Deuce

Dude, I wore a women's thong for round 10 at Nationals, the speedo is no problem. It'll probably bother a few of my tandem students, though. Well, between that and the way I lick the windows of the plane on the way to altitude...

Beautiful. Thanks! What a great way to start the day!

Ouch. Happened to me when I wanted a backup PC120. I think you'll have to go the Ebay route like I did. There's currently two going, both will come up right after Midnight Thursday. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=20333&item=3844926483&rd=1 When Sony kills a model, they drop the evidence it ever existed in an acid bath, don't they. Yikes.

A powder blue tux and beautiful hair. That's the costume I wore to 1980. If you have a big enough group, I'd suggest going as an 80's wedding party. The picture attached is from one of the cleanest-cut, most conservative groom parties of 1986. Somehow I knew, even then, that the "Miami Vice Tuxedo Collection" was going to look silly some day.

From http://www.aerostich.com A great motorcycling resource. Every time I get the money together for one of their suits, I need something else more. Until I'm riding in the rain.... MURPHY'S LAWS OF MOTORCYCLING 1) The farther it is to the next gas stop, the larger the bug that will hit your shield exactly on the sight line. 2) When you dry out after riding through some rain, it will start raining again just when you begin to feel comfortable. 3) The chance that your bike insurer will find out about that big ticket received in a non-reciprocal state is 100%. 4) If you run out of gas, no matter which way you decide to push, the closest gas station will always be uphill and in the other direction. Corollary: The likelihood of running out increases when all of the nearby gas stations are closed. 5) The chance of your helmet dropping hard onto a rough concrete or asphalt surface is proportional to it’s newness and expense. 6) You only realize the bike’s keys are in your pants pocket after you’ve put on all of your riding gear. 7) The more riders around, the more likely you will: a) Forget the kill switch is in the off position while trying to start your bike; b) Ride off with the sidestand down; c) Ride off with the petcock closed; d) ride along for miles with the turn signal on; e) get stung by a bee and do a roadside crazy dance shedding your riding gear. 8) The scarcity of motels and camping spots depends on how late in the day it is. 9) Your first successful multi-gear wheelie will be past a heretofore unobserved police officer who dislikes motorcycles. 10) How long it takes to receive any back ordered part is proportional to how badly it is needed. 11) When your throttle cable snaps, you will always coast to a halt in front of a crack-house bust in progress. 12) The patch-wearing guy named ‘Tiny’ really DOES want to know what you are looking at. 13) Your battery will die at the exact same time something else on the bike breaks and you will think they are related. 14) The cute girl is probably talking to you despite the fact you own a bike. 15) The chance of rain depends on how accessible your rain gear is. 16) A bad day of riding is better than a good day at work.

And the really cool part about docking and spinning the tandem is when the tandem passenger grabs you and won't let go and you get flipped back into an entanglement with the drogue. Fun for all! You're wideangle is fine. How you progress is your decision, but using no wideangle means you'll have generally poor exit shots, and a nicely framed wideangle exit shot in slow-motion is a high point of just about any tandem video. Also, slowly progressing from no wideangle to a .5 or whatever you settle on is like learning to play basketball with the hoop down at child level, and then re-learning when it gets moved up to NBA height (I know you are in the UK, but I don't know squat about cricket or soccer) Your post sounds like you are taking a disciplined, incremental approach, so keep it up! Find a tandem video that you really like and work at your skills until you can duplicate it.

From National Review: Seems possible that Kerry may even win the popular vote. One of the nice things about these really tight elections is they force people to pay transitory attention to the electoral college. Signed, Ineffective Californians for Bush.

Oh, yeah.

I came within a whisker of diving into the pool at the Hearst Castle. I may still do that one.

Would you loan your equipment to a guy that you don't know? at a national meet where i'm going to be all week and they are competitors... absolutely.. Dude, there are four teams and four video fliers per load. The additional video personell included Mike McGowan (who was not on the affected load). Try and say this with me."Mike McGowan, can I borrow your cameras and helmet" Repeat that until reality sets in. I have a great demonstrated record of lending people my kit. Trading helmets when the green light comes on is taking things way outside even the extreme.

Wait a second. The problem was not the burr, but that an "aftermarket" rigger tightened the bridle down too much on it? Is Sunpath charging for the repair?

