CBRnick

I wouldnt use this as a method for detecting dangerous levels. It will detect and light up with perfectly harmless levels too. As a kid there were some normal electricity pylons nearby my house and holding a normal flourescent tube near the base of the pylon would light up the tube with a dim glow. The first star wars film was just hitting the box office at the time and playing with our own flourescent lightsabres was unreal as kids (so long as we didnt actualy hit each other with them :))

Just for all the non English folk reading this thread. When reading this article, its worth taking into account that its been published in the Daily Mail, which is at best, a comic style scandal sheet that is well known for just making stuff up to fill up space, and very little it prints is true.

No. In the Oxford English Dictionary it is Organise. And the language is after all ENGLISH

I notice the guy is wearing what appears to be motorcycle leathers complete with velcro fastened resin Knee sliders. I can maybe see why hes wearing leathers if hes playing with fire, but why fit knee sliders. Hes not exactly going to be getting his knee down in a corner at altitude :)

Is that a posh way of saying you fell off ?:) Im glad you are not hurt and you can smile about it.

Dont get me wrong. Im not having a dig at you, and it was a pretty damn cool picture. I enjoyed looking at it anyway and I think it should stay :) It was a serious question though. I do understand not naming sites for the most part and its a sensible policy in a lot of cases, but when its an international landmark like that building or the french bridge, I think not naming them is taking the rule a bit far so to speak. I mean its the tallest building in the world. You cant really hide its identity for long... Im just bored and playing devils advocate :)

Just a curious but serious question. How is this acceptable as 'not naming sites or posting identifying pictures', but the thread with the picture of the equaly, or argueably more famous, worlds biggest bridge in France got deleted as site naming? Just as an outsider it seems that there are slightly different rules depending on the day of the week. Ive noticed this a few times recently. Im not going to comment further. Just an observation is all...

Sounds like more than a bit of self denial gong on there :)

Dont bite my head off if Im wrong, just playing devils advocate for a moment :) Im not a base jumper so this is just an outsiders observation as it were, but this is a serious question. The quote ive picked out here, isnt this what effectively all FJC's do? If an English skydiver with no base experience did a well respected FJC in Twin falls for instance. When this skydiver travels back to the UK, if he then began to behave 'badly' wouldnt he be in exactly the same situation that the guy this post is about is in? If the guy who does the twin falls FJC was a real solid guy at the time of the course then turns out to be a real arse at a later date, would the twin falls FJC instructors also be disrespectful? Seems that with your point of view, it would mean that if this guy turns out not to be an asset to the community, Uli will get the blame for the behavour of someone he once trained who is now completely outside his control. This isnt a snide dig at the original poster or anyone else. Its a genuine question.

I thank you :D

Er, cornflour custard mix and water...?

Ah well, it was just a thought and it might have worked :)

This is just a guess, so it may or may not work. Have you tried using a program like DVDSanta or something similar to rip the encoded DVD to a high quality mpg or avi, then re encode it again back to DVD in the normal way to ntsc or whatever format you require ? Actualy its a while since I looked at DVDSanta, but if memory serves me right, it can do the entire process from PAL DVD to mpg and back to NTSC DVD again. If you dont compress it at all, it will take some time to do the encoding, but you should lose little or nothing quality wise in the conversion. That might not be the answer, but its worth a look if thats what you need to do. Edit: I dont think dvdsanta would handle the menu, so you would still need to do what you say and recreate the menus in ntsc seperately

