gerrcoin

Agreed, and entirely out of the question. Not a problem in our case. We operate under an ATC shelf which extends from 4000' to 18,000' (I think) and below that we are on airfield unicom. The airfield is owned and operated as a dropzone foremost and our aircraft have priority over everything except canopies and emergencies. Landing, apart from an extra orbit or two, is not a problem.

Thanks for the info. Definately something to consider. We fuel for 3 cycles (+30 min reserve) and also have limits on bank angles for the pilots. Surely in co-ordinated turns this wouldn't be a problem as the a/c would be experiencing loading at 90 deg to the plane of the wings. So no agressive slips to final would be a good point. Still be wary of the descent angle, although due to the Vne we've set to avoid shock-cooling this should be ok. The question is whether the turbo on that diesel requires as much care from the pilots as on, say, a turbo 206. I've no personal experience with turbo (not turbine, just in case anyone was wondering) operations, but I've been informed that it is not recommended for (relatively) low-time jump pilots, or in a situation where different pilots are swapping in and out of turbo and non-turbo a/c every other lift. The reduced fuel thing mearly puts the diesel engined 182 back on the table. The main reason for looking at the Diesel is that in Europe Jet-A (or Avtur) costs about 1/3 the price of Avgas, coupled with the rumour that the TetraEthylLead additive in Avgas will stop production in less than 10 years. The initial cost of the engine is a bit much though. I think that we will probably opt for the 206 engine mod discussed in another thread.

Interesting, I hadn't considered the lower onboard fuel requirements. We were considering the diesel for our 182 but decided against it on weight. Seems that we can now reconsider it.

Yeah, it's always the small ones that you've gotta watch out for. It's all fun and games, until someone loses an eye

The diesel is a good engine but due to it's extra weight you may have to lose 1 jumper off your standard load.

Ooops, I thought I had given a link in my post but I've just noticed that it's not there, odd. Anyway here you go. http://www.gimp.org/windows/

Surely some of the WWII drops have that beat. That's what I was thinking but it would have been static line and not considered freefall? The original post with the Guiness Records quote did not mention freefall but did state the phrase "Largest Mass Parachute Jump", so I would think that they qualify.

Surely some of the WWII drops have that beat.

DL "The GIMP" (GNU Image Manipulation Program) [url]http://www.gimp.org/windows/[url], open source photo editor. Hard to get the hang of, but a good rival to Photoshop, or at least PSPro, and free.

Hence nipples you could cut glass with

Ok, I'll admit that I photoshopped mine a bit. I'm not really that big.

Yeah, come on girls. I expect that the ladies are getting the lighting just right, even as I type.Soft light, candles and that.

Ok, I'll get the ball rolling....er, no pun intended.

What benchmarking software are you using? 3DMark 2001 and 3dMark 2003 scores are different. 11,000 sounds kinda high - I only saw AMD 64 systems at around that. The benchmark score is for the whole system - CPU,RAM and video card, so changing the Mobo will effect it. Bottom line: If you replaced the card because it wasn't doing what you needed, and the new setup gets you there, the benchmark doesn't matter. Still annoying though.

I've only ever tried one or two of the scratch removal kits with little success. I'm pretty anal about my cds (and to a greater extent my DVD collection) though. But I think that with a bit of practice you could get them to work ok. Head down to the auto accessories store and get the finest grain emery paper they have. Then go home and use the emery paper wet to remove the worst of the scratches, then use toothpaste and a clean dmap cloth to polish the surface smooth. That all those kits are - fine sandpaper and a polishing paste. I like marks idea of using the auto buffer. That would take most of the work out of it. The key is to get the surface smooth and as even as possible.

This is a song that was #1 in Ireland a few years ago, from an Irish band called "Something Happens". The actual song isn't too bad but I don't think that it will be appearing on any tandem videos anytime soon. Parachute Take your parachute and jump, you can't stay here forever When everyone else is gone, being all alone won't seem that clever Take your parachute and go, there's gonna have to be some danger Take your parachute and jump, you're gonna have to take flight If the wind don't catch you, I will, I will If the wind's not there, I'm here Don't look out before you, you know it's a long way down I'll make it safer for you, your parachute won't let you down Take your parachute and go, and maybe come back tomorrow Take your parachute, I am, stop you ever getting sorrow Cause the winds might change, and the winds might blow over you And the winds might cut you in two, unless perhaps you get a raincoat Take your parachute and go, and wave to me as you are falling Take your parachute and jump, you'll hear a sound, it's just me calling It's a beautiful day for jumping, and nothing's here to keep you back I'll make it safer for you, your parachute is on your back Cause the winds might change, and the winds might change Take a parachute, I am And jump (the wind should come and catch you) And jump (before you hit the ground) And jump (the wind should come and catch you) And jump (before you hit the ground) Jump Take your parachute [Edit] Lyrics plagiarized from http://something-happens.lyrics-songs.com/lyrics/37383/ Also, since watching the Tandem Photoography tribute on SkyDivingMovies.com, I have become addicted to Puddle of Mudd's "Spin You Around".[/edit]

I wouldn't bother doing Ireland. We only have 4 DZs, 1 of which is actually in the UK (Northern Ireland - it's still on the island of ireland dammit) and one of which is a roaming DZ. We don't bother with postcodes, except in Dublin city and those cover large urban areas rather than individual streets.

