riggerrob

Our family lost a friend during an August 24, 1969 FLQ robbery. Alfred Pinisch was a political refugee from Communist Eastern Europe (Hungary?). I met Alfred many times when he competed against my father in local rifle matches. Alfred was working at International Firearms in Montreal when the FLQ tried to steal guns to arm their military wing. A pair of beat cops were first on scene and one accidentally shot Alfred. The beat cop never recovered from his guilt and drank himself to death.

Yes Jerry, I remember that day well. Probably 1967, when Canada was celebrating 100 years of confederation. President deGaulle spent a long, hot, summer's day touring the North Shore of the Saint Lawrence River from Trois Rivieres to somewhere close to Montreal. He had heard a variety of political slogans shouted repeatedly over the course of the day "Vive la Quebec libres!" was among them. Towards the end of that long, hot day, deGaulle was invited to give a speech at Sainte ???? de ???? When he spouted "Vive la Quebec libre!" some in the audience were horrified! Many perceived it as an attempt at meddling in the internal affairs of another nation ... something just not done in diplomatic circles. The rest of deGaulle's tour was hastily cancelled and he flew home a day or two later. Please remember that this was back int eh days when the Front de Liberation du Quebec's favorite sport was bombing (federal) mail boxes and killing the occaissional post office worker as collateral damage. Back then we genuinely feared a bloody civil war..

Funny how even the Swiss tend to prefer American vocabulary. Swizerland has 4 official languages: French, German, Italian and Romanche. Any official Swiss gov't document can be published in French, German or Italian About a decade ago, I was invited to teach a parachute rigging course in Switzerland. Most Swiss are bilingual or tri-lingua. Since we were in the "Vallee" region near the French border, we settled on French as the dominate language for the course. Before the course, I e-mailed out a series of pre-course quizes in English and French. The quizes encouraged students to look up various topics in manuals written by Dan Poynter, Sandy Reid (FAA Parachute Rigger Manual) or (Frenchman) Eric Fradet. Students balked at using some of Eric's terminology, since they were already familiar with American terminology. Terms like "pilot-chute" versus "extracteur." Ironically this was around the time the US Army adopted an "extractor" for their AT-11 static-line system. Hah! Hah!

Language politics can get real stupid, real quick. Starting around the time I was born, the Quiet Revolution radically changed Quebec language politics. Back then Canada was dominated by a handful of English-owned banks headquartered in Montreal. Montreal was the biggest and most heavily industrialized city in Canada. Just as soon as they slipped the bonds of Union Nationale hold on power, rising Quebecouis politicians decided that after 200 years of oppression by the British, Union Nationale, Roman Catholic Church, major banks, etc. it was their turn to oppress some one else. Too bad nobody bothered to remind Quebecouis that they suffered under a rather boring occupation. Brits did not bother with the usual rape, pillage and plunder (compare with recent Ukrainian experiences at the hands of Russian invaders.) During a single generation, Quebec went from an almost feudal, agricultural backwater to hippy-dippy, free-love, more liberal than they can handle, etc. This several generation gap also brought a dramatic drop in fertility rates. Circa 1960, Quebec had the highest birth rate in North America, but that rapidly dropped to the lowest birth rate in North America. Since they feared being out-numbered in their own province, Quebec politicians introduced a variety of laws to force immigrants to attend French-language elementary schools, etc. Insignificant Frenchmen wanted to immigrate to Quebec. OTOH plenty of Haitians and North Africans wanted to immigrate to Canada. Granted, they were Catholic and they spoke French, but - HEAVEN FORBID - they were black! Horror of horrors! Funny, but my mother taught kindergarten for 20 plus years and she always had a few immigrant kids in her class?????? The principal always found a way to sneak in the best and brightest immigrant kids. 45 years ago I grew weary of that sort of language politics, so I moved out of Quebec. The last time I went back was for my father's funeral, just before COVID-19 hit. He was my last family member still living in our home town. Sadly, most of my Anglophone high school classmates had long moved out. But the most amusing part was all the recent immigrants and refugees from Muslim nations: Afghanistan, Kosovo, Lebanon, Syria, etc. Few of these refugees speak French when they arrive. Their women dressed more like Catholic nuns than modern Quebecouise women. Hah! Hah! Bottom line, Quebec politicians have a history of shooting themselves in the foot with language legislation.

Why does this remind me of anti-draft protests in the USA 50-some-odd years ago? I distinctly remember American teenagers burning their draft cards in public protests.

Even simpler is to tie a piece of toilet paper tube to the bottom end of your strip. To help it withstand freefall winds, you might need to telescope 2 or 3 pieces of toilet paper tube.

