winsor

I assume you mean Fred Leslie, PhD. IIRC he was on two shuttle missions. I love his T-shirt "why yes, in fact I AM a rocket scientist..." Blue skies, Winsor

If I do something stupid, I expect people to note "wow, that was stupid." If my actions are terminal, make that "wow, that was fatally stupid." If you're going to be dumb, you've gotta be tough. As is an autopsy, an incident report is no place to engage in denial for the sake of sensibilities. The truth may or may not set you free, but denial can kill you. The stakes are high every time you step out the door. Given the choice of hurting someone's feelings or having one more person get injured for lack of information, I'll chalk it up to minor shock therapy. I am much more concerned about losing more friends than I am about the odd turn of phrase. Also, I'd much rather be with people who can call them as they see them. Blue skies, Winsor

For a knot tied by someone who doesn't know how to tie knots, I find hemostats are handy. They're cheap, commonly available (WalMart sells them as fishing gear), give a good grip on any part of the knot you choose, and don't tend to damage the cord. A good knot to use that can be untied with bare hands is a stevedore knot. That's basically a figure-eight knot with an extra loop on the loaded side. A figure-eight knot is about the minimum for ease of field adjustment, and there are good reasons why a closing loop might be changed in the field. Ask a sailor or Boy Scout; either one should be able to show you some good basic knots. Blue skies, Winsor

Old age. Beware of permanent solutions to temporary problems. Blue skies, Winsor

I tried it. It didn't agree with me. Blue skies, Winsor

I do, I do! It looks like a hell of a lot of fun, and I'm pleased to see that someone has both the sense of humor and initiative to pull it off. Blue skies, Winsor

Slider?

It's like a lot of things - if it seems difficult, you're doing it wrong. Unfortunately, not too many people understand how to get the canopy into the bag in a controlled, low-energy fashion. It doesn't take any more effort to pack a brand-new super slick canopy than a ragged-out F-111 7-cell if you know what you're doing. Packing for yourself is advisable to maintain familiarity with your gear. Even doing it fast (I rarely take more than 6 minutes), something that is a problem is likely to stand out during inspecton ("hey, that's not right..."). In addition, if you play with the pack job you can dial in your openings. All canopies are not created equal, and the treatment of the nose, tail and lines that your canopy likes best might not be in accordance with a paid packer's routine. I've also found that placement of the bag in the container is a variable that may affect openings greatly. Placed with the bridle attachment at the bottom it is subjected to pretty wild rotation when extracted, but placed with the bridle attachment facing out it extracts directly. This really helps on-heading openings, but a paid packer won't generally deviate from the norm. If you want to learn to pack, watch people who seem to know what they're doing. There are a lot of little tricks that make it easy, and I have had useful suggestions made by all kinds of people over the years. Get some practice, pay attention, and it can become a non-issue fast. Blue skies, Winsor

Using the sunroof in a military aircraft is not a recreational activity, and generally constitutes an emergency in and of itself. Questions I ask pilots who have survived ejection are: 1) Where did you regain consciousness? 2) How long were you in the hospital? 3) Have you fully recovered yet? Once in a while you'll find someone who didn't have many bones broken or teeth knocked during the automated egress process. Having said that, punching out of an aircraft that is disassembling itself because the SAM you were dodging worked as advertised may be in a really unusual attitude well in excess of 450 knots. This may well be crippling or fatal as a matter of course. If the ejection/parachute system saves you at all, you should consider yourself ahead of the curve. If and how well you can steer the canopy thereafter may well be moot. Blue skies, Winsor

Skydiving is a VFR activity, so punching clouds is verboten. Using a parachute in an emergency is another story. If the pilot says to clear out, you're okay to go through whatever is below. Having said that, I strongly recommend paying attention to where you are on climbout in case of just such an eventuality. If, for example, you know that you are headed toward a large body of water as things thickened up below (climbout at many DZs take you over big ponds and rivers), you have a better chance of navigating to somewere dry after opening high. As an aside, it is possible to wind up in a cloud in freefall by misjudging forward throw on exit. We took a four way off a Cessna once, and had great ground contact on exit. We then held the formation for some 5 thousand feet, since we risked losing each other immediately if we broke for the next point. This was probably in another country, where jumping through clouds is encouraged ("is better - when you are seeing ground, is too scary"), but I've heard of people who actually jumped through clouds in the States. Blue skies, Winsor

Bob Sinclair comes to mind. Depending on how you define "best," I could give you a list of very different answers. Blue skies, Winsor

That's one reason I go with lots of nylon for plan B. If I pitch of my own accord, I have a 99 overhead. If the magic box opens a canopy, it's going to be a 218 in brakes. Either way, I try to skydive as though the gizmo was inop, since it's like a sidearm - better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it, since when you need it you need it BADLY. Blue skies, Winsor

Most of my reserves are ramair, but I have three Wonderhogs with conicals and a few bellywarts around. All my pilot's emergency rigs are rounds (C-9s). I have a bunch of round jumps, and the one on which I broke my foot was my fault. I tried to land it like a square, and put it into a sink instead of a flare. 100% operator error. Blue skies, Winsor

I suggest you contact Bill Dause in Lodi. The Parachute Center is listed at (209) 369-1128. I'm sure Kathy could fill you in, as could much of anyone else who might answer the phone. Blue skies, Winsor

Ich bin einfach Amerikaner.

You are, of course, right - I don't really want anyone to bounce or femur. If I really felt ill will toward someone, at worst I'd hope they'd choke on a chicken bone. The sort of selection I prefer isn't Darwinian at all. It is people who opt out of the sport when they discover to their horror that it isn't as safe as they had convinced themselves, and would have done themselves a favor by opting to do for something for which they were temprementally suited in the first place. If they think the color-coordinated gear with all the latest gizmos makes the sport as safe as high tea and they stick around, - they are in for a rude awakening. I think there's a balance to be struck between the warm, fuzzy feeling that gets some people into the sport and the live fast-pull low-date your rigger's wife death-wish mentality to which some gravitate. Blissful denial and embracing the real and present danger that comes with hurling yourself bodily out of an aircraft some miles up are not the only options. In any event, you didn't have people freaking out and selling their gear, never to be seen again, when somebody bounced in the bad old days. People given to that reaction when subjected to a dose of nasty reality would be better off drifting away from the sport before they are traumatized by a nearby incident. Blue skies, Winsor

QuoteRSL debate again?!!! This topic is like a merry-go-round. Poping every two months. I started skydiving in 1968 and SCUBA in 1971. Equipment was simple and not really that reliable. The sports were small in participants because they were restricted to those with the skill, talent and balls to do them. Now the wonder of science has allowed the half-wits, stoners and incompetents to enter our sport. Look at the fatality reports...technology advance is giving us diminishing returns. reply] I started SCUBA in 1968, parachuting in 1971, and have seen what you describe. I say let Darwinian selection prevail. Safety equipment precludes natural selection. Blue skies, Winsor

Rather than going to a museum, I need only go into my gear room. I have a good 60 years covered. Actually, I doubt if anyone is going to do much better than Bob Sinclair's bus. A tour of his collection of artifacts takes HOURS (no fooling), and the anecdotes behind each item make it time well spent. I think a museum is fine, but I can't see what it has to do with the business of tending to the needs of the club. I can see where having the museum joined at the hip to the club could do severe damage to our ability to function, should the museum prove to be a white elephant (it wouldn't be the first time such a thing has occurred). As a stand-alone entity, fine. As any part of USPA, not so good. Blue skies, Winsor

It can't hurt to disconnect the RSL, but on a one-sided system it isn't one of your primary worries. If you have two canopies out, I strongly suggest that you don't simply chop the main while in a stable biplane. There you can go from two good canopies to none in a heartbeat. Talk to a veteran CRW dog and do some CRW (to include initiating sideplanes on demand) before you even think about including it in your emerrgency procedures. The time to learn CRW is not when you have two canopies out at 500 feet. I know a couple of people who discovered how to do a downplane that way. Blue skies, Winsor

Agreed, and the larger amount of time you have during your window of opportunity on jump run allows you to build in more separation between groups. The critical speed for horizontal separation is the speed of the jump aircraft with regard to the air at opening altitude. Since the winds at altitude can vary by both magnitude and direction from those at opening altitude and on the ground, you hit the point of diminishing returns fast when trying to be too exact. Building in as much separation between groups as is feasible, and avoiding complacency regarding separation, tend to keep us out of trouble. Blue skies, Winsor