Yes you can, as long as its cornflour custard and not egg custard. They dont have the same properties. There is a program on tv in the UK called Brainiacs, and they recently did an episode where they filled a pool with it and then ran across it a few times. They didnt sink into it till the bloke stopped moving, then he started to sink. They had quite a job pulling him out as it kept going hard around his legs when they pulled him upwards. There is a smaller thing Ive been shown that you can do to see how cornflour goes solid. Mix a large bowl of cornflour custard. Then put a fork into it about an inch deep, and pull the fork rapidly to the other side of the bowl. It leaves a solid groove which then turns back to liquid and the groove fills. Or dip you hands in and scoop as much of the cornflour custard up with two scooped hands. Then start to roll it rapidly between your hands. Keep rolling it about and within a very short time it forms up into a sticky ball thats quite solid for as long as you keep it rolling between your hands. Then stop rolling and try to hold the ball in your fingertips. It just turns back into liquid custard and gloops back into the bowl (assuming your hands are still over the bowl :)). Its quite wierd to see. So long as you use proper cornflour custard and not egg custard it will work, and if you want to fill a bath with it, you can stomp on it and you wont sink into it. Stand still for a second and walk on it too slowly though and you will sink into it.

The 3do armour is only avialable directly from the manufacturer I think if it is actually avialable at all yet. No idea about price but Im guessing that its going to be expensive. I havent seen it other than in pictures. The Hiprotec armour which is the Hein Gerricke version (1st generation of this type of armour) thats been avialable for some time can be ordered from any Hien Gerricke reseller, although I dont think they keep it in stock. This I have seen and I have it in the shoulders and elbows/forearms and knees/shins in my Bike leathers. Its soft flexible and rubbery with one side of the armour covered in soft rubbery 'bobbles' that you can move about and deform with your fingers. Its around 8mm thick, very soft and follows the contours of your arms and moves with you. It feels warm to the touch and is very comfortable. Unlike CE aproved armour which you are always aware of, you forget these are on. Ive also got a Dave Odell Forceshield back protector which I believe has a centre core of the same material. This has a plastic casing, but its still very thin and flexible and comfortable to wear. As for how effective it is in a smash its difficult to say. I had a smash a week ago when I was hit from behind by a car that didnt brake in time. I was spat off pretty fast and thrown down the road and clipped the back corner of the car in front of me with the momentum. My injuries are a friction burn on my kneecap from the inside of the leathers, a VERY bruised knee and a few bruises down my left side. How much of this is luck and how much is attributable to the armour I cant say, other than my left knee that took the brunt of the impact on the tarmac. The armour is still intact, and my leathers pretty scuffed. Its a fair statement to say Id have a smashed kneecap now if I didnt have the armour and leathers on. Did it give me better protection than normal thick armour ? No idea and I cant say, but it did work. How well it worked is hard to quantify as Im not going to chuck myself down the road again with CE armour to test it. Hope that helps :)

A lot of bikers are interested in this too, but its not new. Its a very simple principle, and takes the idea from cornflour starch. Thats why you can walk over custard. When its a fluid you can push your hand through custard, but hit it hard with a flat object, such as the sole of a foot, and the custard solidifies instantly and will easily support the weight of a man. You can fill a bath with liquid custard, and jump on it. You wont sink, your feet will hit it like its wood. Remove the weight from it and it returns to a liquid state again. Simple cornflour starch. Funny how nature always has the best solutions isnt it. (Thats another post though :)) Im not exactly how sure they have translated this property into flexible rubber but it can be done at least to some extent. Hein Gericke, who make motorbike armour and leathers have had the first generation of this stuff called Hiprotec on the market for a couple of years now. Its not cheap though. http://www.hein-gericke.com/int/advanced_search_result.php?search_in_description=0&inc_subcat=1&keywords=hiprotec&x=0&y=0 So its not new, regardless of what 3do claim. Its a slightly different design to the Hien Gericke stuff, and may well be the next generation, but its not new. Ive got it in the arms and shoulders of my leathers where Ive had it for about the last year and a half or so and I can vouch for how comfortable it is. Its like a thin flexible sheet with loads of soft rubber nodules on one side. Apparantly it absorbs something like 40% more of an impact than normal armour, and its about 8mm thick and very comfortable. Ive never had to put it to the test yet, but I know two people who race at Superbike level who have it in thier race leathers. Both swear by it and think its fantastic stuff.

