MikeJD

I like the second one, but it'd help to see them in context. Are these going to become labels for beer bottles? If so, I'd like to see them wrapped around a bottle shape - would be easy to do for someone with a bit of 3D modelling/ rendering experience. I'm thinking you'd want the label fairly large, in which case you need to consider where that jutting wing is going to end up. Another consideration, although this is a real inspiration killer, would be cost - a non-uniform shape may increase the price of the labels. Almost certainly you'd get fewer per sheet. Probably a minor consideration in the scheme of things, though.

The first option depends very much on circumstances, I think. How experienced is the initial person? Is he or she under a reserve? How experienced are the others in the group? We should certainly be aware of where all of our group are landing - but while deliberately landing with someone else who is landing out is a compassionate thing to do, I don't think it's to be applied as a general rule. By definition the safest place to land is usually on the DZ - if we start encouraging people to think that the whole team lands out if one member does, we may be endangering more people than just one. Also, now the DZ are missing multiple people.

Apparently resurrected using mumbo jumbo .

Erm... I know virtually nothing, and care less, about what Harrison Ford is like as a person. Our celebrity-obsessed culture baffles me. I was just poking fun at what passes for news 'reporting', especially in situations like this.

I love the way crash-landing pilots, so long as they don't actually hit them, are always credited with heroically steering their stricken planes away from residential areas. As though the only reason you would prefer not to slam into the side of a house is that there might be people in there. I also love the helpful red circle - just in case you're having trouble finding the aircraft in this picture. And it gets better, because in that same article The Daily Fail also tells us which of Ford's other aircraft are pictured. Apparently this is a "de Havilland Canadian DHC-2 Beaver" and this is an "Aviat Husky". So now we know. It's actually good news, because it means I can add "Aviat Husky" to my logbook.

I don't recall an incident exactly like you describe, but I wonder if there's a chance you're slightly misremembering the story of Michel Reed from the late seventies/ early eighties. He got the leg of his jumpsuit trapped in the door of the DC3, and it landed with him dangling underneath it. I'm probably on the wrong track, but it was a great story anyway. There's no original footage that I'm aware of, but it was one of the reconstructions featured in Leo Dickinson's film, Dead Men's Tales - and there was a truck involved, chasing the plane because although the pilot was completely unaware the DZ staff had spotted the problem from the ground. Reed survived unscathed because he was dragged along the runway on his back and was cushioned from the tarmac by his rig. As the voice-over in the film wryly notes, it was a rare case of a man whose life was saved by a parachute that didn't open.

I bet you hit a particular low during The Phantom Menace.

My first couple of jumpsuits were similarly tight. I was ok with that, mainly because I dreaded the prospect of having to wear lead - but it was a real drag (no pun intended) having to jump in cold weather with no room at all in the suit for an extra layer of clothing. These days I've embraced the whole weight belt thing, and I'm a lot happier. I can have a little more room in the suit, and still keep up with my team mates without breaking my back. Be aware that the tunnel isn't really the best measure of how your suit will perform in freefall, though - to be comfortable, most people have to wear significantly more lead than in the tunnel than they do when they skydive.

Cygnus-X1: also, the instructor reaches across to pull the handle on the right side of the student's harness. Albeit this is an unusual configuration for main deployment these days, it'd be odd if that were the position of the reserve handle. Plus, if you watch the video more carefully you can see it's a main canopy that's deployed.

Hard to know exactly how high he was, but I made that no more than four seconds from apparent pull to 'landing'. Given that he obviously got some deceleration from the canopy, I'd agree - he couldn't have been more than 300 - 400 feet up when he pulled. Astonishing. I noticed both jumpers deployed their mains as well, which just goes to show - no matter what you say you'd do in a crisis situation like that, chances are you'll still fall prey to habit. And if that video really is 20 years old, it's probably the chief reason his canopy deployed fast enough to save his life. I'd class that opening as 'brisk'.

That whole sequence is nonsense, of course, but to try to answer your specific question: As I recall all the jumpers use main canopies only - those likely would open more slowly than a reserve, and also they would have been packed for terminal velocity openings so the methods that BASE jumpers use become irrelevant. At 300 feet in a belly-to-earth position, at terminal velocity, you're less than two seconds from impact. So in theory the definition of 'pulled at' becomes significant, although in reality it's probably still academic. 'Pulled at' = 'reached for the handle at' - no chance. You'd barely have time to extract your pilot chute. 'Pulled at' = 'deployment sequence initiated at' - still virtually no chance. You might achieve line stretch, but nothing life-saving. Modern mains packed for terminal openings typically take well over 500 feet to open fully. I'd say these days an opening within 500 feet would be considered 'brisk'.

