ernokaikkonen

>Now the $64,000 question - what's the difference between the two scenarios? Why >is it OK to intentionally kill a man with a train car to save 5 others, but not >intentionally kill him with a scalpel to save 5 others? And why do people seem to >universally _see_ a difference? It seems to me that in the first scenario, the survival of the one will absolutely positively result in the death of the five. In the second scenario, the one can survive and the five still have a couple of weeks to find a brain-dead donor... Erno

>A better solution is to slip your knife up inside the 3-ring cover/mudflap. Many >manufacturers install Velcro on the flap for that reason. If you decide to get a hook knife retrofitted this way, make sure the knife is attached the right way, that is, the blade "pointing outwards". In short, it shouldn't be possible for you to cut your chest-strap while pulling out the knife. This is a possibility if the knife is attached the wrong way. Erno

>Funny thing about jumping over the ocean, I sure feel safe knowing all that water is >down there. You could ride in a pretty ugly mal and live.... You feel SAFE jumping over a body of water?? I'd be more worried about the obvious possibility of drowning... Erno

What would be the reason for having such covers?

>Everything else being equal, the PIA chart seems to be closest to reality > in terms of comparing the pack volume of two different canopies. So where did they get the values for this chart(is it available anywhere on the Net?)? I thought PD stopped giving pack-volume values as there is no reliable way of measuring them? I remember reading in Poynter's manual that the values vary a lot between one individual canopy and another(with same type and size), and even between two measurements of the same canopy? Erno

>See !codecs.txt in the public folder at http://www.skydivingmovies.com. You can >download a single file which will install just about any codec you might need. Any chance someone has this as an http-download? I can't get ftp through the firewall at work... Erno

>what about a horsehoe mal? would you try to pitch your pc first? >would you cut-away first? then deploy reserve? I'd definitely throw my PC first. With any(well, a lot of) luck, the main might even open! Probably with more line-twists than the doctor ordered, but at least I'd have a cleaner cut-away. Erno

>What language is that? As stated in the header of my message; Finnish. The language spoken in Finland? The small country between Sweden and Russia? Erno

Hi everyone As an attachment, the Finnish translation of the ProTrack-manual. Translated by a fellow jumper, Esa Ylöstalo, at my DZ. The attachment is actually an AdobeAcrobat(pdf)-file, but the forum doesn't allow those, so I changed the file-extension to .txt. Change it back to .pdf before use. The distribution of this translation has been approved by L&B. The first idea was to translate the manual just for use at our DZ. Then Esa asked me if I could put the file on the website of our DZ, so our jumpers could download it from there. I was a bit apprehensive, with issues of copyright-infringements and such going through my head. So Esa emails L&B, and guess what they answer? "Yeah sure no problem. And hey, we'll give you a free Pro-track and Jump-Track for your trouble! " Aren't those guys just great? Erno

>Not all risers have velcro either. > >The risers that came with my new Jav have neither a specific place to store the >excess brake line nor velcro. There is a useable method, but I'm not particularly >fond of it. There are at least two people on my DZ with older Javelins that have no way of stowing the excess line. The other one jumps a VX so his excess loop isn't too long. He jumps with a camera though! I'll have to have word with him. The other one jumps a Sabre150, and routes the excess loop through the riser, and under the stiffener. So what about this "useable method"? I'd hate to see the camera-fliers head ripped off because of the loose line catching his camera/sight/whatever... Erno

Am I supposed to see people's pictures in their posts, and/or in their profile when I click "View full profile" in their posts? I do have the settings in the control panel as follows: ----------- View other user's pictures in their profile? o No * Yes View user's pictures with their posts? o No * Yes ------------------- ... but I haven't seen a single picture yet?? Am I missing something or is this just not working? Erno

I don't get it. I suppose that happened by pulling the toggle through the excess loop? And if so, it really doesn't matter how you stow the excess line, as long as you don't pull the toggle through the loop when grabbing the toggles? On my DZ some people just leave the excess "flapping in the wind", as they have no place to put the excess line. So far no-one's had a problem with this, but I guess it's just a matter of time... Now what was the problem with stowing the loop in the riser? Erno

