riddler

We call this "ego surfing". Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Judging by the spelling, I think the authors were taking a little of their own advice while making the page. Ich wolle mein MJ! Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Right now, there's about a 93% chance I'll go. There are a few wild-card factors, but I still regret not going last year. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

It bothers me that almost no attention is paid to landings in AFF. This is where the majority of injuries occur these days (yes I am counting low turns/swooping). There is such focus on free-fall, and almost none on landing. Two of the three injuries I've gotten from skydiving were landing related (one bruised tailbone and one sprained ankle). Does anyone else agree that special coaching should take place in AFF for landings? Unless you have a gift for landing, then you've probably had a least one minor injury. I didn't even start to learn to land until about jump #50. Prior to that, it was a lot of unfortunate intimacy with dirt. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Question on procedure? Whenever I ask about specific mals, I get the same answer from the S&TA's. Even for a monkey-fist, I've been told to follow the same emergency procedures - that is, cutaway first, then pull reserve. This doesn't sound logical to me, since it seems cutting away on a monkey fist could potentially cause your risers to stream out behind you, possibly making something for the reserve to tangle with. Low probability yes - it would require the risers to pop out from the riser covers (which is somewhat likely depending on how old your gear is, I think), whereby I think they would just stream - the bag should stay in the container with the pin still in. And it assumes the reserve gets entangled (low probability, in my uneducated opinion) with the main streamers. So the question is for a total mal, do you still cutaway first (assuming you have enough altitude to safely do so)? BTW - congrats, Ducky - my first reserve ride was two weeks ago - jump 85. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I have video of flaming footie. Also, I'm working with the raft jump video that you fire-wired to me. Just have to learn how to work these video editors .... Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

A friend of mine called the DZ yesterday and the owner said a balloon for jumping was planned for Saturday and Sunday. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Kind of funny you mention Mile-Hi - Kara has two stickers on the back of her car - one is USPA and the other says "anti-social". Advice to all skydivers - if you are seeking women for friends, lovers, whatever, you are in the wrong sport. And if anyone knows of a sport that has 85% women and 15% men, kindly let me know so I can join. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Are you saying my reserve is really old? I hope not I didn't know that they had to dye the fabric white - interesting. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I'm sure this sounds like a stupid question, but will any of the balloons let us jump from them? Or is is a bad idea for skydivers and many balloons to share air space? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

0:0:2. No jumping this weekend due to last weekend's cutaway. No sex either, but that's become the norm for the last few weeks. The beer was part of the downpayment on what I owe from the Casa boogie. I had to drive back the DZ anyway, 'cause I left my helmet and altimeter there. I'll make one case for the first time out of Casa and the other for first boogie. Now I still owe for first raft dive, first cutaway and I owe a case of bud light to Farmer McFriendly because I landed on their property after the Casa dropped me on my ass-a two miles west of the DZ. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I won't propose to be an expert on any characteristics of flight, but here's my two cents. Stalling can happen to any canopy - it's a characteristic of anything that moves forward in the air. AOA/forward velocity limits exceeded and you will stall. I do believe, however, that air-locks canopies recover faster from a stall than no airlocked canopies. In a stall situation, an non-airlocked canopy will deflate. An air-locked one will deflate MUCH LESS (yes, airlocks do deflate, but the rate of deflation is less). If a stall occurs, forward movement stops and the canopy will tend to deflate. It will deflate at a much slower rate if it has airlocks. At some point (hopefully quickly and before you hit the ground), the turbulence will stop, your weight under canopy will position it at a good AOA, and you will start moving forward again. At this point, you either have a snivel that needs to reinflate (requiring precious altitude) or a canopy that is already inflated (i.e. and airlock) that will get you moving forward again. The altitude that you did not lose due to the airlock could be the difference between landing and landing really hard. One thing to consider if you want to buy an airlock - if you cutaway, the canopy tends to stay inflated and tends to float away. You are more likely to lose your airlock canopy if you cutaway. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I have to work this weekend for one reason. I'm still recovering from a hard opening/cutaway from last weekend

