riggerrob

Dear tstar, I agree with your logic. The emotional training benefits of tandem fade after 3 or 4 jumps. The canopy training benefits of S/L and IAD fade after a half dozen jumps. The freefall training benefits of AFF fade after a dozen jumps. Tunnels are just cool and can extend to advanced skills. But again, tunnel will teach you nothing about steering your parachute. No one system is perfect, it is just "best" at a different level of the learning process. I have taught with all the different systems and prefer the sequence above with a bit of tunnel time before progressing to AFF. I have dropped hundreds of S/L and IAD students. I have done harness-hold jumps with hundreds more freefall students and more than 4,000 tandems.

Amish domestic terrorists have been know to cut off each others' beards. Hah! Hah!

Correction: 8 January 2021 is the first Canadian National Day to Remember Victims of Air Disasters.

The 1985 bombing of Air India flight 182 was only one action in a civil war between Sikh religious groups. The Babar Khalsa sect was implicated in the bombing. Two Canadian Sikhs - who manufactured the bombs - were tried in Canadian courts. Perjury, destruction of evidence, murder of witnesses, appeals, etc. delayed criminal trials. The trials seemed to last forever, but eventually Inderjit Singh Reyat spent 30 years in Canadian jails.

The 1988 Lockerbie bombing was a straight military hit intended to kill a United States Air Force combat controller who was returning to the USA with results of surveys that they had been doing of airstrips in Libya. The bombs were planted on a Pan Am 747 by Libyan military agents. The fact that 300 innocent civilians died in the crash does not bother African dictators. Remember that back during the 1980s, Libya was at odds with the USA. The USAF launched bombing raids against Libya and dictator Colonel Mohamar Ghadafi.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just announced a National Day to remember victims of Air Disasters like: Air India, 9/11, Lockerbie, Malaysia Airlines and Boeing Max 737. Do I get a say for surviving a King air crash back in 2008?

Skybytch's story reminds us of what my younger brother has been doing for the last few years. About 4 years ago my father was diagnosed with Altsheimer's disease, so my younger brother started helping him get his affairs in order. The old house was a cluttered disaster, with documents scattered at random .. even mixed in with buckets of ammunition! My brothers sold off most of dad's gun collection to help pay down his debts. After my dad lost his driver's license, he moved in with his girlfriend of 16 years, but by last year, it was clear that taking care of dad was exhausting her. We were only able to move dad into a retirement home last July. He died in August at age 89 ... long list of medical problems. When my dad died last August, he was the last of our blood relatives still living in our old home town. I went back twice last summer. The first visit was depressing, because my dad did not recognize me! The second visit was to provide moral support to my younger brother during the funeral. Since then my younger brother has been doing the 5-hour drive a couple of times per month to sort through dad's messy old house. He has donated whole trailer loads to local charities and delivered as much to the town dump. Skybytch, the best thing you can do is complete walking the Pacific Crest Trial next summer. It is a great way to clear your head.

That reminds me of an awkward conversation a few years back. After surgery, my knee was so swollen that it was difficult to wear pants, so I pulled my Utilikilt up over my aching knee. As I was walking out of a store, a guy complimented me on my kilt. He was wearing a "Soldiers of Odin" shirt. I mumbled a thank-you and wandered off. How does one gracefully respond to a compliment from a political group that one fears?

Dear obelixtim, Some DZOs narrow their focus to who pays the bills. Back when I started jumping (1977) static-line was the only way to make your first jump, so DZs focused on training large numbers of static-liners. Once the day's First Jump Course finished their class-room training, licensed jumpers were forced to wait until all the students had jumped, before they could resume fun-jumping. Then along came AFF and the emphasis changed to pumping out as many AFF students as possible. Then attention shifted to tandem, so DZs focused on tandems as a quick way to make a buck. Meanwhile, fun-jumpers sat on the ground until all the tandem students had jumped and gone home. A second advantage is that you rarely have to cut them out of trees after they wander off under canopy. The only advantage to AFF and tandem was that the airplane consistently climbed to full altitude and a fun-jumper or two could slip onto a high load if they bribed manifest with beer, sex or recreational drugs. Another

On the rare ocassions when I have jumped tandem canopies by myself, they opened so softly and flew so slowly that I had to look up a couple of extra times to re-assure myself that they were inflated properly. Hah! Hah! For comparison, I have made more than 4,000 jumps with tandem students strapped to my chest, so tandems are my "normal."

Shoveling snow is good exercise and will help you lose a few pounds over the winter.

I sort of half understand your point of view. Some pilots get nauzeous when riding in the back of some-other-pilot's airplane, but are perfectly calm when at the controls. When riding as a passenger during scary maneuvers (e.g. spinning out of control on ice), I tend to bite my tongue to avoid distracting the driver. I might vent a few profanities. After the fact, there is little point to venting profanities at the driver because he was doing the best he could during a dangerous maneuver. By remaining outwardly calm, I half the number of toxic psycho-chemicals coursing through my veins. I try to analyse the situation enough to invent a strategy to avoid repeating the driver's mistakes, but after that try to avoid re-thinking the scary parts too many times. Rethinking the scary moments because that path leads to PTSD and madness. PTSD is a sign of a mind too cluttered with old fears.

I celebrated my 40th birthday by climbing Mount San Gorgonio. I celebrated my 60th birthday by climbing the Grouse Grind, near Vancouver.

Good point dear sundevil, Locking into any single technology too early limits investment into other forms of energy. As an aside, I was reading up on nuclear power when I came across a graph that showed that countries that invested heavily in atomic power generating plants tended to invest less in other forms: solar, wind, tide, hydro-electric, fuel cells, bio-diesel, etc. It is too early to say which is the "best" new energy source and it may end up that "A" is "best" for equatorial deserts, but totally useless in the Arctic. "B" might be "best" in mountains, but totally useless on plains, etc. In the long run, we will end up with 3 or 4 "best" systems, depending upon local circumstances. I still believe that battery-powered airplanes will dominate short-haul routes: commuter, crop-dusting, banner-towing, initial flight training, glider-towing and skydiving.

Dear sfzombie13, And we all know what happens when we mix sodium with water .......

Good point dear d123, Some people instinctively "retreat" to false optimism. OTOH some people instinctively over-react. ... fear the worst ... My ex-wife used to get furious at me if I scared her (e.g. driving on ice). Her fear hormones, adrenaline, dopamines, etc. rose much faster than her logical mind could invent solutions. Ergo scary emotions dominated her mind during potential accidents. I had not planed to scare her, nor was I happy about sliding sideways down an icy road, but I maintained my cool and avoided a collision. It helped that I grew up in a climate with plenty of snow and ice and had briefly lost control dozens of times on slippery roads. But I had also learned how to quickly regain control on icy roads, so I expected to conclude, upright, in the middle of the road, with no dents, dismemberment or deaths. Yes, something scary happened, but she was the one who chose to be terrified. I - on the other hand - was too busy avoiding a collision to get scared. It was only afterwards that I acknowledged that I was scared. We hope that is the difference between the general public and skydivers. We hope that skydivers are too busy solving problems (fight or flight) to relax into "freezing" in the face of danger.

I worry about Tibetans because they live in the water-tower of South-East Asia. Han Chinese are rapidly-mining lithium from Tibetan dry lakes. Since Chinese mining practices are quick-and-dirty, they contaminate Tibetan drinking water. If a few thousand Tibetans are poisoned by contaminated drinking water, no one seems to care. It is only a matter of time before those same pollutants flow down into the Indus, Ganges, Irrawaddy, Mekong, Yellow, Pearl, etc. rivers. All those low-cost lithium batteries are only "clean" from the perspective of western consumers. The pollution caused by electric automobiles just settles on the other side of the planet. ... specifically the drinking water of billions of Asians.

Holy thread drift Batman! This thread started with markharju quoting a recent arrest near Bellingham, Washington. Then the thread rapidly devolved into personal attacks about whether the saboteurs were communist or anarchist or fascist or ... I don't really care what their political bend is because tampering with public transport - in a way that might injure innocents - is a crime! No different a crime than Viet Cong killing civilian farmers, Pol Pot killing Cambodian urbanites, Stalin killing Ukranians, Hitler killing Jews, Stalin exiling Tatars, etc. all those acts of public violence are crimes. This alleged sabotage happened near Bellingham, Washington, little more than a hour's drive from where I type my response.

OTOH I rather enjoy when police publish video from body-cameras. Video footage cuts through BS pretty quickly. Like the George Floyd case. George knew that the shop owner had just refused counterfit currency. Why did George stick around in front of the store? A professional forger/criminal would have promptly left the scene.

Good points Nataly, Sometimes other people's expectations are absolutely ridiculous! For example, last year I fell on the Skytrain and cut my forehead. The next thing I hear is worried people asking "Are you okay! Are you okay?" I sarcastically replied: "No I am not okay. I fell and I am bleeding from my forehead."

Dear pchapman, Lawyers are at best: monday morning quarterbacks. At their worst, lawyers are self-centered, greedy, money-grubbing, etc. who do not care if the wounded live or die. Or would you prefer to hear the whole truth? Hah! Hah!

Talk to your local tandem instructors because many of them wear full-face helmets - minus the visor - after getting hit in the chin too many times.

Dear dudeman, That guy - who had difficulty finding his reserve ripcord handle - was Rick Horn, a highly-experienced AFF Examiner. Rick was wearing a harness with both hip and chest rings and his soft reserve ripcord handle had folded under his left main lift web. His spinning main malfunction pulled his harness off to one side, making it doubly difficult to see his ripcord handle. Rick suffered that malfunction circa the year 2,000 just after he recently finished filming a training video for the USAF. Rick dis 30 intentional cutaways for that video!

Dear mdrejhon, Aviation electric motors will not be maintenance free. The first batch will require inspections every day, week, year, 1,000 hours etc. As they prove trouble-free operation, 1,000 hour inspections will be extended to 1,500 ... 2,000 ...2,500 ...3,000, etc. ... similar to ETOPS. Transport Canada will be super-cautious about extending inspection intervals. Aviation quality control might have been the best back in 1945, when my grand-uncles returned from serving in the RCAF, but we have major improvements in automotive quality within my lifetime. Now we routinely see new automobiles run 4 years and 100,000 kilometres without maintenance. Cars can only run that long if they are built precisely. Manufacturers build modern cars precisely because they don't want to lose money on warranty repairs. For example: My friend only recently replaced the Toyota Prius (gasoline-electric hybrid) that he owned for 17 years. He replaced it with an all-electric Chevy Bolt. His wife still drives a middle-aged Prius. I am currently driving a 13 yeaar old Toyota Matrix, that I bought second-hand 9 years ago. Since then I have only replaced oil, spark plugs, windshield wipers and tires. It has driven 600,000 kilometres with plenty of remaining life. So I believe that electric airplanes can fly safely with only slightly-modified electric automobile components. With electric automobiles soon to be manufactured by the millions, economies of scale will soon drive down manufacturing costs.