dninness

Thats my strategy, too. You stay on your side of the street, buddy! NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

An old skydiving buddy, while trying to convince some of us to do a skydive that seemed a little sketchy: "Would I lie to you? Of course I'd lie to you. But about something important like this, no." NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Concur, that's a great photo. WRT the original interception photos: The Civil Air Patrol in the US does a lot of practice intercept missions with the USAF/ANG/AFRES folks, all over the country. These missions involve CAP piston-powered bug-smashers (172s, 182s, 206s and GA-8 Airvans) being visited upon by F-15s, F-16s and, in a couple cases, F-22s. A good friend of mine coordinates these for his wing and they get their doors blown off (figuratively speaking) pretty regularly, but they also get "formated" by F-16s even getting it on at 100-110kts. Now, those F-16s are not exactly holding their slot like a Heritage Flight fly-past, but they can slow down enough to slide by the GA guys in a way that will get their attention. :) NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

US Army 1985-1995 NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Did anybody else think "dude, be @!#$ careful with that hook knife around your @#$% reserve!"? That would have been stupid:: "The deceased was part of a 4-way formation skydive in which he intended to cut away from a main that was packed with induced line twists as well as a three-ring mechanism malfunction engineered on the right riser. The three-ring malfunction was designed to require the use of a hook knife to clear prior to reserve deployment. Following a successful cut away of the left side riser, the skydiver successfully cut through the right side riser with his hook knife and successfully deployed his reserve parachute at a high altitude. However, during the ensuing reserve deployment, he accidentally hacked through the left reserve riser with the hook knife in his hand while reaching for the reserve canopy toggles resulting in a reserve streamer. He subsequently impacted the ground under a streamered reserve parachute." Yeah, love accident reports in Parachutist. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Y'know, if there had been more freeflyers on board, there would be more video :) NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Off the top of my head, I don't recall the minimum airspeed of an F-16, but consider that -16s intercept GA aircraft in the US all the time, and especially bug-smashers like 182, its not out of the realm of possibility that an F-16 could fly up alongside a Caravan or LET410 like that or at least do slow-flight past one. The canopy shot was originally 3000pixels wide, and while it seems to have been manipulated in Photoshop Elements, I think thats just for clean up/resizing. It could be photoshopped, but I don't believe so. I resized that one in Photoshop just to post it. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Preperation video here: http://vimeo.com/7821856 Hahahah. Awesome. I'm glad that 22 years later this thing is _still_ getting some traction! :) NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Just got these from a friend in the USAF, not sure where he got them. I haven't seen them here on DZ.com, but judging by the file information, they're from 4/27, and according to him the F-16s are from the Royal Netherlands Air Force.. Anybody shed any light on these? I did a cursory forum search and didn't turn up any F-16 hits from the last 3 weeks. :) (I resized the 1st one to get it under 300k) That must be one hell of a buzz job. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

I'm not an instructor, but - isn't it true that some people who might eventually develop into competent skydivers still should not make their first jump via AFF because of "focus" issues? For some students, Method A sets them up for failure, while Method B might be successful. I know you were there and I wasn't, but in retrospect, was an AFF jump the best way for this guy to start his student progression? Maybe someone like that student would have been better off with a hybrid program starting out with 2 or 3 tandems and a couple/few S/L or IAD jumps, to get his mental shit together, before transitioning over to AFF jumps. Not a criticism; just a thought for further discussion. Great point. My DZ requires our AFF students to have taken one tandem before they start AFF (that tandem can be a "Cat A" tandem, of course, but in many cases its just the lead in to "that was a blast, I want to do it again by my self!") This student had a tandem, and then had a Cat A last year at some point and had gone uncurrent. We got him recurrent in training Sunday and took him up on another Cat A (well, two other instructors did). My AFF group was behind his, and as reserve side I was right there watching his performance in the door. As I expected, he overthought/brainlocked and his exit was pretty poor. He got in the door and shouted to the main side "I'm ready to skydive!" which is not something he'd done in any of the ground training iterations. ("Uh, dude, thats the Hotel check you're supposed to be doing there..") He then looked at the door frame for 2 seconds, then decided that yes, indeed, maybe he should be doing his Hotel check. Check in, OK, check out, OK. And then you could hear it: the sound of a dialtone for several seconds. Then he did something that was like down, up, down, up, ready, set, set, ready, go. I was like "Holy cow, I would have probably misinterpreted his exit count and dragged the poor SOB off the plane had I been his reserve side..." ***Since each method has its benefits and drawbacks, I've come to be a big believer in a hybrid progression: at least 1 tandem to get past sensory overload without any performance demands, a couple S/L or IADs and a hop & pop to experience the basics of saving one's own life and canopy piloting, then AFF to learn how to fly. Small steps, rather than The Big Gulp. Sounds like this guy's a good candidate for something like that. Yeah, I tend to agree with a hybrid approach with the more problematic students in particular. But after spending 30-45 minutes working with this particular student 1 on 1, maybe some Focalin in his Pepsi might have helped, too. :) NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

