Deuce

There is no perceptable difference at pull time between the cordura and the spandex. I REALLY prever the cordura.

That looks good. As to the debate over your main and reserve sizes. If you crash that reserve without flaring, you'll live but it will hurt. If you are conscious, the weight of the main will be gone and reserves (PD reserves are all I know) have great flare. I have 4 reserve landings on PD 143's loaded at about 1.7:1. Never a problem, always a very comfortable stand-up.

I have about a thousand jumps on Spectre's. I have one Pilot jump, and it was on the 150'ish variant. I jump Spectre 150's so the wingloading was the same. First: Aerodyne makes a fine product. My jump on the Pilot was due to needing a rig last minute cause both of my Spectre's were open and I needed to do a jump. I grabbed a freinds Mirage with Pilot 150'ish and jumped it. Nice opening, like a Spectre. I thought the toggle pull to get a turn going was just awful. In comparison, the Spectre is VERY responsive. Honestly, the Pilot was the first nine-cell sport rig I had jumped. I expected it to outperform my Spectre's but it turned out to be very, very mushy. Now, that said, it was very forgiving. Big squishy flare, not much swoop. Again, ChopChop jumps one loaded something like 2:1, and he gets decent swoops, but I really thought is was mushy. If you want a really nice opening, really, REALLY forgiving to toggle input and a big softish flare, get the Pilot. At the same size and wingloading, the Spectre beats it flat on performance, though. I am not PD sponsored.

Excellent stuff! Once you go warm water, though, it's hard to want to put on the big suit. Tip? When you have somebody with a good camera like that, take the regulator out of your mouth and smile for the picture, it's way easier to tell who's who. That really looked like fun. Any otters or seals?

Monkey, your picture is in the dictionary right next to the phrase "Livin large". Stylin and profilin, and making it look easy.

I ran the hiring for a big Norcal police department for a couple years. Again, it's thousands of stupid yes/no, true/false questions. Knee jerk the whole thing and you'll be out of their HOURS before the rest of the group. While they are trying to remember how they answered "sometimes I get a lump in my throat" a hundred questions back, you'll be cranking out a True for the times when you watch Ole' Yeller get whacked by that kid. The test will give back about five indicators about your personality. Police departments do not look for loners, I don't know where you got that. At a crime scene the coppers have to have superlative team player skills, because they don't get to use them every day like the hose monsters. Loner cops tend to say stuff like "Fuck you Sergeant, have Kelly pick up the freaking severed head, I got hired two months before him!" When you meet with the psych, he will have indications you may have issues with authority, maybe you are submissive, maybe you collect, name, and dress your boogers. So, he'll try and piss you off if you've indicated anger issues, he'll boss you around if you indicated submissive, and he'll hold a gun just out of your sight if you've indicated explosive homicidal sociopath. There's usually one "WTF?" question like "When did you stop beating your wife?" When I had one of mine I said hi, I want to be a cop cause they have good benefits, and they were hiring, and "Hey, what does that thing say, anyhow? That was the wierdest test!" and he explained I didn't have any major malfunctions and wished me luck in my career.

It's going to be some rendition of the Minnesota Multi Phasic Instrument (I might have spelled phasic wrong) It's hundreds of questions that seemingly don't have anything to do with each other, but breaks down into about 5 indicators. The most important one in Law enforcement is called something like the deception index. The will ask you a basic question, all true false. "Sometimes I have a dry mouth" "I loved my mother" "I'm afraid of penguins" "I have difficulty swallowing" After a series of really wierd questions with sexual overtones they'll ask you again "I loved my mother" and you'll be all grossed out and will check "no" this time. That causes your deception index to go up and you'll get the wierdo questions on your polygraph. Take each question individually, not in context of other questions you've just answered, and answer as fast as you can, without reading anything into the questions. The more you try and out-think it, the more you will screw it up. Good luck!

Happy berfday monkey brother!

RHys, if the lowers are tight, they can't slip out. I don't know your procedure, but if you have the pax sit in your lap, tighten the lowers as tight and symetrical as you can, and have the pax try and try and sit back down on the seat (and they can't, cause they're cinched to you too tight), they aren't going to come loose on opening. The Sigma harness that the recent fatality fell out of had back and belly bands. It appears from the descriptions of the incident, as well as the post on the RWS website, that the harness was not adjusted right.

That's why Skream-diddy took up BASE jumping. He usually lands real close to the bottom of the thing he jumped off.

MonoUno, I've been reading your posts and PM's for years. This is definitely the most you've ever used the word "fun" in any thread. That chick you hang out with is clearly paying attention in the "what to get the monkey" department. It does sound like fun. You going to go the helicopter route too, eventually?

