winsor

The screenplay was written by Michael Herr, who was a journalist in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. His book "Dispatches" gives some insight as to his perspective on the conflict. The Door Gunner scene was right out of one of his running interviews: "If they run, they're VC - if they stand still, they're well-disciplined VC." "You ever shoot women and children?" "Sure." "How could you do that?" "Easy, you just don't lead them as much." The setting in Hue during the Tet offensive makes the story one greatly at variance with most soldiers' and Marines' experience in Vietnam. Most of the guys I know said they spent 12 or 13 months - or however long it was before they got medevaced out - without ever seeing someone (alive) to whom they could point and say "that guy is the enemy." During Tet, however, General Giap decided to bet the ranch on one big attack over the length of South Vietnam. In doing so he suffered a military defeat, but made the outcome of a victory for the North a foregone conclusion. The movie captures the duality of the 19 year old American kids tasked to effect our foreign policy, an unlikely combination of professionalism and adolescence. The troops singing the Mickey Mouse song were mostly a flashback to a Marine named Mayhew, who was given to singing jingles (I wish I was an Oscar Mayer wiener...) while under attack at Khe Sanh, and later was killed by a sniper after extending in country. The Matthew Modine character gave an accurate account of the role of the PIO, in which I did a stint with the Airborne (mostly I was a grunt). I don't think it's accounting of the "Vietnam Experience" was either universal or meant to be so. I do think that it was an accurate representation of what Michael Herr and I saw of the military and Vietnam. Blue skies, Winsor

The only good thing I can say about Bush is that at least he isn't a Democrat. Unfortunately, to vote against him I'm stuck with someone who can't even make that modest claim. Since I rate voting for a Democrat up there with intentionally watching a football game (I will die of old age before doing either), I'll probably throw my vote away on whoever is the Libertarian candidate. Blue skies, Winsor

Some kind of Serbian sugar-free cola ("Romana" brand). Booze really didn't agree with me, and the sugar played hell on my fall rate. I don't miss either for a second. Blue skies, Winsor

Well, I'm overseas, and I am my closest family member.

I had to get rid of my last rice rocket. It was too hard to keep it down to reasonable Mach numbers, and it was not so much a question of if as when and how bad. I've had two fully-tricked Grand Prix RZ Yamahas; my 350 got 18 miles per gallon and the 500 was downright evil. It was fun blowing the doors off literbikes on something so much smaller. Of course, there IS a law against such machines. These days I blast around on an outlaw shovelhead. It's still amusing, and people are afraid to cut me off (particularly when I'm in full Darth Vader apparel). Blue skies, Winsor

It's hard to beat Harry Nilsson at his bitter/witty best. I get the distinct impression that he had just gone through a gut-wrenching breakup when he put out "Son of Schmilsson" back in, oh, 1975 or so. Part of "Take 54" goes: "I sang my balls off for you baby, I wrote my fingers to the bone, I closed my eyes to hit the high notes, but when I woke up I was alone..." His "You're Breaking My Heart" is classic Nilsson as well: "You're breaking my heart, you're tearing it apart, so fuck you..." Of course you have Roy Orbision's "Thank God and Greyhound She's Gone." From a less humorous standpoint you have Buddy Holly's opus, best known for its cover by Linda Ronstadt, "It Doesn't Matter Anymore." The Police did a tune that was the outgrowth of Sting's very ugly divorce, which was anything but the love song many assumed it to be - "I'll Be Watching You." Jackson Browne's "Fountain of Sorrows" probably qualifies as a good breakup song, depending on the tone of the split. There are so many odes to failed love out there that it's hard to pick the best. I'd say it's situational. Blue skies, Winsor

Booze and tobacco make smack look like a gift from God. Legalize it all and be done with it.

Ask your instructor, and follow their advice. I've had a handful of lineovers over the years, and they are not all the same. Releasing the brakes turned out to be a really bad idea, since the canopy went from flying poorly with a built-in turn to spinning wildly upside down. I chopped. I had an identical lineover with an equivalent canopy. Instead of releasing the brakes, I pulled down vigorously and deeply on the risers on the side of the lineover, then released them. That cleared the lineover. I later had a lineover on a crossbraced canopy, where one line went straight across, almost in the center, making it look like a bow-tie. Considering that it's a ground-hungry little bastard at the best of times, that the line-over wasn't near the edge and that I wasn't curious as to how violent would be its behavior if it didn't clear properly, I went to reserve. More experienced skydivers than I have died while clearing malfunctions instead of going to emergency procedures. I MAY make one FAST attempt if I know I have the altitude and it seems like it might work. Even while trying to clear it, I'm planning my emergency procedures. For the time being, I would stick with the tried and true means of coming out of it in one piece. Making it up as you go along requires a lot of luck - and luck comes in two flavors. Blue skies, Winsor

Which is what I see as the flaw in the idea. I think keeping people off canopies they shouldn't be on until they are ready for them and education/training is the fix. Agreed. What I'm trying to put together is: A) A means of developing the requisite skills in the normal DZ environment, and B) A means of evaluating whether sufficient skills have been developed. If an S&TA has a ready means of evaluating the skills of someone seeking to downsize when he says "show me what you got," it puts a handle on it. My suggestion is to make it fun, challenging, only as competitive as you wish to make it, and something you can do without a lot of planning. If only two people show up at the DZ, they can follow their drill dive by opening high, bumping end cells to their hard deck and fly the standard pattern to a sport accuracy landing. Or something like that. If you focus on the fun aspect of it, you are more likely to get people to voluntarily participate. Developing canopy skills is fun, and it can also save your life. If you get people interested in using various combinations of front risers, rear risers and brakes and flying in close proximity (without necessarily docking), they are less likely to be spiraling down into other canopies at any time in their careers. If you have people adapted to flying a proper pattern, set up for a safe landing by 1,000 feet, the mindset carries over to the usual fun jump. If Coaches and Load Organizers have a post-deployment programme with which to work, they can suggest to the non-competitive jumpers on the load "what do you say we open by 3,000 ft, do canopy routine B, and then set up for a staged landing?" In medicine you rarely have a single treatment that's 100% effective, but if something seems to offer a net benefit, you tend to go with it. You thereafter work toward increasing efficacy and reducing cost. That's the approach I suggest taking here - make changes where they seem needed, and improve upon that where the opportunity presents itself. I appreciate suggestions, as well as observation of factors that I've so far overlooked. Blue skies, Winsor

Wanna bet?

Uh, if you're doing Vicodin or ethanol, you are in no position to criticize anyone's consumption of a mind-altering substance. Throw in tobacco, and you've pinned the meter, my friend. Denial ain't a river in Egypt. Blue skies, Winsor

That's "speedball." 10 mg diamorphine (heroin), 100 mg cocaine HCl. For a "Frisco speedball" throw in 500 mikes of LSD.

This reminds of a study of automobile drivers that included asking the drivers to rate themselves. As I recall, about 80% rated themselves "above average". I recommend giving these talented people an opportunity to prove it. Have a series of jumps where they are expected to do various canopy maneuvers, with their choice of canopies. If they bitch that it's unfair for them to be expected to do it with their Stiletto 120, I could easily have video available of people doing the same thing with a Xaos 69 or a ParaCommander. There's more to canopy control than the brinksmanship of swoop competition. You think you're ready for a 120 meter turf surf? I challenge you to demonstrate mastery of canopy control in a few other events first. I flat guarantee that Rickster Powell or Charlie Mullins could ace any test I could throw at them (and both of them have biffed in their careers, as well). Blue skies, Winsor

The altitude at which I don't focus immediately on silver and go to the main depends on where I am and what I'm jumping. The decision altitude is a little higher when I'm jumping an EXTreme 99 FX than a Raven IV. Also, if I'm at Lebanon, ME I have a much higher likelihood of a tree landing if the spot is bad than at Eloy, and I want a big main overhead if I have to go through lumber. Most of my reserves are sized so I can survive a surprise landing in suburbia. This is not true of all of my mains. Blue skies, Winsor

