riggerrob

Please be cautious about using the "w.a.r." word.

Part of the problem is Mr. Poutine's unrealistic demands during negotiations. some of his demands remind us of Mr. Molotov's demands of Poland and Finland during 1939. Mr. Poutine would like Ukraine to dis-arm completely and allow Russia troops to be stationed on Ukraine soil (West of the Dnepro River), etc.

Dear cbrowsky1, In encourage you to chat with an instructor or canopy-coach about re-trying rear-riser flares and stalls. Perhaps you just need a gentler technique and more awareness of airflow over your canopy. For example, pull rear risers to the edge of a stall, they gently raise them a couple of inches (5cm) to resume slow flight. Again, consult a local canopy coach before re-trying rear-riser stalls.

Please don't blame President Biden for crack pipes. Crack was a major problem long before Biden got elected Vice-President. Conspiracy theorists will tell you that the CIA introduced crack to Los Angles many decades ago as a means to oppress the black population. I struggled with the whole concept of supervised injection sites when I moved to a suburb of Vancouver, Canada more than 20 years ago. Then I drove a city bus through the dilapidated Downtown East Side for a few years. I started with a conservative attitude towards street drugs, but my attitude changed as I learned more about addiction. Many times I saw ambulances in front of the Portland Hotel. That experience convinced me that supervised injection sites are a good idea. Yes, many tight-assed, morally upright citizens see drug addiction as a moral weakness. But, a small percentage (maybe 5 or 10 percent) of addicts are so emotionally or physically damaged that they will never be able to hold a steady job. They self-medicate with alcohol or marijuana or hashish or heroin or crack or .... I should know because I was a drunk for 20 years. After X-number of years of consuming street drugs, their minds are fried and they can barely function. They can only function in a gov't subsidized neighborhood with flop houses, single-room-occupancy hotels, warming centers, soup kitchens, supervised injections sites, etc. Vancouver's DTES is less violent - than many major American cities - because homeless addicts do not have to compete for scarce food, lodging, etc. Brown nuns, Mennonites, Portland Hotel Society, Sikhs, Union Gospel Mission, United Church of Canada, etc. all provide charity to the down-on-their-luck, homeless. Supervised injection sites are a public health matter, similar to regular health checks for prostitutes. ... and plenty of addicts in Vancouver's DTES turn tricks to support their drug habits. Public health nurses offer their services to prostitutes to limit the spread of AIDS, crabs, goneria, HIV, hepatitus, herpes, lice, syphillus, etc. to the general public who only venture into the DTES for a "bit of fun" on the weekend. Bottom line, offering free crack pipes is a short-term solution to a long-term problem with mental health. Until the developed world provides mental health support - to the bulk of their populations, right-wing critics have no right to criticize those medical professionals who hand out clean needles or clean crack pipes.

Who fired the first shot?

I would not consider it a Nanny State Rule since it was written in blood before bureaucrats meddled with standards. The industry agreed on consensus before rule-makers got involved. That rule was written in blood by a bunch of dead skydivers whose egos exceeded their abilities. After reading a few accident reports, leading wing suit manufacturers agreed on the 200 jump minimum. Since - back then - wing suit manufacturers were the only ones training and certifying wing-suit instructors, it was an easy decision. A few decades earlier, the same logic was used to insist on a 200 jump minimum before jumping a camera. Young jumpers are astonished when I tell them that my first few camera jumps included a bulky video camera bolted to my helmet with an even bulkier Video Cassette Recorder strapped to my chest. Freefall video never became reliable until all the components could be crammed into a single box. Pioneer BASE jumpers (early 1980s) also agreed that skydivers needed to demonstrate a minimum of 200 precision landings before jumping from fixed objects. Back during the mid-1980s, tandem manufacturers applied a similar logic when they required a minimum of 500 jumps and 3 years in the sport before becoming tandem instructors. OTOH BPA bureaucrats are extremely conservative. I had an inkling of how bureaucrats think during my brief tenure on the CSPA's Technical Committee. Bottom line, junior jumpers simply do not know what they do not know before 200 jumps. It is about demonstrating basic life-saving skills - during simple skydives - a few hundred times. They need to prove that they can keep themselves alive during a minimum of 200 jumps before adding any additional complication.