I actually saw this just today. Had a woman in the FJC I taught yesterday, she self-disclosed that she had pins in her hips, arthritis, etc. OK, I pulled her off privately and discussed the physical rigors of the sport and she claimed that she could "do it all." Ooookay.. During PLF practice, her PLFs were pretty piss poor, actually. She was very heads up and aware (locked on) during the class, did well in the training, etc, but I noticed that while we were doing mock up training she was "squishy" around the area where you'd grab the harness for an AFF exit, and that she appeared to have recently lost a LOT of weight. Her muscle tone seemed a little poor, too, but its not like I asked her to haul off and punch me or something. Today, she sat in on some AFF recurrencies for students who haven't jumped since last year. Apparently during that time my co-instructor from the FJC became aware that this lady didn't have the upper body strength to to peel and punch the cutaway or reserve handles. The DZO had a talk with her and apparently she was sent packing. Now, I don't know if she was sent with "Hey, look, you need to improve your upper body strength.." or it was "Sorry, you don't have it.. go away." I'd be tremendously surprised if it was the latter, and suspect the conversation was more like the former. Of course, we had another student today who, frankly, may require the bowling talk. Older gent, jumped once last year, pretty serious overthinking/brainlocking while executing on the ground. To the point where additional repetitions of the training evolution were making it worse. I took him into a one-on-one situation and we worked thru the dive flow and concentrated on sequence. He kept inserting additional practice pulls after the 2nd COA, and then forgetting to wave off before pulling, to the point where he'd go back for the pull and then remember the wave off, then stop pulling and wave off. We worked with him and then two other instructors geared him up and jumped him. Consensus was: Universally poor skydive to the point where the mainside had to dump him out. Yikes. We'll see on that one. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Since I'm about 15 minutes down the road from the Crowne Plaza in Nashua, I believe I shall show up and be counted... NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Talk to Van Pray Jr (vpjr) here on DZ.com.. N121PM is, as I recall, still running -20s. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Not bad looking at all. Would love to have seen a "before" photo. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

In 1988 my 3 fellow CH-47 crewmembers and I (and whomever might have been under our aircraft during the external load operations) came within about 1/8" of an inch of disaster when a wrench that had been left in the wrong place in a helicopter found its way under a synchronizing driveshaft in flight. The wrench wore a groove in the shaft that spins at about 7,000 RPM, and had that driveshaft separated, it would have resulted in the catastrophic destruction of the aircraft. 4 separate crews (including my crew) had preflighted or performed daily inspections on that aircraft prior to my crew taking it, and 16 sets of eyes missed a 1 1/4" bonney wrench. It can happen. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

I think its a start. You're going to play hell trying to catch _every_ possibility like this. How many "fat-wallet, FJC-to-AFF-I in year" jumpers do you think would actually exist? One or two in 5 years? I think there are far more people who might fit into this category: AFF one year, make 100 jumps, coach rating next year while doing another 100 jumps, take AFF at the beginning of that 3rd season with ~200 jumps.. thats a far more likely scenario, and one that I think we've agreed is maybe not the most optimal. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

