neilmck

Interesting. I'll look into that.

Yes, I agree this one is a weird one. I cannot understand how one ever started jumping in metres when their pilots have always used feet. I'd have thought they would have used feet just to avoid confusion with the pilot. At my home DZ one of our parachutists started jumping aged 16 and she celebrated her 80th birthday in January. If anyone knows why they switched to metres, she will. I'll ask her next time I'm at the DZ and report back.

So we are not alone then.

I use an altimeter in metres because all the other parachutists I jump with are agreeing on altitudes in metres and things would only get confused if I was using feet. The main issue I have is underestimating the time left to break-off. I have been using metres for everything without exception since moving to France over 20 years ago, and for most of the dive I will think in metres yet just before break-off when estimating how much time is left my brain subconsciously switches to feet. So for example I will estimate there are only 2 seconds left until break-off when there is in fact 6 to 7 seconds left. After a few more years if my my brain ever sorts itself out I'll have another look at digital altimeters.

Having jumped in feet in the UK back in the day, after a 20+ year break I now find myself living in France and jumping in metres. It is a constant cause of stress being in free-fall looking at my altimeter and never being able to remember if I have to multiply or divide by 3. Thank God it is colour coded, there is no way I will ever buy a digit altimeter. After discussing with some friends I understand that French parachutists are unique in the aviation world for using metres (even our pilot uses feet). Is this true? Do any other countries jump in metres?

There must be something evil in me but I have to admit I have found this point quite funny (ironic). Don't you miss the days before GoPros, when what happened in the sky, stayed in the sky? In the past you would a zoo jump like that and after landing tell everyone how many points you had turned.

Nah, people were saying the same thing 30 years ago. I think this is due to some people having to subconsciouly fool themselves that it is perfectly safe in order to do the sport. It is part of a "cannot happen to me" mentality. So all incidents cannot be due to chance, the skydiver must be at fault, so that "it cannot happen to me". It is why if a parachutist makes a mistake and injuries himself some people react with anger, as it contradicts their requirement that what they are doing must be perfectly safe.

Non-parachutists never understand why we do it. It is easiest to just lead a double-life and keep your weekend thing secret.

Hell, I can beat that, you should try cycling on a cycle path. I used to cycle into work in central Paris on a cycle path but finally threw the "towel in" on Monday after finding my hands were still shaking when I was sitting at my desk. Between mindless pedestrians on their smart phones and dangerous junctions at every side-road it was one of the most terrifying things I have ever done. I now cycle on the road with the traffic. To highlight the difference between real and perceived safety you can look at the results of a conference on cycle path safety: http://www.bikexprt.com/bikepol/facil/sidepath/adfc173.htm On an amusing point, my work provides me with life insurance, covers my salary if I'm ill etc. I checked with the insurance company if I'm covered for parachuting, turns out I'm not covered while I'm in the aeroplane but once I jump out I'm covered.

The only parachute manufacture I know of in France is Zodiac Aerospace, part of Safran. A few years ago Zodiac bought Parachutes de France who were working on sport parachutes. However Zodiac now appear to be concentrating on the military market (both round and square chutes). They do development work at Plaisir in the Parisian region.

The URL you have posted doesn't seem to work. Edit: It does not work with Opera, however it works on Chrome.

To make you feel better here is the opposite joke: How many men does it take to change a light bulb? None, because real men aren't afraid of the dark.

I guess it comes down to in what country and what DZ you jumped at. (The Pond was a lot bigger then). At then end of my time on rounds I did jump at a DZ with new sport chutes and the landings were considerably softer. I have recently returned to the sport after a 25-year break and it is a lot safer than before. Better kit, doors on planes, RSL, AAD, flight patterns and stricter regulation all play a part. However, even though it is safer the sport still involves jumping out of an aeroplane leaving you with only 60 seconds to live, spending the first 45 seconds playing around and enjoying yourself and only when you have 15 seconds left to live do you start doing something to save your life. If anything goes wrong you only have a handful of seconds to sort it out. I agree the sport is dangerous and pretending it isn't is tempting fate.

A coal/steam powered aeroplane was actually invented in France in 1890 and flew before the Wright brothers. It turned out not be very practical so never got past the demo stage. You can see it at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris: Translated link to French Wiki entry One of the nice ideas in its design is the air-cooled condenser on the steam output allowing the water to be reused.