I Want You - Elvis Costello Just Go Away - Blondie Nice job, Billy. I like this game.

I'm perplexed by all the Jackson hate. For me, he's been great in some very good films and the best thing in some very bad ones, and he was at least ok in this. I did think he was slightly miscast, though. Of course, if you want a sinister villain for your American action movie you traditionally cast a white British actor: Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs, Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons in the Die Hard movies, Tom Hiddleston in The Avengers, Mark Strong in Kick-Ass, Peter Cushing in Star Wars, Benedict Cumberbatch in Star Trek: Into Darkness. So what to do for your movie supervillain when all the white Brits are playing the heroes for a change? Cast a black American!

Sure, but isn't it depressing that the internet seems to have become one big scramble for approval? Too many people have decided that having a viral hit is more important than having discretion or class or, you know, not making stuff up. I think there's a good chance this isn't real. If it is, then the classy response would have been to ignore the parents' attempts to get an invitation or to send them a politely-worded but firm note explaining why they weren't wanted. What a shame that the thing that'll make this woman feel best about herself is to write something like this, put it online, and have it endlessly reposted.

I stand corrected. I was picturing the tourer, not the racer.

You'd never get a Harley to that height. He had a short enough canopy ride as it was.

Bit of a cheat/ continuity error since he's not wearing his BASE rig while supposedly riding toward the ramp. But I guess they didn't want to spoil the surprise.

I liked it a lot, on the whole. It was certainly entertaining, although it's a little childish in parts - and it does lose its way a bit towards the end. Potential spoiler below: The skydiving scene had a nice twist that I hadn't seen coming, and it's good to see that movie parachutes deployed on the ground still adhere to the laws of Hollywood physics! My date enjoyed herself too, although she occasionally had to shut her eyes to avoid the worst of the ultraviolence. And the Skyvan actually looked pretty cool in its all-black paint job, and I did have the pleasure of whispering in her ear at the appropriate point: "Oh, I've jumped from that plane. It was a different colour, but it's the same plane."

I've added all the DZs I can remember too - just because I could, and because I didn't have a very impressive list of countries. UK (foreign to all you foreigners) - Netheravon, Headcorn, Weston, Sibson, Tilstock, Peterlee, Langar, Middle Wallop, Cockerham, Ipswich, Cranfield, Hinton USA - Tecumseh, Eloy, Z-Hills France - La Ferté, Gap-Tallard Spain - Empuriabrava, Seville, Lillo UAE - Umm al-Quwain Argentina - San Juan Quite a few of those dropzones no longer exist!

This seems to be a rather not rare occurrence. Happened at Perris. At Lodi. Those are just the incidents I can think of in skydiving offhand, and it's done in other airliners, too. Slightly different circumstances, but I was instantly reminded of the Kegworth crash in '89.

Or decides to shift it out of the way using that convenient silver handle?

Oh, I saw Patrick Swayze do that in Point Break. Seriously, I'm pretty sure I've kicked like that during unstable exits as well.

Damn. I opened up this thread to make that very joke - but you beat me to it.

Like it or not, news reporting is surely a ratings game these days. Nothing draws a crowd like death, destruction and general horror, and ultimately we are creating the market for these stories. This 'need to be informed' ideal that we hold so dear doesn't really stand up unless we're going to do something worthwhile with that information, preferably to actually try and change things. Generally speaking we don't do anything at all, and in most cases there's nothing we can do - so we just shake our heads and say what a terrible place the world is, and how evil certain groups of people are, and wait for the next developments every hour, on the hour. I'm sorry to say I think there's a ghoulish element to most, and possibly all, of us. We're fascinated by tragedy and disaster, and if we weren't those stories wouldn't be featured front and centre every day. At the same time we don't want them to be too close to home, too graphic or too personal. The beheadings are all of the above, so we're drawn to those reports and at the same time made uncomfortable by both our own interest and the thought of what those poor people are going through. I voted that I find the videos disturbing. There's clearly no need for them to be shown at all, but once they're out there - like the scene of the car crash you pass while you're driving - it's hard to look away.

Neither. They're drunk.