dorbie

Yea definitely, thanks for pointing that out. As for knowing the "true facts" I did qualify my observation. I had no way of knowing that the adamant claim posted by "wuffo" that no real tests are done by Icarus was false. I apologize for my part in impugning Icarus, I hate this kind of rubbish online. As for throwing mud at Icarus, I don't have a horse in this race. This is a public forum and anyone could have pointed out the facts as thankfully they did, I started this sub thread by pointing out the testing as a beneficial thing if you'll remember. I don't think wuffo was really having a go either if you look at his second reply to me.

Can't you get a do-over based on the transcript and the results of the warrant search? How about a complaint to the DA?

You can't be too carefull, try these: http://www.actiongear.co.uk/ishop/1016/shopscr16.html P.S. that's a joke.

He already is. He's asking for more. ltdiver He probably is, but what's he really asking for & why? For all you know he's suing to help pay for better prosthetics that he can't get on the NHS, for an injury sustained in Her Majesty's Service. The courts will decide on the merits.

Yea we'll be calling him "sparky" after he lands.

Well this skydiving can be scary stuff so you might want to try these, I expect theyr'e quite warm too: http://www.depend.com/

He chose to have his leg amputated because the knee was so damaged they had to fuse it straight. He believed that having a prosthesis that would flex at the knee would be better than his real leg with a straight knee. It was his decision to have it done. It was not a medical necessity...was not life threatening. Thats' a pretty jaded view of events and his treatment choices. Aside from the fact that doctors in the UK won't amputate for trivial reasons. It's just unbelievable someone would blame the guy saying he chose to lose his leg, it was a choice between several unattractive treatment options. The guy didn't walk in and ask for his leg to be lopped off. Yep he's a muppet for hooking it into the standium roof and he's admitted he f*$#%d up. Even if it's a skydive dressed as santa into a stadium it was an official RAF jump, that resulted in a monopedal jumper. Even if it's his fault he was taking the risk through his active service. Having said that he probably *does* get the appropriate compensation already. It is difficult to have any sympathy for the guy blaming someone else for his screw up and suing.

Read the article, he's suing the MOD, i.e. his employers and presumably the folks who ordered him to jump, so the circumstances don't seem like a typical demo jump. FWIW I've seen video of this recently and it looked like he decided start a dive to set up some sort of swoop and misjudged it, hitting the roof. From the video it sure didn't look like diving his canopy so close to the roof was his only option, but what do I know, let's listen to what the jumper has to say about his mistakes: "I don't know what made me use that particular 'chute but it turned out to be a mistake. "It was like trying to drive a Formula One racing car up a narrow high street." "It was a perfect descent to start with," he explained. "My main chute opened normally and I began guiding myself towards the stadium. "Nearing the ground, I put in a final turn and began heading towards the centre circle. But something was wrong. I was coming in too quickly and was over the roof of the stand. I turned again but that quickened my descent even more. Suddenly I was gathering speed too quickly. I was sucked towards the roof of the stand. A second later, everything went black." His football fan brother Andy, aged 35, was the first to reach him and Nigel recalled: "I reached up, pulled his face close to mine and just said: 'I really ****** up this time, didn't I?'"

Chess as it applies to skydiving: "If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominos will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate!" - Zap Brannigan

Let me try to explain what I think is the difference. An opinion about canopy performance could reasonably be held based on test jumps and other criteria, however it is difficult claim to be innocently mistaken about the use of wind tunnels in the canopy design process, unless of course you're a potential customer who has been mislead by a web site. It's a bald faced deception if the facts about the quick one off visit to the local uni for a photo op are true. Claiming this mythical wind tunnel testing imbues your canopies with superior performance uses the deception to lend credence to the claims. Sorry to have hijacked a silly thread with an even sillier one.

Since there was actually a wind tunnel used at one point, I'd say more like "stretched the truth". Quite a stretch IHMO. From their web page: If all they did was have one photo-op session at the local university's wind tunnel years ago then this is not merely stretching the truth.

That picture of the model canopy in the wind tunnel was taken many years ago, and Icarus' designer mostly did that for the "photo op". He got an opportunity to use a tunnel at a university in New Zealand on one occasion. I can assure you that none of Icarus canopies' are "tested" in a wind tunnel. Curses, you mean they lied!? What's this industry coming to?

Maybe it has already happened, except the publishing (unless you call a product line publishing). Canopy manufacturers experiment with all sorts of things that never make it to market. Just because it's not on the canopy doesn't mean it hasn't been tried: http://www.icaruscanopies.com/techno.htm Hmm wind tunnel testing by a canopy maker, seems like a "good thing".

No they're not, most tend to have a dihedral wing configuration that helps their roll stability. In fact, high wings and swept wings produce effective dihedral. Too much of that effect leads to "dutch roll," kind of swaying in roll and yaw...very uncomfortable for passengers. Thats why high swept wing aircraft need anhedral. Almost every modern business jet has the fuselage sitting on top of the wing, so the spar doesn't have to pass through the fuselage. Then they just put a fairing over the wing-fuselage joint. They seem to fly alright.

No they're not, most tend to have a dihedral wing configuration that helps their roll stability.

A swing seat in a flexible harness could be stowed, but making that work with webbing to absorb opening shock from an arched position would be a design challenge... and maybe not worth it compared to decent harnesses. Paragliders spend a long time in the saddle with no freefall and their gear is designed accordingly.

Well on about jump # 10 I tracked back down the line of flight, thinking it was really cool when I flew past the 4 way that exited before me. When I told my instructor they set me straight in a hurry. On about jump #30 I almost exited with my helmet & goggles still through my chest strap, the pilot pointed out my error. When on student status I got geared up without activating my AAD. An AFFI caught it in a gear check.

She's talking about a tandem jump.

Docs can be terrible for this kind of advice, most of them know nothing about skydiving and will tell you "no", just as a CYA. Their view of skydiving seems to be pounding it in with a PLF on a round canopy, so asking your doc will almost invariably guarantee one answer reguardless of condition.

FWIW I did a paraglider tandem a while back and it's a *real* comfy ride compared to any skydive rig harnesses I'd been in. They have a firm seat you can slide back into in flight. I have no idea if this is practical for a system with opening shock from freefall. Landing it would probably help with the student leg raise.

Okay, then let's say "manufactured specifically for skydiving". Wow, that's pretty bad! Which altimeters did that??? That's not that uncommon. I've seen the most popular brand of altimeter on a guy opposite me on a load off reading 500 ft low as we got to ~8000ft. I stopped him "correcting" it, you really want your alti reading 0 at ground level

Very sorry state of affairs. I took a helicopter tour around all the parks in Orlando a month ago and we were well under 4k, I doubt we were over 2000ft and we wnet all over the place. The ride certainly went over Pleasure Island & Downtown Disney. Exact distance to the theme parks was difficult to judge, I'd put it at less than 3 miles in many places, but I wasn't paying close attention to proximity at the time. The point is there are probably exceptions right now at least for helicopter tour businesses. Maybe the demo jumpers losing business could get an eager lawyer on the case if they're not getting equitable treatment. Something else to be grateful for; Disney suits don't control the airspace above my head. Sigh.

Is it an Ultra? This affects chip and memory clock so is important when specifying. That card is not the highest end of the new generation but I've seen benchmarks that suggest it should be doing better. It has advanced shader capabilities and may still beat your old card on the right 3D applications, has more efficient antialiasing, and will run stuff your old card plain couldn't, but for most simple texture rendering it's advantages are minimized (otehr results suggest there should still be an improvement). By all means upgrade the drivers and try to squeeze more out of it. Maybe try tweaking the quality settings. It's still a decent card. The more modern and advanced your benchmark (and the more AA etc) the better your new card will look.

Where can I get me one of them cool canopies that change color on the way down?

I know but I'm striving for an equivalent analogy and merely squirting an extinguisher doesn't come close. Here's a better one, it's like testing your sprinkler system by setting your house on fire. Work with me here