brettski74

I've thought that several times since 9/11, too, but I don't know how I would react under such circumstances. Of course, if the only weapons they have are the plastic forks and the dodgey fish selection from the in-flight menu, then I think it's not likely a very difficult decision, though.

At the risk of turning this into something more suitable for speakers corner, I fixed it for you. :)

First, I'm wondering why you want gaseous hydrogen and oxygen in a 2:1 mix. Are you planning on making some kind of inscendiary device? I assume you're getting chlorine because you're using table salt to increase the conductivity of the water during electrolysis. My suggestion would be to try using sodium hydroxide, instead. The oxygen you're forming is already coming from hydroxide ions and any sodium that you inadvertently reduce at the cathode will react with the surrounding water to produce hydrogen and replace the sodium ion you inadvertently reduced. Note that I haven't tried this, but that was the thought that immediately came to mind when I saw this. You can get sodium hydroxide in drain cleaners such as draino, but they will typically also include sodum hypochlorite, also, which will probably contribute chlorine gas to the anode reaction, again. I'm not sure where you can get reasonably pure sodium hydroxide, but I doubt it would be too hard to find. It's also known as caustic soda or lye.

For those of you sitting around in various parts of North America and Europe and wondering what happened to that White Christmas you normally order each year, it seems that one has been found here. If this one looks familiar to anyone, the folks in northern Victoria would like you to come and claim it as it is messing up their summer.

Does photo #3 look strange to anyone else? It looks to me like a ram air canopy with the tail towards the ship, but if it's pulling the ship forward, then the wind would have to be coming from the wrong direction to inflate the canopy, no? Or maybe those 4 small white bits in the centre are the openings through which it inflates, but I'm having trouble understanding how that would provide sufficient pressure at the outside to keep the ends inflated. It's a cool idea, though. How big do they have to get before they can get cargo ships doing jumps of the top of waves?

I can't say I've had that exact experience, cos I still love going back to Australia when I do go for a visit. I don't think it's the place that matters so much, though. It's more about the people. When I first came to Canada, I lived in Edmonton for two months and had an absolute ball - one of the best times of my life. I went back a year later and it wasn't anything close, but mostly because some of the people that were there a year earlier had moved on, and others were now moving into committed relationships and were playing the couples game, which wasn't what I was looking for at the time.

Also not to make light of the situation, cos I've been robbed before and it sucks royal dick, but the list looks like no more than 4 complete rigs and a lot of smaller, albeit expensive items. Would it not be reasonable for a group of say, 4 people, to have carried this out in one load?

No. The pilot chute worked fine. It looks like he's got a good wing there. It's Square-ish. It's controllable. It's hard to make out in the picture, but it looks like he's about to start his flare.

If so, be very afraid. Apparently it takes a special kind of stupid to work in their call centres... I can't count the number of times I wanted to slap the service rep for being dumb!

Obviously these guys have no respect for the art of ironing. You're never going to get a good press that way! It's just going to be wrinkly and shit and their dates will not be impressed! They should be back-flying so that the relative wind is blowing the shirt onto the board!

...or some funky hook device to deploy the reserve artery if the main artery malfunctions! Be well!

Like, for example a freefly camp? Follow the link and give Lyal a shout if you want to know more. edit: fixed grievous spelling mistake.

One word... Skype. Call them. Talking to people always helps. I've only used them a couple of times so far in my short career, but the service was good both times, and when I spoke to them on the phone, they were quite helpful.

I tend to live by the if it makes me happy, it must be right, rule, too, although it sometimes gets me into trouble. But if you want a longer but somewhat less serious list, I would go here or skip the text and go straight for the MP3 version here.

Did you think of doing a search, first? I just did a search for "travelling" and came up with a bunch of hits. The first couple came that I looked at had responses like this with links to even more threads that have already discussed this to death. Here is probably a good place to start. As far as I know, "sporting equipment" doesn't allow you to take any extra baggage. It's just a relaxation on the dimensional restrictions for an item. You're still restricted to the same weight and number of items as you are without the sporting equipment. As far as damage to your rig by baggage handlers. Your rig is pretty tough, but if you're worried, learn to pack - luggage, that is . I've brought 24 bottles of beer in the hold of the plane across the pacific. If you use your clothes properly as padding, you could drop the bag from 10m and not break a bottle.