I can't add much to this yet, as my 11 year old daughter is autistic and she's got her own set of issues that (I suppose "thanksfully") don't involve cell phones, text messages, Facebook, Internet predators and angst. My son is 8. a) He's already turning on the drama to get what he wants (at mom's house that must work well for him. He tries that here and I say "And the Oscar goes to..." and he says "whats that supposed to mean, Dad?" and stomps off.) Like my girlfriend says "If you can't be the prom queen, you gotta be the drama queen." b) He's acting like he's 8 going on 28. He speaks to adults like they're his "bros," complete with smartass sarcasm and the kind of tones and phrases that comes across as disrespect when its between a kid and a parent. Really. I have more than once given him 'that look' and said "Listen, mister: You may think you're on par with the adults in this house, but in the grand scheme of things the only thing you outrank here are the cats. Deal with it." The best thing is, he's a very smart 8 year old and he gets it. The worst thing is, he's still 8 and continues to do it because his attention span is measured in nano-seconds. (but he's a really keen observer, so I have to be *very* careful when he's at the DZ with me because he sees the way I shoot the shit with my buds there and I think he takes some cues there). c) He's me when I was that age. Yeah, I called my mom up and apologized to her when I realized that. He's a little bookish, and actually very introverted. Which leads to a lot of "internal angst" and an inability to express himself. But then it comes out in a gigantic torrent. Ugh. As I mentioned earlier, I suppose in some ways I'm thankful my daughter is autistic. Some of that "teen angst bullshit" (to borrow a line from Heathers) just won't exist. She's likely not going to have friends to text, won't know how to use a cell phone, etc, etc. Now, her communication needs work, and she's big for 11 (people routinely mistake her for a 12-14 year old), so when she can't express herself, she gets physical. She wanted breakfast and said "I would like to eat breakfast." I said "In a second, Em, I'm typing something.." and she grabbed my hand and pulled it toward the kitchen. Except she did so hard enough that she might have separated my shoulder or busted a finger had I not been ready for it. (the "grab dad's hand and pull his fingers in opposite directions" thing is getting fairly annoying..) But, she's also, in some ways, a typical "about to be" teenager: She doesn't want to wait for anything or anybody, its her way or.. her way, etc. :) I have friends with teenage daughters. I've watched several grow up and get married, have kids, etc. I've worked with teenagers my entire adult life (thankfully, in a military cadet program setting where the hierarchy and social rules/norms were carefully prescribed), and I swear its like there is a "defiance" bit that gets flipped in a kid when they hit 15. One friend, his daughter hit 12 and she was very cute and flirty with her classmates. I said "Dude, that shit is going to be trouble!" By 13 she was bringing boys over to the house (and I don't mean 13 year old boys), which stopped the day we were cleaning weapons in my buddy's den (true story) and discussing, somewhat loudly, what kinds of activities might justify homicide with a shotgun, or what might just justify a painful wound. :) It all came to a head at 14 when she "ran away" from home. There was no abuse or anything that I was aware of, she just didn't want to live under the yoke of her parent's rules and thought that she could do better on her own. (When I was a teenager, my mom had a magnet on the fridge that said "Kids, leave home now while you still know everything!!" on the fridge. This girl just exercised that.) She spent two nights at her friend's house. The friend's parents were known to my buddy & his wife, and they called and said "She's here. What do you want us to do?" My friend and his wife said "Can she stay with your for a couple days, we think we know how this will play out.." Sure enough, their daughter comes home to "get her stuff" and finds her room emptied out. I mean BARE. She's standing in the hallway wailing "WHERE THE FUCK IS MY SHIT?" or similar. My buddy, sitting in his easy chair reading Time Magazine, calmly says "You left. We gave it all to Goodwill. By the way, it wasn't YOUR shit, it was OUR shit." Mom was in the kitchen drinking coffee, and the daughter goes stomping down there and starts shouting at her mom about her rights. Mom works for the juvenile courts, so she knows where this can and can't go. She looks up and says "You're a 14 year old minor. Every single thing you believe is a "right" is really a privilege that we grant you while you live in our house..." Daughter whips out her cell phone. Whoops. No service. While she was gone apparently she did not notice that mom & dad had cancelled her phone. The best thing was, they knew she was on her way back over to "get her shit," and my friend and his wife had called the local PD (small town, they knew the chief on a first-name basis), who were in the driveway when she went to storm out of the house. Seems the 17 year old guy she rode over with had an out of date state inspection sticker and some probable cause for a vehicle search which resulted the discovery of some contraband. So here she is, standing in the front yard with her ride sprawled across the trunk of his POS Honda