nigel99

Yes I realise that the last image shows him standing up. But the site is deliberately misleading. It is fairly difficult to see him in the group and if your mind is made up then you could certainly draw the wrong conclusion. I copied the image I did because I think it is deliberately used to reinforce the image of suicide - it is a crap skydiving picture with no meaning to the sequence of images. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

They have pics of the Travis chuteless jump, implying that it was a suicide. The top strapline is If you had cancer would you want to go out like this guy did? It includes a distant beach shot (attached) that I can only assume is meant to imply a bounce. (The red is the canopy) http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=2971611;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25; Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

True I never thought of a secondary radio. You could probably do it over Bluetooth. It is apparantly very easy to "hack" bluetooth and I believe lots of people leave it permanently on. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Are you being sarcastic? Madona is the last person I would ever expect to write a religous song... If it is about go then where does she want to take him? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I searched for that a year or so ago. It has a real feel good factor when you are little - its bright red so it must work! (We called it monkeys blood). I can only assume that it was withdrawn from the market as it contained Mercury) Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

This morning they had "Just Like a Prayer" on the radio. Is it just my dirty mind or is that song suppossed to be her describing giving a BJ? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

That is quite a cool idea but would require alot of technical advances (and invasion of privacy). It would be very simple to provide a "vibrate mode" instruction to the software - but how does the theatre know your phone is present? The phone supplier can only locate you to approximately a few hundred square meters. The only realistic solution is people starting to have some consideration. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

The legal way is to screen the room. There is no law against reducing signals entering a building that you own. I doubt that full screening is required to reduce the signal quality enough that calls would start to be filtered out reduced. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I really struggled on static line progression with the shorter delays. One of my instructors decided to go against convention and let me go up to 8k for a ~10 second delay. Our DZ didn't have cypresses and kit was good old fashioned T-10's. I found it very stressful and having the extra "time" to make mistakes really relaxed me it just mean't that I was under canopy at ~6-7k which I enjoyed. If you're allowed it might be an option and it also gives you much more time under canopy which is alot of fun. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

The bloody little chavs. Last night coming home after 14 hours out. Little bastard hoodie threw a fist sized rock at me (doing ~30MPH on a motorbike). There was a large pack of them - more than 20 aged mid-teens I guess. I stopped to yell and then changed my mind after the number of recent deaths in the UK of people tangling with youngsters and getting kicked to death. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I thought with a thread title of "POINTLESS..." it was a Charlies Angels type skydiving question Although I have seen a film covering a cargo door that became dislodged/blew off (I THINK based on a true story/documentary - but can't be sure). I think you could have exited that - but the plane was structurally sound and flew/landed safely. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I don't think that is strictly true as I seem to remember a local passenger jet loosing pressure and having to "dive" to 10k. I think it was a UK to Spain flight (oops just realised where Cornish Chris is flying) If you experience explosive decompression I believe that it can cause medical trauma that may be life threatening. In any event remember to put your oxygen mask on first before kitting up. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Until very recently I did not understand that in the US the right bear arms is so closely related to defence against bad governance. I think that in Europe we have far more faith in democracy than they do (I still haven't figured out if this is a good or bad thing) I can definitely see the logic in it, not that I can see how it could be implemented (a popular armed uprising). Imagine Joe Public with his favourite .45 up against an F16/Apache - cause after all President is CIC and would have command of the military. Scenes from that Apache video could just as easily be in the US should an uprising occur. Regarding crime - if carrying a fire-arm means that crime is deterred then why does the US not have the lowest crime rate in the world? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

If you don't think it is PC speech then what do you call the unintended collision between a motor vehicle and something or someone else? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Hi Mike, You missed my point. It is precisely that 99% of car accidents are NEGLIGENT driving(BTW I am using 99% to mean most in case anyone asks for sources/statics) All of the examples that I gave you of gun accidents were negligence. It may be that people distort stories when guns are involved (funny seems we feel the same about skydiving