The RCAF operated a specially modified CT-133 Silver Star trainer to test ejection seats. It has based at CFB Cold Lake, Alberta and assigned to the test squadron. They fired ejection seats out of it multiple times. Now that CT-133 have reitred ... Martin-Baker operated a similarly-equipped pair of Gloster Meteors for many years.

There is no requirement for civilian parachute riggers to jump. The FAA lumps parachute riggers in with aircraft maintenance technicians and mechanics. OTOH military riggers might have to jump as part of their quality control system. The keep them honest, many armies require their riggers to do a few jumps every month. Typically, this is with parachutes that they packed 119 days ago (assuming a 120 day repack cycle), that will go "out of date" if they are not jumped. The Canadian Army insists that all their parachute riggers stay current on static-line jumps and those riggers that are freefall qualified also have to do a few MFP jumps. Passing the Basic Parachutist Course (2 weeks of push-ups followed by 2 days of static-line jumps) is one of the courses that a Canadian Army rigger must pass before he/she is fully qualified. The Royal Canadian Air Force has a different attitude, not requiring riggers to jump the ejection seats that they repack.

Odd how that story - about USA recruiting - is illustrated by a photo of CANADIAN service women (an RCAF major, an RCAF flight sargeant, ??? and an RCAF corporal)... maybe trans???? Secondly, people who were born male and stay male through puberty tend to grow bigger, stronger, faster, etc. than those who grow to adulthood as females. Male bones also tend to be denser, therefor more difficult to break. These size and strength advantages may not mean much in push-button warfare, but their greater strength comes in handy for infantry, armor, artillery, field engineers, etc. Even just re-suppling ships (e.g. food) requires many hours of man-handling boxes in the 20 to 40 pound range. Since girls who grow to adulthood as girls tend to be smaller, weaker and slower, they are less attractive to army recruiters.

There have always been a handful of neo-nazis in the Canadian Armed Forces. Most are impressionable teenagers and young men who are searching for their "tribe." Young men sometimes do stupid things (e.g. Adolf Hitler tattoos) but Senior NCOS rein in the worst of their foolishness. Since neo-nazis tend to be bullies, they do not get promoted very high or very fast in the Canadian Army. Most of these rebels-without-a-clue are bright enough to keep their mouths shut while on base. They also keep their sleeves rolled down to hide their more obnoxious tattoos. Loud political statements are frowned upon while in uniform. The majority of Canadian soldiers tend to be slightly conservative ... er ... slightly right-wing, but no where as hard-core right-wing as KKK, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, neo-nazis, etc.

Dear Orphan Blue, Ideally skydivers would get an additional block of canopy instruction before they fly every new canopy and before they write the exam for the next license. That block of instruction should start with BillVon's list of "things to know before you down-size" including sign-offs by senior instructors, canopy coaches or S&TAs simply to keep overly-ambitious jumpers honest. Canopy skills are complex and perishable and change with every different canopy, ergo we need more formal instruction at every level.

WO! Finally something that Slim King and I can agree upon. Mind you, Western supporters of Ukraine will only be happy after Russian soldiers retreat behind pre-2014 borders. In a slightly later post, me mentions WALLIES funding 300,000 Afghan police an soldiers, but only - perhaps - a third actually in uniform/service. This is typical of poor, corrupt, third World countries. It reminds me of a memoire written by a Brit sent to oversee a tea plantation in Ceylon/Sri Lanka during the 1930s. He was reminded to always count the number of farm laborers because the foreman would traditionally try to claim an extra two ro three laborers and pocket their wages. As for Russian destroying 90 percent of Ukrainian bridges during the first day of fighting. That would have required more precision guided munitions. It appears that Russia fired off most of their PGMs during the first week - without destroying all the bridges in Ukraine. Soon shortages of PGMs forced the Russian Army to resort to carpet-bombing or inaccurate artillery dropping hundreds of shells on farmers' fields. Meanwhile, Ukrainian propaganda shows a single missile destroying a Russina tank trying to hide in shrubbery alongside that same farmers' field. Mr. Poutine would have been wiser to accumulate another two or three years of PGM production before invading Ukraine. As the USAF demonstrated towards the end of the Vietnam War, you need PGMs to reliably destroy bridges.

