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Why are any of you even bothering? Ron has years of history here, with almost every post he's made falling into one of two categories - expert trolling and button-pushing, or bat-shit crazy delusions. He is never, ever, ever going to engage in lucid, good-faith discourse with any of you. You cannot reason with a troll, and you cannot reason with someone who has gleefully swapped facts for truthiness. Just let the experiment die.

Absolutely. During the height of the wars, money was taken from State and given to Defense -- and State already had a small percentage of the budget compared to DoD. Once things started progressing in Iraq, the military started getting the "nation building" tasks (what we are not at all suited to perform), as the ones who are supposed to do that did not have the resources to do so. We had the money, so we got the added responsibility. Instead, the right answer is to give the people who know how to do this stuff (State, USAID, etc) the resources to do their jobs, and military requirements will shrink anyway. Security isn't always -- or more accurately, usually is not -- found at the end of a weapon. But, it takes an educated, experienced group of people (legislature, executive) to implement those courses of action.

Im surprised that so many of you still give this sad troll the online attention that he really craves in real life.

Hello, My name is neal. My last jumps were at New Hanover ~1986ish...Always missed it, but you know, time, money, responsibilities.... Jumped again IAD at Maytown on 7/7/19.. My "Arch, Arch, Arch" was "Arse, Arse, Arse". Exited like a dead walrus kicked out of a hunter's airplane on account of the smell. My PLF looked like the same dead walrus landing. Absolutely Wonderful Day!!! Going again 7/27. Excellent people, excellent class/instructors. Everyone of all ages and experience very encouraging to newcomers and returnees.

And bounce goes the nose cone. https://youtu.be/01KSBM-GAKw

Your best source of information is with the manufacturer of the container. They will list the type and size of main and reserve that fit in the container. If it's not listed, you contact them to know their recommendation. "The myth" is that you can usually pack: 1 size bigger = using a low pack volume main or a 7 cell, ex a 168 ZPX in a container made for a 150 ZP 1 size smaller = the container is not as hard as full volume but it's still safe to jump, ex a 135 ZP in a container made for a 150 ZP The problem is that every container is different and the pack volume of a 230 vs a 190 is a lot bigger than the gap between a 150 vs a 120 even though it's 3 sizes for both.

The reason I do is simple, I think in Ron we have a perfect example of the credulity phenomenon. And unlike your crazy uncle who just gets mad and huffs off, Ron engages willingly, persistently and, most importantly, publicly. Here, away from his self validating support group, his flowery talk, his counseling credentials and his christian compatriots all ready for war it's usually easy work getting him to where he simply needs to disengage because he has no real truth to offer. So no, I don't have an expectation that an epiphany is just a post away, far from it. That said, everyone loves a surprise so I'm hopeful. In the meantime, if just one person starts wondering not about what they believe but instead about why they believe it then I've earned my cookie.

I would venture to suggest that most people who use that phrase are just being polite - no more, no less. The fact that you find it obnoxious suggests that the problem does not lie with your correspondents.

I'd just resolve the debate by calling it what it really is: cringeworthy internet attention whoring. If any BASE jumpers were even pretending to be confused about this subject, it was because you were desperate to add it to your "BASE" logbook and the people you were paying to take you on those jumps don't really give a fuck what you want to tell yourself. BASE jumping is done from fixed objects, not aircraft.

Ah, the ambiguity of sentences with "or" in them.

It's a skydive. Of course it is. You jumped out of a helicopter... I've jumped out of a number of helicoptors and none of those were BASE jumps either. I don't understand how this is even a question? No matter how much you want to call it a BASE jump it isn't one. If any BASE jumpers were saying it is then they were humoring you because you were probably being weird and insistent about it.

If the exit is from an aircraft, it is NOT a base jump. A lot of proximity flying is done from helicopters, a lot of times because there is no exit point from the cliff. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not a base jump. --- I've always thought a dam was more of a Span. It's man-made, not a natural cliff made of E. It's not a B, because a building is an occupied structure in a different, unique, urban environment. A dam is more like a bridge with a structure, and it does in fact 'span' a gorge.

Well, people have been doing bandit balloon jumps with base rigs for years. None of them have been BASE jumps and neither are these Heli-Skydives.

Nope. BASE starts on a fixed object. Skydiving starts from an aircraft. Pretty simple! And yes, you were too lazy to climb it (probably too cautious as well.) That's not a bad thing. But your decision to not climb does not turn it into a BASE jump.

Just teasing about the "rich kid" thing. But seriously, the question you are asking can't be serious. You know it is not a BASE jump.

A bunch of rich kids too lazy to climb. Therefore not a BASE jump. Also posted in the DZ forums because it would just get laughed at in the BASE forums.

Heli Base... Not a BASE. It's a skydive. Where did it start? The sky, not a BASE object.

