riggerrob

Should we discourage Evan Corcoran from going near top-floor windows?????

Patience

Wow! First time I have heard that concept! I never thought that cowling flaps were big enough to provide a significant amount of drag. Au contraire, cowl flaps should only be used to regulate engine cooling. Close them at the start of jump run and keep them closed until you are back on the ground. Closing cowl flaps retains heat in the engine compartment, slowing the cooling process to reduce shock-cooling. If you really want dive brakes, there are a couple of STCed, after-market kits for single-engined Cessnas. A buddy installed the combined flap gap seal and dive brakes kit on his straight-tailed (late 1950s vintage) Cessna 182. He later complained that the dive brakes produced so much turbulence that he had to re-skin the flaps. That is nothing new as I have seen cracked flaps and cracked flap guide rails on plenty of Cessna jump-planes. I suspect that most of the cracks were caused by lowering flaps at too high an airspeed. The other dive-brake kit was developed for Cessna 210 pilots who want to descend rapidly to keep ATC happy. These dive-brakes scissor out of the top and bottom skins near the main wing spar.

Find an old rigger who still has the tools for pull-testing PD reserves or an even older, grumpy, gray-bearded rigger who used to test round reserves for acid-mesh. The old rigger will have the rubber-jawed clamps and scale to precisely test the tensile strength of your pilot-chute's fabric. It is important to use the correct tools and techniques, because a clumsy test will pull holes in airworthy fabric. A quicker test is to look for fading. I got a pilot-chute that had been laying out on a fence for 3 weeks after a reserve deployment. It was badly faded and I could easily pull it apart by hand - note experienced hand that had tested a thousand round canopies for acid-mesh.

Dear wmwm999 and Coreece, I have a theory that your taste in music is defined when you are a teenager or young adult. Your hearing is most acute during your teen and early adult years. After that, the "music" parts of your brain get re-purposed for other learning. Some philosopher said: "It is the duty of every new generation to rile their parents with their taste in music, clothes, etc." I see every new generation struggling to invent a new genre of music distinct from their parents' taste in music: blues, jazz, big band, swing, rockabilly, rock-and-roll, British Blues Invasion, folk, blue grass, disco, new age, progressive rock, heavy metal, speed metal, thrash metal, Mongolian folk-metal, indie, etc. For example, Sugar Hill Gang debuted circa 1979, after I was 22 year sold. While I enjoy SHG's light-hearted brand of hip-hop, I just don't get most rap introduced after that. Too much rap music sounds like "angry young man" music and I was past that phase of my life by the time that gangsta-rap became mainstream music. I did not grow up in a crime-ridden, poor neighborhood, so have trouble relating to most rap lyrics. Sorry folks, but I am old and boring.

Does that mean that Utahans (sp?) are only allowed to read from the Book of Mormon? Hah! Hah!

Military and NASA are willing to pay big bucks for research and development. Once the expensive development is complete, manufacturers cheerfully sell it to the public for a cost as high as the market will bear. The military care little about emissions, but take fuel efficiency very seriously as it can cost up to $5,000 to move a gallon of diesel fuel to some remote outpost in the mountains of Afghanistan.

As a Strong TIE operating in Canada, the factory gives me a bit more leeway on medicals for aspiring TIs. I usually send them to a Transport Canada certified aero-medical examiner doctor for a TC Class 2 aircrew medical exam. I only ask for a doctor's note stating that they are fit to skydive. I tell aspiring TIs not to bother with TC paperwork as it is expensive and slow.

Tell them to go back and read the 4 articles that Annette O'Neil published - on dz.com - back during the autumn of 2016. I researched those articles, then handed the data to Annette because I was exhausted from a 9-year-long court trial about a King Air crash back in 2008. We learned a bloody lesson back in 1992 and there is no reason to repeat those mistakes. Smart skydivers learn from the bloody mistakes made by others.

It looks beyond repair. Just buy a new mount.

