gjhdiver

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Everything posted by gjhdiver

  1. If Jesus was a carpenter, what did he charge for bookshelves ?
  2. Wikipedia is a great starting point for just about anything. However, it's the starting point, not the ending point of your journey.
  3. Done nearly 10,000 jumps on one Alti III. None better for the serious or working jumper IMHO. They've always been great on service too.
  4. Well, I'm not going to take a position on your claim until you post what exactly you were suspended for. However, I would like to point out that your above sentence does you no credit whatsoever. If you're going to appeal USPA's action, you might want to rely on arguments that don't include racist claptrap.
  5. It's got a Rascal 202 in it. That's not only a big parachute, but the company that made it, FTS, went out of business many years ago. That reserve may well be approaching the age when most riggers will refuse to repack it. Either way, you'll be stuck with it forever, as you'll never sell it on. An AAD for this rig will be more expensive because it will require two cutters. That's something else to consider. There's nothing wrong with a Racer, I jumped them for many years, but unless you are living in or near one of the packets of the country where they remain popular, you'll be stuck with it, and you'll also be stuck looking for a rigger that has experience of packing the reserve in them.
  6. gjhdiver

    pd pulse

    Yup, I did indeed jump the Pulse 135 last weekend a few times, and I'll try to get a few more in this weekend. My exit weight is about 220 with gear so I'm loading it at 1.62. I normally jump a 120 Stiletto. I have about 7000 jumps on Stilettos and about 2000 on Sabres, so I'll try to compare to both of those. First, openings. I did my usual three stage evaluation. Normal freefall speed opening (no track), pull from full on track, and subterminal opening. All three openings were positive without being hard, and remained with 10 degrees of heading without the Stiletto's tendency to hunt in a direction depending on weight shift in the harness. Once open, it flew straight and level. Slumping in the harness didn't affect it in any discernible way, and aggressive weight shifts on opening didn't cause it to dive or spin in the way that they would a highly loaded elliptical. Essentially, the openings are money on this thing. In flight, it has a nice crisp response to control inputs. At my loadings, it rolled into turns very nicely, and it was fairly easy to get the trailing edge parallel to the horizon in a developed toggle turn. Rollouts were fast and on heading without the Stiletto's tendency to oversteer. Deep brake flying was very stable and the canopy was hard to stall. In stalls, it didn't want to break left or right, and recovery, both dynamic and steady were exactly like you'd expect. The stall is a little faster to get to than with a Sabre 2, and this may be due to it's hybrid nature. Front riser turns are crisp and predictable, and the canopy recovers nicely from front riser dives. Unlike the Velocity, it doesn't want to stay in a developed dive without pilot input. Ed is clearly a poove, as the pressure was quite normal. Landings were a major departure from both the Sabre 2 and the Stiletto. I tried a straight in, 90 degree and 270 degree approach in nil winds on it and in no case could I get it to pop up. Once you start the flare, the canopy planes out and just glides forever. This takes a little getting used to if you're used to the pop up landings of other canopies. After three jumps, I had it pretty much dialed in, and I certainly could get used to it. I think this landing characteristic will be a great selling point for this canopy. It somehow managed to combine the fun of a serious swooping canopy with extreme forgiveness in the landing flare. Control input that would have seen me climbing up 10 feet on the Stiletto only resulted in a nice flat glide on the Pulse. The packing couldn't be easier. I did the first jump on this canopy and it packed down like I'd been jumping it for years. The new Optimum fabric retains no memory and is very low bulk. The 135 went in the bag with no fuss at all, and packed down smaller than my Stiletto 120. It made me wish they made a tandem Pulse. All the jumps were made in 0-10 mph winds, field elevation 43 feet MSL, 74 degrees F. Compared to the 120 Storm that I jumped not too long ago, at my loadings, the Storm is a higher performance canopy with entirely different flight characteristics. I don't think it makes sense to compare the Pulse to the Storm. They are both great canopies, but I think they come at the market from different design philosophies. I'd say that the Pulse is the best non-elliptical 9 cell I've ever flown, and it gives many ellipticals a close run too.
  7. I remember that this is a German accuracy canopy from the early to mid 80's. The bottom holes were meant to keep it pressurized in really deep brake settings. I'm blanking on the name of it though, or the designer.
  8. I went to a boogie with both of my girlfriends at the same time, figuring that they would just fight it out and I'd go home with the winner. What I didn't figure out was that they would team up and beat the shit out of me. I don't do that any more.
