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Watching a freefall student get sucked off the strut of a 182 because of a reserve deploy. Canopy goes over the tail, lines to the side and the jumper goes below. Reaction - HOLY SHIT, DID THAT JUST HAPPEN!! Luckily everything missed the tail and everyone else got out on the next pass. Jumpmaster was videoing the exit for the student and after watching it we saw that the rsl had snagged the latch on the door during the climbout. It must have partially pulled the pin which finally popped when the student stepped off the step.

We used to have that problem at the DZ. There would be loads of kids running around the packing hanger and jumpers area. The problem was that quite a lot of them would be there weekend after weekend but we couldn't identify their parents. Then one day we noticed a car droping a bunch of kids at the main gates and then driving off. Seems that some of the locals were treating the DZ as a sort of daycare for a few hours. So we rounded up all the unidentified and non-dz kids, brought them to the video room and put on the Southpark movie. I guess that they learned some stuff because we haven't seen them lately. Edited to add: Jumpers Kids seem to be pretty well behaved and have a good grasp of the dangers of an airfield.

Yes. What you need is called a capture card. They are a seperate PCI card and take video RCA input (sound is through the line-in on your soundcard) or S-video for beter quality. Some VGA cards, like the ATI All-in-wonder series, have this built in, so if you were considering updating that video card anyway.... Also the AiW cards have a TV tuner built in, so you can use your PC as a TIVO (basically a tv and video recorder in one). They have hardware MPEG-2 capture. Edited to add: Also I believe that there is also a kit you can get to turn your PS2 into a PC (yeah I know, not x86 architecture), it runs Linux.

Well technically Ebay has this too. The mistake most people new to ebay make is bidding at the reccommended value. For that last minute stuff, it's best to enter your absolute maximum bid and the thing will bid for you automatically up to that max.

Hah, tried doing that today. The item way sitting at the same bid for the last 3 days and I figured that everyone else was holding off for the last 10 seconds. So I have the max bid typed in ready to go and just as I press confirm, an incomming call trips the modem and drops the connection. It ended at the same bid. I also had a bidding war with an anonymous bidder for the last 2 minutes of another auction. I got pissed off and didn't counter the last bid. Auction ended and within 10 minutes I got an email from the seller claiming that he had another identical item if I wanted to buy. Almost positively a schill bidder. I declined, slightly less than politely.

In dropzone, after the CReW wrap and cutaway sequence you can see the reserve container is open. I was impressed with that little detail. Didn't Tom Aiello do most of the BASE stuff on this. Shows. Plus, is it just my imagination, or does Gary Busey very suited to the role of a skydiver. I don't know why but he just comes across as a real skydiver. Does anyone know if he actually jumps. Edit: misspelled Gary Busey

Yes, but for actual canopy design some fundamental knowledge of flight and aerodynamics would be essential. That's an idea though. He could start off in container design and move up to canopy design over time. I would also suggest proposing a thesis on parachute systems, something based on the equipment anyway, to your supervisor. That would let you get some practical research done in an area your are interested in, and will look pretty good on a cv to a parachute manufacturer.

Mechanical Eng probably wouldn't be as useful as something directly related to Aerospace, eg. Aeronautical Engineering, if you really want to get into parachute manufacturing. Aero has a lot in common with Mechanical engineering and translates fairly easily in a work environment. The same cannot be said going from a Mechanical eng background to an Aerospace based company. The Mech eng discipline just does not have enough basic flight theory to compensate. Finish your MSci and maybe consider another post-graduate course or even a PhD in some Aerospace discipline. If you are serious about following this career path, I would write to the major parachute manufacturers (PD especially) and simply state your intentions and ask for their advice.

Grab an instructor the next time you're at the DZ and get him or her to go through the procedures for a 2-out situation. This is standard training and something every skydiver should have a plan for. Some people have differing opinions on exactly when you can or cannot cutaway from a 2-out but a good rule of thumb is that if the canopies are flying happily together and nothing else funky is going on, then leave it alone. Generally speaking, it is unwise to chop a main that is flying in front of a reserve because the canopy will go back into the reserve on its way, possibly causing an entanglement or with the main risers and lines causing damage to the reserve. The main-in-front biplane is the most stable anyway and unlikely to cause too many problems.

Not to mention the 4 and 1/2 minutes of freefall, plus all the shouting to each other at terminal plus ...... God, I remember being really impressed when I saw that sequence first. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

From: http://jumpvideo.com/pa_skytron_faq.html LLLL INDICATION You might get this indication when you go on an extended commercial flight or travel to another location with a different altitude. The unit needs to be manually calibrated: go to programming mode (press and hold MODE and SET) with both buttons depressed, the screen will begin blinking; press the MODE and SET buttons again and you should hear a beep -- you are now re-calibrated. This applies to the FX but I would imagine that the advice is also good for the PRO. Like the guy who went to the autoparts store and asked for a 710 cap for his car engine.