>In all seriousness, since I know how much just a single drop of rain can hurt, I'm >sure as hell not going to be trying to catch anything with any part of my body or >wings. > >Had, in fact, the Digitude actually hit me in the face or other vital part, it could have >done some serious damage. Hmm. In this day and age of smileys, people just don't seem to be able to tell a tongue-in-the-cheek post from a serious one without using them... Guess I'll have to learn to use this "mark-up" thingie... Where are the instructions? And... had you tried to catch the digitude in your wing, you might have been rewarded with a great big hole in the suit... Erno

> What I'm trying to say is that someone who lives in FL tends to have a warped >sense of what "cold" is. you prolly won't need a jacket at all. =c) Yeah, everything's relative... There is no such thing as "too cold to skydive". I've jumped at -13 degrees F(that's -25C). But then again... I live in Finland. Erno

>And you didn't catch it in your hand? For shame! Or maybe stop it with the wing of your camera-suit, and then take it in your hand, if you want to avoid broken finger-bones... Erno

>Am kind of confused, what's the difference between the kill line, bungee and >collapsible? I have seen the kill line and the bungee but I dunno what is the >difference in performance, only thing I know is that they are made different. A "collapsible pilot chute" is a general term. Both kill-line and bungee are collapsible. The difference is _how_ they collapse the pilot chute. A kill-line-model has a, well, a kill-line that extends from the canopy top-skin to the top of the pilot chute. After deployment the bridle moves up the kill-line collapsing the pilot-chute. Hadn't thought of that actually... Shouldn't we call it "kill-bridle"-pilot-chute? :-D A bungee collapsible has a regular bridle, and a bungee cord extending through the pilot-chute. With sufficient airspeed, the bungee extends and the pilot-chute un-collapses(that's not a real word, is it?). So normally the pilot-chute is always collapsed. The Pros and cons: Kill line: +Works in any airspeed +After being collapsed, stays collapsed -You have to remember to cock it while packing Bungee: +You don't have to do anything with it while packing. Can't forget to cock it. - Doesn't work well in sub-terminal-speeds - Might "catch air" during high speed canopy-maneuvres, possibly even stalling the canopy(?). As a result, can't be used with HP-canopies. I'd go with the kill-line. Erno

>What do you do for work? I surf the Net and read DZ.com. Oh yeah, I also update the web-pages of "Provincial state office of Southern Finland" for about 30min / day. My clueless co-workers seem to think I work really hard since I'm staring at the screen all day... My job sucks big fat monkey dicks. I'm glad my contract expires in September.

>There's no way a skydiver could survive the g forces of that catapult - it launches a >fully loaded plane at (like you said) about 140 knots. A skydiver weighs a little bit >less than an F-14, so he will be launched faster. Yeah. There was the idea of limiting the G's to the 3,2 specified in my post. I don't remember where I came up with that figure, but it seems reasonable that a skydiver would endure that much for the six seconds it takes to accelerate to those speeds. Then again... A quick search on Google tells me that a fully loaded F-14 weighs about 33000kg. An average skydiver weighs, say, 90kg fully equipped. This means we could launch a 366-way from the catapult!! Some minor details may need some more consideration, but... What's the going price for a used AC-carrier these days? :-D

I'm from Finland myself, but I do know that fuel is cheap in Sweden; Last year we started importing our fuel from there. Even with the cost of the tank-truck the fuel is ~35% cheaper than the fuel from the local dealer. In Finland all DZ's are club-based; no hired personnel whatsoever. I think this is the case in Sweden too. If the dropzones in the UK are commercially operated, this would also make a difference. A lot of 'if's there... But if you're looking for some seriously cheap skydiving, I recommend Estonia. 12€ jump tickets to 4km in a TurboLet410! I visited Estonia last year during the Parasummer-boogie and it was great! See the website of Skydive Estonia: http://www.skydive.ee