  9. Listen well, ask good questions, and don't be afraid to stop your instructors and ask for clarification if you don't understand something. Also, don't be in a rush to get in the plane if you don't feel completely prepared. AFF is designed to go at your pace. It's designed for your benefit, not your instructors. Also, don't worry too much about impressing your instructors. It's their job to impress you with the care and attention they pay to you.
  10. Well, other people seem to be able to parse posts a little better than you, so we'll leave it there. There's a candlelight vigil tonight and a memorial in Oakland for the shooter. If that doesn't illuminate the point I was making, I guess nothing else will.
  11. Ahhh there's the flaw you see. Creationism is a superstition, not a theory. You can teach that nonsense in the privacy of your own homes.
  12. And over his head goes the point and hits the wall with a dull thud. I'll have one more try at this. The people I refer to know the difference between the OPD and BART police. My point was they make little distinction between the two. They regard all police as equally bad and untrustworthy.
  13. Don't be silly. I am well aware of who shot Oscar Grant. I ride the BART regularly. My very good friend, the dear departed Deuce was a BART cop for 17 years. (I have his BART captain's badge that he gave me before he died still.) The point I was making is that it also occurred in Oakland, and just added to the already systemic distrust of law enforcement in certain areas of the community where police of any department are viewed as the enemy. The fact remains that relations between the police and certain portions of the local community in Oakland is not a leftist or a rightist issue. It's strictly local politics. Normally when something like this happens, there are huge makeshift memorials, flowers, gifts etc placed at the scene. As of last night, there were four votive candles, whilst a crowd of locals taunted the police present. That ain't a party political issue, that's a complete systemic breakdown in law enforcement/community relations.
  14. Before you replace the battery, check your regulator output. Start it up, put a multimeter across the battery terminals. You should read around 12v. Then rev it and hold it at about 3000 revs. You should read around 14v. If this is OK, you need a new battery. If it doesn't read this, you need to check for continuity in the charging system and maybe replace your regulator if that checks out. It's a pain in the arse to pay $100 fora battery to find it hasn't cured the problem.
  15. It's probably nigger. You have to understand something though about this. In Great Britain up to about 1950, there were few, if any people of African descent, and those that were, were from the British Commonwealth Caribbean states, rather than Africa. Therefore, most people had little or no contact with ethnic Africans. Our main colored populations came from India and Pakistan, and were referred to generally as "Asian". "Nigger" itself was not used generally as a pejorative for black people, but rather as a synonym for the color black. It may have had it's roots in racist usage, but up until the latter part of the 20th century, no British person would refer to a person of African descent as a nigger. They would have used the more common epithet "coon" or "wog". Now, as a child, born in 1958 and growing up in rural England, if you had a black dog or cat, the chances were very good that it might have been called Nigger. This was a very common name for a black animal. My uncle had a black cat called Nigger for many years, and at least two black labs in my neighborhood were called that too. The owners used to stand on their porches and call them in at night by their names too, which now would make for a surreal experience. (It was also common when I was a kid to turf your dog out in the morning, let it roam all day, and call it in at night). If you want to read a more detailed explanation of the use of the word nigger in British society prior to it's racial connotation, the wikipedia entry on the term is useful. So, in short, the guy in the film is calling his dog nigger, because that's it's name. It has no racial connotation in that usage, though it's got to feel that way viewed through the lens of today's attitudes towards the usage of the word.
  16. It's a strawman argument used on slow news days. The jury has been back for over 20 years. There are no seriously considered peer reviewed arguments in favor of creationism, despite the smug certainty of superstitious cretins. And with "Atheist" and "No belief" now running art 11% and climbing up from 4% less that 15 years ago, I'm not too worried that as the US ages, the idiots will start to die out and congregate in smaller and smaller areas of the rural US. I'd be interested to see a correlation between median income and belief in creationism. I'd lay money on the poorer and less educated you are, the more likely that "Magic" will suffice as an explanation for anything you don't fully understand.
  17. From the 30 year anniversary of my old punk band The Shapes is now online. Of interest only to old punk rockers and people who like to read eight pages of lies. http://hyped2death.com/shapes/shapes.htm
  18. Me. Completely broke in the mid 80's. Govt. got me a subsidized apartment, paid to have me retrained in IT technologies, paid me to travel there and learn, paid my bills while I was there then found me a job to start me off. From there, I was able to not only support myself, I never needed another dime of govt. help. Here's your caveat. This was in the UK, where it's never been that unusual for the govt to aggressively help people retrain for new careers. I couldn't have done it without that help. I'd have been stuck in a cycle of minimum wage unskilled positions for ever, without being able to break out. For what it's like there now, you'd have to ask someone who still lives there, but that wasn't the thrust of the question.
