BlindBrick

Does anyone have a photo or remember the N number from the "Uncle Sam" caravan that used to be at Skydive America-Pahokee during the Olav days?


-Blind

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Access is irrelevant if they don't know what it is or how to use it. And they don't.

Don't kid yourself. The guys most likely to be visited by the US gvoernment have been taking very careful notes about US COIN tactics and and been adjusting accordingly.

There are some very organized, very sophisticated militas out there (I used to live not too far from a battalion-strength one that had a full ArCav squadron complete with rotary air support) and they focus a great deal of their efforts and resources thinking of ways to counter the big bad government scenario even to the point of figuring out ways to rapidly disseminate weapons counter measures info to the average joe in the hopes that if it does hit the fan, they can win over enough popular support to generate some partisan activity.

Personally, if the governemnt is trying to defang internal threats against itself, instead of your average joe's guns, I'd be far more worried about the established militas that have the ability to deploy actual military heavy hardware vs the plethora of soft military targets within the borders of the US. They have no hope of actually winning a ptiched campaign, but it would be frighteningly easy for them to damage the support strucutre of the Us miltiary enough to comprimise its ability to deal with external threats in the short and mid-term time frames.

-Blind

In that case, really shouldn't the debate be about rotary wing aviation?

Frankly, your average American has easy access to the tech to defeat/or at least survive JDAMS and both laser and mm-band hellfires, so I'd figure you'd mostly have to worry about dumb munitions like 70 mm ffar's. Gvien that the engagement would be on US soil collateral damage would be an even bigger issue which means that rotary aviation would be the choice because of the higher accuracy from the slower moving platform. In that case, the helicopter of choice would be the Apache and isn't it proofed vs 50 cal AP? Would it even know if it was beign fired on by a .308?


-Blind

Why are you guys even debating AA weaps? No one is talking banning them and they are totally legal and arguably better protected under the 2nd than small arms. Buy your tax stamp for the launcher and then buy another for every round of ammo and your golden.


-Blind

I transitioned from a Prodigy 1 to a SuperMach at about 25 jumps (after entering ws with the bare minimum suggested # of jumps), and with absolutely no disresepct to Tony or his suits, I wished I hadn't.

My SuperMach is a wonderful suit but it absolutely demands that you are able to fly well before you ever strap it on. I wasn't a good flyer when I got the suit and being the only wingsuiter at a small dropzone, I didn't have anyone who could help me. Thus for the first 30 or so jumps I put on it, I would spend the first part of a jump flying in very tight circles as I fought with the suit over who was flying who. It was also unforgiving (when combined with my bad technique) at pull time and I had three chops from severe, irrecoverable linetwists in under 80 jumps on it.

That suit scared me so bad I almost got out of the sport and to put it in perspective, I entered this sport as someone who had 20/80 vision in one eye and 20/140 in the other eye so I don't scare easily in the sky.

Now that've I've got way more jumps on the suit, I love it. It's fast and, at my wingloading, wickedly agile. But I would never in a million years recommend it to someone with less than 80-100 ws jumps.

-Blind

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I don't want to hijack the thread but I feel that there should be a Jr. Rigger rating to allow people to work as packers. Rating should allow them to do the basics like pack

The "Rigger" rating used to exist for that purpose but was done away with by the FAA which is why now the entry-level rigging rating is Sr. Rigger.

-BB

Skyeyes and I took jobs teaching K-1 in a rural school in bush Alaska. Our kids are really into weather and technology so we found a grant that will allow us to get them a internet-capable weather station, but we've hit a snag. The lowest-registering temp sensor we can find caps out at -55F and we know from locals that the temperatures here get below the -60F that their analog mercury thermometers will record.

We've tried contacting the university and NOAA for assistance but they either did not respond or had no knowledge about anything outside of the ultra-expensive AWOS/Scientific grade of instruments.

Can any of you guys/gals recommend a home or pro-am grade wx station that will both register below -60F and upload data to the internet?

-Blind

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The Precision R-Max seems like and is built like a very strong canopy, but then you have to deal with Precision customer service, which, historically, can be lacking (but the owner often is the guy answering the phone, which is awesome).

R-max's are f'ing awesome. All that structural reenforcement isn't just for looks. Mine has handled rough openings overloaded by 15% and lands well at 1.25.

-Blind

I'm good. Someone resurrected a 9 year old thread.

-Blind

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Why in the Hell would you take the chance? $200-$300 will buy you a modern weapon.

Because we're using all our funds to get there and the school district we will be working for won't cut our first paychecks until late September. Setting aside the fact that the pre-winter hunting will be done by that time, there are no roads or FFL's where we are going. So I'd have to fly out to Fairbanks to buy a rifle so that automatically adds $750 to the cost of anything I'd purchase.

-Blind

I'm moving deep into the Alaskan bush and my father-in-law gave me a carbine to take with me. It's a bit of a mystery ship though. The SN and stock style identifies it has a 1901 or 1904 D.O.M. (depending on what sn source you use)but its' chambered in 44 mag. so obviously it's a conversion.

I know at one time the gun was owned by a gunsmith and I'm trying to identify whether he used a kit or did the work himself so that I can decide if the weapon is safe to use with modern loads, specifically Hornady's Lever Evolution rounds.

The only non-stock identifying marks on the weapon are ".44 MAG" unevenly stamped on the barrel and a "76" and a underscored numeral "8" stamped on a plate at the bottom of the receiver, just forward of the trigger.

