David Wang

WL wasn't exactly in the path of totality but still had 98-99% of coverage.

Photo taken through solar glasses with my phone.

bruh what. I really hope this is fake. What would have happened if they had taken it to trial? There's no way that a jury would find them guilty, right? He is 10 years old!!

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/us/texas-abortion-court-ken-paxton.html

this is just horrendous. I wonder if the AG even considered the fetus’s fatal condition before appealing. Last time I checked he isn’t a doctor. Also, the fact that women need court approvals to seek medical procedures is simply ridiculous.

the shutdown sequence for the booster engines and the stage separation were amazing. We're closer to making sci fi a reality.

On 4/19/2023 at 12:25 PM, TriGirl said:

I can't imagine having to do EPs when the motions just to flare cause pain.

Interestingly enough...I successfully performed EPs with a dislocated right shoulder, and I don't remember feeling any pain. I've thought about it. An explanation is adrenaline and I got into a different "mode" when I realized I had a malfunction and needed to act.

SpaceX does things differently. They prefer rapid design & testing and learn from their many failures. NASA does the opposite, probably because it's a government agency. Each has its own merits. I have no doubt that we will see significant improvement in the next Starship test flight. We have some important dates - Artemis II is scheduled in November 2024, and Artemis III is some time in 2025. It's an exciting era. To the Moon and Mars!

1 hour ago, bdb2004 said:

The shoulder I'm having surgery on is the same shoulder that I roll on when I PLF.

Have you considered switching to the other side for PLF?

update - got into aero & astro. A hard journey awaits but I'm excited to keep moving forward. Thank you all for your encouragement & support and for pointing me in the right direction. I believe I've made right decisions. I have a plan - first step is to learn. Second step is to start thinking about getting internships (I've already started doing this). Better to start early. Thanks again. Happy new year!

famous franks

damn. This is so exhilarating!

On 12/16/2022 at 12:38 PM, SethInMI said:

The idea is to extract fuel from the environment and use it to return to earth.

this actually reminded me of something. A friend of mine told me that a similar idea was used in his aerospace design class - to extract something from Venus's atmosphere and used it as fuel to return to Earth. This kind of ideas are not fringe anymore - I believe anything is possible at this point. SpaceX is making history.

Personally I'm a big fan of Elon for what he is doing in space. Other areas not so much

cool videos, thanks for sharing

Hey guys,

Hope you're enjoying your labor day weekend! 

I've been lurking on DZ.com to see what has been going on recently and I saw that there was a student fatality in Canada. The first thought on my mind after reading about it is that there're similarities between mine and this incident - we both ended up low with a malfunction and a very low cutaway (under 100ft) followed. The difference in my case is that my reserve was already out, which very likely contributed to my survival. The outcome of this incident in Canada is much worse. (My sincere condolences)

I'm thinking that in general it might be very difficult for inexperienced students to deal with low-altitude emergencies...and how we/dropzones could improve on this. I understand that one of the principles of student training is to not overload them with information. I also understand that it's a lot better to deal with malfunctions up high. But what if, for whatever reasons, the student ends up low with a malfunction (and I think the possibility of this happening is not very low). I know during training students are taught not to cut away under 1,000 ft if there is a malfunction on the main, except downplanes. (This is what I was taught at Perris, this rule may vary slightly between DZs, I don't know) Is this rule sufficient to deal with this issue as long as it's 'strictly reinforced'? Or is there a possibility to improve on the training methods so that we could potentially prevent incidents like this in the future? 

This question just popped up in my mind. Please forgive me if I trigger anyone here.

Now I have an answer. Because I can fly! 

Just a quick update -

college is going well. Engineering is hard but I'm maintaining good grades in all my classes. I'm going to shoot for Aerospace when I choose my major at the end of this year (If I can't get in, I will try Mechanical, and I can still get into aerospace industry with a ME degree)  Sometimes I really miss California's weather  but can't complain haha. 

Looking back I believe that I made the right choice, and thanks to everyone who pushed me. I think right now I'm learning something meaningful, and will do something meaningful in the future. 

About skydiving... well, I still think about it and my past experiences from time to time, but not as much as before. After my accident I always had that urge of 'immediately' getting back to it but now that has decreased a lot. I will jump again when I'm fully ready after a few years.

Blue Skies and stay safe out there

Welcome to the sky!

Your first AFF experience brought back memories of my first jump - I had line twists on Level 1, too! Good times.... I miss it. 

Have fun, stay safe and fly high!!

Publicity/attention/money is also a reason why people believe in conspiracies, like flat earth. One example is Mad Mike - he raised money from other people and built rockets at home and tried to go to space( to see for himself if earth is sphere or flat) He eventually died in a rocket crash and his representative said he actually was not a flat earther, the whole rocket thing was a PR stunt for publicity. What's funny and ironic is that Mad Mike actually wasn't invited to the flat earth conference. 