You can add to that the fact that 30-odd years ago skydiving use to hurt. As a student parachutist one would jump worn out modified ex-World War II C9 round chutes. Every landing felt like someone hitting you with a lump hammer. The pain on every jump helped reinforce that skydiving is dangerous, you need to be careful up there.

I wouldn't do anything. If I was to do something I would ask the doctor himself about it. I cannot see how direct skin contact with a stephoscope could ever be judged as improper. I imagine that correct placement of a stephoscope on women is more difficult than men due to their breasts that would absorb the sound, so it does not surprise me that he requires more precision than with men.

My understanding is the French Parachute Association brought in the rule after a "request" from the Minister of Sport to do something to reduce the number of accidents. At the same time rules were brought in regulating low-hook turns so that they are done in a dedicated landing area. While I imagine not everyone is happy about it, I personally have not heard anyone complain about the rule. I used to jump in the UK 25 years ago before I stopped jumping, at the time low-hook turns by inexperienced jumpers were very popular. I started jumping again here in France 3 years ago and on the DZs I jump at, swooping is fairly rare. I don't know if it is the DZs I jump at or if the French just pop down the Alps when they need a thrill and leave swooping to non-mountinous nations.

You can calculate the minimum canopy size you are allowed in France at this link: http://www.ffp.asso.fr/tailledevoile/ You need to enter your naked weight (Poid nu) in kg and the number of jumps (saut) you have. For example, if you weigh 85 kg and have 252 jumps your minimum canopy size is 199 square feet.

I stopped in 1992 when I got married. 25 years later my daughter wanted to do a tandem, so I decided it was time to restart skydiving again and it would also give me a chance to check out the local DZ to see if it was safe enough to let my daughter jump there. I turned up one Saturday morning at the DZ naively with my old kit and asked the head jumping bean if I could do a jump. I was told no one jumps round reserves any more and my kit was missing some letters like RSL and AAD; he gave me the address of a parachute museum in Strasbourg that I could donate it to . Then he asked an older instructor to explain to me what had changed over the last 25 years and check that I still remembered what to do and in one hour or so I was jumping out of the aeroplane 4 months later my daughter did her tandem and the DZO was happy to let me to follow her out the door. Best ever! Been back for two years now, the oldest jumper on the DZ has just had her 80th birthday, so I reckon I have another 30 years skydiving in front of me.

I reckon that's the flaw (amongst potentially others), the same carbon footprints are counted many times. The same portion of someone's footprint is counted in the footprint of everyone up the chain. So maybe using solar power is not such a bad idea.

If a robot produces 1 million widgets in its life-time then when calculating the carbon footprint of one widget one needs to include 1 millionth of the robots life-time footprint. This includes the creation of the robot, energy for making widgets, maintenance, destruction, etc. If you use a human instead of a robot then you should do the same calculation for the human instead, however humans require other things for their existence, like entertainment etc., hence the idea of following the money. The cost of solar power is largely due to human activity (maintenance, investors, etc) and hence has a significant hidden carbon footprint. (Should an eco-conscious consumer avoid solar power and burn oil instead? ) The question is, should this be included in the footprint for solar power and if so, how?

If anything the argument attempts to account for all variables in an over simplistic way. The increase in the carbon footprint of having less jumpers on the plane is offset by the decrease of the personal footprint of the DZO due to him making less profit to spend. A decrease in the price of a barrel of oil means someone down the line makes more profit thereby increasing his personal carbon footprint. Oh no, my head has started hurting again

The idea behind the argument is the you need to take into account your proportion of the carbon footprint of the existence of each piece of equipment used to provide you a service. This includes the proportion of the carbon footprint of other humans whose individual carbon footprints need to calculated, and on and on. If you follow the chain it will keep separating forming a tree structure where each chain eventually ends with the money being spent on burning oil. As the oil price fluctuates so will the way money is spent and the tree will change accordingly, and hence the carbon footprint required to provide the service will also change. My gut tells me there is a flaw in this argument but my head starts hurting long before I am ever able to find it.

A Ferrari costs $1M because each car has an extremely high human input (design, sales, production, investor, etc). The idea of the dollar/oil measure is that it accounts for the carbon footprint of the humans required to supply the product.

I once saw an argument that stated that to estimate a carbon footprint you should just convert the cost of a product/service directly to barrels of oil. The idea being that if you follow where the money goes down the production chain it is all eventually used to fulfil the needs of a human that starts (or continues) a new chain. The chains will keep separating and continue until they all end with an eventual purchase of oil.