mdrejhon

$500 per hour is a good price for any tunnel. There are times I pay almost $1000 per hour. That's Appalachian Amusement Center -- I heard it was a very fun tunnel for bellyflyers. It was mentioned that lack of walls is useful for some to force you to fly more precisely too -- a challenge. If I was living near there, I think $500 there at least some of the time is more worth it than always driving to other tunnels.

Binary! You should adopt the ritcher scale instead... 1 10 100 1000 10000 Then the next would be one order of magnitude after the previous level. Okay, just kidding.

Looks like some pretty stiff competition. Ha, that's funny. I don't think JohnMitchell's girl would approve Incidentally, we had several New Yorkers attend me and Alain's commitment ceremony (unofficial) in the chapel of Royal Caribbean's Exploer of the Seas on our holiday cruise just a few weeks ago.

Don't look, but here's yet another gay scandal. Fresh off the news wires today/yesterday. Vatican hit by gay sex scandal http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/04/vatican-gay-sex-scandal

You'd be surprised.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Mark Rejhon www.rainbowskydive.com [email protected] RAINBOW SKYDIVERS TO HOLD WORLD'S ONLY GAY SKYDIVING EVENT, "RAINBOW BOOGIE 2010" March 3, 2010 – The third annual Rainbow Boogie, an event promoting the sport of skydiving within and outside the GLBT community, will be held on August 26-29 at Skydive Cross Keys in Williamstown, NJ. The "boogie" -- a non-competitive, fun gathering of skydivers -- will consist of spectacular aerial feats and nighttime activities for both jumpers and spectators alike. Experienced skydivers plan a world record attempt to build a 20-person "Gay Way" free fall formation, which would shatter the 12-person record set in 2009. In addition, a variety of jumps are planned for skydivers of all skill levels. Those interested in doing a first jump at the boogie can book a "tandem" skydive with a licensed instructor at Skydive Cross Keys. The fun doesn't stop at sunset however, and this year's Saturday night party in the hangar will be no exception. Last year's celebration featured a DJ, crazy relay contests, Mardi-Gras style costumes and wildly colorful decorations. The festivities help foster unity and acceptance as gay and straight party goers mingle and celebrate the weekend’s achievements. "Skydive Cross Keys is thrilled to host the Rainbow Boogie once again", said Liz Mann, promotions manager of the dropzone. "Our staff and regular jumpers really appreciated the level of energy and excitement the rainbow skydivers brought last year, and look forward to another very successful event." The first Rainbow Boogie in 2006 was held at NouvelAir near Montreal and was promoted mainly by word-of-mouth. Kirsten Johnson, a medal-winning competitive skydiver, planned the first-ever Gay Way world record attempt. Mark Rejhon, a Canadian jumper and organizer of all three events, said "When I started skydiving in 2005, I never dreamed I would be organizing the world's first gay skydiving event." After a brief hiatus, the boogie returned in 2009 to Cross Keys in help thanks to the growing global social networking community. The Rainbow Skydivers group on Facebook has grown to over 100 skydivers spanning numerous countries and seeks to promote skydiving as a sport that is inclusive to all. Michael Gamble’s involvement began after discovering the Rainbow Skydivers community. "As a new skydiver, it was so much fun to join in with the group and feel warm, comfortable, and welcomed!" Skydive Cross Keys is located a short drive from Philadelphia and is easily accessible from anywhere on the New Jersey I-95 corridor and via flights to airport code PHL. International visitors can conveniently visit nearby tourist destinations including Atlantic City as well as Washington D.C. and New York City via the high-speed Acela Express train. Spectators are welcome, and participation in jumps is completely optional. Skydive Cross Keys offers fully-equipped training for first-time skydivers interested in a first jump with a licensed instructor. Dropzone facilities include a huge indoor carpeted parachute packing area, gear store, restaurant cafe, swoop pond, camping and trailer area, and large practice areas with new airplane mock-ups for training. Web: www.rainbowskydive.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=52708009938 Twitter: www.twitter.com/rainbowskydive Cross Keys Skydiving: www.crosskeysskydiving.com Email: [email protected] Phone: Michael at +1-636-395-0123 ###

This is a bigways.com listed event -- originally located at ZHills but relocated to Clewistown. Guy Wright may have to call this the "C Team".

GOLD for Canada! !*! Both teams played well, USA bought their best game and could have easily won, but we nailed it in overtime. I still think HOCKEY is CANADA's game! !*! After missing out on the last several Stanely Cups, it's a good consolation prize!

They'll somehow figure out how to sugarcoat the numbers. Harder to do in the Internet age than 1976 or 1988, but... security bill -- it was just a routine miltary/police exercise infrastructure bill -- it was just recession stimulus sea to sky bill -- its just regularly scheduled freeway upgrade athletes village -- it's just real estate construction athletes training -- we just want to be better for Sochi 2014 concerts -- we were gonna have them anyway yada, yada... BTW... Security was "only" $0.9B, but still outrageous. We could've built two stadiums or wired the entire city with gigabit fiber, with that!

We may not own the podium, but it seems we own the gold! From zero gold medals in 1976, and zero gold medals in 1988, to being the gold leader in 2010... Wow. Just hope Vancouver doesn't get saddled with the Montreal Owe-lympics debt, they only finished paying the 1976 debt in year 2006. I don't think it's in the same "league" though for Vancouver, thankfully.

I've always carried on my rig, in its own gear backpack. I've always carried on two backpacks -- one large backpack as my carryon, and a second smaller laptop backpack as my personal item. When I board, I wear one backpack and carry the other by its handle. If I am standing for long periods, I wear the other backpack on my chest. That way, I only need to check one small suitcase containing my other skydive gear as well as banned items such as the safety hook knife, toiletries, etc. I'm going to do what I have always been doing, hopefully I won't have problems going to ParacleteXP, Z-Team 2010, and Perris.

Attempted bombing and subsequent ban on carryons. Yeah, ban on carryons. They've been reinstated, but a bit more restrictive... Actually, I should have posted this in Gear & Rigging.

Hello, After what happened last December, I am curious how restrictive the carry-on baggage policies are right now. i.e. As of Febuary 25, is it still more difficult to carry-on baggage and/or skydive gear, than before? With events coming up this spring, some of us (myself included) are wondering...

Hello, Before, I had to wait 3-4 hours to manifest myself on a Cessna in Ottawa, because of a single Cessna and a backlog of tandems! Now, I've jumped 2 times in less than 3 hours, moments after arriving, thanks to the 10-person Navajo that has arrived. I am VERY happy the Navajo has come to Ottawa. Plenty of room to squeeze in a few experienceds, and even a 4-way, while still paying the bills with three tandems simultaneously. We experienceds may just be filler sometimes, but the improvement in Ottawa is like night and day -- no longer have to wait as long to get on a load. It's totally understandable that tandems have to pay the bills. Three Canadian dropzones are recently getting the Navajo - I now know why they are so attractive.

I tried the Sabre2 150, Safire2 149, Pilot 140, and a couple other candidates for my future canopy, and I still liked the Pilot too. Remarkably, the Pilot 140 floated down slower and recovrs faster than the Sabre2 150 and Safire2 149, as well as a few other demos I tried. It may be part to line trim and age of canopy, but I tried two separate Pilot 140's and a Pilot 150, so it became my general impression they got a high "docility factor" relative to its size -- that is, ease, predictability, vertical speed at full glide, speed of recovery from turns, etc. It also why I change my mind to 140 instead of 150 if I got a Pilot (also that I've been demoing the 150 size many times everywhere I see a demo booth). But then again, I have over 500 jumps now and still not too swoop oriented. That kind of canopy for me still good for bigway jumping: I would probably have chosen it, but the fact they came to the boogie I organized with other RainbowSkydivers, did cinch my decision. Also, the fact I am a big way jumper that wants to be on the World Team, I'm waiting for the Aerodyne "World Team" special I would qualify for if I got invited to the 2011 event...

Were you trying to spread apart the risers or push together the risers? Just curious, for general background knowledge. There was a rather interesting thread about "A Better way out of line twist". In that thread, there has been some interesting observations that the old method of spreading risers may actually, in some cases, retard recovery from linetwists (at least on some riser/canopy assemblies). In fact, pushing risers together in linetwists was found to be better by everyone (pilotdave, JohnDeere, JohnMitchell, etc) who actually 'tried out' that technique in all sources/stories/forums/buddies/threads I've read about this, apparently showed much faster recovery, and was amazingly demonstrated even on children playground swingset tests on the ground. But, obviously with our lives at risk, it's hard to trust data that top instructors haven't given us. But it even also works in tests at the playground swing too. Industry-wide, all-manufacturer tests over the next many years would probably need to be done before this becomes the standard method recommended to students of exiting linetwists. Although there hasn't yet been any dissenter by anyone who actually tried out the technique: For anyone who reported trying out the technique, there seemed to be remarkably so far, possibly a 100% success rate in that thread, of recovering linetwists by pushing risers together. *CAVEAT EMPTOR* anyway and cutaway immediately if warranted (especally unrecoverable spinning linetwists). Do at own risk.

For massive downsizing error, at least it's the Pilot. My experience from many demos indicates it floats down pretty slowly relative to its size, and recovers from turns pretty fast compared to most canopies. That said, 1.5 should be held off for quite a while. Back to OOP.... On the topic of Aerodyne Pilot. I've still got my eye on the Pilot 140. The fact they came to set up a demo booth at Rainbow Boogie, helped cinch my decision. (In addition, a friend of mine there also bought an Aerodyne as part of a new rig)

That's neat -- Is this the actual photo of it being tested in Texas? http://saladotornado.com/ (Linked from http://skydivetemple.com/ ...)

I reall reading some 19th century horseless carriage maker (i.e. early car) saying that only a very few people in the world can learn to drive a car. Even earlier, some experimental steam tractors of the 18t and 19th century, did not have brakes and required boiler throttle down that had a long lag. Some of them crashed. There is room for a massive density upgrade (orders of magnitude) in the air system with new computerized infrastructure that safely allows tight horizontal/vertical spacing and multilayering, which may, increasingly support personal aviation as a method of commuting, especially in robotically controlled aerial vehicles, at least in some contexts such as routes that would take more than two hours by car. But that will be slow to happen, and ground based vehicles will still be more popular. But far more realistically and sooner than that (and within a few decades) are robotically driven cars. Those that you can sleep in or read a newspaper in (or legally use a laptop or texting on a phone) while the car's autonomously diving you from point A to B. Or even delivering itself driverlessly back home to your better half who needs it for the rest of the day. I'd bet city orinances would pop up, to ban that to prevent clogging roads, though!

Windows7 Professional (not Home) also has an XP Mode, that solves the problem for Windows7-unfriendly applications.

Wirelessly depositing a physical cheque in 30 seconds from anywhere in the world -- now that's impressive. I'd love that capability someday.

And mobile online banking too. In a supermarket lineup, on my smartphone, doing a quick 30-second money transfer between two bank accounts, to make sure I have enough money for the groceries before I unload the cart and swipe the card. Okay, at least during the low parts of the recession when cashflow is tight and I need to rebalance between accounts. Or transferring money between me and my spouse's account using an online interbank transfer between two competing banks (which Canadian banks now support, called Interac Email Money Transfer) - funds clearing in less than 20 minutes without leaving home. Especially since we work in separate cities. And I can even do this from my mobile browser too while waiting for a train! Or, yes, paying bills over satellite Internet from our Caribbean cruise vacation (where I became engaged 15 minutes ino New Year's!), and also sending an online instalment payment to my taxman.

Hey there, Starting a new thread now and then is okay, but slowing the threadpost rate down to one per major subtopic such as "My Progress Towards First Solo" and "Questions Thread for me... HELP!". Basically, thread topics become like book titles, and each thread is a different subject. One thread might be a book about your progress. Another thread might be a HOWTO style thread. Another thread might be like a guestbook. You'll obviously get more locked into this habit as time passes and more familiar with your online audience! Basically just re-use your existing threads. :-) I know how enthusiac you are, I remember my days chasing Deaf World Record 2005 in this Disabled forum, and my trying to figure out how to become a licensed deaf skydiver without travelling too far -- when I'm the first (known) licensed born-deaf skydiver in Canada. Now as many people in the big way world know I'm chasing the World Team dream despite my limitations (including scheduling and economically, etc). To top it off I got engaged on New Year's Eve during a vacation with my partner, so things won't be back to normal (schedule-wise and financially-wise!) for a month or two, and I haven't bee on these boards much lately! KEEP IT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am curious: Since the interior of the test 787 is not yet kitted out with seats, is it possible to install a zipline, with some sort of one-way rachet attachment, from the cockpit area to the rear right door, that they can travel along even while a malfunctioning plane is doing acrobatics in an emergency? Either way, I'm glad it went well! Boeing employees are probably breathing a sigh of relief!

It is rare, but I had to change flight twice, cost me a $150 change fee that was still better than rebooking a $500 airfare. You should do it DIRECTLY with the airline during regular business hours (less likely to reach an India call centre) rather than the travel agency. Or even go to the airport and get it changed there; during a quiet time period when the airport is not too busy. The change fees range from $50 to $150 assuming you find another ticket of the same price ON THE AIRLINE'S WEBSITE. (Unfortunately it often doesn't count if the price is found on another website) Otherwise you pay the difference. There are also times I found the new itinerary was too expensive, and I had to stick with the original flight instead. That's why I tend to prefer booking Air Canada if possible, because the change fee is only $75 even for an international flight between Canada-USA, which I can tolerate. Too bad Southwest doesn't fly here. NEVER telephone off-hours or to the agency...