MonoUno, I need about 7 hours of notice to get down there. Kickass.

My apologies, John. I have gotten behind, and had to burn another batch of the DVD's. Your's in (really) going in the mail today with another overdue package to Mouth. I'd have PM'd you, but, you know. You should have it next week. I will never forget the look on everybody's faces when that very last one came off. Again, sorry for the delay. JP

Yeah, Frog, I don't have it. I have no reason to suspect Sunpath, but I wish we had good macro pictures of the defect before it was sent in.

You've already jumped my Spectre in a birdman suit. Anytime, Shannon-bannanon.

Well, however sympathetic I am, they absolutely attempted to pull off a lie. They had their camera flier submit somebody else's video of thier skydive as if it was team video. That is why they were disqualified. I agree that there were extenuating circumstances, but I heard firsthand that the camera flier was asked "did you submit video that you did not shoot?" the truthful answer "yes" closed the case. Rule broken. I think the way they were subsequently treated was wrong. It was the equivalent of cutting their buttons off, and taught everybody a needless lesson. Just being taken out of competition was enough. Goose-egging all their scores was overkill.

Yeah, Mike, I know. In this case we're talking about a rig with less than a hundred jumps on it that is about a year and a half old, if I remember correctly. First off, I'm wondering how a stainless steel pin can get burred after the fact, if it's made of a decent alloy. If a sewing machine needle hit it during manufacture, something would probably have broke, and it would definitely have made a noise. To put a ding in it after manufacture, it would have taken a hit with something pretty heavy and sharp which would probably have damaged the rig or bridle at the same time. Simply dragging it across the DZ would not have burred it enough to have it saw through the bridle in 100 jumps. The only time that bridle is firmly pulled against the pin is during opening, and that is momentary. I'm getting a lot of "hey, shit happens" and "every jumper is responsible for their gear" Yes and yes. Anybody else know a case of modern gear suffering this kind of malfunction?

Hey I remember that! The velcro on the front of your suit kept coming open, huh?

Another post in incidents relates how a burr on a main closing pin cut through the bridle, resulting in a baglock/pilot chute in tow. This really is bugging me, and both in that thread and in PM's I've been told I'm over reacting. In that thread it's clear that launching the reserve into the pilot chute could have resulted in a fatality. Precisely because it could have resulted in a fatality, I don't see how we can be over diligent in our response to insure it doesn't happen again. I am aware that I have a lot of jumps in a short period of time, and that puts me at somewhat of a disadvantage regarding history in the sport. How often does this happen? Why is it not a big deal?

Had my Coach rating for about a year, used it in the air a few times, taught a lot of ground school. Took the AFF-I course from Jay Stokes. He was great about defining the things that needed to be done for the rating and going on practice jumps with the candidates to get their confidence up before the "game-on" jumps. I took it at Skydive Southern California. There were three hardcore freefliers who found out the hard way that they did not have the skills to graduate, and Jay let them take an incomplete before the "game-on" or judged jumps. The course was in May, and as of August they had not contacted Jay to finish the course. You can't (virtually everybody) dock an unstable student, roll them off their back and pull them out in time if you do it in a stand, head-down, or sit. AFF is a belly down discipline. You have to master it before trying to teach it, IMO. That said, there are some spectacularly great freefliers who put the bumper suit on to teach. A suggestion? Prior to the course, practice RW with the group at your DZ, and maybe take the course at a DZ with a tunnel. Practice fall rate recovery and sharpen your fine motor flying. Ideally you can stay right within grasping distance of a student who is wobbling all over the place. The instructors, bless them, will do heinous stuff you swear could never happen in real life. But the only thing that kept me in the most horrible skydive of my life was the fact that I had been that unstable and spinning once before: with Yong at the AFF-I course. Get your belly skills down. It's worth the time.

Not at all, SoCal. There's tradeoffs for everything. You are probably lots more hands-on about your gear than me. When my pilot chutes wear out, I'll order a new one through my rigger and have him replace it during a repack and inspection.

Sewn.

Yeah, a Diamond .5 and a Diamond .3 http://www.royal-lens.com/ In the case where maybe I would miss grips on first point exit, the .3 might pick them up when the .5 might cut them off. The only time I used the .3 footage was when my .5 got turned off during an exit.[/url] RayDutch uses nothing but a .3