Perhaps he suspects that his jump might "bust" a few Federal Air Regulations, so he posts under a pseudonym. No need to post your naughtiness where everyone - including police - can read it.

That graduated learning method made more sense when we flew piston-pounding Cessnas that struggled to climb above 7,000 feet on a hot, hazy August day. It has been phased out because turbine-engined airplanes only like to make a single pass at 13,000 feet. Slowing down and re-configuring (e.g. lowering wing flaps) is considered too much of a nuisance by DZs that operate big airplanes. Just look at the couple of solo jumpers who exited low and hit the horizontal tails of King Airs at Lodi. Many CSPA DZs still use a graduated, stepped syllabus to teach students. They start with a tandem then do an IAD or three. Perhaps a few minutes in a wind tunnel, then a half-dozen jumps with PFF Instructors and a few more jumps with coaches to complete their A Certificate. No single training method is best, they are just best at different stages of the learning process.

If this is a lawyer on a scouting mission, he can take a long hard suck on my ... hot knife.

Eventually right-wingers stray so far that they complete the circle and look like hard-core (Russian style) communists. Meanwhile the most fanatical of left-wingers complete the circle and start to act like (Nazi style) fascists. The average observer cannot tell the difference. If you watch long enough, it all looks like a big circle. ... perhaps a big wave. History may not repeat itself, but it often ryhms. Add to that the notion that poorly-disciplined soldiers on both sides tend to be thugs who rape, loot, pillage, stampede and burn with little knowledge of politics.

1991 saw huge changes in skydiving gear: electronic AADs, square reserves, zero-porosity fabric, zero-stretch suspension lines, hip rings, tuck tabs, BOC, etc. 1991 was during the transition period from round reserves to square reserves. The acid-mesh problem hit around 1986 so skydivers rushed to replace their round reserves with square reserves. Acid-mesh deteriorated round reserves and pilot-chutes, but not square canopies. Also consider that most schools had converted from military-surplus rounds to new-made square mains, so some students had never seen a round in the air. Both USPA and CSPA changed their BSRs to include "large, docile, square mains" by 1991. Schools hung onto their old, round reserves until around 2000. By 1991, major dealers (e.g. Square One in Perris Valley, California) quit selling new round reserves and only grudgingly accepted old round reserves on consignment ... because they knew that were selling slowly.

Go review USPAs guidelines for jump-planes. The Australian Parachute Federation and British Parachute Association have also published guidelines. Piper Cherokees and Archers have been jumped before, but it is not straight-forward. I learned to fly in a Cherokee 140. The biggest hassle with an Archer is that the sole cabin door is forward and on top of the wing. If you leave the door installed, you will need the pilot's help - on rudder pedals - when opening the door. Removing the door requires a review of the pilot operating handbook and maybe an STC. STCs are expensive and complicated and not worth it for a single jump. The second hassle is avoiding hitting the horizontal tail, which is low. Asking the pilot to lower flaps will help raise the tail. I would lay on the wing root and roll or slide off to minimize my height. In comparison, look at the numbers of jumpers who have hit the tails of King Airs when they exited while the airplane was still in climb configuration. Consider that the earlier - and larger - Cherokee Six has been used routinely as a jump-plane at a few DZs. I made a couple of jumps from a Cherokee Six leased by the Saint John Skydivers (New Brunswick, Canada). The key difference is the large cargo door, just aft of the port (left side) wing. Since Cherokee Six still has a low horizontal stabilizer, you must remember to stay low while exiting. Nothing fancy, no poised exits, just tumble out the door. Hint: if you plan to jump a Cherokee Six on a regular basis, install a temporary sub-floor level with the bottom edge of the cargo door. The only low-winged, single-engined Piper that I would seriously consider jumping is the PA-32 Lance with a T-tail. Mind you, T-tailed Lances were only built in 1978 and 1979 and the model was discontinued because too many Lance pilots complained about poor pitch authority. Combine that poor pitch authority with too many skydivers cramming towards the tail and you could have "too much fun" on jump-run.