ricer in cuffs. The cops are like "Oh, who are you?" and they ID her, and say "Oh, wow, you were reported missing by your parents 2 days ago, did this guy kidnap you?" Suffice to say, the daughter was sort of stuck between a rock and a rock. The dirtbag guy gets hauled away for possession and suspicion of "contributing to the delinquency of a minor, so she's got no ride, no phone, the cops want to haul her to the station, etc... It wound up working out, she stayed home with mom and dad, her parents had her haul all of her shit out of the garage back to her room, etc. (Sorry, that was longer than I intended) :) The other side of the coin is my cousin, who as a teenager was a rebellious little shitbag. Crap like slipping out of the house in the middle of the night, stealing his parent's car without a license, underage drinking... He got up in my uncle's face once, and then told him "You touch me, I'm calling the cops.." (I love my aunt & uncle, but if that had been me, I'd have said "Yeah? Here's the phone, dial 911 and ask for an ambulance too, because when this is over, one of us is going to need it..") Nothing seemed to work with him. He was in and out of court like 10 times before he was 18, probation, restitution, etc. His parents tried all kinds of things, but apart from chaining the kid to his bed and feeding him with a slingshot, they're out of options. Finally, he gets busted for consorting with his "just-under-the-age-of-consent" girlfriend when he's 18, winds up with like 24 months in the pokey. Gets out, can't keep a job, can't keep up with his probation officer, can't keep a car, can't pass a piss test, etc. Then he gets hauled off for pulling like 5 armed robberies. Last I knew, he was up the river for something like 10-20 for RA. Don't know what the exact answer is, but its a hell of a tightrope. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Yeah, thats more or less my point. Helmets are built as a compromise to their ability to not injure the users thru their presence in their everyday use and a certain amount of protection as a percentile of anticipated need. As an example: You could build a helmet for motorcycle riding that would keep your head in pristine shape while you slam it into a brick wall at 100mph. That helmet would probably weigh more than you'd ever want it to and make 99 1/2% of all your motorcycle riding disgustingly cumbersome for that < .0001% chance that you'd encounter a brick wall with your head travelling 100mph. Never mind that in the kind of accident sequence your day-to-day bike rider would be far more likely to encounter (getting hit by a car, flipping off your bike, laying it down, whatever), that helmet would probably have so much mass that a "minor" accident would likely snap your neck. :) (but, hey, they could still have an open casket, right?) Same thing with skydiving. 100% of the time you're wearing a helmet while skydiving, you're deploying a parachute (a fairly "high G" maneuver), where a "robust" (read as "heavy") helmet capable of keeping your melon intact during a high-speed contact with the ground will cause you a major neck problem really quickly. So you trade off the "worst case scenario" to improve the "everyday scenario" (door rash, boot to the head, a freefall collision with low comparative velocities). And realize that "hey, if shit's that bad, the helmet ain't doing much for me in any event.." (I have this conversation with whuffos all the time when I explain to them that if I hit the ground at terminal, the helmet is merely ensuring that my family can more easily ID my remains..) There was this old movie from the 1980s with Fred Ward called "Timerider" where he plays a modern motocross racer who winds up in the 1800s Old West. At one point, one of the Marshals asks him if his helmet will "stop a slug." He says "Jeez, I dunno. I mean, it'll survive a major get-off, but I don't think its built for that.." And thats pretty much the point. Back to the Olympians: I was just now watching skeleton and it seems to me that with the kinds of G-forces involved while these guys are whipping around the track, they need a fairly lightweight helmet, and that their "90th percentile" protection relates to getting off the sled at 80-90mph in the ice trench and not waiting to skid their face / head along the ice at that speed. (the Georgian luge guy's death aside, as that was a freak "escaped the course and whacked into a pole" situation) Likely they're not going to hit anything really "head on," so its going to be "ice rash" and "sled recontact" that are probably the main threats. Otherwise, I bet most of these guys wouldn't think twice about going sans helmet... I do like those Uvex luge helmets that have the large one-piece face piece. You can't seem to locate those on the Internet _at_all_. They might have a little better wind-blast protection than, say, one of those Gath helmets with the big scoop visor. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Purpose of a skydiving helmet is more to keep your hair in place than to cushion your melon from a high speed impact. Door burn? Yeah. Boot to the head on exit? Sure. Random foot in the face during four-way? Yep. But protection against high-energy impact (60-80mph) on ice? I guess its better than nothing. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Who's that hot babe in hot pink? Only one of the greatest skydivers I know.. :) NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