I'll be surprised if you can tell anyone what the ground looked like while you were in freefall. I think your brain will either be on information overload, or you'll be too busy geeking the camera to realize that it's there - or a little of both. If you want to look at pretty mountains and lakes in Europe, go buy a scenic flight. If you want to skydive, go somewhere with good staff, good people and good gear and just do it. I don't know where you are in Australia, but if you're anywhere near Brisbane, I'd suggest Ramblers out at Toogoolawah. There are other places elsewhere in Australia. Do some searching on here or on Google. If you want people's advice, do a search, as in the short time I've been here, I've seen a bunch of "Where's good near XXXX, YYYY" threads. If there's not one for where you are, then start one. Also - I, like many people, never thought I'd get hooked when I went for my first time one-and-only tandem skydive. Don't assume that you won't like it too much, also. Oh - anxiety is normal. If you want to see the range of emotional states you might go through, check out Skydivergirls.com episode 3. This reminded me so much of my first tandem.

If it's all the same with you guys, I'll threath reaching my opening altitude while still in freefall in the future as an emergency... [Wink] What are you supposed to do when you happen to be in a cloud at that time - swim out of it sideways? Being at the hard deck would be an emergency, because you're risking imminent collision with a planet, and it's bigger than you. Most people I know, myself included, plan to dump higher than the hard-deck, so they would have a little time to wait for clear air. If that's not you, and you always like to squeeze every last second of freefall out of the jump, then maybe opening altitude is an emergency situation for you. The cloud jumping rules that I was required to read and accept before jumping in Australia required that I did not deploy my chute inside a cloud unless I was at the hard deck. We didn't have any clouds that day, but I still had to sign the form before they'd let me jump.

I posted a direct link to the page in one of my previous posts. You can also find it listed under the Services menu as Cloud Jumping Procedures As for the rest, you seem to be misunderstanding my view. Read all of my preceeding posts in this thread. I am very definitely against opening in a cloud for precisely these reasons. You need to visually clear the air around you before you dump. If you're finding yourself in a cloud at break-off, then it's probably the result of poor planning. I've been in the plane planning and noticed clouds around break-off, so we called off the formation and jumped solo instead. You're right. I've never done a 10 way, but if I saw clouds at break-off, I'd be pulling myself off that formation. Then there's the other possibility. What if I am guilty of poor planning and find myself inside a cloud at break-off, then I'll still turn and track. Sure I can't be sure what's ahead of me when I turn and track, but I know for sure that if I don't, I'll be opening in very close proximity to other objects. Needing to make this decision would be a bad situation for sure and one that I would hope to avoid through observing the conditions and appropriate planning, but if I ever find myself here, that's what I'll do. Once I'm done with my track, though, I'll wait for either clear air of the hard-deck before I dump. About risks, my point was that there are risks associated with clouds, just as there are risks associated with jumping out of a plane. We take equipment with us and follow set procedures in order to mitigate the risks associated with jumping out of a plane. By the same token, we can mitigate the risks of jumping in clouds by things like not jumping a 10-way formation into 3000' of cumulus, not jumping wing-suits above clouds, etc.

