tdog

1) All I really care about is making sure students are safe. I hate seeing people hurt. Just like any active sport (snowboarding, rollerblading, mountain biking) - there are injuries in our sport. 2) I lost 40 pounds to skydive as I was "too fat to jump"... That was in 2004... I was "fat" since I was 6 years old... So, you may think I am bitching at you or others, but I have been there... You say you have an injury from duty in the military that makes things worse, and that REALLY sucks... I thank you for your service... So just stay athletic and strong, and I am sure you will be a great skydiver...

The 300 pound girl you mentioned.... I know one too. She broke her ankle stepping off a curb onto the street, and god forbid she fall over and catch herself with her wrist. I will agree, athletic large people are going to be more "durable" than athletic small people... But this goes back to my first comment about athleticism, and in my very first post, body mass index.... I'll take a football player anyday as a student, even one volkswagen sized... But I won't take the same sized guy who sits behind a computer... Somewhere between the two extremes I would draw the line.

Quite frankly, this is bullshit. Bone density/strength scales pretty well with weight (within human range at least) unless there's another medical condition at play. -Blind In full context of my original post, my point was that exercise and athleticism will prevent injuries... I googled and researched this. I found many websites, but am quoting two medical studies below: [/I] While the two quotes above are about bone density, the second part of my statement was muscle strength to support the human frame in a bad landing... I don't feel you can even debate that muscle strength helps prevents injury... It is so recognised that going to the gym builds strength over not exercising, and every sport trainer will tell you strength prevents injury... Conclusion, I stand by my 1st post.... Someone who is active, exercises, and is healthy, but who is overweight - will have MUCH LESS RISK of injury over someone who is the exact same weight without exercise.

Ok, as a tax professional explained it to me..... There are two race car drivers who are his customers. Each competes nationally. Both are doctors. Both make money being doctors. And both have large sponsorships for their race cars (income reported). Both have large expenses as race car professionals too. One guy's business plan is to make money and retire from the doctor's office. The other guy's business plan is to be a hobbyist, do it for fun, take days off of normal work as needed to race cars. Both race car guys have lots of expenses. Both are losing money at the end of the year. The guy with the hobby plans can deduct 100% of his expenses against 100% of his RACE car income and show a net taxable profit/loss of $0 for the hobby race car business, even though he really lost $100,000 on the race car business... The guy with a business plan to retire from doctor work and eventually make profit from his race car business can deduct all expenses just the same as the hobbyist, but since he has a business plan, he can not only deduct the $100,000 in losses from his race car business but ALSO from the profits of his DOCTOR'S business... I asked the tax professional, "what is a business plan"... He said, "eventually you would make money, or you would give up. If you lose money over a few years and give up, OK, you can deduct all that against other income because there are no restrictions for being a poor business man and making mistakes. If you lose money over decades and never give up, the IRS will wonder if you really have intentions of making profit." Thus - what it boils down to - all of your skydiving income is offset by your skydiving expenses... But if you want to deduct it against other business/employment income, you better make some taxable income sooner or later in the skydiving....

I disagree. I rather see an issue decided with true vote counts, yes and no, with a quorum - than for an issue to have tons of yes votes, unknown no votes, and no quorum.

I vote 100% packing error/user error. As you are kicking out, the lines are separated below the slider and the risers are independent. The slider never had a chance to come down at this point. The second the slider opens up after the last linetwist is done, and the lines separate, you can see one line goes around the other riser, not caught on the toggle or hardware, but completely around. (Why not caught? Well, the risers never touch as you are kicking out, so a line cannot just jump over and get caught on the other riser. Plus, the amount of force required to hold it would require a knot, not just being under a ring or tab as it would have rotated the riser to self release with that much pressure.) Why did you not see it after the chop? It came down probably in a ball of crap after cutaway and any continuity issues in the lines were attributed to that, not pre-cutaway issues. The reason the canopy was not diving at first, all of this mess was in the line twists, thus the canopy was inflated evenly. The second the line twists came out, and the risers could separate, the offending stepthru line was pulled hard around the other riser and deflected the canopy causing a dive. Notice the slider at 26 seconds is not open, it is the offending line keeping the risers closer together, thus all that force was on that line causing a dive. So the cause... On the last jump before this, did you land with any tangled mess, where you accidentally stepped over a single line, thus doing a single line step thru? This is commonly seen when the canopy lands on top of you or you have a bad landing. Or, did you throw this rig down when doing the back to backs, such that the packer/DZ staff could have picked it up by the container pulling the container thru one line? This is common when the container is thrown on top of the canopy then the entire wad of stuff is moved around so the container gets deep in the fabric. The stepthru likely came from handling the rig after the previous jump, although it could be possible that once the canopy was in the bag one line got around the mess. Solution - always daisy chain your lines before taking off the rig when others will be transporting it, moving it, etc. This step thru would have been identified in a good "run up" of the lines, if the person would have known what they are looking for. I have seen step thrus before with novice packers where they say, "something does not feel right here, can't tell what it is"... Unless they know what they are looking for, it blends in, and the stepthru that likely started at the container is pushed all the way into the canopy when the lines are run up.

In ref to your question about a Main not being TSO'ed, so why does a rigger have to work on it.... The real answer to this is - it depends on who you ask. There have been a lot of debates on this subject online here and in person around the country in rigging lofts and even meetings with the FAA. I would recommend you find a few key people you trust, who are qualified to read and interpret the regulations.... Like people who are lawyers who understand FAA regulations. I have played devil's advocate against some people online here on multiple occasions, and they clearly have expressed their opinions... I even took their posts to a few lawyers who are friends and involved with aviation, with the FAA documents and FARs. I have received lectures on interpretation and meaning of words in regulations, and when you can and cannot assume if A is true, B is true, therefore we have to assume C is true type scenarios... You will find there are a lot of open holes in the regulations where the revisions over the years have made the regulations sloppy... Thus people will argue what they assume the answer to C must be. One of the more interesting replies I got a while ago, online, about the non-TSOed main canopy went something like this: "Anyone can build a main canopy from scratch as there are no testing or building requirements. But the second it needs repair or alteration, unless the person who built it is a Master Rigger, it must be rebuilt from scratch." (There is even debate to if the person who built it would therefore be the manufacture, thus they could do the work.) When and if you read my previous posts, some of them, if not a lot of them, were designed to inspire debate and get people to say their opinions. My actual actions and actual opinions are not always the same....

So, Poynter says a senior rigger can replace lines on a main, assuming the previous post is accurate as I have not verified it is in the handbook.... Poynter's works are the basis for 50% of the FAA exam questions and are respected by most everyone, and are considered to be one of the definitive handbooks that protect riggers when his procedures are followed. The FAA in the Parachute Rigger Handbook says a senior rigger can replace lines on a main. I know you hate this manual, but the fact is it was published by the FAA so we have to assume someone in the FAA with authority approved it's interpretations. Most riggers, senior and master, agree with the Poynter and FAA documents as industry standard interpretations of the rules.... But, you still are still 100% convinced these industry standard documents, including one published by the governing body, are "mistakes". I have discussed with multiple master riggers how they interpret the rules, and I find you are in a minority. I have learned a lot from your posts over the years, but I am just sayn' I don't believe you have the credibility to proclaim you are definitively correct when the opposing documents carry a lot more weight than you carry. Although I 100% agree, no rigger should do any work they are not 100% trained and knowledgeable about... Some of the senior riggers that are rushed thru weekend courses - they should refuse to do linesets - not because of their senior rating, but because they are not competent to do the work. This is the other facet of the regulations that would limit untrained riggers to do the work as a rigger needs to know when to say "no" by the rules.

You have not mentioned your height or body mass... If you are a BIG ATHLETIC guy, who plays football and/or other sports, you should do fine when you find one of the DZs with "big boy rigs". The reason why your weight is a problem is because you will need a real large reserve parachute and harness rated for your weight... Not because gravity won't work for you. If a lot of your weight is not in muscle and bone (or less politically correct, you have a lot of fat) then any bad landings will just be worse for you, and you could get injured when someone else would walk away because your bones will snap under the load... Thus, you need to consider these risks and, even if, as you claim, you have medical conditions causing weight loss to be hard, then go to the gym anyway and build muscle and stength to help prevent injuries....

In vegas for work. Saw this in the local rags: http://www.kxnt.com/pages/6758929.php? http://www.lvrj.com/news/sky-diving-proposal-drawing-opponents-89978032.html

Does Consumer Reports ask permission of the companies to test their products? Does the IRS ask if they can audit you? Does the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety ask the manufactures before they crash test a car and publish the results? Did the federal government ask Toyota if they could investigate the latest problems (although I think in this case the politicians did it for other reasons).... 3rd parties doing testing without the manufacture helping is what keeps manufactures on their toes and challenges them to make newer, better, safer products and gives them the necessary fear of shortcomings being exposed. In any industry. Not saying we need it in our industry, but fair testing couldn't hurt.... (The problem with any testing is that the manufacturer's then design to the test, as in car manufactures making an exact replica of the crash test scenarios and perfecting their car, not to the real world issues, so in our case I hope the testing would be as close to real world as possible).

Well, I woke up this morning and found Batty moved out... So he stayed for a over a week without moving, and decided it was time to leave. I miss him. I learned a lot about bats... I think it is possible he was in a semi-hibernation state as they normally hibernate in the winter and come out of hibernation in March and April.... That would explain why he was not active at all for over a week and looked very thin. They bulk up over the summer like other animals that hibernate.

I think your 2nd post says it all... The "bare minimum education" - I.E. the 500 jumps leading up to your Tandem Rating - are not deductable... The licence fees and ratings required by regulations should be tax deductable, as a real estate agent can deduct his continuing education and licence fees and a doctor can do the same.

Picture attached... Has not, as far as I can tell (I look 6 times a day/night at least) - left "home" in a week. After googling bats, I wonder if he is at the end of his hibernation as he does not seem to interested in anything other than sleeping and hissing at my broom.... I am going to let him stay until he leaves or dies... To the poster who said I could touch him, when he showed me his teeth, I think he said "no". I want him to enjoy life, but he is also right next to my patio door without a screen and I enjoy leaving that door open... Don't want him to move in a bit farther!!!

So, Batty moved in last week... In my urban patio. Hanging from a brick in the corner above my patio door... He is a nice guy. Or so it seams... But I rather him move out. Honestly, I thought he was dead, so I gently nudged him with the soft end of a broom to see if he would move... He spread his wings, hissed at me, then showed me his teeth, then licked his lips and went back to sleeping. Colorado climate. Spring. So, questions: 1) How long will a bat stay in the exact same spot normally in this environment? 2) The fact he has not moved in nearly a week... I am thinking he might be sick and at the end of his life??? Its been 70 degrees during the day and I would imagine dehydration would set in. 3) It appears he has never moved. There are 70 patios on my building, I can't imagine he would find his way back to mine (or even care which one he picked), if he went out to the clubs at night to meet the girls and eat some grub??? So, does he sound sick, or is this normal behavior? Thanks!

My recommendations: Then Pull IT!!!! Why? Next time the RSL might not work. You want the "memory" of pulling it every chance you get (and if you are lucky it will only be a few times in your life). My first reserve ride was around 700 jumps... It was on a real old borrowed rig with no RSL, with a BASE canopy packed like a reserve/BASE canopy as the main.... The LAST thing I was thinking on the hop and pop was, "this is going to mal." But it did... I owned at the time a skyhook equipped Vector.... Suddenly, building that muscle memory of pulling both handles paid off because I did not even think about waiting to see if the RSL worked on the borrowed rig.

1. Lots of instruments designed to measure with scientific accuracy are only in metric units as that is the unit of science. In the 80's, a digital altimeter with documented scientific accuracy might have been only available from the scientific market? 2. The conversion from feet to meters has zero fudge factor. You can convert with 100% accuracy of the measurement. Whatever accuracy, (significant figures/digits, in scientific terms) of the metric measurement can be converted with absolute precision to feet, as we know exactly how many feet are in a meter. 3. Last I checked, UPT (back then RWS), sold internationally, and thus had to market, test, document, and sell using both metric and English systems... Booth could have decided all testing would be in Meters for certain products, or he could have made this video for European customers and recycled it for North American, or countless other reasons... I think it is difficult to call silly the choice of metric units without asking why first! Although I would agree, Booth and team could have, and probably should have, said the altimeter measured in meters when they showed the mirror and camcorder in the video.

(forgive the fact I am going to be sloppy with physics terms. I am sleepy and making a quick post on the way to bed, but I hope the gist comes thru) You are adding 29M to the final reading, because you assert some distance was traveled between the last refresh and the deployment. But, have you taken into consideration the start of the cutaway sequence has some time traveled between the last refresh and the actual cutaway? And if all other variables (velocity towards earth) were the same, this error would be insignificant when a few sample jumps would be averaged out.... In other words, you can't add error correction to the ending reading without adding it to the beginning reading too!!! The cutaway happened lower than the indicated altitude, but so did the deployment! Since the beginning reading will have increasing speed to earth due to acceleration, and the ending reading will have decreasing speed to earth due to deceleration, I bet the error correction number is rather small... I think the deceleration might even be with "more Gs", I.E. quicker than the acceleration, thus the error correction might help, not hurt, the feet/distance traveled in the calculations??? Forgive me if I missed your error calculation for the top end of the cutaway in your math....

John, Just making sure your home is not made out of glass with stones in your own hand, can you upload video from your (or any other) container's testing showing altitude pulled and altitude deployed??? Regarding the alleged missing frames - it simply could be conversion from PAL to NTSC, compression methods used, etc.... With compression on the internet FPS (Frame Rate) is changeable, but the software knows how to play it back at the right speed...... However, it shouldn't matter how many frames are missing, if any! They all could be missing, so as long as you have the first and last frame showing the altitude and state of the container, since distance traveled, not time, is what matters... Lastly, are you figuring that the updates on the altimeter are EXACTLY one second apart to determine "missing frames".... The altimeter manufacture could say their altimeter updates once a second in general terms, but it could update slightly quicker and thus make it appear the video was sped up... Only if that altimeter manufacture installed an internal clock, certified for measuring time before screen refreshes, can you use screen refreshes to determine time lapsed... The software for that would have to be pretty complex... First measure the altitude, calculate where it will be in a moment when the next process runs to update the screen, then update the screen exactly on the second... Why would they do that? Is this device calibrated to a precise clock?

I was at a DZ two weeks ago where the following call came over the PA. Can you please integrate it?

You would assume I keep old paragear catalogs... hehehe I know its gonna be a lot of entries. For the Aerodyne + PD, I am up to 50 or so on a spreadsheet... If I know the sizes and model name, using formulas with concatenation with "paste values" and "fill down" in excel makes building a series very easy... It's just finding the old orderforms/manual/wingloading charts I need. But, to inspire people to help with this task, don't forget what JFK Said:

I am putting together a database of reserves... Long story. But I am having a hard time finding all the size/models of canopies no longer made. For an example, I went to Precision's website to find info on the Raven, Super Raven, Raven Dash M, etc... Very little data.... Anyone have a spreadsheet or list they can send me or post here of every model and size made of the popular and less popular but still seen in use canopies??? FYI - I have PD's & Aerodyne info, they actually post all this info on their website and are still in business.

It sounds like you work for Toyota... Just kidding... But seriously, I think all the raw data is the property of the community and the members of the USPA who hire the USPA to represent them. I hope all the raw data is released too, in an academic format, so people can learn and study it... I am sure there are a few people out there who can digest it and put together their reports too. Not a watered down version, but every detail. Serial numbers, model numbers, DOM, etc...

Just because it passes in "lab tests", does not mean every real world scenario will pass too..

Everyone always quotes how much it costs the DZO. Less than a thousand bucks. Pocket change to a DZ... But the real cost... The fees that the USPA charges it's members, and since membership is required by all jumpers as a GM... It can be tens of thousands. The Group Membership program is a way to get guaranteed customers. GM DZs check your USPA card often before your rig or log book when you show up. It is the "jumping tax" group members collect. I see it every weekend... "Great, you passed Level 1 AFF. You want to do your second jump today? Wow, that is great. Before you jump, I need you to fill out this USPA application and send in $65 bucks.... Ya I know this will be your most expensive year in skydiving with new gear, $2000 for aff, etc... I know it is silly that a new skydiver has to pay more than a renewing skydiver just when they are spending $2000 in a month on instruction... But the USPA does good things for us... Pay the tax first, then you will see." Ok, this was overly dramatic to make a point.