I don't see anything wrong with people having hook knives, as long as they are told it for the RESERVE, not the main. I don't have one, because I have been too lazy to get my lazy butt on the web site and order a shur-cut. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Why don't we start by not calling people disabled? We all have individual abilities in every area - some stronger than others. I can't free-fly for shit (I'm working on it ) - should I call myself disabled because of it? My memory sucks (and NO, I've never used illegal drugs) - how come I'm not considered mentally ill? There will always be degrees of ability, and human beings will always draw a line in the sand and say everyone past this point is considered different. It takes a real effort to change your inherent or learned prejudices. The future belongs to those that have the courage to do so. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I knew I shouldn't have listened to my parents and started smoking at 16. She'll never collect, but it would be fun to say you were worth 28 billion on paper. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I respect moose as well - they are BIG mofos. I stay away. I *might* approach one in a tank. That guy was seriously lucky that the deer went in through the passenger window. I have had two friends killed on motorcycles by deer, and one friend that hit one and rode it out to the side of the road with the poor deer straddling his ferring. When I see one on my bike, I pray. When I was a kid, we hit a cow in a tiny little Plymouth Horizon that weighed less than the cow. Cow went to one side of the road, we went to the other. No one hurt really, except I bit my tongue pretty hard. I would like to say that experience changed my life and I became a vegetarian, but the truth is, it made me hungry for a hamburger. Some people are simply not made to be vegetarians. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Video cameras are even better. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

You are a skydiver. Thus you are an asshole. Why do you think the plane always smells like farts? Because it's full of assholes. duh. - Asshole #176200 Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

That's part of my situation too - I'm at 85 jumps and still don't feel confident about a lot of canopy situations. This one didn't take much thought because I couldn't get it to fly straight to begin with, but I wonder what would have been the appropriate thing to do if it was flying straight. I think I will start playing with flaring under rear riser on landing to see what it's like. I'll look out for strong head winds and if they are over 10, I think I'll try it. I've seen people that have dive loops on the rear riser as well as the front - might be a good idea to get that modified before I start. That and work the pull-ups a little more often at the gym Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I think I need to try it to see how bad it really is. It's a big canopy, making riser flares tough, but considering that the reserve didn't flare for shit either, it probably wouldn't have been much different. Now if I can just get out of that spin faster. Like your signature - my reserve was due for a repack on the 15th of this month anyway, so it wasn't a huge loss. I'm glad I threw away the handles, but wish I kept them all the same. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I say "only" like it's not a big deal. I can't flare under rear risers. I've been told it's possible, but I've tried and I can't do it. This happened to me - extremely hard open that strangled me with the chest strap. Broken steering line - spinning. I chopped - couldn't get it back under control. As it was spinning, I was thinking if I control it with rear risers, then I can land it. My next thought was I can't flare with only one steering line, so I might as well cut away. And I did. So I think there's no right answer to this - depends on the size of canopy, head-winds, how good you are at PLF, wingload, etc. FYI - I'm at 1:1 on a 190 square, had a 4-5 MPH headwind, so I probably would have been able to land it without too much of a problem. My question is if you had a broken steering line on your current canopy, would you try to land it, or cut away? And what is your wingload? Elliptical or square? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I think the statistic in Parachutist was 10,000 miles driven in a car has same risk of death as 17 skydives. Do I have those numbers right? Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

First raft jump (can you say Beer?) at the Casa boogie last weekend. Two people in, weighing a total of 500 lbs. four inexperienced jumpers on the outside. 4 cameramen. We needed some of those cameramen to hold the darn thing! We lost it after only 1,000 feet. from 12,500, the raft floated somewhere over rural Colorado, but magically made it's way home to the DZ the next day. Still don't know how that happened. Got good video, though Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

This was such a fun article! My favorite line was about the talking toys saying bad words as well. Sent it to a bunch of my skydiving friends. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD