sebcat

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Everything posted by sebcat

  1. Main: 135 or 143 Reserve: 143 If the difference in size between the two are big (e.g. a sub 100 velo and a PD-R 160), how will they behave in a two-out situation?
  2. One needs 300+ jumps to jump a Batwing over here. I've never jumped one, and I've seen arbitrary regulations before in this sport so I'm not going to comment if it's suitable for you or not. Just making an observation.
  3. No, you're thinking of the fatality that was caused by lack of proper emergency procedures. :)
  4. Why is that? You can get injured or die ground launching too. Having some previous skydiving experience on something smaller might prepare you better for ground launching.
  5. Thank you for the explanation.
  6. What is this? It's all about priorities. CRW camps are worth it, finding an experienced CRW dog to jump with is worth it, jumping with the proper gear is worth it. Make the money and the time :) People have died getting entangled in bridles. People have died doing everything right too, but it's always good to have the odds on your side I guess.
  7. I don't remember my 100th jump, but my most memorable jumps have all been crw jumps
  8. If that happens to you today, would you still land on your butt (if you choose to land the canopy)?
  9. http://www.eatliver.com/img/2009/3849.jpg
  10. Attending a CRW camp is definitely worth it though. If they where held in space I would be on the next shuttle
  11. I just want to say that this isn't normally a problem. Just make sure he gets big and grab your lines. Also, don't hit fast. Your choice of equipment worries me. Stay safe. edited to add: The person you're docking on is the one that should grab your lines, just to clarify :)
  12. It might be a clue, but it's not necessarily so. Take a look at some BASE videos on youtube and watch their canopies settle on the ground, or any other low porosity parachute for that matter. Maybe because he's not used to jumping student canopies? His reflexes might have told him when to flare as if he was jumping his regular canopy. I'm not saying the canopy you jumped wasn't worn out, it might have been. But at seven jumps, there's a lot of other reasons why you might get a hard landing. If you come back convinced that it was all in the old canopy and you jump a fresh one, you might not react properly when you land, expecting it to be a tip-toe landing but it turns out you're coming in hard. Just keep it in mind that it might have been you, don't get complacent and always prepare for the worst (PLF). That said, have a great time and good luck on sunday :)
  13. I land better than most swiss, it's probably genetic. I pull at 700 meters. I win.
  14. Just for the record, I don't have thousands of jumps
  15. do not go forward with this plan. you will fail. here are a few things wrong with your plan: by creating such a huge calorie deficit, your body is going to think it is starving and slow down your rmetabolism. it will store fat and catabolize muscle. you will lose weight, but your body fat percentage will go up. protein contains nitrogen. increasing the amount of nitrogenous waste also increases the amount of water excreted (you pee more) making you vulnerable to dehydration. high protein diets also cause you to excrete more calcium in your urine. as a woman its even more important for you to keep the calcium you've got and with rigorous exercise, you'll need it to strengthen your bones. if you keep up this plan for 10 weeks, you will feel like shit, and you won't look good enough to justify the misery you will put yourself through. if you want to lose weight, feed your body the right fuel and exercise. you also must feed your body enough fuel. your daily calorie deficits should be small, and you should make sure you are getting the right things at the right times with respect to your workouts. the weight will not come off as quick as you want, but your metabolism will ramp up and your body composition will change. you will look and feel much better in the end. think of it as an investment. in your line of work, looking healthier (and hotter) can command more money than just being skinny. What he said. +1 This is a good read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate especially the biochemistry part. During one week of my life, I was consuming 3500 kcal/day. I lost 2 kg during that week. I didn't want to, but it was a rather stressful week with a lot of work to be done. While we don't share the same metabolic rate, I find it very hard to believe that you will be doing your body any good while excercising and only eating 1200 kcal/day. That's less than your BMR, I'm sure. You will lose weight, but not in a healthy way. You're also likely to gain that weight after you stop starving your body, and in the process you've lowered your metabolic rate and you've lost muscle mass. I'm not that into exercising so I can't really recommend any weight loss scheme for you, but starving yourself isn't the way to go.
  16. This is one way to do it. Another way to do it is to only use the radio to correct. No news is good news. Unless the radio's dead, but the student should not rely on radio corrections anyway, so he should still think for himself. What method to be used depends on the role of the radio, is it a learning tool or is it a safety device? I really don't have an opinion in the matter, but I'm curious what other people (everyone from students to experienced instructors) think the role of the radio is.
  17. Outdoor physical adventures in big cities?
  18. The DZ where I jump doesn't use radios on a regular basis. I didn't have a radio as a student. My FJC took two days of instruction, a couple of hours of which where focused on understanding the pattern and how much ground where covered during downwind, base and final. We stood in an open area that represented the DZ with hangars, landing area and wind direction marked. The instructor called out the altitude and we took one step in head wind, a sidestep in cross wind and two steps in down wind. After a couple of times the number of steps downwind was doubled, the number of steps in headwind was halved (so half a step) and in cross winds we "drifted" a step more to simulate stronger winds. It felt silly at the time, but I took it seriously and I think it made me understand the pattern a lot more and the effects of the wind. This together with methods to judge when it was time to flare worked pretty well. The way I remember it, all my landings where stand up. I don't attribute that to my skills, I think it was because the instructor was very good at teaching us to judge the proper flare altitude. I had a few out landings as a student though, at least one because I wasn't paying attention to where I was going (a radio might have helped) and at least one because of the spot and the weather conditions (the entire load landed out, except for the two guys exiting last). One time there was a student guided by radio and he went way down wind early (alt. about 2500 feet I guess). For whatever reason he didn't hear the radio and ended up landing at the other side of the airfield. Based on what little I know, I think there's situations where using a radio is good, but it's no substitute for proper training. I do believe that the flare should be initiated by the student and not by the radio instructor. If the student is having a mal, a radio instructor might be able to "wake" him up, but again this is no substitute for proper training. Radios tend to fail at the worst possible time :) People (not just students) also tend to fuck up no matter what from time to time, no matter how well prepared or trained they are. When it comes to radio discipline and how to speak, not using negatives ("don't fire") is pretty basic knowledge and everyone operating a radio where transmission losses is possible should know this. Also naming the callsign at least twise is a good idea. So e.g. "STUDENT NUMBER ONE, STUDENT NUMBER ONE, " on a one way, one-to-many set up. And if that doesn't work, say it again, and again, and again... These are my thoughts.
  19. Lead is not that bad. I used to work with it a couple of times every week for 1½ years. At lunch break, we would hold our sandwiches with our lead-powder covered hands and dine with a ferocious appetite. :) I'm not saying lead is good for you, but I wouldn't worry about using lead weights that much. Diver's shot belts might be good too. A bit more expensive though, but sometimes you know someone who can get you a good deal. The lead is coated in order to prevent corrosion. This is what I'm thinking of: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Aa_shotbelt.jpg.
  20. I saw a T-shirt like that. The front said "AADs - Taking Darwin out of the equation", the back said "Hook turns - Putting Darwin back in the equation". So I guess it all works out in the end. T-shirts have never lied to me before.
  21. Too bad you reset the computer password. That could've provided you with a clue of what kind of passwords he used. You could've extracted the password hash(es) and tried to brute force it/them. You should only work on copies, never on the original itself. The external drive, do you know what kind of program he used for the encryption? TrueCrypt? How big is the drive? 256 bit encryption doesn't really mean much. The entropy of the password/-phrase is often a lot less. If the password is a permutation of "renoit", you've got 6! = 720 possible passwords, if it's some kind of substitution going on it depends on the alphabet. If the encryption software requires a phrase, it's probably an acronym, as mentioned earlier. However, if he used the same thing as an OS password it's probably not. If the password is 6 characters, it shouldn't take too much power to break it (knock on wood). But you have access to the OS drive, and that's great. What operating system is installed?
  22. It's important not to. Passwords are often times used for authentication, not just providing access. Giving someone the means to authentiate themselves as you is just a bad idea, no matter how trusted that person is. You might give your password list to your mother and think "hey, it's mom. She wouldn't pretend to be me" and you're probably/hopefully/maybe right. However, the safety of the authentication scheme is compromised since you no longer have control over the information needed to authenticate you on the Internet. You open up a lot of ways for a malicious attacker to gain access to your identity, or parts of it. If you want stuff like that to be accessible after your death, there's other ways of making that possible without giving up your means of authentication.
  23. Another correction - Better performance that comes with additional risk. Please do elaborate. How does letting your wing flatten out due to riser ends being spread more increase the risk ? http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=467069;search_string=A%20rigger%20examiner%20hypothesizes;#467069 "Here is what may have happened. With the slider fully open but down past the connector links, it would probably would have stopped at the area of the steering line guide ring. Just above this guide ring is a stiff section of riser where part of the toggle stowing system is attached. Conceivably, when the jumper pulled the steering line down in a turn to a point where the finger trap was below the guide ring, slider grommet pressure against the line and guide ring could have created an “S” in the line. The line could slide through until the joint at the finger trap reached the S turn at the guide ring. At that point the ring’s pressure against the joint in the line could effectively lock the line in place, leaving the canopy set in a turn. " If I understand that correctly, it would look like something in the picture attached. EDIT: with the slider on the other side of the guide ring ofc./EDIT When you pull down your slider to allow the lines to spread you pull it past the toggles, so that scenario wouldn't be an issue. There are other issues with pulling down the slider though. Limited visibility, added distraction, the possibility of a toggle fire etc but getting your line jammed like that isn't one of them. I usually pull my slider down when jumping my Sabre.
  24. I hate to be 'that guy', but: 2002 - Jumping a Kayak: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=322637 2007 - Anyone took kayak skydiving?: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2890262 2008 - Kayak jump: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3145261 The interview is probably new though