Some of those "conservative action groups" need to grow a sense of humor. The worst thing they can do is draw attention to a small group of students who poke fun at XYZ. If those conservatives were wiser, they would simply ignore mischievious students until the students lose interest.

Over on www.homebuiltairplanes.com we discussed an even simpler method for spreading ashes from an airplane. Just take a long strip of [canopy] fabric and pore the ashes along the center-line. Fold the edges in lengthwise, then roll up the strip. Once out in freefall, allow the strip to unroll and release the ashes.

Pop-Top chest-mounted container was designed by Dan Poynter to help shorten the line-up for Ten an Speed Star competitors.. John Sherman's first piggyback container was the Super Swooper Tandem introduced during the mid-1970s. SST was a Strong Pop-Top chest type container sewn on top of a crude main container. Circa 179, Sherman introduced the SST Racer with a tapered, wedge-shaped reserve container to reduce the risk of snagging the top of the door frame. Back then Racers were the sleekest and slimmest rig on the market. Other manufacturers soon joined the race towards slimmer containers by plagersizing through-loops, etc. from Racer ... and the race was on!!!!! Eventually, Sherman/Jump Shack/Parachute Labs dropped the "SST" part of the name and simply called most of their containers "Racers." Over the years, Racer got so many minor improvements that they are no longer compatible with original Pop-Top components. I thing

I suspect that many Russian soldiers are afraid to shoot at drones for fear they will attract attention (e.g. artillery), the same way as the North Vietnamese Army tried to ignore Cessna O-1 and O-2 Bird Dog spotter planes, in hopes that they would just fly away.

Bubonic plague, Spanish Flu, smallpox, measles, polio, AIDS, SARS, COVID-19, monkey pox and whatever-comes-next are with us forever. We are unlikely to see much reduction in plagues until human population thins circa 2050. A massive increase in fuel prices might limit travel and slow transmission, but we are still going to suffer a series of plagues during my lifetime. Half the people on my morning commuter bus wore masks, even though they are no longer officially required. Hand shaking has also fallen out of fashion. Standing within 2 meters of strangers is longer socially acceptable.

Sadly, mental health care is priority last in too many aspects of society. My current employer (Coast Mountain Bus Company) is one of the few that take mental health seriously. In the immediate aftermath of a traffic accident, drivers are offered mental health defusing. Basically, they have the option of talking over their traffic accident with a trained, mental health semi-pro. The key is immediate therapy to get them down from the adrenaline rush in the immediate aftermath of an accident. Then the bus company maintains strict confidentiality so that the driver is allowed to slowly forget the accident. Over time (e.g. 90 days), the trauma is allowed to slowly subside. The bus company does things this way, because they want drivers to calm down and refocus on the road as quickly as possible after an accident. OTOH the worst way to handle traumatic accidents is to repeatedly remind someone of the worst day of their life. Reminders only grind the miserable day into long term memory. Grinding too many times converts a once-off into a Prolonged Traumatic Stress Disorder. Other big organizations (e.g. Canadian Armed Forces and Transport Canada) take exactly the opposite approach, quietly labelling people as crazy and incapable of responsibility, but flatly refusing to tell the individual. TC goes a step further by taking your money and medical application, but TC bureaucrats quietly decided to not issue the medical but never explain why. The lack of explanation can be frustrating. In the worst bureaucratic method, some one is labelled as crazy, but confidentiality prevents the organization from telling anyone that he/she is going crazy, ergo they never get mental health treatment. What a messed up world we live in. Ye, I admit that some of the above sounds like the ravings of a madman. Six or more doctors agree with my diagnosis of PTSD, but Workmens' Compensation refuses to pay for long-term psychiatric counselling.

LEOs SHOULD do firearms refresher training every few months. Sadly not all LEOs do. I remember my dad (Canadian Olympic Team shooter and army reserve officer) lamenting some of the scarier mistakes (negligent discharges, holes in the ceiling, etc.) when local LEOs rented the local indoor pistol range for annual refresher training. OTOH, my ex-brother-in-law never fired his pistol during a 20 year law-enforcement career. He enjoyed policing, just not the guns part of policing.

How many jumps have you done during the last month? How many of those landing were gentle stand-ups? How many of those landings did you need to slide off excess speed? How many of those landings did you tumble? What advice did local canopy coaches give?

Dear Kallend, Are you suggesting regular refresher training? ... or perhaps fire "X" number of rounds per quarter to stay current? ... as recommended by the better military and law-enforcement firearms instructors? I always found it amusing when Canadian gun clubs annually extended an "invitation" to hunters to "sight in" their rifles at the start of deer season. Practically, it was more like an excuse to remind hunters of which end the bullets came out. Hah! Hah!