I think it should be made a challenge and a certificate of demonstrated achievement - sort of like an SCR/SCS used to be (I just got my SCR & SCS, btw). Like the Plains Indians would count coup to show off their bravery and skill, being able to bump end cells could be a demonstration of canopy skill. To do a right bump and a left bump (above the hard deck) could be a pretty solid demonstration that you know pretty much what you're doing. Similarly, an accuracy competition with no turns allowed below 200 feet could really separate the experts from the tyros, and humble some of the wannabe skygods. If you can establish some kind of scoring system where cocky types get frustrated and say "fuck, this is harder than it looks!," you may challenge them enough to focus on developing skills. I shoot accuracy under my EXTreme 99 FX canopies, and do so straight-in. That allows me to keep an eye out for people who might try to occupy my airspace, and lets me skate through the peas. I also go for the peas with a straight-in approach when I'm jumping my Blue Tracks, CruiseLites, and Raven IVs. If it is seen as a challenge, and a serious merit badge to boot, you are likely to have more people trying to figure out how to do these things. The nice side effect is that in order to do these things, people must master lifesaving skills. If you want to improve safety, appeal to people's egos. Consider your audience. A kind of Darwinian suggestion is to incorporate some form of BASE into the mix (you SURE aren't going to get USPA to buy off on that...). I don't know of much of any BASE jumpers that can't shoehorn a parachute into a really tight spot. BASE and CRW jumpers may have Class 5 canopies, but the skills they must have in order to pursue the other disciplines carry over to the Xbrace units. If the point is made that you have to have the skills BEFORE you screw with the postage-stamp parachutes, and provide the means to develop these skills, I think the rate of maiming and dying can be reduced significantly. Any suggestions that will help make a "Canopy Skills Challenge" a reality are greatly appreciated. Blue skies, Winsor

I think I do. Right now the kewl thing to do in canopy competition is swooping. Okay, so some of the best in the business occasionally break every bone in their goddamned bodies, winding up maimed or dead, but, hey, it sure is photogenic! Before the NSL came about, RW competition had become nearly a professionals-only affair. If you weren't Airspeed or the Knights or some other heavily-sponsored group, you were wasting your time. Now you have people training for Beginner or Intermediate class, and thinking it is a good investment of time, money and effort. An equivalent "Canopy Rally Circuit," if you will, could make learning to fly one's existing canopy enough of a challenge and rewarding enough that you have fewer people downsizing to canopies that they then fly in a fatal manner. If DZOs got on board and considered that these canopy skills were pivotal to keeping their customer base alive and in one piece, and if the challenges did not automatically give the advantage to Major Drop Zones with the attendant infrastructure, you could develop a canopy skill/safety movement from the ground up. I'm still contemplating a syllabus that would serve the purposes I envision. The elements I want are that it should be fun, challenging, a bit humbling, sure to improve one's canopy kinesthetics and awareness, and an ego boost. If one dropzone has a score that demonstrates some real canopy skills, and is head and shoulders above another, this could be the kind of feather in the cap that keeps raising the bar (okay, I'll back off on the mixed metaphors). The two areas that I would like to see are Sport Canopy Formation (as opposed to classical CRW, which has problems with microline and 9 foot bridles) and Sport Accuracy, which is better for canopies that don't like deep brakes. I want to keep this the hell out of the USPA domain, since safety isn't a bureaucratically-mandated condition. The Triathalon caught on as an all-around canopy, and I think the pendulum can't swing much more in the direction of Unlimited Class canopies as the standard. Going back to CruiseLites and whatnot is not the answer (though I still like to jump them), but a canopy flying standard that makes it hard as hell to do well on undersized equipment could make it clear (and unappealing) when someone has bitten off more performance than they can handle. In any event, even though I haven't come up with a coherent overall approach, I think I have narrowed down the list of elements that could make it work, and I've had a lot of good input. There is more going on than a lot of hand-wringing and regulation-proposing. I want to keep it as fun and free as possible. More goddamned rules have yet to be the answer to much of anything. Blue skies, Winsor

You bet your sweet ass.

Do not be quick to attribute to conspiracy that which is easily explained by incompetence. I'm not sure from whence I acquired that truism, but I heard it somewhere. In any event, you have to be able to tell the difference in order for it to be a lie. Ignorance is another issue altogether. Are you suggesting that our Fearless Leader had done his homework for the first time in his life? Not too bloody likely. Blue skies, Winsor

You mean you're not spending $5 for a coffee from a corporate whore? I don't think there's a Starbucks within 1,000 km of here. When I consider what I used to spend on drugs, and given the fact that caffeine is about my only remaining vice, cost is not really an issue. When I get to Paris, I can assure you that I will indulge in cafe filtre. I'll probably go for a vente mochaccino (sp?) the moment I get back to the States. In the meantime, I willingly swill whatever the Balkans have to offer. Blue skies, Winsor

Full of caffeine, hold the sugar. In the States I've taken to the sugar & fat free French Vanilla stuff from General Foods I think it is. It's easy, tastes decadent and has caffeine. Over here the coffee blows (I think it may be the tap water). The normal Turkish variety involves putting water and coffee together, heating it up and you're done. It's nasty, but it works. The Cappucino is better, but Starbucks it ain't. Blue skies, Winsor