I appreciate any help you guys could give me. I need to make sure that this thing is safe with modern rounds because it will be what I'm using to feed my family, and there's no way I could afford the cost of the 320 mile air evac to Fairbanks if it blows up in my face.

thanks,

-Blind

N/A

As a former rancher I udnerstand the horseowners position. However, I'm curious about what the liability owuld be for both dz and farmer McNasty if due to McNasty's complaints, the dzo/m marked that field off limits and someone got killed trying to avoid landing in that field.

-Blind

If a perosn wishing to be a non-tandem jumper can't find the dz without the aid fo a dz, maybe this isn't the right sport for them.

-Blind

Sorry for being a bit late to the conversation.

I've seen a fair bit of webbing wear on some old, very rough handled Telesis I's but I've only seen two atually harness failures (albeit, I was at a small dz).

The first was at one of the later Quincy's and a large jumper jumped an old rig where the thread had went rotten. Most of the stitching let go as the canopy opened. Jumper reported an unusually soft opening on a Sabre I, which we think is the only thing that saved his life.

Second time was on my own rig when I, a very heavy jumper, was learning to fly wingsuits. I have an extremely high forward velocity and my slider doesn't function well during ws deployments, so I had some truely brutal openings before I learned to get the suit shut down before opening. After one hard-opening jump that damaged my ws, I thought to do an in-depth inspection on the rig. During that inspection, I noticed that the seam on one side of the left riser's 3 ring loop had opened up about 4/5th's of the way.

-Blind

Whoever played the guitars on Wynonna Judd's cover of Freebird just knocks it out of the park on the intro at 17 seconds in.

I'm also a fan of the guitar work on Skid Row's cover of Little Wing. It takes a classic and while being respectful to the soutce material updates it to more modern sounds.

Still, I've got to give a +1 to whovever mentioned Jimmi and Vodoo Chile. You just hear that intro and you just know something's getting ready to go down.

-Blind

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Super Idea. Trouble with reality shows is that the truth doesn't sell. Manufactured Drama does.

If you can't find manufactured drama at a dz, you must already have passed out by the bonfire!

-Blind

After working with us, the crew that does 19 and Counting tried to pitch a reality show about our dz, but it never went anywhere.

Personally, I think a better bet would to be more like Discovery's shows and have multiple dz's represented so you get get a feel for Perris or Z-hills size ops as well as the mom&pop 182 dz's.


-Blind

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You might as well invent a fold up hang glider like the Swiss Jet Man did.

that wing is not going to be landed anytime soon....

Just need wheels.

For years, I thought that what wingsuits really need is hardpoints on the belly so you could attach a street luge.


-Blind

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Long and short of it, China is run by big business.

China is run by the Chinese elite with influence form big business.

Both share a portion of the blame for the current state of China, but the majority of the things you mention Shah are the result of the lesser value of human life that culture has. As evil as big business maybe, they're the ones that are sending monitors into the factories to ensure that workers have basic human rights, not the government. You may or may not believe it, but I live and attended grad school in the shadow of Wal-mart's Home Office and know the people who are the montiors for several of those firms.

-Blind

It might have gotten lost in translation. That would be about 10 km.

-Blind

Because until they fixed it in 2005, when the CO economy slowed down, it locked down spending even after economic recovery. Whilethat was fixed, the system is still handicapped because it also fails to take into account that capital improvements tend to appear as blips in the financial planning rather than getting allcoated out over the years.

Frex. When I was in Student housing, a dorm had a lifespan of 25 years before it needed major refit or replacement. When that came due it typicaly was charged out over one or at most two years budgets otherwise the legislative beancounters would start looking covetously at a building account that would hold millions yet be untouched for years at a time. Under TABOR in '02-'03, we were locked down to below operating costs. Yet in '04 when we needed to recover from being forced into the red in '03 plus needed extra money for a new dorm we couldn't get it because we were still locked down to '03 funding levels.


Could TABOR be made to work? Undoubtedly, but until there's some panic switches built in that allow the idealism to be shaped by reality and the government is broken of the "use it or lose it" budgeting/accounting mindset, it'll do more harm then good.

-Blind

Let's not forget the other half of spiraling college costs in many states, joe public passing feel good balanced budget laws that strangle public colleges.
I've worked for colleges in OK and CO, and you be amazed at how much that constrains a college.

I worked as a maintenance coordinator in CO and we had a 2.5 year back log on maintenance on student housing because we simply didn't have the money for staff or repairs. Only safety/sanitation issues were addressed.

You do that for a few years and it drains your rainy day fund, and since the government isn't allowed to give you any more money and your finanical boosters are all tapped out in a rough economy, all that's left is to go to your final funding source, the students.



-Blind

Can someone with a little more experience confirm/debunk something for me?

People have been blasting the the videographer for interferring. I've seen this a few times and last night I paid attention to the videographer's actions. By the time he docks, the straps appear to have slid onto the upper calf of the passenger.

To me the videogrpaher appears to have actually grabbed the strap and moved it back up above the knee and into the reach of the TM who grabs it and snugs it up some more. This allows the passenger to beend her knees more which seems to play a major art in keeping her legs in the harness for deployment and canopy flight.

Am I reading that right?

-Blind

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still cant believe it! no one was calling 911?

They can't fix stupid.

-Blind