Perhaps he is fondly recalling his breast feeding days and is judging them based on cup size. This is ok, he wont grow out of it though Robby will grow up to be an engineer.

Hey, there was one of those on Bravo a few weeks ago. This woman got a 500w cordless drill and a dildo and .....

Ok, how many jump tickets are we talking about here?

Well, the 208B is the 'Grand' Caravan. The 208 is the plain old Caravan or Caravan I, if you will. Hard to distinguish visually, as the B is just slightly larger with an uprated engine. I'm pretty sure it was a B though.

Hmm, a very interesting thought. What if you were landing out in less than favorable conditions and got injured on landing. Of course a skydivers first aid equipment is going to be improvised at best although I do carry my swiss army knife - I may yet MacGuyver my way out. But knowledge is power and a simple thing like trying not to move your leg if you suspect a femoural break, for example, might mean the difference between a shortish recovery period and lasting damage. This is a subject that I'm surprised that I have overlooked and it is something that I intend to research further.

In case you don't know, Antonio Fargas is Huggy Bear from the origional Starsky and Hutch series. The whole point of the show is to take ex-celebs and drop them in a camp in the Australian jungle and generally make them do stupid challenges for food, ie, eating various jungle insects or getting into boxes with them blah, blah.... the real motive is to get good onscreen arguements going or to try, like on last years show, to get some onscreen romance going. Utter twaddle. I watched the skydiving bit. The tandem masters looked like Australian military (possibly Aus SAS). They jumped from a 208b and had no helmets or jumpsuits. Also, and it may just be my imagination here or some funny editing, but it looked like Paul Burrel was not hooked up when the door was open. He was the last to exit.

You need to change the word "strokes" above with "stages of internal combustion". The strokes in 4-stroke is refering to the movement of the piston within the cylinder, ie down on induction stroke, back up for compression, back down during ignition stroke and back up for exhaust. Turbine engines are a continuous ignition system, ie. a constant stream of fuel is injected into burner cans and the 'flame' is maintained while the engine is running. Reciprocating engines have an ignition stage, where the all the fuel in the cylinder is burned during the ignition stroke and burning stops before the next cycle, in this case every 4th stroke per cylinder. Reciprocating engines require external cooling, usually via a water jacket system or exposure to a moving airflow. Turbine engines use a proportion of the induction airflow, of the order of 3/4, to cool the exhausted gasses from the burner cans to the point where they no will longer melt the titanium alloy tubine blades. Another way of looking at this is that the turbine engine ingests more air than is required for cumbustion and only mixes about 1/4 of this with fuel for buring. The burnt mixture then heats the remaining gasses and accelerates them through the turbine section. The turbine extracts what energy it requires to turn the compressor section, via a central shaft, and what remains is thrust. [Edit]That last is for turbojets. Turboprop and turbofan engines extract much of the energy of the exhaust and transmit it via the compressor shaft, or a seperate concentric shaft, to drive the prop or fan. A proportion of the exhaust still produces direct thrust, but less than for the pure turbojet configuration.[/edit] Other differences are that turbine engines, particularly the turbine blades, are quite difficult to manufacture and only a few countries in the world are capable of making reliable engines. While turbine engines are expensive to make and run, they are less maintanence intensive, due to fewer moving parts, and provide a much better power to weight ratio. Gas turbine engines are more reliable when run constantly or for long periods, ie they are not as tolerant of the stop-start lifestyle of reciprocating engines. They can also use heavier and less refined fuels such as kerosene which is much cheaper to produce than gasoline.

Agreed. Breakaway is the best of the three. Fly like a Pro is only about canopy flying (I had assumed Freefly) and while it is interesting and informative to a new jumper, anyone with around 50-100 jumps will already know most of the stuff. It deals mostly with landing patterns and compensating for wind drift, proper use of riser control and obtaining best best glide rate - stuff like that. Pack like a pro (and the follow up - Trouble free Zero P) is good for those starting to pack but is no real substitute for someone standing there beside you while you try packing for the first time. I had been flat packing from jump #1 so I used it as my intro to PRO-packing and then practiced by myself, seeking advice as needed.