  19. All you need to do to make a jump is to make sure that you comply with the FAR's that are applicable. This means that your equipment must carry a TSO and the reserve must be packed by a currently certified rigger and be in date. Your pilot should have a current commercial license if you inteend to pay him for jumping out of the plane. If you don't intend to to pay him, then anybody can fly you, though you probably should not take the guy with 40 hours. The plane must have all documentation and maintenance in order in accordance with the relevant FAR's. You should have the permission of the landowner whose property you intend to land on, and you should carry insurances in case you land off and cause damage to people or property. So, if you want to go the cheapest route. Find a person with a plane who will carry you for a contribution for gas. This does not require a commercial ticket. Take the door off and go jump into your back yard. Let's just say that I've gone this route in the past, for private gatherings and parties. I'm not advising you to do it because of the liability that you might be exposed to, but it's just a pointer to how little you actually need to do to jump out of a plane.
  20. If you're truly interested in trying to fly a C-130 for skydivers, I can put you in touch with the organizing committee for the Swedish Hercules Boogie. Nobody knows how to do it better or has more experience doing it. When the convention was offering C-130 jumps for $75, the very same week, we were doing them for $17 with free organizers and video. They do have military support which makes it easier, but the logistics concerning the jump operation remain the same. Be warned though, that when I was the general manager of Z Hills, I tried to do this. I found that it was essentially a non-starter. Getting a C-130 isn't that hard, as there are quite a few available for rental. However, as these are not usually used for skydiving, you'll have to go to the expense of fitting then with seat belts and making them generally safe for jump operations if they don't have military seats installed. You will need competant jump masters for it. Your local guys will not do no matter how good they are using the usual planes. You'll need ground staff experienced in C-130 operations to monitor jumpers. You'll need ground transport for at least 80 people per load to pick them up, and a correct staging area to load them into the plane. All of that was fairly easy to arrange, if time consuming, but what really put the brakes on was having to arrange insurances for the event, which would have run to nearly $2 million of coverage. Add to the fact that at around $3000-$4000 per hour ferry fee from wherever it has to come from, you're already deep in the hole before it even touches down. This is why, on the rare occasion that you do see a C-130 for jumpers in the US, it's invariably rolled into a larger event such a the convention, where it can be flown as a specialty aircraft, and it's costs spread around the other fleet. In my opinion though, it's at it's best when you're paying normal prices for a jump out of them. You can cycle 80 jumpers every 11-14 minutes from them and there's no better plane for big relative work. Your organizers have to know their stuff though, or they will give information to their loads that will end up with them injuring jumpers. Normal exit positions don't work the same and can lead to serious injuries and dislocations in the slipstream. If I could get a C-130 at the right price, I would fly the Swedish committee over to run the plane for me. It would be a very small cost when set against the ferry fees of the aircraft, and you'd be secure in the knowledge that it was all being done right and like clockwork. I have about 500 jumps as an organizer out of the C-130, and those guys have put me on the money on every one of them.
  21. http://www.wpxi.com/news/18583061/detail.html
  22. Ahhhh airlocks. The answer to a question no-one was asking. You might as well claim that your canopy has elephant repellant on it. Now, you're going to see a lot of posts from people who can't understand why anyone would jump anything else, but from my experience, there's not enough of a trade off for the small benefits airlocks provide when set against the added cost and bulk. Remember also, that the Jedei, Vengeance and Samurai are designs of the early to mid 90's. (the Samurai is more contemporary). There's been a lot of improvements over general canopy design and construction in the las 13 years. At the time those canopies were first jumped, only PD were using a laser cutter to control fit and trim, so the extra rigidity of the airlocked designs definitely had it's advantages at the time. I've jumped a lot of these over the years, from the first proto Jedei that we used to call the Grape Ape at Z Hills, which was basically an airlocked Jonathan, to the Vengeance, and I'd have to say that in the 9 cell division, they don't perform any better than on par with Stilettos, Katanas, or Crossfire II's. Some people have downsized to the point on them, that they are mistaking the extra wingloading for performance from the airlocks. There's a reason airlocks were flavor of the month, and are quite rare to see now. I think Brian has the niche on them for anyone that wants what is essentially a hand built quality custom canopy. So, if you asking me what to get instead, I'd say any comparably sized 9 cell elliptical will do the job for you.