>You could also have a steam catapult(...) Sometimes the only thing that keeps us from jumping on our small cessna-dz in Finland is the lack of jumpers, or the fact that all our pilots are at work and we have no-one to fly the plane. So one of these days I was just hanging around the DZ thinking of an alternative solution. Naturally, the catapult-approach came to mind. I was thinking of buying a second-hand aircraft carrier with the nuclear powered steam-catapult-thingie, and planting it upright in the middle of the airfield... :-D So I made a few calculations: The catapult/slingshot/whatever will shoot the skydiver straight up. The thing is 400m tall. The "muzzle-velocity" is 132m/s (or 475 km/h), which is survivable and flyable for a good speed-skydiver. The calculations assume that the jumper will be launched in a head-down attitude(or actually, head-up...). The acceleration is limited to 3,2G's. So, when the speed-skydiver exits the catapult(400m tall, remember?) @ 132m/s, he/she will come to a complete stop @ ~800m AGL. Assuming the jumper stayed head-up for the whole time. Suppose you can't/won't go head-up, but would rather be launched belly-up? With the same acceleration, you'd be 600 m AGL at the highest point... It's a bummer when gravity and drag pull you to the same direction... So now you have two options: - Enduring over 3 G's of acceleration and insane airspeed to get you to an altitude only slighly less than a regular hop'n'pop, _directly_above_ a 400m tower. or - Putting on your base-rig and jumping from the top of the tower :-D Gravity sucks.

I'm far from being an expert on wingsuit flying with my astonishing 9 wingsuit-jumps but here goes: >How many companies make them? At the moment, I think the only company manufacturing winsuits is Bird-Man (www.bird.man.com). Parasport did make the Crossbow, but I think they had some trouble with licensing or something. The guy who designed the Crossbow is currently looking for a new manufacturer (or so I heard). >Which is the leading company? >Why? >Who has the best quality, customer service, suit? Most of the reviews I've seen seem to favor BirdMan products. There are three different models of the BirdMan-suit, for different skill-levels. I don't think there ever was more than one model of the Crossbow. BirdMan is constantly improving their designs on the suits. Even the novice-level suit(Classic II) from BirdMan has come a long way from the earliest models. >Any recommendations for type of suit, options? (I would just go ahead and get >the really fast one, kinda in my nature) I'd try jumping a wingsuit with a borrowed Classic II, maybe for around 10 jumps, or until you feel you're completely comfortable with the suit. Then I'd order the Gti-model. Don't buy the Skyflyer just yet, you need to learn the basics of wingsuit-flight with a more docile model first (You don't order your first canopy in the sub 100sqft range now do you?). The Skyflyer is for experienced wingsuit-flyers only. >Anything I would need to have special for wing suit flying? Cutting open the lower corners of your main container helps your main deploy cleanly. As the bag tends to leave the container more backwards than straight up, the bag tends to flip to one side, causing line twists. >How the heck to set up a protrack for wing suit flying? Jump-type : SLO Have fun with your wings!

>I've jumped a Maverick. Nice canopy. Yeah, flares like a rock loaded @ 1:1 ... Though mine has about 1000 jumps on it. :-) Jumped a two-stack with two Mavericks last summer, just to see how it was done in the old days...

Yeah, suppose Khan had found out the access-codes for the Enterprise? We would have never seen Star Treks III-VI... If there is a possibility to remotely control a plane (or a starship...), there is always a way to abuse this possibility.

Yes, I know I would load it too high. My actual question was "Is it possible for a crossbraced elliptical to fly well with a low-a.r.-F111 reserve?(in a two-canopy situation)". Point being, if it can't, there's no point in buying a reserve that small. I was thinking I'd buy a 150sqft Tempo, but I'm quite certain _that_ wouldn't fly with a ~100sqft elliptical. This would mean I'd _have_to_ cut-away in all two-canopy situations. So it comes down to this: Should I overload my reserve 60lbs in case I find myself in a two-canopy situation, or should I be prepared to cut-away my main in _all_ two canopy situations? At the moment, I'd buy the bigger reserve.

I'm currently considering buying a new rig, and was wondering about the two-canopy situations: How well can a highly loaded cross-braced elliptical main and an almost-as-highly loaded low-aspect-ratio F111-reserve fly? Say, a Velocity103 and a Tempo120? (the Velocity loaded at 1.9). I'm inclined to think that a combination such as this may not be landable, especially in a side-by-side configuration. Any thoughts on this?