I'm sick of people getting in over their heads and getting hurt or dying. I've seen people get busted up under everything from T-10s to Class-5 canopies, and I've seen canopy pilots that I think are nothing short of awesome prang. Yup, broke my foot landing a 7-TU. Damn straight, and I try to keep them surviveable. Uh, yeah. No, I don't do anything to augment my landings. What was that all about? I don't begrudge people who know what they're doing taking risks for which they're prepared and fully understand. None of the world-class canopy pilots of my acquaintance got that way because it was a goal unto itself. It was an incidental byproduct of developing their very extensive skillset. FWIW, you really don't have any idea of how and why I fly, and you are merely demonstrating that you don't know what I'm talking about, either. That's one reason I jump a pullout - no horseshoe mode. I strongly support such a policy. You know, you just might be right there. Wait a minute - are you suggesting that _I_ am not immune? I demand a recount! Boy, you sure got me there. If I had not used any equipment at all, and simply done a PLF like I was trained to do, I would have been just fine. Do I have it right now? You think maybe I use the highly pressurized canopy to minimize the effects of turbulence and rotors when jumping a larger, slower, less pressurized canopy presents a greater risk? Nah, the only reason to jump such a canopy is to impress the chicks and whuffos. "Hey, y'all, watch this!" You can only make it so safe, but you can make it downright fatal in a hurry if you are cavalier about risk management. That has been demonstrated time and again, and you might as well benefit from the lessons to be learned, since the tuition has been steep. I hate to break it to you, but the stakes are just the same at a gun club as they are at a DZ. You only get to point a loaded gun at someone's chest once, and you are persona non grata for life. We fire millions of rounds a year without incident, even though a 12 ga. target load has twice the energy of the vaunted .44 magnum. A botched swoop/hook/high performance landing can kill a bystander just as dead as a well-placed bullet. I'm not as sensitive as you might imagine to someone who took an innocent with them when they went Darwinian on us. Blue skies, Winsor CYa

hja, einige hier sprechen richtiges amerikanisch, aber die meinsten sprechen jungle-englisch-jamaica-americanisch-blurb Doch, es tut mir leid. Blauen, Winsor

Here is a situation that few talk about but I have witnessed: Groups always need to give adequate time after the prior group to allow for adequate (1500') separation. If uppers are strong, say 60 mph, you have to allow more time than if uppers are light (assuming an upwind jump run) I believe that you also need to allow for more than 1500' horizontal separation. Here's why: A plane traveling at 90 mph air speed is going 30 mph ground speed with a 60 mph head wind. To get 1500 feet of horizontal separation (assuming same vertical speed) you need to wait about 34 seconds between groups. A canopy from the first group flying towards the drop zone after opening and flying at 30 mph will cover about 1500 feet traveling towards the second group in the 34 seconds left between groups. A malfunction, long snivel, inattention to proper opening altitudes, attempted suicide, etc., will put the second group through the space where the first group are flying their canopies. The problem is compounded if the first group opens high becase of bad spot, or if the first group were freefliers, who tend to open higher because of their lesser experience (just pulling your chain there, Apoil). Also, ground winds are often 180 degrees from uppers. The remedies I can think of are: to allow adequate time to ensure greater horizontal separation, or to run a crosswind jump run. Neither solution seems optimal, but you can't not jump because of uppers, for crying out loud! Any thoughts? Brian Your problem here is failing to distinguish the pertinent frame of reference under consideration. As a Physics instructor I found this concept to be particularly frustrating. Students that got it, got it, and students that missed the point would be coming up with the same misconceptions time and time again. I suggest you go to Tamara Koyn's website and go over the seminar notes that she so graciously put into HTML (to include animating the "window of opportunity" graphics). The punch line is that separation in the air is not a function of what the ground is doing, period. Separation in the air is relative to the air itself. The significance of groundspeed on exit is where you land, or, put another way, how much time you have between the first and last exit on a given pass. Blue skies, Winsor

Hey, I do the best I can. Quite the contrary - been there, done that, got the tee-shirt. If you're oversensitive, perhaps there's a reason you should be. Stick around, try to talk folks out of hurting themselves, and deal with the aftermath a few times. Maybe you'll get it. If you can phrase that as a coherent question, I'll be glad to address it. Blue skies, Winsor

Warum sollte ich? Ich bin Amerikaner, und hier sprechen wir nur Amerikanisch! Blaue Himmel, Winsor