I hail from Pennsylvania (North America, last time I checked), but am in Serbia at present. I'm 12 km from Romania right now, and have bicycled there (once) just to do it. The difference between the Serbs and Romanians (particularly the Gypsies) is nontrivial. I could do with a Wegmans or Shop Rite or something about now. Blue skies, Winsor

Just curious if you would care to share that story. I had lost my Zak knife on the previous dive, and the only replacements had the wrong size snap for my pouch (small instead of large or vice-versa). I decided to put off replacing it, since the chance I would really need it was pretty slim. While finishing stowing my lines, I realized that my rig was canted so that the risers were uneven. I straightened the rig, unbagged the canopy, gave the cocoon a shake to straighten things out, rebagged it and finished packing. I said "it'll probably work" when I did so. After lurking a two-way while practicing shooting camera on my back, I turned and deployed. The opening was strange, and the parachute was flying in a shuddering turn. Looking up, I saw that the left side was kind of wadded up from a lineover. Figuring I should attempt to clear it before chopping, I grabbed the brakes, buried them and let off briskly. The left side went slack then tightened up abruptly, throwing a half hitch around my left hand and altimeter. I tried to clear the line, but by now I was on my back spinning wildly. Concluding that I wasn't going to outdo 1,000# line by brute force anytime soon, I decided to go to plan B. The dilemma I faced was that if I cut away I would still be dragging the main behind me. I also risked snipping off some fingers by being hung from the line for any time before going to reserve (I suffered nerve damage in my ring finger that took 6 or 7 years to recover). Thus, I grabbed both handles and effected a gunslinger cutaway. On the video the reserve pilot chute and D-bag are seen spiraling past the trash with scant inches of clearance. I wound up under reserve with like 4 line twists (I had been really spinning), with the hung up steering line dialed into the reserve suspension lines. I kicked out of the line twists and focused on getting to the ground alive. I figured if I gave any thought to the line around my hand, I could get unencumbered too late to effect a survivable landing. The good part of the deal was that I didn't have to look for my main. The bad part was that dragging the main behind me made flaring the reserve impossible, so I arrived like a ton of bricks, spraining three toes. Luckily, I had another rig so I wasn't grounded for the rest of the weekend. In any event, I keep hook knives available no matter what I'm jumping. The tuition on that lesson could have been a lot higher. Hey, I'd rather be lucky than good. Blue skies, Winsor

Speak not of what you know not.

So would you recommend the Jack The Ripper knife or is there another brand that you prefer since you said you would go for a JTR at a minimum? I'm asking because I'm fresh out of AFF and looking to get a hook knife for my first rig. Speaking of AFF, why don't instructors discuss the use of hook knives during AFF training? -syn The Jack knife is fantastic for cutting through anything short of cable. Its only down sides are that it can hang up in the sheath if the sheath is not sewn to something like a jumpsuit, and it can break. The breaking part is not during use, like with a Zak knife, but if in a gear bag being tossed around by bag handlers, for example. I have one that's in two pieces from trauma during shipment. The shorter aluminum knives are way durable and easy to deploy. I'll probably wind up with one of the aluminum Jack clones, since I really like the double blade setup. FWIW, a Zak knife is better than nothing. Often it is one line that is hanging things up, and a Zak knife will usually do just fine for that. It's usually when you have to cut a lot of microline that a Zak gets dull enough to require enough force to break it. Thus, I have a few Zak knives on hand, but use them as primary or secondary backups. If you have nothing and see a Zak for sale, buy it - it's much better than nothing. As far as AFF goes, my opinion means nothing. When I started jumping there was no such thing, and I have never seen fit to get an instructor's rating. Blue skies, Winsor

I've had a pierced ear for 32 some-odd years and have a few tats here and there. No big deal. With pierced noses all I can think of is boogers. I can't think of any way it could not be gnarly. At one point I had a sweetie with a pierced nipple. It did nothing for me. The sensation of having a chunk of metal there was so incongruous that it was anything but erotic (to me, at least). She said she had considered pierced genitalia, but backed off at the thought of unintended nerve damage. The thought of having to compete with mini-barbells in that arena kinda leaves me cold, so I was just as happy that she had not gone that route. I'm afraid my idea of sexy is pretty simple. You can have all the Victoria's Secret stuff; I prefer someone who looks good in jeans and a t-shirt, with basic cotton skivvies underneath. I will take a woman who is into soap over make-up every time. Squeaky clean rules. I don't understand the nipple shield thing. If a woman isn't attractive to me without such embellishments, the hardware isn't going to be an improvement. Blue skies, Winsor