I've jumped a bunch of different kinds of goggles in my time, my 2 cents: Started on old-school "Kroops" googles, they worked fine for years. Then I started jumping the kind with the tube-stoe edge beading (basically neoporene tubing) and loved those for years. Switched about 3 years ago to the Sorz/Birdz/Flare-type goggles, where i snagged like 3 pr for $15 (including shipping) on ebay a few years back. Haven't had any of the foam come loose, I either break them or scratch the crap out of them before that. Never liked the flex-vision or similar "no-edge" goggles because they dug into my face. No vision issues with them, but the edge just seemed.. rough. Thats my 2 cents. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Van Pray Jr put a similar handle on one of his 206s, and its *nice*. He's vpjr here on DZ.com. Here's a pic of the plane. I volunteered to float when we were flying that 206... :) NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Yeah, those ACRs are not too bad overall, but a couple things to think about with 406mhz beacons: 1) When COSPAS-SARSAT gets a 406mhz hit in a specific geographic area, the MCC for that area is alerted. In CONUS, its the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center down at Tyndall AFB. 2) Without a corresponding ALNOT (Alert Notification) or overdue flight plan (indicating its an airplane versus a hiker), AFRCC will generally notify the "responsible SAR authority" in the area of the hit. That could be the State Police, Civil Air Patrol, or like in my state, the Department of Fish & Game (yeah, Fish & Game..). They generally don't call the local fire department. 3) If the ACR has GPS attached, it will provide a coordinate set as part of the burst transmission that occurs every 51 seconds (something like that.. 51 sticks in my mind). Remember, however, that a PLB with GPS has pretty much the same limitations on the GPS as the SPOT does (indoors, dense forest, caves, antenna orientation). Honestly, though, I've never lost GPS lock with a "modern" GPS even in heavy tree cover. Good luck if you're somehow indoors or in a cave after a wingsuiting accident. :) 4) After the MCC alerts the local SAR forces, it could literally be HOURS before anybody gets to you, even with neato coordinates. So while you're laying there suffering from trauma of some sort, some dude is calling a bunch of folks "Hey, Joe, can you guys go out and look for a 406mhz beacon in the woods? You're eating dinner? OK, I'll call Tommy..." I've seen it happen. The SPOT is designed to contact the local authorities, depending on how you set it up. In the "I'm here mode" someone can login and see you on, I think, their website. In the "Emergency!" mode, it will actively notify who you designate of your activation and location. That could be manifest, or local 911, whatever. Plus, I think you can use the SPOT on a "per activation" mode versus a per month plan. I could be wrong. Keep in mind: both have to be activated in the event of an emergency. Are you going to be able to activate the emergency beacon while you're laying on the ground all busted up from a shitty landing? NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

Consider the SPOT device. http://www.findmespot.com/en/ Operates in two modes: "hey, here I am" and "hey, here I am and I'm in trouble" Yes, its cellular based. EDIT: Its satellite based, not cellular. My mistake. Speaking as a former CAP SAR guy, I can say that an EPIRB or similar is overkill and would literally leave you laying there for HOURS before the SAR machine gets spooled up, let alone finds you. Plus, the new 406mhz beacons are very expensive. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19

I guess it counts as an AFF jump.... (its the beginning of what was eventually a failed AFF eval). Damn "student" tried to sit fly on us. Thats me on the far side, cussing up a blue streak and shaking the ever loving hell out of the student. Oh well, like I always say: "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." I got a lot of experience there. NIN D-19617, AFF-I '19