The only published photo of an "Adolf Hitler" tattoo to date. We might believe your propaganda if you publish a few dozen more "nazi" tattos. As an aside, the Azov Battalion held out for so long at the Azovstal plant because they knew that they would be beaten or killed if they surrendered to Russian invaders. One female refugee - from Mariupol - explained (to Western journalists) that she escaped along a "humanitarian corridor" with multiple check points where she was repeatedly strip-searched. She said that the scariest part was never knowing at which check=point she would be marched into the woods and raped or shot. This not exclusively a Ukrainian problem, nor is it a Second-World problem. Similar beatings awaited Mohawks during the Oka Crisis in Canada during 1990. Mohawks held out for so long because they knew that if they surrendered to Quebec Provincial Police, they would be beaten. That is why Mohawks held out until they could surrender to the Canadian Army (specifically the VanDoos infantry regiment). Mohawks knew that increased press coverage and the more professional attitudes of soldiers would mean fewer beatings.

International observers (e.g. retired American President Jimmy Carter) often monitor elections to confirm their honesty. I will only believe that Mr. Poutine's "elections" in Donyetsk and Luhansk are legitimate when some retired politicians (from neutral nations) declare that the election was free and fair.

What kind of idiot stops on train tracks????????????

I can still remember when the local radio station CKTS switched from country music to rock-and-roll ... during the mid-1960s.

Back around 1983 or 1984, I introduced the concept of wing-loading to simplify canopy choices. Back then we only had to select between 5-cell or 7-cell. Configuration was limited to precision landing competition or all-purpose. Reserves, canopy formation and BASE were all done with popular 7-cells. But new materials, planforms, etc. complicated the decision process. We really need a 3D or 4D chart to include all the variables related to canopy selection. Last time I checked, no one was publishing 3D charts. BSRs help to keep decisions simple for junior jumpers. Junior jumpers only need-to-know that "in that corner, death lurks." Few of them have the patience or depth of knowledge of many posters on dz.com.

Reference post # 1603. Few nations publish accurate casualty lists during wartime. They prefer to leave bad guys guessing as to casualties. As for accusing the Azov Battalion of being nazis ... yes, the battalion was founded by hard-right politicians back around 2014, but since then, the Azov Battalion has been absorbed by the generic Ukrainian Army and its most fanatical leaders have moved on to elected positions in the Ukrainian Parliament. As for the Azov Battalion using Nordic Runes an swastikas and other nazi regalia ... May we remind you that Nordic Runes were a popular alphabet when Norsemen took over ruling Kievian-Russ more than a thousand years ago? Both Russia and Ukraine claim Kievian-Russ as the foundation of both their countries. Various swastikas were fashionable in the Baltic, Bhuddist and Sioux cultures hundreds or thousands of years before Adolf Hitler perverted them for his own dastardly ambitions. Finally, dear Slim Jim, most of us are tired of you parroting Mr. Poutine's propaganda. I tend to read 6 or 8 different news sources (Al Jazeera, CBC, BBC, Epoch Times, Globe and Mail, Paris Match, PBS, National Post, Manchester Guardian, der Spiegel, Vancouver Province, etc.) every week and most of them disagree with Mr. Poutine's line.

The French Army had a robotic packing machine a couple of decades ago. It performed canopy inspections because it did not get bored like humans.