I disagree. When hook turns become the norm, young TIs kill tandem students. In 2022, USPA reported 3 fatal accidents after tandems hook-turned too low. That is why tandem manufacturers preach against turns more than 90 degrees in the landing pattern.

Sorry Dear BMAC, But USPA did not change those things .... rather USPA REACTED to changes that were already the norm at larger DZs. I have not been jumping as long as Gerry Baumchen, but I have seen many of the same changes. Minimum opening altitudes changed because our airplanes got better. Compare a World War 2 surplus Beech 18 with a newly manufactured PAC750XL or Quest Kodiak. Ambulance-chasing lawyers made it ruinously expensive to rick injuring students less than 18 years old.

15 years ago, the problem was that many young jumpers were already exceeding any wing-loading guidelines that USPA was likely to publish, so USPA politicians tried to find a "soft" response ... or "grandfather" those jumpers who were heavily-loading their canopies. As usual, politicians were behind the fashion and trying to introduce solutions that were so luke-warm that they bordered on toothless. Junior jumpers are always going to try to down-size too fast - quoting the "mad skills." Only DZOs can say "you can't jump that tiny canopy here." DZOs will only limit wing-loadings when they fear that ambulances and hearses will interrupt their regular business.

Okay Dear SkyDekker, But I am deeply suspicious of "Orders In Council" because they side-step the entire democratic process. Unless you read the Hansard, you may suddenly find yourself a criminal because you were not aware of the most recent change in gun laws. Back in 1992 I wrote a newspaper article about this abusive process and it seems that the process has not changed. We also know that Canadian professional politicians fear an open public debate on gun laws. They fear an open debate because they know that voters are polarized on the subject and will oust a few professional politicians from office because some voters will be offended, no matter which way the politicians vote. We saw similar political cowardess the last time abortion laws changed. Members of Parliament cowardly foisted the problem on the Supreme Court of Canada. Eventually judges decided that abortion was legal in Canada.

Yes! And they interviewed a bisexual student on CBC AM Radio's "As It Happens" program. She was born female and raised in a heterosexual family. During her teen years, she realized that she likes both boys and girls. I have enjoyed "As It Happens" for more than 40 years.

That is an on-going controversy with Canadian gun laws. We have a a huge split between city slickers and natives who live off the land. Few Canadian city slickers have any need to own a gun beyond plinking at the range. OTOH many natives have always been poor and they live beyond range of a grocery store, so depend upon hunting and fishing to feed their families. Natives tend to not waste ammo since it is expensive. The latest version of Bill C.21 (currently under review by the Senate) proposes prohibiting a variety of military rifles. I agree that most of those rifles serve little sporting purpose. The prat that I do not understand is their proposal to ban SKS carbines (ballistically equivalent to an AR-15 or AK-47) because those SKs are preferred by native hunters. At less than $500 Canadian, a native hunter can purchase an SKS (7.62 x 39mm Commblock) for half or 1/3 the price of a .303 (equal to NATO 7.62 X 51mm). Natives need to modify (trap door) magazines to limit them to 5 rounds ... to conform to the old version of Canadian laws. ??????????? Remind me to write a letter to my senator(s).

Shoe Goo works well. I always have a tube of Shoe Goo on hand. Another option is to glue on a small sheet of rubber ... the same rubber that your shoe-maker uses to repair worn heels. As for the Cordura fabric sidewalls fraying ... I sew on Type 12 webbing sidewalls. I start by laying it upside down, so that only the edge overlaps on the seam. Lay the bottom portion (aka. edge of the sole) flat so that it gets caught in your first row of stitching. Then fold the Type 12 upwards and stitch around the edge of the Type 12 webbing. Finally, may I suggest sewing some sort of buckle or magnet near you knees so that they you don't drag your booties when they are not fastened tightly around your feet.