I hadn't ever heard of ND before. This is a propaganda war playing out in the states. I don't know where the saying originates but it is a defence mechanism. I believe any logical person understands that an Accidental Discharge is caused in most cases by a human. It is akin to automotive companies trying to fight the case that all car accidents are ND (negligent driving) because car accident implies a defective vehicle. Guns are designed to fire a projectile at potentially lethal velocities and accidents will always happen. I personally know of the following incidents involving direct friends & family. (Alright I grew up in a war zone and hunting environment so guns were pervasive) 1) Previous boss was shot in the back of the head through a radio pack by someone cleaning a weapon that loaded (he lived with the bullet lodged next to his spinal cord) 2) Teenage friend left a .22 caliber loaded and his mom shot a hole in the roof when tidying his bedroom. 3) Another teenage friend was carrying his dads new 308 to put back in the gun safe without realising that while they had been "admiring it" a round had been loaded - shot an impressive hole in the wall! 4) Shotgun left on a neighbours bed was loaded and their dog climbed onto it and the weapon discharged. All of the above were accidents with no long term consequences and I am sure Africa is not unique and that similar events happen in the US. BTW I think guns can be fun toys but that they should treated with respect - some people are to stupid to do this by themselves so we need laws. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Sorry context was lost in my original post. I didn't want to express an opinion regarding whether the US was justified in dropping an atom bomb where and when it did. I honestly don't know enough about that specific detail to have a strong opinion. Taken at face value then yes probably justifiable but this is a very dangerous precedent because to avoid "double standards" then you have to accept that if we are justified so are they and then suddenly civilian attacks are just part of war. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I haven't voted cause I think your poll options are to stark/controversial. As a Non-american I may feel that the US commits war crimes (I don't know enough about the 2nd world war to have feelings either way). Iraq is a good current example of US war crimes. However under no circumstance would I feel that a US city deserves being bombed (Bush on trial - even facing execution Saddam style is a completely different situation. Similarly I would say that the objective of war is not to kill the enemy but to get your own way - death & injury is a cost not an objective. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Why would you be against free enterprise? I think there are a few problems with your proposal. The first is that often when you lack the skills you don't know what skills to hire. I realise that with Africa there is a feeling that it is "abused" by the west. I would have thought that in general business is about getting rich and good business tends to treat its benefactors well in order to survive. Tanzania is a little far from my direct experience growing up in Zimbabwe I was exposed to Zambia, Mozambique and SA. Corruption is rife and the average person is culturally so different to you and I it is virtually incomprehensible - this can make business very difficult. I am making the basic assumption that Tanzania is very similar. Another angle to consider is that the vast majority of African tourism is pretty much family business rather than chains/large enterprise. Tour operators, game ranches and the like are often fully run by a family - I don't know how the legislation treats this type of outfit. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I think the problem with laws like this and the general attitude is that foreign companies bring skills and contacts with them. You only have to look at Zimbabwe to see the consequences of full scale indiginisation programs. BTW recent Zimbabwean law states that a "local" person can ONLY be black - so 2nd and 3rd generation whites & indians are excluded. I think that there is a growing trend towards this in southern Africa with Zimbabwe leading the pack. As much as I am loath to say it I think that better regulation in terms of minimum wages & employee rights are a better way to ensure that more money stays local. (I am against regulation - not better pay in case this reads odd) Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Even with licensing schemes in place how do you predict that someone will become mentally unstable? I guess that you could suspend licenses due to "events". So for example your wife files for divorce and your gun license is immediately suspended. I wouldn't want that to happen but isn't it divorce, rejection at school, problems at work (being fired) that form a major trigger for the majority of known shootings? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

There is an accounting trap that can be had in efficiency savings. I guess it applies in other area's as well but electrical supply is the area that I am most familiar. From an engineering point of view a national grid with excess capacity to cope with sudden fluctuations in loading is required - the problem is that this costs money, lots of money. When people look at the financial aspects of running electrical installations they tend to say that there is alot of waste, excess charging etc as a result of this spare capacity. I am sure that accountants accept a certain level of redundancy but by their nature (and its their responsibility) they look to minimise, where an engineer looks to maximise. The end result of privatising for efficiency is that the engineering viewpoint gets lost in the cost savings and then when a disaster happens people suddenly realise that you can't just bring that de-commissioned power station back online in 20 minutes. The problem is that government focus has shifted over the past 50/60 years such that even governments look at cost savings in isolation to national wellbeing. So I doubt that government/private control would make a difference. With regards to health the problem with National healthcare, versus private healthcare is that the objectives are different and the patient suffers (I have first hand experience of this). National healthcare must provide the MINIMUM recovery in order to be efficient with tax dollars. Private health must deliver MAXIMUM recovery as cost effectively as possible to remain competitive. A direct example of this - I broke my wrist snowboarding. Private medical in Switzerland told me that I needed to have surgery and be pinned to minimise the long term effects. NHS in the UK just slapped a plaster on and told me I would have 80% movement for the rest of my life. I chose to get it done for free and regret it as it is severly limiting. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Our club had 2 accidents. The first I was not in however someone was sitting in the co-pilots seat and on rotation they got spooked (student I think from memory) and leaned back into the control column causing the plane to nose-dive Everyone survived and a friend was thrown from the plane with no injuries. The 2nd we were at about 1500ft when we had some sort of catastrophic engine failure that caused hot-oil to piss all over the windscreen. I was a T10 static line student (I was a slow learner - too poor to progress quickly as I was 16/17 years old at the time - it was about jump 15)and the pilot was not prepared to risk his life playing games with drag etc, so I was given the choice of landing with the plane - or getting out directly onto my reserve . I chose to stay with the plane much to the distress of the despatcher/jump-master (it meant he had to stay to). The other 3 went out onto their mains directly with no choice or options about where they got out - just dive exits (nearish) a local road. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

You've got to ignore the England part of Johns posts. It used to mildly amuse me or piss me off depending on my mood that John was England bashing again... But I have recently come to see that John is using Englands ban as a defence against gun ownership. John is campaigning against a ban in the US - not pissing on the english (it just comes across that way) Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

John, I think that you are focusing to tightly on the "ban" of firearms in the UK as the cause of rising crime. I believe (& I don't follow these things closely) that in the US your per capita chance of being shot is higher than the UK. Therefore a ban MAY be working. I also believe that most UK gun crime is committed by 16-30 year old black males. It is probably more likely that it is a social problem causing the growing murder rate. I would suggest that family breakdowns and music that glorifies killing to protect your "respect" and "honour" are of more influence than anything else. I don't think banning gangster rap would solve it though Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.