crotalus01

i get a GEAR check, which includes a pin check, before every jump. the one time i didn't get a gear check (my first solo off AFF) i forgot my fucking altimeter.... As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

Death Adders are not that dangerous as they are generally reluctant to bite. And if you get bitten, Australia is the place to have it happen. Lowest incidence of deaths from snake bite compared to the fact that 10 of the deadliest species live there. As for the pictures, they are NOT fake. I have raised snakes for many years, both venomous and non-venomous. If you have never seen a large constrictor feeding I could see why you would think it was fake, but when eating a large meal, the snakes scales will expand revealing the white skin between the scales. Happens in all species of snakes, even small ones, due to the fact that the prey item is almost always larger than the snake. hence the ability of the snake to unhinge its jaws to swallow the meal. Don't believe it? go to your local zoo on feeding day at the Herpetarium and watch. You think those pics are impressive, wait til you see it in real life. Our zoo has a Reticulated Python (Python reticulatus) that is 28 feet long and weighs about 300 lbs. It eats whole pigs (adult ones). and just FYI, the Retic is the largest snake on earth, and capable of eating an adult human AS LONG AS they have a particular birth defect in the shoulders which happens to be somewhat common in India - thus the stories about people being eaten are true, but there have only been 2 cases confirmed. The Indian Python (Python molurus molurus) and the Burmese Pyhton (Python molurus bivittatatus) are the second and third largest, followed by the African Rock Python (Python sebae natalensis). the Anaconda is the heaviest snake in the world. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

not photoshopped. its a baby wallaby being eaten by a carpet python. carpet pythons are native to Australia and get up to 10+ feet in length. they are a subspecies of the diamond python and can be interbred (Morelia spilota ssp. and Morelia spilota spilota respectively). As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

for every 10 miles of interstate, 1 mile must be straight in case an airplane needs to make an emergency landing. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

itravel to Asia a bit so I have had: dog cat chicken feet duck fetus (Balut) tarantula crickets grubworms scorpion grasshoppers snake squid octopus deer buffalo fish eyes congealed blood in soup fugu (blowfish) sharks fin eel pigeon raw fish raw beef (steak tartar) As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

great idea. i am fortunate enough to jump at a DZ where i have no trouble at all jumping with people that have 1000+ skydives. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

okay okay okay, so i am gonna jump the damn thing saturday....but let me tell ya, i am gonna be pissed if it slams me - i am jumping a Sabre 190 and it has already bitch-slapped me a couple of times as for a hop-n-pop, no thanks. last jump (on Neptune) showed me open at 3.2 K, and i threw out at 5.5 K As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

fight fight fight. you will win. question the officer if he looked at the calibration of the lights.... "so, officer, did you check to see if the lights were calibrated properly? no? so exactly how do you know that the light was green when i was in the intersection?" As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

go AFF, and come to West Tennessee Skydiving like Bigorangemed recommended. we have a kick ass program and kick ass instructors.... As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

did my 1st (unassisted AND unsupervised) packjob on last saturday, and had trouble getting my chute in the bag as well as stowing the lines. my stows looked like shit, and i had to stuff the canopy into the bag. i fucking hate packing. anyways, what are the odds that i packed a malfunction? i know the stows are correct sequence-wise, i am more worried that i moved the lines around when the canopy reinflated in the bag and i had to stuff all the excess material into it. i am debating whether to jump it as is or to repack it - but a repack will most likely be more of the same shit. any input? edit to add that i have faith in my rigger, but i dont want to pay for a reserve repack if avoidable. and i have been told that there is not much that i can do while packing that will cause a mal, even when inexperienced....other than obvious stupidity of course. edit #2 for spelling - i am anal about spelling. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

are you the doctor that took that kid into Sommerville last saturday to stitch his eye up? if so, yeaah you are hooked.... "Just let me get my next AFF jump in and then we'll go get you stitched up..." As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

i did post to you to go to DZ, not to be a jerk but for the simple fact that if you see the equipment, the canopy flight etc you will have a much better unserstanding of the sport. also because at 35 jumps im not gonna try and explain anything everyone in the sport once was where you are now, so do yourself a favor and head to your local DZ. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

okay, i will agree, although no less than Lucas himself has said that Star Wars is a remake of Hidden Fortress. and there is no doubt that R2D2 and C3P0 are the characters from Hidden Fortress protecting the princess. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

just go to your local DZ and ask these questions, then you will be able to see the equipment involved and thus you will have a much better understanding of how everything operates.

