tbrown

My name is Tom and I'm presently "between jobs", which makes jumping difficult and infrequent. I was a final assembly inspector at Boeing in the Seattle area until I got laid off last year. Then I had an inspection gig at a shitty little sweatshop in Orange Cty that was so bad I quit on the assholes one day after lunch. I'm trying to do a mid life career change and maybe even find something I like, if it pays well that would be a real plus. "I really love working with people". Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Yeah, I saw it and was generally impressed. My wife made the point that both the Hitler and Goering characters were too skinny. And Goering wasn't the Propoganda Minister, Goebbels was. A role like the young Hitler has to be a real challenge to an up & coming actor like Robt Carlyle. You either do it really well, or you blow it, especially since you're playing the character everyone loves to hate. But I thought he was really intense, he coveyed what an intense nutjob Hitler was. The parallels to the present are too scary, especially when you consider the like of John Ashcroft. Our Attny Gen'l is such a popular guy he actually lost a Senate race to a dead opponent, but now he's busy engineering secret detentions without charges or access to lawyers to almost anyone he deems to be dangerous. The Germans didn't follow Hitler so they could be psychotic mass murderes, they thought he would return them to the "basic values". The Nazi campaign slogan of 1932 was "Kinder, Kirche, Kuchen", children, church, and the kitchen. Let that be a lesson to us all. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

It seems like people used to do a lot more gear checks approaching jump run altitude that they do today. After returning from a long absence, whoever I'm jumping with usually wants to check me out, and that's OK with me. But I do see why people wouldn't want just anyone diddling with their pins and flaps either. Other than opening a flap, the rule should be "look, don't touch" and if you think you see something, talk about it before you go attempting major surgery on somebody else's rig. Also the newfangeled flaps all have to be closed back up, in the old days velcro was a no brainer, you just pressed it back down. Of course we also had killer belly bands in the old days and discovered at least 3 pilot chutes wrapped a turn around the belly band, so we may have saved someone's life there (nobody wore AAD's in those days either). The most horrific discovery I ever heard of was a friend who simply didn't didn't like the "feel" of this other guy's reserve container, it seemed to bulge unusualy right below the pins. He did a little bit of finger prying and discovered a BIC PEN stuck through both closing loops, as a half assed sort of temporary packing pin! He was able to extract the pen and the guy decided to jump. Well, to make a long story short, guess who had to cutaway a spinner on that jump ? So even though the BOC setup is infinitely safer than the older PC setups, I'm convinced gear checks save lives and we should never "outgrow" them. P.S. Best gear check ever was on a cameraman at Otay Lake, CA. The question put to him, on jump run, was, "hey man, where's your rig ?", to which he replied, "whaddaya mean where's my...oh shit!". Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

All jumps are free. Plane rides, gear rental, instruction, coaching or camera are all plenty expensive, but the jump is absolutely free. Always. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

If you're just not having a good day it can show up in your skydiving. Whether it's something about work, money, relationships, your car needing an expensive repair, or just not enough sleep, they can all affect the way you feel. Only difference is there's the added stress of your expecting yourself to perform and with your new jumpsuit, trying something new, plus we're always scared just a bit about the jumping part. It can all add up and just wreck your day if you let it. Just blow it off, "mama told you there'd be days like this". Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Pilot chute in tow, Forgot to set my kill line, Aw crap, not again! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Let's not lose sight of the fact that these people from the Carnegie Foundation are all whuffos. They think we're all crazy anyhow and they don't understand the nuances of our gear, AAD's, or safety doctrines. All of this is lost on them, they just see heroism. And even for all the technical mistakes Bobo made, we should still see it that way, even if it didn't have to turn out that way. It did - a year ago. So learn, live, and let it be. I will always miss him. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

When I was seven years old I used to watch a Friday night TV adventure show "Ripcord". It was about these two skydivers (one of 'em was Ken Curtis, the Festus Hagan guy from "Gunsmoke"), who jumped out of a Cessna and battled evildoers - sometimes in freefall! But that show was my first exposure to the concept that freefall is a weightless experience, with no sensation of falling. I fell in love with it hook line and sinker, way back then. The whole Ripcord thing came around full circle in '79, jumping at Perris with an old timer named Terry Ward. When we opened there were 9 squares and a red & white lopo round canopy with the Ripcord logo on it! I freakin' flipped ! I asked Terry where he got that canopy and he told me he'd been one of the stunt men on the show. I told him I'd always been his biggest fan. Terry died in the Taft Beech crash of '82 (?). Jumped 1974 - '80 and have just started back this year, 2003. 569 jumps so far. I love the freefall, the way the air can feel different on different days, different seasons, even different times of the day. I love falling through a slight mist that makes the air look like veils, I love how soft the air feels on sunset loads. We risk it all (but intelligently) for this most incomparable beauty. It's so clean up there, the boss, taxes, jobs I've hated, they're nowhere to be seen, they're all down there in those puny little houses where all the puny people hide from their lives. What do I hate about it ? Idiots who don't think I should "be allowed" to skydive, for my own good. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The actual question is rather mundane, the sort of drivel you might expect from an ad. In other words, nothing deeply spiritual. The answer is a real pain to find. I think I've found it, but a.) I'm not sure, and b.) I'm not telling... I'm trying to put a rig together from scratch and I WANT that canopy! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

What did KIRO say about Kapowsin ?!? That station's got something thorny stuck up its butt, they always have and always will, hell they produced the likes of Aaron Brown, so say no more... John Keister on the old Almost live show mourned the fact that the departure of Koko, that gorilla at the shopping mall in Tacoma, would deprive KIRO of their best Op/Ed writer! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

And Pioneer also made a Russian PC in two sizes, 21 and 23 ft. These were probably modeled after the Russian UT-15 canopies, though I imagine Pioneer probably incorporated some of their own PC ideas into them. If I remember right, the Russian PC's had two rather large drive slots at the back left and right sides and they were more rectangular than tear shaped. I owned one of the original 1964 R/W/B long line PC's and though it was 12 years old, it was my pride and joy. I usually had no problem with standups, just as long as it wasn't too windy. I never had to cut the thing away either, not once. But the PC was a pain in the ass to pack, it was easily the most compicated canopy ever made. All those sterring lines running up inside the canopy to reach the steering vents near the crown. Oy! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Did you only just lose it today ? Take a few really deep breaths and pour yourself a beer if you want. There's lots of good advice in this thread already, you could find it anywhere on the ground, in your car, or in the washer or dryer. And don't rule out the possibility of somebody finding it and trying to turn it in somewhere. There really are a lot of people out there who are honest and know what a wedding ring means to somebody and if one of those people found it, they're looking for you. Hopefully sometime this weekend you and your ring will be reunited and you can breathe a deep sigh of relief. Please let us know, OK ? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

During WWII, Soviet paratroopers were a little short on actual canopies, so they were sometimes packed in straw and tossed out the door as low as the pilot dared to fly. Most of them survived. I'd be scared to death to have to fight some guy who'd just been tossed out of an airplane, those guys must have been in one surly mood!!! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I remember your gr/bl/wh Pap Jimmy. Jimmy was my jumpmaster at the old Ripcord Club in W. Bloomfield, NY. You also had a red, white and blue Pap as well. My first rig, as you'll remember Jim, was a purple and pink tie dyed 28 ft cheapo, with a 5-TU mod cut in the back, packed in a B-12 container. About a year later I got one of the original 1964 R/W/B Paracommanders and somewhere dug up a sage green Pop Top container for my 24 ft reserve (tr vent steering mod). I loved that rig with all my heart. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I knew Bobo back in New England in the seventies and jumped with him several times, the last being when he visited San Diego around Xmas '78. He was as kind and generous and goodhearted a person as any of us could ever hope to meet in this sport. He was not arrogant or self absorbed, as too many of us unfortunately can be. No, Bobo should not have followed his student down. It's ironic that he didn't have an AAD and she did. He should've pulled at 2 grand, worried himself sick about her for a few seconds and then seen her reserve opening below and in time to save her. That would have been the best and the happiest outcome. Unfortunately he made the wrong decision, or perhaps even a few of them. Bottom line is that mistaken or not, Bobo was the kind of person who would put the well being of his students above his own safety, or even his life. Greater love than this, no man hath...I'm pretty sure I met his wife, back before they married, before their kids came along, and I feel empty and sad inside, because I've got my own wife and kids. At least they will always know what a beautiful man they had in their lives while they had him. Let's all learn something from Bobo's mistake and honor him. Nobody needs to go around yelling the BS word about this, we've lost a very special brother. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