"Many in the flat-earth community, which has grown in the age of YouTube and includes hundreds of thousands of adherents, were not happy about Hughes’s rockoon plan. If he went up to the Kármán Line and (inevitably) proved that the world is a sphere, that could end the gravy train for flat-earthers who make money from merchandise, books, conferences and the like." (from the article linked below)

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mad-mike-hughes-flat-earth_n_5e597924c5b60102211080c8

6 hours ago, Cocowheats said:

if that was an AFF student posting it, I couldn't imagine why they'd have any desire to stick around here.

As a new jumper I think I actually got a lot of help from people on dz.com... maybe because I posted a lot of questions here in the past.

On 10/12/2021 at 6:39 PM, mistercwood said:

My favourite video on the topic of the moon landings is the one where the guy proves that it would have been harder to fake the landings than to do them - the tech to *fake* it didn't exist yet.

I've also watched a similar video on YouTube: Debunking moon landing conspiracies with Maxwell and VXGI. They developed this technology in recent years. They possibly could fake the moon landing in recent days but it'd be impossible to fake moon landings in 1960s. 

 Also, in my opinion, flat earthers are some of the dumbest people alive. I joined a flat earth discord once because I was curious about what they were saying and it was a total chaos. They said the most ridiculous things I've ever heard, like space doesn't exist, our sun is not real, etc etc. I asked them where the sun is and one of them said "I know where it is I'm not telling you where it is." 

if the earth was actually flat, I think they would say earth is round, just to be different from anyone else. 

MRI with contrast detected that I had an anterior labral tear and SLAP.  I underwent surgery (shoulder arthroscopy) on August 25th this year and currently am 3 weeks post-op. However, during the surgery, my surgeon found out that my "SLAP" tear wasn't serious enough to be fixed - in his own words, he said it wasn't even a tear and that part of labrum does not contribute to the stability of the shoulder. So he only fixed the anterior labral tear which caused my anterior shoulder dislocation last year. 

I'm required to wear a sling for 6 weeks (3 more weeks to go)

And I started PT after the first week. Currently working on Passive Range of Motion (PROM). 

The risk of dislocating my shoulder again after surgery is 10%. My shoulder is expected to be fully healed and ready (to the level of jumping again) in 5-6 months. 

You might need to sleep in a recliner at first. And then you can adjust how you sleep based on your own comfort & pain level. It's an individual thing and there are no strict rules. For me sleeping in a recliner totally sucked because I had no sleep quality at all. Right now I'm sleeping flat on my bed with no pain. Wear your sling when you sleep. 

Keep walking everyday. It helps speed up the blood flow and reduce constipation. Pain meds cause constipation. 

Follow your surgeon's instructions.

PT is an important part of recovery. Do exactly what your PT says. Find a good PT who knows what he's doing. Think about it like this - fixing your labrum is like planting a seed, and doing PT is like helping the seed grow.

waiting is a part of skydiving, especially when you are a student. Accept it. if you want to jump badly enough you would wait and utilize the time. 

I once waited at Perris for all day long to do AFF level 2. 

On 4/22/2019 at 8:09 PM, wolfriverjoe said:

I can't imagine any PT or training that would help mitigate the effects of hard openings. When they happen, they happen.

I have some questions...

I understand that sometimes "things just happen", but can diligent packing and good body position when deploying prevent most hard openings? is the chance of having a hard opening on student canopies smaller than having one on smaller canopies? And if I exercise neck/spine muscles and make them strong, why don't you think they can't mitigate the effects of hard openings? 

one of the main goals in the next few years is to make my body strong just in case I need to deal with these kind of stuff in the future. 

On 5/8/2019 at 4:44 AM, douwanto said:

I've known 2 skydivers who's shoulders dislocated in freefall. Both took time and PT before returning to sk6d8ve again. Both had subsequent locations within weeks of returning and eventually both stopped skydiving due to this problem.

wait... If there were tears inside the shoulder joint, only PT wouldn't fix them.  Did they even try surgery or did they just quit the sport entirely after PT failed?

I saw a photo of wing suit tandem on FB this morning and today a thread about wingsuit tandem came up on drop zone.com lol. 

Yeah, I posted this on drop zone.com to look for opinions and advice because I couldn't decide what I should do myself. Thank you guys so much for all the opinions and advice. Those really helped me make my decision to accept their deal, even though it was a really tough decision to make. So, my sincere thank you, really. 

A side thought - I'm sure that there are a lot of people who have had more severe injuries than me and still jump.  Even paralyzed people can skydive. Dan BC was in a coma for months, and his doctors told him he could never skydive again, but he got back in the sky and won several skydiving championships. And I also know that there are a lot people who have had shoulder dislocations and still jump. 

I'm lucky that I'm still here, and also lucky that no doctors have told me I couldn't jump again and I still have the chance to get back to doing what I love. 

I refuse to let my injuries prevent me from doing things I love. Yeah maybe some people would just quit the sport if they went through what I did, but quitting is not how I deal with my accident. You fall of the horse, and you get back on and try again, right? Overcoming injuries, getting back up when life knocks me down and flying again. This is my way. I will use these 3 years off to make my body strong and healthy to prepare for my future skydiving career. I'm young so I heal faster than most people, and I'm grateful for that. 

Blue Skies.