Kurosawa was one of the greatest directors of all time. Ran is a great movie, both storywise and visually. i would recommend High and Low, Red Beard, or Ikiru for people who are unfamiliar with his films as a jumping off point. or if you like Shakespeare check out Throne of Blood (MacBeth in feudal Japan). Kurosawa has had several of his films remade into major (mostly uncredited) hits - Star Wars = The Hidden Fortress Yojimbo and Sanjuro = Fist Full of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, Last Man Standing (Bruce Willis) Red Beard = Doc Hollywood High and Low = Ransom (Mel Gibson) just for the record, Ikiru is my favorite of his films, and one of the most touching films ever made. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

just go to your local DZ and sign up for a tandem and groundschool...all of those questions will be answered in detail. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

my answer to that is an absolute NO. i am not sure i could do it every time i need to. but can anyone answer that as a yes? i see folks here with thousands of skydives that still screw up. however, i think you misunderstood my post. i have no intentions of downsizing anytime soon (or of going on a 60-way for that matter). i plan on probably 500+ skydives on my 190. since i have no plans to swoop i see no benefit in downsizing from my current main until i am wringing it out. i simply said that i have done most of the things listed in my 32 jumps, and wanted to object to a front riser approach as a required canopy control skill lower than 1000 feet. i would think it should be painfully obvious that with 32 jumps theres no way in hell i could say that yes, i can do these skill sets whenever the need arises. in fact, i have sacrificed 3 weekends now when i was dying to get a jump in, and didnt, because my reserve was too small (had a PD160). i grounded myself until i got a bigger reserve - fortunately i just bought a PD193 so i will be back in the air next weekend (weather permitting). As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

i think these are good guidelines with the exception of the front riser approach. i have 32 jumps and i have already had to do the majority of the things you have listed (flat turns at around 200 feet on final, rear and front riser flares and turns up high, flare turns, crosswind landing, etc). i have no desire to get on my front risers down low however. i have done front riser dives at around 3K and that was enough for me. other than that i particularly like the test out option since i am over the BSRs you have listed (1.21). my question is: if i went to a new DZ to jump, and i have been signed off to jump at my current WL of 1.21 by a canopy coach, will that be good enough? or will they make me pay to go through their course, or pay slot for one of their instuctors to evaluate my skills for themselves? just curious as to how that aspect of it will work. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

good luck - you get scholarship money and also are not required to have a hunting or fishing license. unfortunately for me my grandfathers adaption papers were ordered sealed by the court in the wake of a scandal in the early 1920s and he is the only one who can have them unsealed, even in the event of death it has to be in his will. and he is not willing. i am 1/4 Cherokee but because of this i am only able to prove 1/8 which apparantly aint good enough for the BIA. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

$1500 for tandems/AFF, $1340 for jumps/gear rental, $2,050 for my rig, $545 for altimaster, neptune and helmet. total $5435 - and that was just from my first jump in July to my last one in November (32 total). thank goodness my DZ doesnt charge me to get current... As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

hey Brent, if we are jumping and i have a mal and chop it, please feel free to follow my main and freebag! i dont have thousands of dollars to replace them with. and i bet this student doest have that kind of cash laying around either or he wouldnt be renting gear. dan As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

exactly why do you need an A license to jump a helicopter? just curious as i do not have my A yet but i do have 32 freefall jumps (weather has been shit here lately or i would have double that). ps - i dont have the A because i havent done my H&P, i have everything else...the weather went to shit right before my H&P... As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

[reply By doing it safely, at least safer, it will keep the DZO's from some kind of complete ban on HP canopies and swooping and keep the Feds. for looking hard at us. devils advocate again: wont the skydivers (or possibly the dzo) find a place for them to swoop that is not dzo property so the "liability" is gone? or if the dzo bans swooping, do you think "out" landings would skyrocket (out of sight that is)? As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

can anyone recommend some good skydiving DVDs? they seem to be few and far between. and i dont mean shit like Terminal Velocity or Point Break....i mean real video of real skydivers doing whatever. CRW, RW, surfing, freeflying, swooping i dont have a preference. thanks. ps - please include a link to the seller if it is still being sold. thx. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...

i think this is an excellent point. i am a 34 year old male. i have very little interest in swooping for the simple fact that i cannot afford to break myself. i have a very strong suspicion that if i tried swooping it would only be a matter of time until that happened. i am perfectly happy under my 190 w/l at 1.2 - and i questioned hard about that. i bought it because EVERYONE i jump with (and the DZO) told me to go with the 190 at the slightly higher w/l than the 210 i was looking at. and my landings on the 190 are awesome compared to the student 210 i was jumping. on the other hand, almost all of the younger (18 to 28) guys i jump with are chomping at the bit for sub-100 foot canopies. almost all of them are really into HP landings. i have already seen one biff in, and that was one too many. watching someone bounce and end up 70 feet from where they first hit is not fun (thank God he wasnt seriously injured - how i have no idea). anyway, the point is maybe several factors should be looked at instead of *just* wingloading. i do not see tons of difference between my 190 and the 210 i was on other than the flare, a little more speed (maybe up to 17 MPH from about 10 MPH on the 210), and that it will give me a bit of a groundsurf on a straight in landing if i hit the flare just right. edit to add - i am confident in my flat - and flare turn abilities as i practice them from about 5K to about 2K. i have turned approx. 90 degrees as low as 100 feet for obstacle avoidance. never had to flare turn low. i have also landed it cross - and downwind. good PLFs have saved my ass several times. i do NOT want to try landing on rears yet, my comfort level just isnt there. and no front riser dives. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD...