SkySpice

"Help! I'm in Hong Kong and my cash and credit cards have been stolen! I need some help from my friends immediately so I can get home again. Please respond immediately for instructions on how to send me emergency money by Western Union. Thanks!"

Did it differ much from saturating it with Scotchgard or silicon spray? He kept his formula a secret. But if you looked up the Mil-Spec for zero-porosity nylon, you could see all the ingredients, if not the proportions of each in the mixture. He would hang up the canopy, and then spray it with the liquid mixture using a paint sprayer.

Well... I saw a number of those tired old Leonardized canopies blow up on opening shortly after the treatment. That tired old fabric just couldn't take the stress of being zero-porosity again.

Not to take anything away from Helmut - he's done good! But as the saying goes, every inventor stands on the shoulders of a thousand inventors who came before them. And I believe it was Steve Snyder who invented the first AAD; the Sentinel. I think he also created the first skydiving specific altimeter, The Altimaster, still in wide use today, so we didn't have to mount those heavy bulky aircraft altimeters on our belly wart reserves. And didn't he also come up with the slider, to tame hard openings on ram-air parachutes so that we could enjoy our sport without bruises?

Why do you dislike her?

Here is what happens when an officer allows a thug to get his gun away from him: http://elmira-corning.twcnews.com/content/news/722621/johnson-city-police-officer-shot--killed-with-service-weapon--suspect-dies/

Gary doing CRW with Walt Appel at Skydive San Marcos: [inline Gary_CRW.jpg]

What's that rope hanging out of your grill? The winch line for vehicle rescue sticking out of the middle of the front bumper? or are you talking about that very thin thin line in the picture on the driver's left? It could be water, though it is more likely to be some sort of twig picked up along the way on the trail. No, nothing to do with the winch. Rather that line that comes out of the grill underneath the left headlight. If it's a stick, it's an awfully long one.

Laly: Thank you for that fine testament to Gary. And for the other readers here: Gary gifted that surfboard to Laly in his last will and testament, and she picked it up last weekend.

John Choate, Bob Sinclair & Gary Wiist, at Lost Prairie boogie: [inline John_Bob_Gary.jpg] All three of these men are now gone...

What's that rope hanging out of your grill?

The reasoning they used to give for the background check was the BASE jumpers and rappellers were the only ones allowed on the bridge with "backpacks" and they weren't searched so "for safety" required alternate protection methods. Thanks of that info. So it all goes back to terrorism... But the assumption is that a terrorist couldn't possibly pass a background check in order to sneak a bomb onto the bridge. Or that they couldn't assume the identify of someone who has. Or that they couldn't fake a permit. All of those are false presumptions.

Are the going to background check all the spectators too? There could be all kinds of wanted felons wandering around on that bridge...

Gary (blue jumpsuit) in 12-way hybrid dive (photo by Nate Wernig): [inline Gary_Hybrid_dive.jpg] Gary playing guitar at Lost Prairie boogie: [inline Gary_Lost_Prairie.jpg] Gary fishing in Alaska: [inline Gary_Alaska.jpg]

Yep, Gary only let a small number of people know how really bad things were for him, because he didn't want a bunch of people fretting over him.