Skream

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Everything posted by Skream

  1. I use armor-all. Yeah, the stuff you use on the plastic in your car. No it doesn't make them greasy or smudgy. Works great. Just spray it on and rub it in. Got it as a tip in a woodworking magazine. --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  2. The biggest problem I've had with the S/L progression is moving to real freefall from the short delays. It's hard to unlearn the student arch and be in a relaxed arch. It was practically hard coded into my head a big arms out legs out student arch that I learned with the hanging exit from the 182. Always got big plusses for it, but once on to terminal freefall, I could never remember to bring my arms back far enough, first causing a lot of potato chipping, then backsliding. I think I finally got it right on my last jump (jm told me to stick my fingers in my ears... I didn't really do that, but it brought home to bring my arms back...) Looking back, I think just one AFF jump mighta been cool just to learn to relax right in freefall, but other than that S/L has been great. I look forward to hop n pops from low altitudes to keep current in winter... --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  3. This whole question of what is safer has already been answered by the insurance companies. Try to get life insurance if you're a skydiver, vs just a licensed driver. Don't knock them for being ignorant or anything... they live off stats and are just like handicappers at a horse race. They're betting on you... betting you won't die (for a long time.) --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  4. Maybe if you're drunk driving. Or falling asleep. Or both. --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  5. Agreed. A better analogy is would you rather have an impact with a non-moving object in 1) a modern car with airbags and three point seatbelts or 2) an old ass Stingray with a lap belt. --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  6. I'm not sure about the wording here. I'm in the US and my instructor was 'behind me' in the plane, but we were facing each other. I think behind the student doesn't mean his front to my back, but behind as in further back in the plane. In this position, after door, I would just swing my legs out and grab onto the strut. Is this just a wording issue? I know there's other confusing wording in some USPA text, as one fellow discovered at our DZ in the 2004 SIM this past weekend (it says in a high wind landing to pull one toggle down hard, and how it's worded it appears to mean before touchdown. How nice, it teaches you to hook into the ground) --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  7. My DZ doesn't even charge jumpers till you're done for the day... unless you're a tandem or FJC, they're charged up front. Students it's a no brainer, no jump, no pay. But I guess we're a back woods inbred Kentucky DZ... still writing manifest on paper and working out of a run down trailer. We have a portable toilet too. (though if you want to walk, there's a real one up at the airport office.) --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  8. I wish I coulda gotton in on this thread earlier, cause I bet you coulda made a really funny joke about using the umbilicle cord (sp?) as a static line. On a more serious note, I did buy my mother a tandem. She's 49... and loved it. Still makes her nervous, but only her and I can understand what it means to be out there falling. --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  9. Hrm 40%. Suprising that many of you start to question your own sexuality just cause some animated meter goes to 100%. Sure doesn't take much to swing you --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  10. Do you have any sports shops locally? I've bought some from them in the climbing supplies section. 2" stuff. Also, I think I saw some in the ParaGear catalog. There's some here too: http://www.kitebuilder.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=32_106&products_id=497 --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  11. What's important is the change in velocity. 120 to 0 and 0 to 120 both have a change in velocity of 120mph. There's no negative involved there. Delta V = 120mph in both cases. Anyways, I remember many years ago watching TV about some car commercial was being filmed, and a skydiver with no opened chute landed between a few of the cars at the place and lived. I don't know anymore than that. I think I like the idea of landing in a giant snowdrift best. If you go in belly to earth and the snow isn't too dry, you should leave one neat cartoon like crater in the snow anyways. --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  12. Check out http://www.kentuckyskydivingcenter.com/ GREAT PLACE! --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  13. How was it repaired? Self repair while being easy on it for months, or surgery (which of course would imply light use for a while too?) --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  14. Boy this is dissapointing to read. I too have had shoulder pain for a while, not sure what started the injury though, I'm fairly positive it hasn't been from