When did they add an "H" to "BASE"? (and where would it go? "BAHSE"? ) That's a skydive. It's from an aircraft. It would fall under FAR part 105 in the US, and require rigs with reserves. No clue what the rules are over there, but it's not out of the question for a video like this to result in some consequences, at least in the US.

That explains everything, if it's on the Internet, it must be true!

Nope. Ron gets the same courtesy we all do. No PAs. I got banned for pointing out his shortcomings a while back. I do find it amusing that he claims that the "liberals" wrongly think that Trump supporting conservatives are ignorant, then posts what he posted above.

I get really confused when you post this "Patriots in control" saying, and here's why. I served in the US Navy for 5 years, my wife for 6, and both of us are vehemently opposed to Trump's policies (rather, lack thereof), and were either of us to run for elected office, we would definitely fight tooth and nail to keep the Trump agenda from ever coming to fruition. So...what makes a patriot? I don't think that word means what you think it means. Patriotism is the vigorous love of one's country, which is a quality that I and my wife have, yet I think you're conflating that with blind support of all things nationalistic. It is not. Our country is not a perfect union; we are on the ever-changing path toward a more perfect union. The implication there is that we must continue to change for the better indefinitely. If not for that constant march toward a more perfect union, we'd still have slavery. Women would never have been given the right to vote. Segregation would still be legal. "Witches" could be burned at the stake. You could beat a woman so long as the rod used was no thicker than your thumb. Lynchings would be commonplace, as well as other hate crimes, and go unpunished (still have a long way to go on this one; police brutality toward minorities is much too common). So...what does patriotism mean to you?

Was William Shatner on that flight?

I would imagine that for her it is a little like it is for you in the other thread. It's important to be pro-active when dealing with threats. Only instead of getting off the first shot like you are hoping, she is more into disarming her potential assailant. As the court ordered but could not or would not enforce. We all have to survive somehow.

Back to the FL woman charged with burglary for taking her ex-husbands's to the police. The State of FL has decided to only punish her as a misdemeanor. https://www.npr.org/2019/07/03/738647670/woman-accused-of-turning-in-husbands-guns-to-the-police-will-face-misdemeanor-ch

What is the cost of this project? From the article.... "Is it your view that this steep price decreases will continue?" asked Commissioner Mel Levine. "It’s a gamble," Pickel said. "You've got to know when you're gambling." Maybe the folks handling the High Speed Rail project can be of some assistance.

A few comments: 1) Yes, it can be hard to get an advanced license with a small aircraft. I started skydiving at a small DZ with one, then two, then one C182's. We were lucky to get in one "fun" jump (i.e. an actual 4-way) a weekend, and that's only if we showed up at 7am and made sure a pilot was there, too. This is not a bad thing - it means that if you don't get experience you can't get an advanced license. Because you don't have enough experience. Which is how licenses work. Licenses aren't "you've been in the sport for two years and you deserve some recognition" - they are both indications that you've reached a level of experience (based on jump numbers and types of jumps you've done) and that you are ready to learn something new (like getting an AFF rating or learning to do demos.) 2) It sounds like you are saying that it's hard to get experience/freefall time from a C206 that only goes to 10K. Keep in mind that many DZ's only have C182's that go to 8500 - so you have some benefits there. 3) There have been hundreds of thousands of 4-ways launched from 182's and 206's without much increase in risk. If your pilot is uncomfortable with them, then by all means don't do them - but learning to do 4-way is a pretty basic skill. Once you get a new pilot and/or go to different DZ's you'll have that opportunity. 4) There has been no time, ever, when DZ's haven't "been experiencing tough times." And right now we are in the middle of a booming economy. DZ's make money on students, not upjumpers - so losing a few upjumpers to other DZ's doesn't hurt DZ's financially very much. It does hurt them in the long run because those jumpers tend not to stick around. But that's because they have one C206 and a conservative pilot, rather than "USPA makes them leave." As another data point, when I started at that aforementioned one-182 DZ, we'd often go to the Ranch on Mondays (when our DZ was closed) to take advantage of their "$13 to 13,500" deals during the week. We had to, to get enough jumps to get licenses and ratings. And going to a different DZ taught me a whole lot more than just getting some extra high altitude jumps did. It meant I met new people, had new coaches, saw new gear, learned about new aircraft, had to learn new outs - and all of that is critical to someone who wants to be considered an "expert" skydiver (which I believe is what the C license used to be called.) Finally: 5) "Turning even one successful point in a four-way from a Cessna at 10K is a beer-worthy feat!" - Nonsense! Why, one year at Lost Prairie we turned 7 points from 4K! They even wrote a song about it. Although come to think of it that might not be a good feat to try to duplicate . . .

