Woofie

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Everything posted by Woofie

  1. That entire thread is not about class, it's about anti-class. There's all kinds of non-classy stuff in there. That's the designated place for it, from what I gather, to keep it isolated so that it's not spread all over. Complaining about lack of class in a thread designed for non-classy stuff, is kind of ridiculous. If you don't want to see gross stuff, don't go there. If you don't want to see DB Cooper discussions, don't go to that thread. If you don't want to participate in political discussions, don't go to Speaker's Corner. And so on... Apparently it's not against the rules, or it would have been removed by now. Would you prefer it be posted in Speaker's Corner instead, as a political discussion about how evil those terrorists are?
  2. The link was posted in a thread titled "sick and twisted and/or NSFW photo attachment thread". The link was posted with the "NSFW" warning turned on. The link was introduced with a description of exactly what the video contained. Every fair warning possible was given. If you don't want to see sick stuff, don't go to a "sick" thread, ignore "NSFW" warnings, and open videos with grisly descriptions. This reminds me of the lady in Colorado who moved in next to the airport and drop zone and now complains about the noise from airplanes.
  3. You assume WAY wrong. There's probably less than 25 people in America who have ever reached that many jumps. The average jumper probably never even gets to 1,000 in a lifetime. Just look at the award numbers in the back of Parachutist magazine. Compare the A license numbers to the 1,000 jump and 10,000 jump wings numbers. What's your definition of "safe"? If you can die doing it, it's not safe? If the odds of dying are x, it's not safe? What's your value for x?
  4. Oh my, we're gonna have to change the name of that State too. And the musical show by that name also - who knew that it was just a veiled racist program!
  5. I hear some people are even pissed off about grocery stores selling redskin potatoes.
  6. I've seen the same video and talked with my friend who was one of the test jumpers. I don't think I perceived it the same way you did. When there's the chop, the jumper's body swings away from the main, under the reserve, not towards the departing canopy. After cutting-away from one canopy, the jumper and canopy return to equilibrium under the remaining canopy. The jumper swings sideways to get underneath the canopy, and the canopy also swings sideways in the other direction to get over top the jumper. Both components move. I think the last time I saw that video it was on a VCR tape...
  7. The modern skydiver starts telling tales to the other jumpers of wingsuits, proximity flying, BASE jumping, CRW, video cameras the size of a pack of cigarettes, 200-way skydives, rigs that weigh only 20 lbs., canopies with a 4:1 glide ratio, audible altitude alert gizmos, tippy-toe soft landings, spotting by satellite, 3 centimeter accuracy landings, reserve AADs, and jump aircraft that get to 13k feet in 15 minutes. Everyone thinks he's bat shit crazy and they call the mental health authorities on him. He's never seen or heard from again... The old jumpers go back to their round 24' twill canopies, belly-wart reserves, motorcycle helmets, stop-watches, mechanics coveralls jump suits, and French para-boots, and tell tales over beer of the bat shit crazy man that once visited their drop zone. The sport takes another 50 years to achieve all those amazing improvements. The moral of the story: Sometimes it is worthwhile to listen to people who seem to be bat shit crazy.
  8. That was good thinking on someone's part to throw that float out at the croc and scare him away from the boy.
  9. Why is a side-by-side safe to cut-away? As soon as you release the main, the canopy and jumper return to center of gravity, which means the reserve canopy quickly slides over towards the main which was just cut-away. And it seems I've seen that example on that Gold Knights two-out video, where the departing risers and rings have a good opportunity to entangle in the lines of the remaining reserve, as it moves into it's previous airspace. And then you would have a whole cut-away canopy dragging on your reserve, possibly inflated, and distorting the reserve to dangerous proportions.
  10. I've got a scar from that too. Those aluminum ridges holding the plexiglass strips together can be like a cheese grater. And just because you're the spotter, don't think that you're in sole charge of the door operation. Someone behind you may decide to push it down from the other end while you're still holding onto the bar and not expecting it...
  11. http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/08/17/pepperell/0GBHfFppa9OUv9J4jJl78K/story.html
  12. This whole ice-bucket-challenge phenomenon is the stupidest thing I've seen in along time. It's right up there with planking and setting yourself on fire. Anyone who gives in to the blackmail and does something they don't want to do, just to avoid donating to charity, is an idiot. I reject your challenge, and I won't donate to your darned charity either. If I like the charity that much, I'll donate because it's worthy and because I want too, not because someone threatened me with a bucket of ice. Hey, I'm going to set myself on fire! And if you don't do it too, then you have to donate $100 to USPA. Mom used to warn us about blindly following the crowd. She would say something like; "If all your friends hit themselves on the head with a hammer, would you do it too?" Can I avoid paying my IRS income taxes if I dump ice on my head? Rant over. Sorry to rain on the parade. You may now return to dumping buckets of ice water over your head to avoid giving money to deserving charities.
  13. No. But if you can arrange it, I'm sure we could get a few hundred people to join you.
  14. Woofie

    CEO Risk Takers

    Quote: "An interview on Notre Dame’s Newswire quotes Cain explaining the findings of the study, “Cleared for Takeoff? CEO Personal Risk-Taking and Corporate Policies,” which included 179 CEOs who were pilots and 2,900 CEOs who were not. His topline was this: “Firms led by CEOs who are pilots exhibit corporate policies that differ substantially from those led by non-pilots. For example, CEO pilot–led firms are more likely to engage in mergers and acquisitions, have more debt in their capital structure—meaning higher leverage and greater overall stock return volatility. Thus, thrill-seeking CEOs bring a certain element of this personality trait into the executive suite, as reflected by more aggressive corporate policies.” He went on to note: “Piloting small aircraft as a hobby is more risky than driving a motorcycle, flying a helicopter or even crop-dusting. Thus, the research shows, these CEOs exhibit a clear willingness to engage in risky activities for the sake of pleasure.” Link: http://havaspr.com/us/?p=11315 I reckon skydivers who run businesses are probably much the same.
  15. I see a lot of people who think that AAD's should be mandatory. I'm just wondering how that squares with many people who believe that motorcyclists should have the personal choice to not wear a helmet if they so desire.
  16. I don't even see how you can figure out which cones to follow...
  17. Tell us more details about this... ;-)
  18. That looks more spandex than the shiny latex. I note the bare feet. I suppose the lack of a few extra inches of surface area from shoes might be worth a few more miles per hour. I think I'd still want something on my soles for landing. Some kind of thin slippers maybe. Attached: latex photo. Gosh, even the RIG seems to made of latex! And I think that's the largest D-ring handle I've ever seen. Drat, I rotated the photo 90-degrees on my computer to get the orientation correct, but when uploaded here it reverted back to non-rotated. Oh well, you get the idea.
  19. Only the mounts are zip-tied to your rig.The protracks are clipped in those mounts and secured with a rubber ring http://www.wingstore.aero/638-1163-thickbox/mount-for-protrack.jpg Thanks for that. I think I've got a spare mount clip from an old Pro-track that I broke, and that along with a couple of packing bands ought to do the trick. I'm going to try out the hip location and see how that works. It would be fun to get about five Pro-tracks and mount them all over your body; head, chest, hip, thigh and shoe, and look at the numbers from all of them for a single dive, so see what the differences are, if any. Anyone ever done that?
  20. No, you need 2. A pro track and another audible, both in your helmet. For competition, the organisers supply two pro-tracks for your harness. For qualification jumps, they use the 1 pro-track in your helmet, so you can use that for training as well, unless you're rich. Well, as a minimalist you could get by with just the Pro-track in your helmet, for both recording and audible alarms. But to be most serious about it and mimic competition conditions to best track your training, you need the one for each hip also.
  21. So now I need 4 devices: 2 Pro-Tracks for my hips, and two for my helmet. That's about a $1,000 investment right there. Crap! The problem I see with the zip ties is that you'll have to take them off all the time to hook the Pro-track up to the computer. In order to remove them, they have to be clipped off with something like wire cutters. And then you're risking nicking your harness webbing... Seems like 3" wide velcro would stay secure. Yep, I think the perpendicular to line of flight thing is a must for this. If you end up not perfectly vertical, either a little short of vertical, or a little past vertical, you end up tracking or back-tracking up or down the line of flight, which could put you underneath other jumpers. So this is a function already built into the Jump-track software? I'll have to look for that...
  22. Note that the quote was said in comparison to dealing with the U.S. government bureaucracy. It could be misconstrued when taken out of context like that. Most Americans have the same low opinion of U.S. government bureaucracy. And that bureaucracy does not represent Americans in general.
  23. What's "CRS"? For a hip mount I was thinking of some kind of wide velcro gizmo that would hold the Pro-track to the junction of the main lift web and the leg straps. I'd want something easily removable, so that the Pro-track can go back in the helmet for other kinds of dives for the altitude warning beeps. And I don't like the idea of not having that on a speed dive. Seems to me you need them especially more for a speed dive, because your head is locked rigid looking down, and you don't want to move it to do a visual look at an altimeter, as that would mess up your position and cost you speed. Hmm... It occurs to me it would also be nice to have some technical instructions on how the judges look at the Pro-Track data to determine the average speed over the specific 1,000 meters. All I've ever done is look at the graph the Pro-Track produces. I suppose there's many lines of raw data behind that, which they need to filter to extract the specific ones in the range of the speed run, and then export to excel or something to get the average. Sheesh. You would need to be a computer geek. But competitors would need to know that to understand how their practice jumps would be measured in competition... Taking my thinking on this subject even further, a serious competitor would need: - 3 Pro-Tracks: 1 for each hip like in competition, and one for the helmet for safety altitude alerts. - A laptop computer to take to the DZ with him, upon which to download the Pro-Track data after each jump. - A computer geek to download the data from the Pro-track to the computer. - A statistician to process and analyze the data to know how you're doing. This is getting expensive, and I see an entourage...
  24. Okay, so I guess it's about packing a lot of mass into the smallest wind profile possible? A 5'2" fat guy at 220 lbs. would probably create more wind drag and fall slower than a 6'2" tall guy at the same weight. Like a baseball versus an arrow. Break out the corsets! OH, and since you seem to know something about this - where do you get a mount to attach a Pro-track to your hip, like they do in competition? I've always just left it in the earpiece of my helmet. I wonder if the hip location gives a higher/lower air speed reading? Might was well do it like in competition, so you're seeing the same thing in practice which the judges will see. Do they use the TAS true air speed or SAS skydiver air speed setting?