skydiving, but who knows. Thanks for the advice, I've made an appointment with my doctor. Hoping for good news though... would hate to have to stop jumping, I just made my first 20 second delay yesterday. At least I still have full motion, so if it is something, it should I hope be minor. --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  15. I was thinking the same thing. I got line twists on all 5 of my SL jumps, from a few up to a good 8-10 twists at times. Only about a single twist on my hopnpops, and once on 5 seconds no more twists. After experiencing so many, I'd hardly call them a malfunction anymore... just one of those things you calmly deal with and move on. I don't miss them though --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  16. Close, but not quite. In school I was a nerd and my wife calls me a dork. But yeah, it's a Neptune thread :) --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  17. Close but not quite :) EPROM can only be programmed once, and needs special hardware to electronically burn the circuits onto the chip. EEPROM is very similar, but the circuits can be reset. What you're referring to is FLASH memory, which can be erased/programmed via software. Think of it as a tiny memory chip storing the software that the bits remember their position even when the power is off. But hey, it's off topic anyways :) I'm going for a Neptune when the 2.0 software comes out. Setting the target altitude would be nice, since we don't go out at 13K at our DZ. --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  18. I've seen this mentioned here before, but I can't find a reference to it in the SIM or on the A card. I see the B license requires 30 minutes, but no requirements for the A. --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  19. The AFFers might have more on their cards signed off, but with 5 jumps are no closer to their A license than you are. 25 jumps is 25 jumps. They're all >>>fun
  20. Good news bob. I havn't talked with my eye doctor since around February or so, so maybe I'll bring it up next exam. Shoulda emailed me that, punk :) Getting sick & tired of contacts anyways. --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  21. Shoot at the kids? I've thought about it. Do they get a running start? More seriously though. I've got two and am going through training. My wife & I have talked about it a lot. It's a tough decision. We read a lot and talked about the statistics and the safety measures. She had to watch my first few jumps, which made her feel better, especially after seeing how happy it made me. My older one (10) is practically counting down the days until he can jump too. I just had to promise my wife that I'd ride a roller coaster with her now. I HATE THOSE THINGS! --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  22. The price is also affected by which kind of laser is used. A lot of the low prices are with the older equipment with older lasers. Just make sure you do your homework. Personally, I've avoided it because of the slightly reduced night vision. It doesn't impact normal night sight that much, but if you're into astronomy or other night vision intense activities then it sucks. How much it affects you depends on the size of your pupil when fully dialated (sp?). Mine open up to a little bigger than 7MM. Most of this surgery only cuts 5MM of your eye. At night with the fully open pupil, the light outside the 5MM good part gets scattered rather than focused, reducing your night vision. --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  23. Have the insides of your eyelids checked. It'll do a lot of damage to them if you do that. Eventually your eyelids will get rougher and rougher and won't stop grabbing your contacts. Then you won't be able to wear them anymore. --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky
  24. This is the fantastic. I love it. It doesn't matter if you use 'Black' or 'African American', it's still a label. As this example so clearly shows. Thanks for the laugh, that was fantastic. Stupid political correctedness. I will certainly be telling this one to all my BLACK friends.
  25. Static line worked fine for me. Made it off in 5 jumps. First clearnpull off S/L was tough, but made it through just fine. Second one went darn perfect. Enjoyed it very much. Looking forward to 5 second delay, but I think hop n pops would be just plain fun anyways in the future, especially on low ceiling days when that's all you can do. Given that I'm scared of heights and don't like falling, the S/L fit me well because it gives me a lot of time and a slower progression to deal with that and keep my wits. Climbing out on that wing is a more deliberate and extreme fight against my brain telling me this is dumb. So it's good to only have to fight that and not have to worry too much about stability, pulling, and other things early on in the progression. Sure with AFF you get to do more faster, but in all the rush to get turns, flips, all that stuff done, I don't think I would have been able to have time to relax like S/L gave me. Now that I'm off S/L and (somewhat) in control of my head, I can now move on to freefall manuevers and not worry about exits and relaxing. --- Michael Teator Lexington, Kentucky