DINNER IS SERVED! Global temps for May are COOLER than in 2015, 2016 and 2017. Yes folks its true! Despite gigatons of additional CO2 and a rebranding from "climate change" to "climate emergency" the planet's temperature stubbornly refuses to climb up that ol' hockey stick. Bon Appetit! PS Sorry for the delay but I had to wait until NOAA published its data.

An iceberg

Was on water rationing, was..... now thanks to global warming, your reservoirs are brimming and your snowpack is at record levels. So yes my math works. As I have said many times, the impact of mankind on the climate has run the gamut from benign to beneficial.

The odds of being killed in a mass shooting are about one in 110,000 (about the same as being killed by a dog) which is much greater than the odds of your life being negatively impacted by man made climate change. So... you will just have to forgive me as I fill up my wife's SUV with premium dinosaur bones.

The latest from NOAA, “For May, the average contiguous U.S. temperature was 59.5°F, 0.7°F below the 20th century average and ranked in the bottom third of the 125-year record.”

I first came to LA in 1980. There was a line you descended through where the smog started. You could smell it. I started skydiving in Perris in the 1990's. It definitely wasn't "eradicated" but was vastly better than it was when I first arrived - and that was driven 90% by CARB regulations on cars, and 10% by new EPA requirements on power plants. It has continued to get better. Nowadays there are days when you can see clear across the LA basin from altitude, and the mountains are sharp. And much of _that_ improvement has come from getting rid of coal. In 2008 we got 18% of our energy from coal. Today it's less than 4%.

Cool. Down here we are doing the same thing - and are starting to run those trucks on methane from our landfill.

Oh yeah. I almost forgot. Read Namowal's cartoons about the Duck. http://tailotherat.blogspot.com/2011/08/sky-diving-duck-ii-chicken-of-sky.html She tells the story of her AFF & beyond in a cartoon blog. It's pretty cool.

LONG POST: So, I put my AFF on hold for a couple of months because I wasn't really confortable in the DZ where I did my Level 1/Tandem thingy. I switched to another DZ and started all over again. Did Level 1 and 2 last weekend (no tandems, 2:1 exits). I think I did a decent Level 1 jump (followed instructions, pretty stable for a first timer and I deployed by myself), except that I totally fucked up my landing. Have you seen those videos in which a driving student hits gas instead of brakes and they just keep on doing that until they crash? well, that happened to me on my first landing, I did a pretty good landing pattern, I was heading towards the landing area, and WHY OH WHY I made a right turn.... and I knew that I was going in the wrong direction, but kept doing it (just like those driving students). I landed on my ass and my instructor told me "thank God you are in a forgiving student canopy, otherwise we'd be waiting for an ambulance right now". So my confidence got pretty broken, that was so not what I had pictured for my first jump, I fucked up, and felt SO stupid. Then I get on the plane again for a second jump, and I was so focused on trying to understand the signals from the instructor flying in front of me, that I totally forgot to check my altimeter (*major facepalm*), so my main instructor that was grabbing me had to shake me to make me focus, and it was time to deploy and I did. But then, I fucked up my landing again!!!! I couldn't hear well on the radio in which direction I should land, and instead of checking the direction of the wind (another facepalm), I went where I "thought" I had heard. So.... I made my landing pattern, and I missed the landing spot, I was still too high, and I was heading towards some cars and a hangar.... I started to make the same mistake as the first time (turning right), but then realized what I was doing and corrected it and landed on my ass again on the driveway (luckily a car that was coming in saw me and stopped). Ego severely bruised, but no scratches. Still, I felt pretty frustrated and my confidence went to the floor. I didn't want to continue for the day. Later, I went to have dinner with my instructor and 3 other diver friends and they told me I should focus on what I did right, instead of what I did wrong, just learn from my mistakes, they were pretty supportive but at the same time very honest. I had a meltdown as soon as I got in the car and cried all the way back to the hotel (I'm a crybaby). I was still pretty bummed on Sunday, so I just hung around at the DZ, watching/shadowing my instructor teach a kid who did his last 3 levels that day and graduated. Two days later, I am still struggling with my confidence, I want to do level 3 on Saturday and maybe just do one level each weekend... take it very slow, as I seem to get new information slower than other people. Please, tell me your struggles when you were doing your AFF course...!! I need to hear I am not the only shitty student out there!!! If you were the perfect student, I don't want to hear from you, seriously!! I kind of need stories of shitty students that finally made it and are happy and safe divers today, please!! If you made it this far in this rant, THANK YOU SO MUCH!

2 stages 1. Create level flight 2. hold level flight until the canopy can no longer hold you up over simplified, but that is what we teach a lot of. Most canopies, especially student canopies, even navigators do not start to see any flare until the toggles are past chest level. It is hard to do 3 stages - you go and try it. So I teach them to focus ont eh elevator effect in the stomach to determine level flight. Adjust the input to always get the same output. The rest is timing and finishing it.