for both the patients and the families. Those groups were a big help for my Mom and me. They would also probably have good suggestions for telling your son. Lots of good suggestions here, I would just be repeating what everyone else said. I lost my dad to lung cancer 3 yrs ago this coming Christmas. It really hurts. The acceptance and healing takes time. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Depends on who you ask. Making small expensive items "too big to shoplift" is usually the goal. That's where the super big CD packaging came from. The electronic bepers can be beaten if you know how. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Still won't prevent air surveillance. If you're speeding and a cop in the plane spots you and times you from point a to point b the radios the cops waiting for you, you're screwed. Now if a cloaking device finally becomes a reality, millions could be made on the patent alone! Too bad we're a couple centuries away from it... Yeah, the WI state patrol uses (used to use?) someting called VASCAR. Basically a stopwatch and time/distance/speed computer. Can't detect or jam their eyeballs. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Me too. Oh well. Try Men's Wearhouse. They did me good a few years back. Only thing I needed was pants length, and I'm 5'10", 150# "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Huh??? Snowmman, Your logic is usually pretty good, your speculations are often reasonable (other times you just see bunny rabbits in the clouds), but your reasoning chains often leave me scratching my head. Some of them are probably misunderstood sarcasm or jokes. No, I'm not going to get on my "let's all be nice" soapbox again. Once was enough. I don't laugh at you more than 25% of the time, probably because I miss so many of your jokes. That's still probably a better success rate than my jokes. There are facts in the Cooper case. The problem is the scarcity of them, and the resultant mythology that tries to fill in the spaces. We need Sluggo to come back and clear up the myth/fact crap again. Then you would all understand that the following is a complete joke. Jayme was Cooper! After the pills took effect, he opened the NB6 and found a pencil inside-It had been pencil-packed. After throwing the placard out, he wrote "PQ" to throw off the Feds. That way they would think "Quade did it. I am not DB Cooper"(© 2008 Bernard Sayers-used with no permission whatsoever) . He kludged the dummy reserve onto the NB6 (how else would it have gotten back to Issaquah?) and got away clean. Where is Guru312 anyway? "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Yes, it's all in the logbook. The proficiency card just keeps the documentation for that particular license all in the same spot. My A card even had the jump number for each requirement noted so I could find it easier in my log. Over and above SIM requirements? Are you thinking along the lines of changing or editing license requirements for licenses B though D? 2nd that question. As noted above, I see proficiency cards as organizational tools that accopmany the logbook, and make keeping track of meeting the requirements for the licenses easier. I am fully in favor of having a card for licenses after the A, but I fail to understand the "over and above" part. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Okay, thanks for setting me straight. It doesn't matter all that much because almost nobody buys the temp USPA membership, and my DZ wouldn't/hasn't charged for lost gear from legit cutaways. A bright orange/red or green/red 288 manta would be very difficult to lose around here. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Yes, what she said......and she's right! I do believe in what goes around comes around! Yeah, as much as I'd like to see the pics, taking the high road is a better choice in the long run. Besides, if your next girlfriend finds out you posted those pics, she'll NEVER let you take any of her.

... And if a school holds you responsible, then there should be insurance that can be purchased just like with a rental car... I was under the impression the "damage beyond normal wear and tear" clause in the waiver was fairly standard. (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). There is a temporary USPA membership that includes the insurance. That insurance should cover the DZ's gear, and anything the student damages on landing.(Again, correct me if I'm wrong) Getting the students to pay the extra $20?? "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

For Flaring: Don't just look straight at the ground, either straight down, or at your landing point. I was taught waay back in flight school to flare the airplane by looking at the horizon, and off to the side. Under canopy, I switch between side (about 45 degrees), ground, horizon, ground, ect. It gives ME a much better perspective on my height. I don't like the 3 count past when you think you should because it doesn't really teach you how to judge height correctly. Standard "not an instructor, ask YOUR instructors" disclaimer applies here. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

I tried that with a Judge once. "The officer had to see me decelerating from 45 to the 35 speed limit since I was down to 39 when he clocked me" The Judge told me the sign is where that speed limit starts, so be decelerated by then. $75.00 + court costs Yep. The "buffer zone" is a myth. "Speed zone ahead" sign means what it says. "Speed limit XX" is what it is RIGHT THERE. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

You're going to be the tandem student, right? Wear a camera helmet, and make sure the other guys on the jump do too. And make sure the executors of your estate know you want the video posted, no matter what, because its going to be exciting and people are going to want to see it. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo