CygnusX-1

All I'm wondering is what does "Save the cheerleader, Save the world" mean? You would think that by this it would mean that if they saved Claire she would do something to save the world. But in the final episode, she really did not do anything to either kill Syler or Peter. So what good was saving her besides keeping a cute chick in the storyline?

Don't forget that there are two sides to this coin. It is not only that the AAD would not work when it is suppose to. But it could also decide to fire the cutter when it is not suppose to. It could give you a 2 out situation when you really didn't need your reserve.

What??? Then Duracells aren't a better battery because company XYZ uses them in their medical devices? Say it's not so.

1) Because one will have a snivelly canopy and one will not. 2) Because your alitmeters will not be calibrated the same. 3) Because one will stop, wave off, check for traffic and then pull. The other will just pull in a track to make themselves look better. The real way to find out if you can track is to come to DeLand and get on a dive with Carl Daugherty or Mike J. Then at break-off you will realize you don't know shit about tracking when they leave you as if you are still falling straight down!

I could not agree more. It has boggled my mind how (and why) it was determined that you could become a competent skydiver with only 7 jumps in AFF. And before those of you start getting into semantics, that is what we are saying when you say that you do not need to jump with an instructor after passing AFF. I personally did not like that option when I went through AFF. That is why I purposely failed levels that I did not feel I was ready to pass. It took me 20 jumps to complete AFF - and I'm glad it did. By the time I finished, I knew I had the skill set to keep me safe in the air. But it did little for my canopy skills. Those I had to learn on my own after AFF by doing things like taking Scott Miller's canopy basics course. If we wanted to make better overall skydivers, we would require that as part of AFF you would have to make (I don't know) another 10 jumps dedicated to canopy control. Something similar to what is taught in these basic canopy piloting courses. Of course now we are going to get those people out there who are going to complain that "Oh my GOD, that is going to cost me another $1000 to go through AFF". Why is this sport getting so expensive. I should be able to kill myself and everyone else around me without having to invest more than a few hundred dollars. Seriously, this is how evolution works. AFF was probably designed to prevent deaths caused by freefall collisions. If you look at the current stats (and I haven't outside of what was printed in the latest Parachutist), our biggest killer is not FF collisions. It is canopy piloting related. We need to supplement our training with solutions to prevent these problems. We may even want to require people of all experience levels to get some supplemental training before allowing them to renew their license. I don't know what the real solution should be. I'm just throwing out ideas.

I was not sure if I wanted to post this or not. It is something I wrote as kind of a eulogy to B.O.B. I was very honored to be on his ash dive. I will miss you Bob! As many of you know but for those that don’t, Bob organized monthly big-way jumps in DeLand for whoever wished to show up that weekend. He did everything he could to make them successful. He chose which weekend and made sure aircraft was available. Always keeping us informed as to the plan. He organized each load based on who was there and who was jumping. From being here bright and early at 9:00AM for the first dirt dive to harassing those of us that showed up late. Did he expect to be paid for all of this work? No – not even to cover his slot. I believe he did this because he wanted to share with others his love for this sport. It wasn’t important that each and every skydive was successful. He always said the most important things were to learn something, be safe, and have fun. Yet he did not do this only for those that were experienced. He also set up another similar weekend for those of us that were just learning. These jumps were tailored to our skill level to give us experience jumping in bigger groups with the eventual goal of joining his experienced group. This meant that sometimes he would put together jumps where he knew we would not even make the first point. But that was not the goal of the skydive. It was to give us the experience of diving to a larger formation without having to worry about ruining the dive for everyone else. He even pushed me to join his experienced group before I thought I was ready. But he knew better. I was ready. And I will think of him and pay tribute to him on every major big-way I join for the rest of my life. I would like to close with the last email I received from Bob. I think this exemplifies who Bob was as a person.

Don't you mean a quill (and an ink bottle)?

Zero - and still have not done one.

I finally made up my mind so I had to add myself to the list... 2fat2fly AllisonH Avalonwings Bch7773 BigBug BigM BillyVance (maybe) Blueskyserenity Bolas Bubbles (selbbub78) Carbonezone ccowden Chaoskitty CrazyRick crutch CSpenceFly CygnusX-1 DaGimp & PornKitty DownwindDave DZChadz dzmemories flskydiver FlyDoc fmmobley Goofyjumper Hambone HeyNoSeriously hisgoofyness Hushpuppy icevideot Icon134 (still maybe...) Mad Ifallfast Jeannier JeepDiver Jeiber JENNR8R Jerrald JesSke Julie jumpchikk jumper03 jumpingbean001 jumpjunkie2004 k_marr08 LadyBug Lauraliscious LittleSkyCrab LoveBug matt1215 McDuck + his Cora MicDuran Mirage62 Missg8tor + Chris Meng Mouse MOUTH and hubby mwabd1 namgrunt nannerbanner ncfitzge nutz oozzee PapaSke Peregrinerose Pitts twins p-nut n lucky Psychobob and Psychopatty Pyke Rastaricanair RedBug Revillusion RevJim selbbub78 skinnyshrek Skydave Skydivingchad Skymama smud79 Speedygonzales Stitch T Team Dirty Sanchez teamjenn1 Thanatos340 The Falling Gators TinMan TMaricle55 TMPattersonJr (maybe) Turtle Whodamiss and Freelyflyn71 wildcard451 + dick in a box woodpecker yardhippie

Smartest thing I've read so far today. Good job!

1) Ok, I understand now the reference to the cat. (Although disappointed that we cannot get a side argument going about the fate of the cat.) Let me explain my thoughts a little bit differently. Almost every day I get up and put on a pair of briefs. I’ll let you decide which days I’m not wearing them. Anyway, back to my point. Throughout the day I do not think about the fact that I am wearing them. It does not alter the way I act. But yet I’m wearing them. Binary situation with no real change in the outcome. I have placed underwear on my body and at the same time I’m not aware of it. How many times today have you though about the fact that you are either wearing underwear or not? Does wearing underwear or not make any difference in the way we jump? Ok I know I took this a little bit further then everybody wants to know. To put it another way: from the time of exit until the time to deploy, I am not aware that I have an Optima. I’m not aware that I have a helmet on. I’m not aware that I have a rig on. And I’m not aware that I have a camera on. My main and pretty much only focus is on the jump. How do I get to the next point? Where is everybody else and what are they doing? Is there anything I need to do to make this jump successful. Everything else is just tools and/or things to keep me safe. I don’t actively think about them in the skydive. Whether I think about them subconsciously or not I can’t tell you. But I don’t see any difference in my performance between the times when I have my camera on and when I have it off. But that is just me. I cannot speak for anybody else. Jim

No I wasn't. But I don't see how this has anything to do with flying camera. My personal belief is that it really doesn't matter what the observer sees. The fact of the matter is that the cat is already dead. Why? Placing a cat in such a small box - mind you it probably should be lead not steel as to not introduce any outside radiation from penetrating the box and affecting the outcome - the cat would have used up all of its available oxygen and suffocated. Therefore, it does not matter what the Geiger counter sensed or didn't.

I couldn't disagree more. But as with most things in life, it all has to do with the person. Everyone is different. At jump 204, I strapped a camera to my helmet. Not for the purpose of jumping camera, but just to try it out. I think that this is a key aspect. I do not jump camera. I'm a jumper with a camera on my head. That has been about 150 jumps ago and I have only done one dedicated "camera" jump. The rest of the time, I turn it on at the door and forget about it. It gets what it gets. To those who think that all I get is sky/ground, then you have never sighted a camera. Granted, the action is hardly ever in the sweet spot of the screen. But I don't try to put it there either. It has just been fun to "see what I see" later. I have no desire to change that aspect either. I would rather be "doing" the jump than filming others doing the jump. The key is that you really don't care what you video. The moment you start caring - even subconsciously - then your flying will change. What is nice is that when everything goes to hell, and I want to put something on video I can. To the OP, I think that the 200 jump min is a carryover to when most if not all cameras were big and bulky. With the advent of smaller and smaller cameras, the snag points are becoming less likely. I also know you have to have a snag-free mount. I've seen people claiming to have 50 jumps with a camera on their helmet and think "Why? You can't even fly." Shit, there is a lot I need work on at 350. Basic minimum requirements are just that though. Someone had to pick a minimum jump number for this. Like I said before, it is all what we as skydivers decide to do with our time in the air that really counts. The way I see it, as long as you are not being a danger to yourself or others, it doesn't matter what you do. Please feel free to disagree with me all you want.

With what you are looking for, I would then have to say that the firebolt would be a maybe. It has some of what you are looking for and some of what you are not. I will list what I think are the pros and cons and you can decide if you wish to demo it or not. Pros: The openings are very similar to a Spectre. They are long, soft and easy to stay on heading. It is pretty immune to body position. I know this because I have given mine some of the worst body positions while trying to video the openings and it does no more than (sometimes) take you for a “ride”. It does not spin up! Riser pressure (to me) seems light, but I have no real frame of reference. The only thing I can tell you is that I can easily do 360 front riser turns without feeling like the risers are trying to rip out of my hands. It is a 9 cell. Cons: The forward flight characteristics are somewhat what I remember like the Spectre. What I mean is that the angle of attack is steeper than I wish it were. I have not had a problem making it back from a long spot, but you will need to use rears/toggles to extend the glide. Also your landing pattern will be shorter than others flying Sabers would be. From my perspective, this canopy does have a short recovery arc. Whenever I stop a turn it immediately stops the dive and starts to swing back over my head. However, once you pick up speed it seems to swoop forever before returning to normal flight. You decide whether this is a good or bad thing. Resale value may be less than other brands since it is not as popular as those made from the bigger canopy manufacturers. That is only an issue if you plan on selling it, though. Neither a Pro nor Con: It is elliptical (fully tapered). If you tell it to turn, it will turn – and fast. If you are prone to pulling on toggles (wildly) during landing or in the case of an emergency, this is not the canopy for you. It will turn and dive very quickly. I personally love this, but others may not. Disclaimer: All of my observations have been at altitude as I have yet to put one “high performance” landing on this canopy. I also have very limited experience trying these maneuvers on other canopies. When I went through the demo mode, this one had more of the aspects I was looking for in a canopy and few of the ones I didn’t. You need to decide what is right for you. Jim Ok, I’m done with my gear review.

I’m curious what about an elliptical you are concerned with. And please describe “more flight characteristic”. I ask because I would say demo my canopy (the firebolt), but I do not want to recommend it if you are looking for something that this canopy cannot provide. In my personal completely biased opinion, the firebolt is a great canopy to transition from a semi-elliptical to an elliptical. It also has lighter riser pressure – but what do I know, I only have 300-some odd jumps and most on this canopy.

As far as an audible goes, the one thing that the Protrack does that the Neptune does not do is give a "siren" (changing frequency) type of third warning. I believe that the Neptune just flat-lines. My personal preferance is the siren type of signal as I think that would catch my attention faster than just a flatline. I also prefer the frequency range of the protrack and wish that they had not changed it for the optima.

1) Because it is just plain fun to bitch. 2) You wouldn't want us to throw out the batteries while they are still good. That is like throwing good money down the drain. I mean getting those last 5 jumps in before the batteries die would save (what?) 25 cents (USD). 3) And most importantly - just think about all of the little electrons. If you throw out the batteries early, you abandon thousands if not millions of electrons which are stuck on the negative plate of the battery. They will never get the chance to party with all of the cute protons on the other side of the battery. Come on, you would not want that to happen, right!

That's was. I just talked with Nancy yesterday (in person at DeLand). My suit that I ordered 6 weeks ago still has a lead time of 3-4 months.

So, where is this all-female dropzone which you speak about???

The real problem is NOT the lawyers. The real problem is the juries. If it was not for the juries awarding "lottery" judgments, then there would not be any money for the lawyers. If the lawyer does not make any money, then they will not take the frivolous cases. The problem arises because there are too many [insert politically correct word here for stupid] people out there that think that just because something bad happens, they are entitled to a large sum of money. It all boils down to greed. No one anymore is willing to say, "Hey, shit happens." Move on with your life. People don't realize that there is a cost to making these judgments. It usually ends up being higher prices for goods and services or restrictions on what we can/can't do. Until we have a fundamental change in our society, I guess this is what we have to deal with all in the name of safety/security.

How does my (paper) log book know if it was me or someone else doing the jump that I wrote about?

I've even gotten spam on an email account that I have never used and never told anybody about. It is also not a common address that someone could guess (random set of numbers/letters). Figure that one out. BTW, I set it up just for this reason. I was curious if I would start getting span on a bogus account.

Shouldn't you be speaking in French, not English?

Skydive DeLand has them in stock (last time I checked). It may be a little bit of a drive, but if you want one - that's where...

I heard DeLand is thinking about doing them this weekend (9/2-4/06) weather permitting of course...