No wiser than anyone else, but a wild stab in the dark is maybe some sort of prototype rig system that would allow a disabled person to be stable/comfy in a solo freefall and deployment as opposed to a tandem jump ? Or maybe a tandem rig specificaly for taking disabled people with atrophied(spelling?) limbs? Though maybe you would be able to have more of an idea on whats feasable or realistic as a suggestion that I would. Got me interested now :) Let us know if you find out what it is :)

I think I know how you feel, but unfortuntly this message board is on the internet, and the very nature of the internet forum is for some people to be very abrasive abd hurtful behind an anon login name, and say things they simply wouldnt have the balls to say to anyones face in real life. From very serious issues like this one, to the simplest irrelevant issues, there will always be a small group of people that try to turn it into a fight. Please dont take any of these peoples posts to heart, although thats easier said than done, i know. This small minority does not represent the thoughts of 99.9% of the skydiving or base jumping community in my experience. As you have seen, people for the most part pulled together to find him with certain people going way above and beyond the call of duty without a seconds hesitation. I know what its like to lose someone very close to you under horrible circumstances, and Im very glad for you that he is still here, whatever your futures are. Blue skies. Nick.

...Assuming you ever make a BASE jump. I have some neon pink DaKine rags for sale on eBay. Check 'em out for when you graduate AFF. Thanks for the offer, but I already have a dark blue jump suit, which i bought when I graduated aff. I make no fasle claims about how many jumps I have. Who knows if Ill ever make a base jump. What I do know is I have a lot to learn before I do from the guy who has offered to be my mentor if and when Im ever ready. I might even meet you one day and have a beer. Happy new year :)

I would suggest that if you want comments like these to be taken seriously and not simply looked at as a lame attempt to stir up more hate, Id suggest that you didnt make up a anon username and post with your usual username. As it is you appear to be a troll trying to create more hate. So much hate...

Just a little story regarding microwave dishes that might make you think twice about jumping past them. There may be a few facst I remember wrongly, but this is how it was told to us when a whole bunch of management was sacked. I used to work for NYNEX UK as a network engineer and two of the franchise areas that we worked on were kent and the solent. Right by Cuckholm wood in Kent there is a hill called Bluebell hill I think, and there is an airfield by it that is used by light aircraft. Its pretty high up. Anyway there was a police helicopter that flew past the hill and down through the valley on what was apparantly a regular flight path, when the electrical system failed and the helicopter started to stall due to loss of power. A few seconds later the power was restored and the very shaken crew landed at the airfield. The copter was stripeed and nothing wrong was found, but the next week the same thing happened. A big investigation followed and the cause was found to be that NYNEX had installed a microwave dish array on a radio mast on the top of the hill to link the Kent franchise area with another close by. The helicopter flew right through the microwave beam and it caused all the electics to fail untill the helicopter passed out of the beam when it recovered. The shit that hit the fan was quite impressive... Anyway. If it can do that to a chopper, what it can do to your body if you pass through the beam could be quite unpleasant.

Thats a really interesting picture. The way that you are in sunlight because you are elevated and not yet in the shadow of the cliff, against the background which is all in shadow makes it look like you are superimposed there out in space. Plus its a sort of unusual angle that the picture is taken at, and it looks like the cliff has a really low angle the way the background rolls away at that angle. Its a good picture. Id love one day to have a picture of me like that. As has already been said, thats a desktop picture for sure. Shame its not a higher resolution or Id have already nicked it :)

I didnt think to look in the download page. I just checked there and your right. Will teach me to look eh ? At least I got the group right :)

Id be proud of that if it were mine too. Some amazing footage and some superb editing that went very well with the soundtrack. Better than some 'professional' films Ive seen for sure. Shame the hi rez version isnt avialable :) Thanks for posting it up :) One question. Whats the soundtrack? It sounds like the Bare Naked Ladies but Ive no idea what the track might be.

Hey there :) Well I wasnt expecting a personal reply. Thanks for taking the time to answer. Your book was the first factual thing I ever read about base. Years later Ive now learned to skydive (just about) but Im still content to just read about others base jumping. I might even get say hello one day if I end up at Perris one summer Great to hear your still enjoying it .