ripcord4

After the appalling losses the Fallschirmjaegers sustained on Crete, Hitler decided there would be no more Airborne operations. He kept the units intact, but used them only as straight leg infantry. Indeed, the losses by the Germans gave serious pause in this country about A/B ops in general, but luckily (wisely?) cooler heads prevailed and the development of our Airborne continued.

That's not what Larry Bagley from USPA says...see my previous post.

John, Contacted the USPA about the origination of the PCA/USPA patch. Their answer is below: If Bill Ottley were alive, he'd tell you it is the vertical right side represents free fall, the 45 degree left side represents tracking through the air and the 60 degree remaining side stands for the canopy descent. Ironically, we talked about not long ago because I have an old PCA patch and I've always thought that was the story. Where did you get that definition? Larry Bagley Competition Director C-4005

Well done, Bob. You are alive and that is all that matters. Good, clear thinking under stress and you kept your cool when it really mattered.

Why don't I contact USPA and see if they have the final say? Either one or both may be correct.

MC-4 is almost exactly 50 pounds.

pointers volume 2 page 55. i guess you wouldn't call it required, maybe just prudent. i would add that i don't personally see any difference between a stitch, a staple, or tape in this case. blue stuff, p.j. That paragraph is the authors opinion / advice. It is not an FAR, therefore not mandatory. I have never sewn cards together, just stapled them carefully.

That's great if you want a pile of loose pages instead of a bound book. Description: Vol 1118, No 6, December, pp. 854- 873, Profusely Illus with Color Photos, disbound & removed f/orig vol, thus self-wrps, else VG.

Ahhh....the 'Dactyl...like to killed myself on that canopy!

Schadenfreude... malicious joy; malicious glee; gloating; gloating joy; gloat; Schadenfreude

This is exactly why I never try to teach a pig to sing...it annoys the pig and wastes my time.

John.... Would I lie? I am just glad I already have a copy.

You are comparing apples to oranges. Schwerpunkt literally translates to "Focal Point". I never said that focus could not be used. The previous poster wanted to know if anyone else knew what schwerpunkt meant.

Nothing is "wrong" with focus. Focal point is the translation ofSchwerpunkt.

Wayne.... You'll be sooorrreeee! LOL A fellow old fart

Schwerpunkt = focal point There's one word, a German word, that we haven't yet stolen that should be high on our list of targets: schwerpunkt. It means 'focal point' or 'concentration of effort point' or 'central point of attack.' It's a beautiful word because it expresses an idea that we just don't have in English: the notion that, in any effort, you may have many necessary tasks, but there is one central task that must take precedent.

I just wanted to make the point that you can levy an insult without being profane or obscene. Not that I am not on occasion.

You swine. You vulgar little maggot. You worthless bag of filth. As we say in Texas, you couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions printed on the heel. You are a canker, an open wound. I would rather kiss a lawyer than be seen with you. You took your last vacation in the Islets of Langerhans. You're a putrescent mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk, a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon. You are a bleating foal, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth into a hostile world. You are an insensate, blinking calf, meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling beasts who sired you and then died of shame in recognition of what they had done. They were a bit late. I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformity. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention that you smell? You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood. May you choke on the queasy, convulsing nausea of your own trite, foolish beliefs. You are weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty and profane. You are foul and disgusting. You're a fool, an ignoramus. Monkeys look down on you. Even sheep won't have sex with you. You are unreservedly pathetic, starved for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot. You are not ANSI compliant. You have a couple of address lines shorted together. You should be promoted to Engineering Manager. And what meaning do you expect your delusionally self-important statements of unknowing, inexperienced opinion to have with us? What fantasy do you hold that you would believe that your tiny-fisted tantrums would have more weight than that of a leprous desert rat, spinning rabidly in a circle, waiting for the bite of the snake? You are a waste of flesh. You have no rhythm. You are ridiculous and obnoxious. You are the moral equivalent of a leech. You are a living emptiness, a meaningless void. You are sour and senile. You are a loathsome disease, a puerile slack-jawed drooling meatslapper. You make Quakers shout and strike Pentecostals silent. Your mother had to tie a pork chop around your neck just to get your dog to play with you. You think P.D.Q. Bach is the greatest composer who ever lived. You prefer L. Ron Hubbard to Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Hee-Haw is too deep for you. You would watch test patterns all day if the other inmates would let you. On a good day you're a half-wit. You remind me of drool. You are deficient in all that lends character. You have the personality of wallpaper. You are dank and filthy. You are asinine and benighted. You are the source of all unpleasantness. You spread misery and sorrow wherever you go. You smarmy lagerlout git. You bloody woofter sod. Bugger off, pillock. You grotty wanking oik artless base-court apple-john. You clouted boggish foot-licking half-twit. You dankish clack-dish plonker. You gormless crook-pated tosser. You bloody churlish boil-brained clotpole ponce. You craven dewberry pisshead cockup pratting naff. You cockered bum-bailey poofter. You gob-kissing gleeking flap-mouthed coxcomb. You dread-bolted fobbing beef-witted clapper-clawed flirt-gill. You are so clueless that if we stripped you naked, soaked you in clue musk, and dropped you into a field full of horny clues, You still would not have a clue. You are a fiend and a coward, and you have bad breath. You are degenerate, noxious and depraved. I feel debased just for knowing you exist. I despise everything about you, and I wish you would go away. I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Your writing has to be a troll. Nothing in our universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that we know. I'm sorry. I can't go on. This is an epiphany of stupid for me. After this, you may not hear from me again for a while. I don't have enough strength left to deride your ignorant questions and half baked comments about unimportant trivia, or any of the rest of this drivel. Duh. P.S.: You are hypocritical, greedy, violent, malevolent, vengeful, cowardly, deadly, mendacious, meretricious, loathsome, despicable, belligerent, opportunistic, barratrous, contemptible, criminal, fascistic, bigoted, racist, sexist, avaricious, tasteless, idiotic, brain-damaged, imbecilic, insane, arrogant, deceitful, demented, lame, self-righteous, byzantine, conspiratorial, satanic, fraudulent, libelous, bilious, splenetic, spastic, ignorant, clueless, illegitimate, harmful, destructive, dumb evasive, double-talking, devious, revisionist, narrow, manipulative, paternalistic, fundamentalist, dogmatic, idolatrous, unethical, cultic, diseased, suppressive, controlling, restrictive, malignant, deceptive, dim, crazy, weird, dystopic, stifling, uncaring, plantigrade, grim, unsympathetic, jargon-spouting, censorious, secretive, aggressive, mind-numbing, arassive, poisonous, flagrant, self-destructive, abusive, socially-retarded, puerile, and Generally Not Good

Twice...a long time ago. (1962) 1.) First free-fall - canopy never deployed from the sleeve - only half the lines unstowed. 2.) Mae West (line over) a precautionary deployment - I probably could have landed it. Both jumps on C-9 28' diameter canopies and a T-7A "twilly" reserve. Unconsciously kept both reserve ripcords instead of dropping them.

The book written by Colonel Kittenger is "The Long, Lonely Leap" and extremely rare. The last time I looked on Amazon.com, a used copy was $600.

It won't explode if you turn it on, you know! And I am certain there is a lot of safety margin built into it as with most mechanical devices. Batteries, etc, do not quit working at their expiration dates.

That's interesting. So when PCA became USPA, the just kept the exact same logo, and changed the acronym. Okay, so when did USPA adopt the current logo with wings, a parachute and a shield? John, I don't remember when the adoption of the current logo was, but the metal wing came in sometime late '60's...perhaps a bit earlier. I have my original set with the "Expert" hanger along with the "Jumpmaster" and "Instructor" hangers...they do date from then.

I live just west of Orlando and currently it is 83 F. and bright sun. A little breeze - no more than 5-6 knots. Paradise!

BIGUN....right on. Too bad no one will pay any attention. You are correct - there is a huge difference between education and learning - I have known some very intelligent, "educated" people that could not pour water out of a boot with the instructions printed on the heel. Common sense is very uncommon.

Yep, much better! A 6" diameter equals 18.849 ". I'm not a cannon-cocker but I knew a 155mm round was not as large as you mentioned. Good luck over there, guys. Stay safe