"Ammo sexual!" "Ammo sexual!" Last weekend, an American liberal called me an "ammo sexual" to my face! Hah! Hah! We agreed on most issues even if she had an unrealistic impression of the size of wound an AR-15 could inflict. So I tried to explain to her why Canadian gun laws are better - not perfect, just better - but when I tried to explain to her the difference between an AR-15 and an AR-10 "I DON'T WANT TO KNOW! I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!" Which goes to show you that there are close-minded people on both sides of the debate.

Yes. Tactically it was the same as a Tavor. How Norinco managed to import them to Canada un der last-week's laws is a mystery to me. Mind you, I sold it before it was mentioned in the next proposed set of Canadian gun laws. Canadian gun laws are far from perfect, but they are still better than American gun laws. As long as I stay out of the recreational pharmaceuticals business, I have a miniscule chance of being shot in Canada. Just the other day, I drove my nephew through "Hastings and Main" just to show him the hazards of recreational pharmaceuticals.

May I "sarcastically" repeat a suggestion by a black American stand-up comedian? He suggested making ammunition ridiculously expensive. That might encourage gang-bangers to use their pistol sights. They also might limit the number of bullets fired during any "disagreement." Finally, they might walk up to a shooting victim and demand "You got something of mine" and extract the bullet. Perhaps if gov'ts imposed a "sin tax" on bullets the same way that they impose "sin taxes" on cigarettes and alcohol ... bullets would be prohibitively expensive for mere citizens. But it would still take a few decades of rifle range practice before existing stocks of ammo would fall to the "scarce" level. All good gun owners practice every week at the rifle range .. don't they? On a serious, personal note, I used to own rifles, even a Chinese-made assault rifle (5.56mm) but sold my guns when I could no longer afford to practice at the rifle range on a regular basis.

Bungled defense procurement is the norm in Canada. Back during WW2, there was a scandal about Canadian-made Ross rifles not being able to chamber sloppily-made British ammunition. Cardboard boots, Glass water bottles that shattered the first time infantry rolled on the ground. Shovels that were supposed to double as sniper plates. No gov't issue puttees for the first draft of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. The list goes on and those examples are only from the First World War. I could go on. I could write a book about Canadian defense procurement blunders, but it would be too depressing. The procurement process rarely makes sense from the perspective of tank drivers or helicopter mechanics. I worked in both trades during my Canadian military service.

How about taking a page from skydiving competitions. Canadian skydivers frequently compete at the USPA National Championships, and are treated as "guest competitors" who are respected, but they will never win a medal at the USA Nationals. I have seen similar treatment when Americans competed at the CSPA Nationals and all they got was an honorable mention. It did not matter how many discs they stomped, they only got an honorable mention. The first three medals only went to Canadian citizens ... or landed immigrants.

What about people like me who only "shifted" their religious affiliation. As a child, I attended Anglican services every Sunday morning, then Sunday school at the United Church of Canada. At arm's length, I cannot see a difference between Anglican/Church of England/Episcopalian and the Holy Mother church of Rome (aka. Catholic). UCC has become marginally more liberal, but back during my childhood, the Anglican and United Churches sang from the same hymn book. Anglicans and United were main-stream Protestant or marginally conservative in my home town. Nowadays, UCC has become more liberal in an effort to attract a wider variety of parishioners, with lesbian ministers, same sex marriages, etc. I did attend church during my twenties and thirties because I was too hung-over on Sunday mornings or too busy skydiving. As I approached age 50, I paid off my debts and decided that I no longer needed to work 8 days per week. The dear departed Larry Yon suggested that I attend the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Riverside, California. That suggestion stuck. Later I researched my family background to discover that some of my ancestors built the first Universalist Church in Canada (Huntingville, Quebec) back in 1845. So I have come full circle in my religious practices.

Good point Bill. A mandatory minimum jail sentence would also encourage gun-owners to invest in serious trigger locks and steel gun safes. A trigger lock being waaaaaay cheaper than bail.