What do you say to a one legged hitchiker ? Hop in ! (Actually I stole that one from Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, whose joke stink so bad they're actually funny...). Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Oh yipee, it must be time for the executive bonuses again. The hourly employee stockowner plan has never paid a dime out, ever. Every year Boeing manipulates the price of the stock down, so they can beg off paying out to the employees. Then in two weeks time the price miraculously recovers, so all the big shots get another bonus. The whole company has tanked ever since they replaced customer satisfaction with stockholder value as their primary goal. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The scariest thing I ever saw was at the 1978 Nationals in Richmond, during the boogie on 4th of July weekend. There were no winds, so everyone was getting out almost straight overhead, and on this one load somebody had a really obvious streamer malfunction. This person was just thundering earthward and we were all yelling "cutaway ! cutaway!", but the jumper kept falling, lower and lower and people were screaming "pull !". We got that sickening feeling you get when it dawns on you that you're about to see a fatality, and because of the spot being overhead, she was going to smack in right among us. And then, when all seemed lost, probably around 500 ft or so, we actually saw her THROW OUT A PILOT CHUTE, which lifted a bag off her back and deployed a Strato Star, which opened probably about 50 ft. off the deck. She landed seconds later without ever taking off the brakes. Everybody sort of went, "wait - that's a hand deploy, that's a main canopy, what's going on here ? - OH MY GOD !" The poor woman was hysterical, she just sat there crying, but was unhurt. She'd been unable to pull her pilot chute out of the pouch, so she gave up on it and pulled her reserve. The reserve had exploded on opening, the canopy looked like somebody had run over it with a lawnmower. All the way down she'd struggled to get that pilot chute out and finally found the adrenaline to yank it free at the last possible moment. If anything, this incident taught me the value of NOT cutting away a perfectly good main. If she'd have pulled her 3 ring she would've died. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

That would be Norton, he and Steve Haley from Antioch were great pals who did lots of crazy CRW antics together. Norton was also a commercial pilot, as well as a bona fide member of the Hells' Angels. His plane disappeared over the Pacific ona flight to Hawaii and he's officially presumed dead. Norton is mentioned in Ralph "Sonny" Barger's autobiography, Barger calls him Norton Indian, because Norton liked the old Indian bikes. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Hi everybody, I'm doing a Rip Van Winkle thing and have just returned to the sport after a layoff of 22 years. (I was busy raising a family, something that isn't quite done yet, but the kids are driving age now and they occasionally let me have the car to go jumping.) Everybody keeps telling me the gear has changed a lot, but I don't think so. It's definitely better, hotter, sleeker, lighter, and whatnot, but believe it or not we actually had squares, hand deploy, and even a few square reserves back in the dark ages of the seventies. What I think has changed and is way better is the thinking. The awareness and ability of what we can do in the air has grown enormously. With just a few jumps back in the game, I'm already finding RW is so much easier to do than it ever was, just because of a few simple new ideas that have come along. That's where this sport is at, it's like that little bald kid in The Matrix bending the spoons, there is no spoon, it's all your mind in this most beautiful sport of ours. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !