pearsjes

what a terrible situation - there must be a legal recourse, although Blockbuster probably has a whole pack of lawyers that would make fighting more expensive than just settling

OK - here's another strange one. I recently had the opportunity to witness what's known as a "Fulton Extraction", presumably named after the guy who invented it. Typically it's a technique used to clandestinely snatch someone out of a foreign country and deliver them somewhere for interrogation, protection, etc. You put a guy in a padded suit attached to a 1000-ft cable with a helium balloon on the end and let the ballon go. A cargo aircraft (C-17 in this case, although C-130 works too) with a special nose attachment that sticks out to the left and right of the aircraft flies by at 500 ft AGL, lines up with the ballon (being sure to fly under it), and hooks the wire. Then the fun begins as the guy is snatched off the ground at 120 knots (gotta have strong neck muscles and good sphincter control) and gradually pulled up on to the ramp and into the aircraft by a motorized winch (similar to what's known as a Canadian Retrieval System on the C-130 - used for retrieving towed static line jumpers). Pretty cool. Can be done at night. Also, the guy doesn't have to be conscious, actually may work better if he isn't - more relaxed. The coolest part may be the sound the guy makes as he is snatched off the ground, sounds like someone being hit by a car, sounds like "UUUHHH!!". You can actually see this performed (for real) in a movie - "The Green Beret's" with John Wayne. It ocurred to me that this is actually a reverse skydive.

On page 4 of the Jan 02 issue of Skydiving there is the following report: "On the 28th of October, I intentionally flew a wingsuit between the guy wires of a 1,600-foot antenna - at about 200 feet AGL," says BASE jumper Dwain Weston. "Deployment was commenced immediately after passing through the wires, with cell pressurization reached at about 20 feet AGL" Does anyone else think that this is: 1. believeable 2. insane

Thanks for the answers, recommendations, and advice on the Space Ball topic. I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question and understand now that this is a serious issue, not to be undertaken lightly and without supervision.

This may sound like a stupid question, but I'm trying to figure out how to make one of those cool space balls (tennis ball with attached pull-up cord) that I've seen Olav and other free flyers playing with in my skydive videos. Rather than just getting some supplies and experimenting, I thought I'd ask all you folks out there who might be able to help me out and avoid any pitfalls. I'm not a free flyer, but it looks like something fun to play with and I bet would help with my RW skills. Do you have to put some kind of weight inside the tennis ball? How much? Lead shot? How do you get it in? Cut a hole or do you have to completely cut the ball in half? How bout getting the pull-up cord in? Should you cut 2 holes and try to feed it through? Or...? Also, how bout any cool games or other stuff to do with the ball. I want to be able to show up at my DZ with a new toy and have some fun ideas to explore with my fellow weekend friends. Any thoughts are welcome. Thanks.

My wife and I are going to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon this summer and, of course, I was planning on bringing my rig with me. Until I looked in the DZ directory and could not find a listing for a DZ in the Las Vegas area. There is a vertical wind tunnel. But, unless the USPA listing is out of date, no DZ. The closest one seems to be in the Phoenix, AZ area about 250 miles away. Does this strike anyone else besides me as odd? I mean, where the hell do the Flying Elvises practice? Wouldn't you think that the one place in the world where you would definitely be able to find a DZ would be in Vegas, with so many people living on the edge to begin with? I dunno - if anyone has any more info on this, I would greatly appreciate it - Thanks. JP