What does work in Canada are firearms safety courses and mental health reviews before you can earn a firearms Possession and Acquisition License. I couple of years ago I wanted to renew my PAL, so re-took the FSC and re-applied for my PAL via the RCMP. Since all aspects of Canadian gov't slowed down during COVID, I was not surprised that it took more than 6 months, but after a year I started asking questions. When I eventually got a human on the telephone, the asked me a few questions about my mental health like "Have you contemplated killing anyone?" I also re-assured the RCMP that I had recently discussed with my doctor quitting the psychiatric medications that I was taking for PTSD. My new card arrived in the mail a month later. As an aside, Transport Canada refused to renew my pilot medical because of those psychiatric medications. I was on the meds because of PTSD. My PTSD was not so much caused by an airplane crash, rather it was caused by a law suit that dragged out for 9 years after the crash.

May I make a radical suggestion? Tie the part of the Second Amendment about "right to bear arms" to the part about "well regulated militia" and require every new gun owner to enroll in a gov't recognized gun club and complete basic fire arms training at that gun club. To meet the "militia" requirement, insist that each gun club include a few active duty or retired military or police officers. Most gun clubs already contain large numbers of retired military. That is similar to the current standard in most other countries (e.g. Canada).

Agreed! Some of the best flying footage every published by Hollywood. Most of the F-18 footage is real. Back when Top Gun 1 debuted, I was wrenching on CF-18s at CFB Baden-Sollingen, West Germany. The only CGI seems to be the Sukhoi 57s and the F-14 Tomcat. Mind you, Sukhoi 57s are so new and so few that not even the Russian Air Force is flying them in Ukraine. ... and I doubt if the Iranian Air Force rents out their few flying F-14s for filming.

I am not following your math. ?????? Most shotgun shells are more than 2 inches long.

Okay, if you want to get "picky" there are no magazine size limits on .22 caliber rifles. I guess that Canadian police do not fear being killed by .22s. Please don't tell them about Bobby Kennedy's assassination.

I was merely suggesting gun laws that have worked well in Canada versus the failed American gun laws. My pet peeve is that Americans brag up their Second Amendment Rights while ignoring the phrase about "a well regulated militia." In Canadian slang, the "militia" are Canadian Army Reservists who report up a parallel chain-of-command - as the Regular Army - all the way up to National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa. Canadian 'militia" wear the same uniforms, carry the same weapons, attend the same courses, etc. as regular soldiers. Canadian "militia" also often sign contracts to serve with the regular army during NATO and UN missions.

Good point Wendy, Wise men use new data to question their pre-conceived beliefs. OTOH Stubborn people merely use new data to confirm their old prejudices. Like you, I read USPA accident reports religiously for 20 years. After 20 years, they started to blur together. But USPA accident reports did cure me of a few bad habits (e.g. no RSL or AAD) and USPA accident reports have had the net effect of lowering fatality rates.

Canadian laws restrict pistol magazines to a maximum of 10 rounds and long gun magazines to 5 rounds. Anything longer must be pinned to limit capacity. There are a few loop-holes that baffle Canadian gun owners. For example: there is no limit on shotgun magazine capacity, but that part of the law was written when tube magazines were the norm on shotguns and tube magazines are generally limited to the same length as the barrel (minimum 18 inches).

Agreed. Fully-automatic are great at converting ammo into noise when you spray-and-pray at full auto. Back when I was a young soldier, I was trained to fire fully-automatic weapons in 3-round bursts, because that is the most that the average soldier can keep on target. The 4th, 5th and 6th bullets just fly off away from the target. I did experiment with firing full-auto, but without a tripod or pintle mount, they were jsut a waste of ammo. Mind you, the average gang-banger does not understand the difference and jsut wants the noisiest gun to intimidate potential rival drug-dealers. Bottom line: there is nor reason for civilians to own fully-automatic machine guns and most are also hopelessly inaccurate with handguns.

Police are armed because they represent the state. For the state to claim sovereingnty and absolute control, the state mush have a monopoly on border access, currency, violence, etc. If only police (soldiers, border guards, president's body guards, etc.) are armed, then they have a monopoly on violence. If only police (prison guards, etc.) can kill some one (via, bullets, hanging, electric chair, lethal injection, etc.) then citizens will resort to courts to settle their differences. Mind you, citizens need to be confident that only police are armed in their neighborhood and only police are likely to kill some one in their neighborhood.