Murphy's law is not "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong". That is Finangles Law of Dynamic Negatives, popularised by science fiction writer Larry Niven. Murphy's law states that , "If there are two or more ways of doing something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it". The saying was coined by Edward A. Murphy who was an engineer on a series of experiments in 1949 for the US Air Force investigating human tolerance to acceleration.

American history books tell us that the pilgrims were helped by two native americans called Samoset and Squanto (whose real name was pronounced Tisquantum) and thereafter prospered in the new world. They neglect to mention the fact that when they met him, Squanto spoke fluent english and spanish and had lived in both England and Spain for some 15 years, before returning in 1619 (1 year before the pilgrims arrived) as an interpreter for an exploritory expedition of the New Engalnd coast.

Ok, so the general concensus is against it. Heres another aspect to consider. Having packed some brand new ZP student canopies (read large) recently I can tell you that it is sweaty work getting those in the bag, especially on hot humid summer days. I've found it pretty difficult sometimes due to the moisture on my hands causing the material to stick to me. This is also true of canopies that were landed in wet grass. It makes it bloody difficult to get the tail well tucked in, every time I'd stuff the tail in I'd pull about half the material back out stuck to my hand. Makes for a very messy pack job. I've personally found that once your technique is sorted out packing ZP shouldn't be that difficult, and that dampness only makes the job harder.

Well with the ripcord system it is probably because the hard housing for the ripcord is attached to the right flap on a Right-hand deploy rig. As to why the pin system requires closing the rig in the opposite fashion, I don't know for sure but I will hazard a guess: When you throw the pilot chute on a right-hand throw-out rig, the pc tends extract the pin by drawing to the right and back from the closing loop. With the right flap over the left there is a risk of excess bridal looping around the exposed end of the right flap and preventing extraction. With the left flap over the right, this rightward draw on the pin would tend to free any bridal that had looped in this fashion. I believe that this occurrence would be very rare and would more likely result in a momentary hesitation than a PC in tow. Still, every little helps. This is just a guess. Anyone else care to comment. Edit: Damn, nutinbutdust beat me to it while I was typing.

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Bear in mind that since the original 4-seat 182's were produced with a gross weight rating of 2550 lbs, the gross weight rating of later a/c was bumped up to 3100 lbs, so the weight capacity of the a/c varies with the year it was produced. Also bear in mind that the max weight includes fuel. If it's safe to do so, given temperature and density altitude conditions, the pilot can trade off fuel for a jumper. Jump planes typically fuel for 2 or maybe 3 cycles at most to carry everyone. If the plane were only to do 1 lift for a hop & pop off a long runway on a cold day at sea level...many factors involved. Entirely possible though. edited:due to my confusion over definition of gross weight

I know what you mean. I thought that you said Robbie Williams there until I read it again.

Family Guy. classic episode that.

700cc 3 cylinder engine. But you can change the outside trim like a mobile phone cover. It's just moulded plastic and pops off easily. Today I drive a white car, tomorrow blue, then who knows ...

Does anyone know of any evidence to suggest that 7 cell canopies may suffer less from end-cell closure than 9 cell, I'm thinking lower aspect ratio?

Yes this is the bios string for your Video Card. Not relevant. It's the next bit you are interested in. If all you get is some corporate logo, try holding the DELETE key when this comes up.

Thanks Lummy. I forgot all about the older AT power supplies, I rarely see them these days. In any case, the power switch on the case with an AT supply is a relay connected directly to the PSU and pushing it will kill the power immeadiately. With ATX PSU's the power button is really just a switchable jumper which closes 2 pins on the board. You switch on the machine by shorting the pins (ditto the reset), I done this with a screwdriver a few times. In general, if your PC is less than 8 years old or there-abouts, it shouldn't be an issue.

Coaching is a great idea. If you're not comfortable with the speed, you could always upsize until you are. Are you using a collapsable pilotchute? Maybe try a regular pc which might add a little drag and knock a few mph off that landing. Be aware that forward penetration is going to suffer on higher wind days.

ACPI is the interface used between the power management features in windows and the motherboard power controls in the BIOS. Whenever you go into standby or hibernate modes, or use the shutdown or reboot options in the startmenu, you are using ACPI. In this case the bios is trying to talk on a IO port that winXP has locked down. Flashing the bios may indeed be your only option. However sometimes the BIOS has it's own power controls which operate independantly of the operating system, and may even conflict. Go to the BIOS by pressing DELETE key repeatedly at startup - when the screen is telling you about memory and CPU speed etc, usually the first thing that appears when you switch on. Go to the Power management section (don't change anything else) and disable APM or set APM controlled by OS (or whatever - different bios' will have different options). Windows APCI can operate quite happily without the bios APM. If you have to flash the bios, make absolutely sure that you have the correct one for your particular board and that it is actually newer than your present one. Try running this: Click Me to give you the BIOS number, date, possible manufacturer and more. Make a note of what it says and head over to: http://www.wimsbios.com/ to identify your board model and manufacturer. Then go to the website of the manufacturer and find their support section. They will have bios updates listed and usually a list of the things that that update actually fixed. Get the one for your exact model and check the release date. If it is the same or older than what you've already got then there is no point in updating.