outrager

Yep, i remember flying one in 2002. It was revolutionary at the time. bsbd! Yuri.

It took about 25 seconds to come to that conclusion, and i will challenge you and everybody else to prove me wrong. I state that S6 perfomance (L/D) will not be measurably different from S3S. Quite frankly, i am very disappointed at WS progression. It needs some competition in the Max Perfomance class, but nobody wants to challenge Robi's designs. This creates an inefficient monopoly on top-level suit market, making Robi lazy and pushing the same old Vampire design into another season I always want to fly the top-performing suit, do not care about sponsorships or any official crap, and would swap brands in a heartbeat. Unfortunately there is no real choice now. GS guys looked like they could put up a challenge, but their suit didn't even come close. French clones are way behind. BirdMan beats around an ancient S3 (designed by Robi years ago). Anybody else i forgot ? bsbd! Yuri.

I wouldn't worry too much. S6 looks just like S3S with minor cosmetic changes applied. There definitely won't be any noticeable increase in perfomance. bsbd! Yuri.

Cute! http://www.newsgaming.com/games/index12.htm bsbd! Yuri.

You got it! The first jumper to get stuck on ISTW was reported in the media as a hang-glider pilot Unfortunately more jumpers had hit it since then and the blame has been reassigned correctly. bsbd! Yuri.

Yo ! Just waiting for Robi to comment on this.. bsbd! Yuri.

Yo ! I was going through my old VHS tapes and moved some stuff over to DivX. It includes Mike Allen's "Radioactive", "Anestesia" and "Nobody Like Me". I would love to put them online, but not sure if anybody will mind. Please let me know if it's not ok, otherwise i will follow "ask for forgiveness, not permission" motto

So true! An "average flock" is gliding as poorly as a round canopy with a line-over bsbd! Yuri.

Same problems getting an accurate L/D measurement with canopies as with wingsuits. True! Regarding this particular project, i estimate max L/D during the dock peaked around 2.0 or just under. bsbd! Yuri.

As fast and far as the wind blows. This is really a race for meteorologists bsbd! Yuri.

Not exactly. If there is any crosswind component, it will increase the total distance you have flown. If you measure the distance by GPS without plotting it over the map, the numbers will be inflated. If you try to stay over a specific line in a crosswind, you will have to crab - which will decrease your distance flown over the ground (and measured by GPS). There is just no practical and reliable way to measure L/D precisely on a skydive. bsbd! Yuri.

While mainstream media is mostly dark and negative these days, occasional optimistic reports do get through: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/02/15/insurgency.report/index.html Report: Iraqi insurgency more confident, coordinated Wednesday, February 15, 2006; Posted: 8:04 p.m. EST (01:04 GMT) (CNN) -- A few large groups using sophisticated communications increasingly have come to dominate Iraq's insurgency, a report released Wednesday said. The report from the International Crisis Group, a nongovernmental organization that tries to solve conflicts, noted the insurgency "no longer is a scattered, erratic, chaotic phenomenon." "Groups are well organized, produce regular publications, react rapidly to political developments and appear surprisingly centralized," the report said. It noted the insurgency, a predominately Sunni Arab movement, has grown "more confident, better organized, coordinated, information-savvy." "That it has survived, even thrived, despite being vastly outnumbered and outgunned, suggests the limitations of the current counter-insurgency campaign," the report said. It added that the insurgents' emergence "carries profound implications for policymakers." The report, "In Their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency," used voluminous insurgent communications culled from Web sites, videos, tapes and leaflets. Advice for U.S. The study was critical of the United States fighting "an enemy it hardly knows," and called its labeling of insurgency groups as Saddamists, Islamo-fascists "gross approximations and crude categories." It said U.S. and Iraqi forces must "reach out to the Sunni Arab community, amend the constitution and build a more inclusive policy." Its release came a day after an Australian TV network broadcast previously unpublished images of apparent prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. (Details) The report advised the United States and Iraqi government to listen to what the insurgents are saying and halt practices that harm the U.S.-led coalition's credibility and bolster insurgent legitimacy. Bad conduct plays into the hands of insurgents, it said. "The harm from excessive use of force, torture, tactics that inflict widespread civilian injury and reliance on sectarian militias outweighs any military gain," the report said. The United States also must hold the new Iraqi government accountable, stressing that relations "depend on disbanding militias, halting political killings and respecting human rights," the study advised. The report also urged the United States to make "repeatedly clear at the highest level" that Iraqi's oil resources "belong to the Iraqi people and no one else," and that withdrawal will occur as soon as the new government requests it. Sunni Arabs have opposed Kurdish and Shiite demands for autonomous regions, arguing that they won't be able to benefit from the oil riches in those areas. Four main groups identified The report identified four main groups behind the insurgency: al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; Jaish Ansar al-Sunni; the Islamic Army in Iraq; and the Islamic Front of the Iraqi Resistance. Two other less sophisticated levels were cited as well. "Over time they have developed recognized, proficient and uninterrupted channels of communication through which, among other things, they regularly take responsibility for armed operations," the report said of the four groups. From May 2003 to the present, three phases "in the evolution of the insurgents' discourse" emerged, the report said. "Competition between groups for greater visibility generated increasingly bloody and controversial deeds, which in turn initiated vigorous internal debate from mid-2004 to mid-2005 and ushered in the current phase of apparent consensus on critical issues," it found. The report said insurgents "have been effective at ... generating new recruits and mobilizing a measure of popular sympathy among its target audience." Other trends cited: A "gradual convergence around more unified practices and discourse and predominantly Sunni Arab identity." "There is little sign of willingness by any significant insurgent element to join the political process or negotiate with the United States. While covert talks cannot be excluded, the publicly accessible discourse remains uniformly and relentlessly hostile to the occupation and its 'collaborators.' " "The groups appear acutely aware of public opinion" and are "increasingly mindful of their image." "The insurgents have yet to put forward a clear political program or long-term vision for Iraq." "The insurgency is increasingly optimistic about victory."

Not sure what "average" L/D here would be. It must vary a lot for different people, and will degrade as you keep holding it past a minute or so - Prodigy is a bit hard on the arms when maxed out. My best in it (on the 5th flight) was 1.7+ on a minute-long flight. I haven't measured L/D after that, as it never was a goal of consequent flights. bsbd! Yuri.

Douggs is the king of air-to-air, his footage of Coombesy is absolutely the best. Of course all the cheers for that go to..... Douggs! bsbd! Yuri.

Jimmy, I just try to push buttons. Don't fall for it so easily! bsbd! Yuri.

Everybody is in charge, individually. It is a personal call for every jumper to make, so the scale does slide a bit. If you are still interested in the original question, i think your actions are mostly ethical. They are often lame and annoying, and produce mediocre videos when compared to the same examples of Jeb (or Iiro, Norgies, etc) but generally you are as ethical as those guys. bsbd! Yuri.

Plenty are joining the insurgency to free their country. The majority just want to be left alone and live their lives. bsbd! Yuri.

Yo ! In case you didn't notice, Apex is now making WLO toggles for the standard (LRT) risers. They are designed even better than the old pin-style WLOs, now absolutely bulletproof. Still instantly operable by one hand, and pretty much impossible to fire by accident. Look and feel like your standard Big Grabs. Check it out for yourself: http://www.apexbase.com/portal/commerce.asp?CatId=77&ProdId=miscWLOtoggles So now, that snaps are no more, jumping without WLOs is a barbaric option reserved for total loosers. Save yourself before it's too late! bsbd! Yuri.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/09/AR2006020902418.html The former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of "cherry-picking" intelligence on Iraq to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war, and of ignoring warnings that the country could easily fall into violence and chaos after an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Paul R. Pillar, who was the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, acknowledges the U.S. intelligence agencies' mistakes in concluding that Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction. But he said those misjudgments did not drive the administration's decision to invade. "Official intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs was flawed, but even with its flaws, it was not what led to the war," Pillar wrote in the upcoming issue of the journal Foreign Affairs. Instead, he asserted, the administration "went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq." "It has become clear that official intelligence was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between [Bush] policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicized," Pillar wrote. Pillar's critique is one of the most severe indictments of White House actions by a former Bush official since Richard C. Clarke, a former National Security Council staff member, went public with his criticism of the administration's handling of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and its failure to deal with the terrorist threat beforehand. It is also the first time that such a senior intelligence officer has so directly and publicly condemned the administration's handling of intelligence. Pillar, retired after 28 years at the CIA, was an influential behind-the-scenes player and was considered the agency's leading counterterrorism analyst. By the end of his career, he was responsible for coordinating assessments on Iraq from all 15 agencies in the intelligence community. He is now a professor in security studies at Georgetown University. White House officials did not respond to a request to comment for this article. They have vehemently denied accusations that the administration manipulated intelligence to generate public support for the war. "Our statements about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein were based on the aggregation of intelligence from a number of sources and represented the collective view of the intelligence community," national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley said in a White House briefing in November. "Those judgments were shared by Republicans and Democrats alike." Republicans and Democrats in Congress continue to argue over whether, or how, to investigate accusations the administration manipulated prewar intelligence. Yesterday, the Senate Republican Policy Committee issued a statement to counter what it described as "the continuing Iraq pre-war intelligence myths," including charges that Bush " 'misused' intelligence to justify the war." Writing that it was perfectly reasonable for the president to rely on the intelligence he was given, the paper concluded, "it is actually the critics who are misleading the American people." In his article, Pillar said he believes that the "politicization" of intelligence on Iraq occurred "subtly" and in many forms, but almost never resulted from a policymaker directly asking an analyst to reshape his or her results. "Such attempts are rare," he writes, "and when they do occur . . . are almost always unsuccessful." Instead, he describes a process in which the White House helped frame intelligence results by repeatedly posing questions aimed at bolstering its arguments about Iraq. The Bush administration, Pillar wrote, "repeatedly called on the intelligence community to uncover more material that would contribute to the case for war," including information on the "supposed connection" between Hussein and al Qaeda, which analysts had discounted. "Feeding the administration's voracious appetite for material on the Saddam-al Qaeda link consumed an enormous amount of time and attention." The result of the requests, and public statements by the president, Vice President Cheney and others, led analysts and managers to conclude the United States was heading for war well before the March 2003 invasion, Pillar asserted. They thus knew, he wrote, that senior policymakers "would frown on or ignore analysis that called into question a decision to go to war and welcome analysis that supported such a decision. . . . [They] felt a strong wind consistently blowing in one direction. The desire to bend with such a wind is natural and strong, even if unconscious." Pillar wrote that the prewar intelligence asserted Hussein's "weapons capacities," but he said the "broad view" within the United States and overseas "was that Saddam was being kept 'in his box' " by U.N. sanctions, and that the best way to deal with him was through "an aggressive inspections program to supplement sanctions already in place." "If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication," Pillar wrote, "it was to avoid war -- or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath." Pillar describes for the first time that the intelligence community did assessments before the invasion that, he wrote, indicated a postwar Iraq "would not provide fertile ground for democracy" and would need "a Marshall Plan-type effort" to restore its economy despite its oil revenue. It also foresaw Sunnis and Shiites fighting for power. Pillar wrote that the intelligence community "anticipated that a foreign occupying force would itself be the target of resentment and attacks -- including guerrilla warfare -- unless it established security and put Iraq on the road to prosperity in the first few weeks or months after the fall of Saddam." In an interview, Pillar said the prewar assessments "were not crystal-balling, but in them we were laying out the challenges that would face us depending on decisions that were made." Pillar wrote that the first request he received from a Bush policymaker for an assessment of post-invasion Iraq was "not until a year into the war." That assessment, completed in August 2004, warned that the insurgency in Iraq could evolve into a guerrilla war or civil war. It was leaked to the media in September in the midst of the presidential campaign, and Bush, who had told voters that the mission in Iraq was going well, described the assessment to reporters as "just guessing." Shortly thereafter, Pillar was identified in a column by Robert D. Novak as having prepared the assessment and having given a speech critical of Bush's Iraq policy at a private dinner in California. The column fed the White House's view that the CIA was in effect working against the Bush administration, and that Pillar was part of that. A columnist in the Washington Times in October 2004 called him "a longstanding intellectual opponent of the policy options chosen by President Bush to fight terrorism." Leaked information "encouraged some administration supporters to charge intelligence officers (including me) with trying to sabotage the president's policies," Pillar wrote. One effect of that, he said, was to limit challenges to consensus views on matters such as the Iraqi weapons program. When asked why he did not quit given his concerns, Pillar said in the interview that he was doing "other worthwhile work in the nation's interest" and never thought of resigning over the issue. Pillar suggests that the CIA and other intelligence agencies, now under Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte, remain within the executive branch but "be given greater independence." The model he cites is the Federal Reserve, overseen by governors who serve fixed terms. That, he said, would reduce "both the politicization of the intelligence community's own work and the public misuse of intelligence by policymakers."

Valid reasons not based on religion or personal morals? Please name one or two. bsbd! Yuri.

Wow... this is coming quicker than expected. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4696038.stm The head of Israel's domestic security agency, Shin Bet, has said his country may come to regret the overthrow of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Yuval Diskin said a strong dictatorship would be preferable to the present "chaos" in Iraq, in a speech to teenage Jewish settlers in the West Bank. He also said the Israeli security services and judiciary treated Arabs and Jewish suspects differently. A Shin Bet veteran, Mr Diskin took over as Shin Bet's chief in May. His speech to the students at the Eli settlement as they prepared for military service was secretly recorded and broadcast on Israeli TV. When asked about the growing destabilisation of Iraq, Mr Diskin said Israel might come to rue its decision to support the US-led invasion in 2003. "When you dismantle a system in which there is a despot who controls his people by force, you have chaos," he said. "I'm not sure we won't miss Saddam." Inequality The security chief was also asked to compare the treatment of Jews and non-Jews by Israel's security and judicial establishments. "I do not see equality in the way the system handles them when they are guilty of the same type of offence," he said. "If I had arrested a terrorist from Nablus and Eden Nathan Zaada [an Israeli army deserter who shot dead four Israeli Arabs on a bus in August], they wouldn't have received similar treatment in interrogation or court." Mr Diskin also said he thought Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had made a mistake when he withdrew the Israeli army from the Gaza Strip last year without ensuring the Palestinian Authority could fill the security vacuum. "From a security perspective, I am opposed to handling over territories to the Palestinians unless we know there are officials there who will take control and commit themselves to upholding the law," he said. "If there are no such officials, then I am against handing over territories to Palestinian control." But Mr Diskin criticised militant Israelis who have used violence to oppose further withdrawals from the West Bank.

They teach her how to make a lot of money when an opportunity presents itself - a very useful skill in a capitalist society. bsbd! Yuri.

I notice this too. BASE is a very international and well-traveled community, quite often everybody on the load is from a different country. English countdown is standard and it becomes second nature very fast

Moscow crew did a practice rescue run at their legal 1200' A a couple of months ago. This may give you some ideas: http://people.skydive.ru/drluv/GA.html bsbd! Yuri.

Yo ! With Vrank Le Poole's permission, i have uploaded his old BASE compilation to SkydivingMovies. This is my all-time favorite BASE edit: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=3365 There is also Dan's BASE edit, circa '99, very nice Rasta style piece of work: http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=3366 They both came from VHS. If anybody can find DV source and re-code, that would be great. Meanwhile, get stoned and turn the music up! bsbd! Yuri.