Arlo, forgive for not really reading it, but on the same note, Tylenol is the biggest liver-killer out there. Folks who are addicted to Vicoden suffer liver damage due to the Tylenol, not the morphine. My sister suffered complete liver failure due to Vicoden addiction. Frighteningly, heroin addiction is far less damaging. Argh.

I'm Stokes trained. I'm very glad for it. I had a level 4 go completely haywire last weekend and was very glad of my Stokes training. The student was completely unstable and spinning and went from floaty helicopter spins to completely de-arched ass-down flying. Really hard fall rate changes. I said to myself "She will not have a Cypres fire" and very aggressively docked her but allowed her to deploy herself at 4700 feet. She had the handle (on the other side, I had to re-dock on the reserve side) at over 5K, but took a little more time than necessary because of a failed pull. I have had two students scare the holy crap out of me, and both times it was not anything that Jay and Co. hadn't shown me. The most terrifying was a level one that went completely to shiite. That student kicked my face shield out and took me to about 3 grand with harness shifts etc. You want a very hard but very fair AFF course director. Honestly? It's a very scary job. The reward is a level 4 where the student realized they are in control, fly their bodies well, and land with permagrin. The cost is the student you can't catch (not yet) who has a Cypres fire in a complete panic. Don't do it if you are not ready. JP

Oh, yeah. With couples who have gotten video, open and turn the canopy so the passenger you have can see their partner in freefall. When the tandem begins to open and the camera flier is dropping away, scream "OH MY GOD!!! SHE BROKE LOOSE!!!" Then say "Neener. Just kidding"

"Okay, Frito. Once we get out of the plane we will accelerate to teminal velocity. At terminal, you may feel a great big jerk on your back. That's just me."

I'm really happy that the gay "out" thing is really not news anymore. It is kind of fun that he did the Green Beret movie with John Wayne. JW being the most macho of all macho actors. We should voice-over it. "Hey Pooftah, Where's Charlie?" "Shopping, you big bitch"

Congratulations! Great job! With a job and kids and all, the night school thing is pretty tough! I just kind of slogged my way through my bachelor's degree, and a few years later decided I wanted to go back and really apply myself to my graduate degree. I'm really glad I did. My graduate GPA is almost 4.0, and I learned so much more and enjoyed learning it so much more.

I'm not offended. I think I'm out of touch. I watched it and wondered that if Amazon put that out as a commercial, mainstream liberal America is farther from my views than I thought. I don't know the Toby Kieth reference, but I would presume it was about putting the boot to our enemies. I have never consider my debate opponents as "enemies" that I would beat down. Did it make you laugh out loud?

http://wm.amazon.usa.speedera.net/wm.amazon.usa/books/AMAZON_V6_crop_100k.wmv I have done a fair amount of violence on people. I have laughed about the context of it, but not the acts of violence themselves. My fights were all with people who needed to be arrested, or who attacked me. To kick somebody in the balls who disagreed with me and then beat them down would not be funny at all. I understand the skit is parody, but I don't understand how it could be "mainstream" funny. I understand how and why the left is frustrated with conservatism, but to beat an ignorant conservative down just because he holds views contrary to one's own, man that's just awful.

Only once. Cloud cover and rain.

A 50 mph downwind will be hard to beat. The next year I took a cutaway main into my main and had to cutaway low. That was a fun Burking "What happened?" "I got focused on the cutaway jumper and flew into the cutaway main" "That should be some cool video" I'm thinking next year I'll hit a balloon on my back. Or get sucked into the tunnel, or something.

Sure. It's always fun making the other Alpha male heteros nervous about my comfort level with gayness. Mounting you in front of Amy barely fazed her. We gotta think big. You really should insist on peeled grapes and then just throw a Diva hissy fit when they aren't. Or because they aren't seedless shiraz grapes or something. Gay men fights are the best. All the drama of a girl fight with the mayhem of two really pissed off heavyweights going bare-knuckle. I was a cop at the San Francisco Gay (insert freakish subculture acronym here) for many years. Heavyweight Transgender Cage Match would sell HUGE if they did it on pay-per-view)

And fan me with a palm frond while feeding me grapes. He has to peel the grapes first in order to be adequately gay. Right?

Call Ankie. In the time it took you to type your post, she could have fixed your problem (free) with a phone call. The reason to buy a Wings is the comfort and safety, but primarily the customer service. When you are dissatisfied with something, they will fix it!

Wings. See? That was easy!