I could write a big long post about my experiences in different countries, but the bottom line is, that as long as you go somewhere where there is some degree of established sport parachuting, you should be fine. If you have a log book, make sure it is up to date and have it with you. If you have a licence or certificate of proficiency of any kind, make sure that it is in date and have it with you. If you have your own rig, make sure that the repack is in date and have the packing data card with you. Having the rig with you as well may also be a good thing. I know that overseas jumpers jump in the US all the time, although I can't tell you much about that, just yet. I won't be adding that to my list until January. I have jumped in 4 other countries, though - Canada, Australia, Sweden and Latvia - and it wasn't a big problem in any of them. In any case, once you know where you're going find a dropzone, call them and ask them to answer your questions. FAI does provide a reasonable level of consistency across countries, but there are still variations. They'll be able to tell you everything you'll need and they're usually more than happy to help you out so you can come and visit. As far as getting your licence as a "visitor", I've seen a few Australian dropzones market AFF to backpackers on the premise that it's cheaper to do it in Australia than in the UK, so it's probably possible, but again, ask the folks at the dropzone where you're going. They'll have the definitive answer. If you're concerned about how applicable overseas training will be in the US, your best bet would be to ask the dropzone that you think you'll call home, but as long as it's through another FAI member organisation, it will probably be transferrable in some form or another.

Perhaps you should take a read of the APF regs on cloud jumping. There's a link to the information above. It wasn't legal in Australia until a year or two ago, either. Now they have guidelines for managing the risk and dropzones that want to do it need to submit written procedures for managing the risk before being approved to conduct cloud-jumping operations. That's not to say that it's entirely safe, but then again, neither is our entire sport.

A capacitor is a basic energy storage device. They've been around about as long as electronics and were typically used in filtering applications as the amount of energy that could be stored was miniscule making them entirely unuseful as a power source/store. Supercapacitors and ultracapacitors are newer technologies that are providing hugely superior power storage capabilities that are starting to make them more practical as sources of stored power. By themselves, an ultracapacitor will not create ozone, however, whenever you create an electrical arc in the air, you do create small amounts of ozone. Certain types of electrical motors that use brushes will cause arcing, and therefore will create small amounts of ozone. There are types of AC motors that do not require brushes, though, and should therefore be completely ozone free. The bigger question with technology such as this is where does the energy come from to charge up the capacitor or battery or whatever? If it comes from existing coal or oil powered infrastructure, then we're just moving the same fossil fuel problems to a different location. Ultracapacitors, improved battery technology and/or fuel cells may provide a new way to make energy portable in the future, but to truly solve the problems associated with fossil fuels, we still need to further develop renewable energy sources like solar and wind generation.

If we can get ultracapacitors working well in cars, I don't think it can be that far away that we start to see electric motors being used in light aircraft, and it's only a matter of time before they scale up to bigger and better things, like an Otter-sized electric jumpship. Pave the runway with solar cells, replace the windsock with a wind turbine, and then who cares about oil. Maybe jumping will be free, then. Of course, this is still an if. I've not yet seen a working electric car with nothing but capacitive energy storage.

That's about the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. You want to be able to rear-end someone on the highway and say it was their fault that you could be bothered to slow down and avoid an accident? Your number one responsibility as a driver is to avoid collisions. As the rear driver, you are without a doubt in the best position to avoid a collision in a rear-end scenario, and if you don't avoid it, then it can only be because you either did it intentionally or you weren't driving with due care and attention - perhaps because you're looking for faster cars in your mirror all the time instead of looking where you're going. The roads are there for the benefit of all drivers and are there to be shared. Your repeated insistence that slow people should get out of the way gives the impression that you think differently. No. That is overtaking. When you weave threads into fabric, in order to have the fabric hold together in any concrete form, you need to ensure that the threads pass on both sides of each other, otherwise you just have a pile of discrete threads that fall apart in your hand. In the same way, weaving through traffic would imply passing other cars on both the left and right. If the only cars in the overtaking lane are in fact overtaking other cars, then nobody will be overtaking on the right and therefore nobody will be weaving.

I was thinking that you could install some kind of harnesses kinda like the ones on a hang-glider to attach perhaps 3 skydivers under each wing on the weapon hard-points. That would give a whole new slant on the pilot reporting "Jumpers away."

Actually, to be truly pedantic, weight is defined as the force applied to an object due to gravity. So when the plane goes into a steep dive, you're apparent weight may drop while the plane accelerates downward, but the force applied by the Earth's gravity, and therefore, your actual weight remains pretty much constant. Remember that astronauts in space aren't really weightless, they're in freefall.