TomAiello
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Everything posted by TomAiello
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I'm not being a smart ass, Jaap: Why? 2 primary reasons leap immediately to mind: 1) Less distractions for both student and instructor. 2) More intensive preparation, and more instructor attention. 1 jump with very abbreviated instruction, and a hundred thousand people watching, rushed through the exit point with the cattle, v. 5 or more jumps with time to focus and reflect, with an instructor following you all the way through. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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Agreed. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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This is probably the most important piece of advice in this thread. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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Thank you for doing it anyway. And thank you, Perry, for being willing to share this with us all, even though you might take some flak for it. Sharing this kind of thing is how we can all learn from each others experiences. If you stop learning (and making mistakes--a necessary part of learning), you may as well just go sit on the couch and wait to die of old age. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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To expand on that, I know of more than one case in which a manufacturer shipped gear with a material defect or manufacturing error. Airplane test jumps are always recommended. If you're in a place that allows it, I'd also recommend jumping the harness and container out of an airplane, with some kind of tertiary (secondary, in this case, actually) reserve system. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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What was it that John Stuart Mill said? I think what he was saying is that if one were content to remain a slave (remember that in his day slavery as an institution was alive and well), and unwilling to rise up and fight for one's own freedom, then one likely did not deserve that freedom. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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Dude, I heard those guys are nuts. Are you sure you want to jump in Portland? Whatever you do, stay away from that Shotgun Ray guy... -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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Dinner at my house Friday night. Anyone in town is invited to come and make fun of Faber. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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This might be true if we are talking about front seat passengers. Where I live (Idaho) it's legal to be in the back seat without a seat belt. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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It is always difficult to class someone's "only motivation" as "money." What did they want to do with that money? No one wants it to just have piles sitting around. Everyone wants to do something with it. If they wanted it to start an orphanage for starving children, would that make it more laudable to be motivated by "money"? What if they wanted it to take care of their own children, who would starve unless they took that work? Or what if they just wanted to build a bigger, nicer house? Or to send their kids to a nice private school? Shades of grey, I'm afraid... -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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Yeah, but you'd only do that if you hadn't read the sticky at the top of this forum. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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Being paid to do a job that may involved killing is very different from being paid to kill. If that weren't the case, every soldier, policeman and bodyguard on the planet would have to be classified as a "paid killer." I don't buy that. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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All, I am locking this thread. This is getting way too personal. Arguing in abstract is ok. Taking specific members of our DZ.com community and targeting them is not cool, regardless of their occupation or location. If you want to start another thread about the issue, that's fine. If anyone gets back into specific discussions about other posters here, I'll start banning people from this forum without additional warnings. This place gives us a great way to treat each other as individual people--even the one's we wouldn't normally interact with. Let's not get that turned around by treating the individuals as stereotypes. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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Can you elaborate on what you mean? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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When they did their thing here, it was all delayed broadcast. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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I moved the discussion about immigration, language, etc., to Speaker's Corner. You can find it here. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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I've moved most of this thread into Speaker's Corner. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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Disclaimer: Under no circumstances do I recommend using a PD (or other) reserve canopy instead of a BASE canopy for BASE. See this thread for more info on that. Personally, I found that the PD Reserve canoy had a shorter flare stroke than most BASE canopies, and that it responded later in the control range. Your results on that may vary, depending simply on the geometry of arm and control line length. I also found it to be much less consistent in opening characteristics, and less stable in deep brakes. It did, however, have much lower pack volume. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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I agree. I have both owned and been bitten by pythons. I'm pretty sure the one that got me didn't have teeth like that. I guess it might just be that some species have fangs like that and others don't, but I'm skeptical. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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then you went on to say: So I am am a bit dense...was it or was it not planned? Or did I miss something? I think you missed the smiley in his original post. I took that as meaning "yeah, it was all planned...sure..." -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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Have you checked out the Birdman book that Airtec reprinted? It's got some good info in it. You can see a picture of it here. I'm not sure where to get a copy, though. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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Go here and scroll down to the "outside the sport" section, and check the photo of Fumio Kubo launching his wingsuit off a big cliff in Norway. I'm sure that somewhere Fumio is smiling.
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New BE Right Arm Amputee with Questions
TomAiello replied to DanG's topic in Skydivers with Disabilities
I have done many (more than 20, probably less than 50) cutaways pulling the handle mounted on my right MLW with my left hand. These were all intentional cutaways, but the system seems to work fine for me. I don't really see an advantage in moving it to the left side of the harness. I'd definitely recommend doing some "crossover" practice pulls on the ground before deciding to modify the rig like that. Your results may vary, of course. Be aware that my experience is all with rigs that have no reserve handle (i.e. nothing on the left MLW at all--I'm deploying the second canopy from the BOC with my right hand). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com -
After out last discussion about the bogus KL Tower jump being advertised, I checked in on this one. Good news, people. This is all totally legit. Party on! -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com
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I don't know that I'd agree with your assessment of this story as positive. I read it more as "negative: US is running out of troops and the pentagon is getting so desparate they'll throw old men into the fray." -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com