Bob_Church

It would be nice to have a button to reply without listing a "reply to" person. But I doubt that's in the package.

Instead of letting him make an ass out of himself they turned him into a martyr. I remember many years ago when the KKK wanted to march in Marietta Oh and they were almost banned. If they had been then locals would only have their brochures to go by, the ones making them out to be some kind of heroes protecting white women. As it is they saw a bunch of toothless morons with belt sizes larger than their IQs. I wonder if this guy even had a speech written for that night, of if he actually got exactly what he wanted.

On my first jump I was absolutely terrified, I'd never even been in a plane before and I was only in this one because I'd said the wrong thing at the wrong time. But once the canopy opened everything was fine. Better, it was beautiful. I noticed how far away the ground was but that it didn't bother me. I checked over my canopy, and got a kick out of watching the plane fly off. Then remembered to my dummy ripcord. oops. But like they told me afterwards, it's all gets more natural with each jump. In the famous words of Tom Hantack "not to worry"

I passed that on to our reunion list, Green County SPC Bidwell. Thanks

Here's his beech. The day it arrived and then, well, at least I think you can see the rail in the second one.

Bruffy had a damn nice King Air. True, but my favorite plane of his was the Beech D-18. It was a work of art anyway, then he put a step on the door and a rail down the middle of the top. We'd put six people hanging from the other side off that rail and launch a dozen or more jumpers in one big wad. These were our James Bond jumps.

I haven't heard back from Andy (dzo at the time) yet but Spurgeon, who was a jumpmaster then says two shots.

I could never figure out if there were more than one DZs at Rome. I've never been there but I've had friends who jumped or, like John, flew jumpers there.

I've been thinking about it and now I'm not sure if they were shot and a half or two shots. I'll ask Andy next time I see him. We have a Bidwell reunion lunch once or twice a month.

I see John Bruffy every now and then. I could pass on a message if it would help.

I think the worst part though is on those occasions he said something that was obviously true, Clinton would disagree with him just to disagree. When he said that blacks were getting screwed over a sensible response would be something like "no shit Sherlock, but you wouldn't help the situation," She and her supporters instead started talking about how nice life in the ghettoes is. I can see the two of them on a platform waiting to speak in the pouring rain. Trump says "boy it sure is raining" and she'd put her umbrella away and stand there trying to smile with water running off her.

I think it would be very interesting for him to do a similar, and honest, evaluation using the same guides and benchmarks of HRC.

"I just don't see how the real world position of President of the United States can be held by someone on the scale of narcissism Trump has demonstrated so far and for it to be a good thing." I don't think that this is an election that can be described by only looking at the winner. Did the majority of those sixty million people choose Trump, or did they choose him over Clinton? I think that's an important distinction and one that needs to be looked at if the Democrats ever want back into the White House. In my opinion the only reason Trump is POTUS is that the DNC ran the one person that he could beat.

There's a lot more to it than that, but you'll learn all that. My point is that at some point your mother decided that the advantages of letting you go out on your own over rode the dangers. But there is no reason for her to ever accept Russian Roulette so you might want make an effort to somehow let her know what the Sport is really about. Good luck.

"Curious about the capewells "wired up". Hard to see one being accidentally cut away, you needed a bit of force to pop them in the first place. (unless, as a few of the boys did, filed the lugs on them so opening the covers practically initiated the cutaway). " They were two shots. The jumpmasters and DZO said that they did that to keep someone from accidentally pulling one at 500 feet. It was my first jump, so my response was "ok."

My mom isn't happy about this decision. She says skydiving is dangerous. To be honest, I have no idea if she's right or not I think the biggest problem that people have with skydiving is that they think it is ONLY dangerous. They see it as an expensive form of Russian Roulette so why do it. My impression on that first drive to the DZ was of a bunch of people sitting around a cable spool playing cards and getting their nerve up for another jump. All of this in grim boring colors. What amazed me most was seeing that it was a sport with different brands, nice colors, all of it. And most importantly, people skydiving because it's so much fun. Maybe if your Mother could see that aspect of Skyiving it might help.

My first high speed malfunction which would have been a cutaway except that student gear had the cutaways wired shut was in 1978. I had three more before 1984 or so. These were pretty much due to the old gear we were jumping. It had a long way to go. In fact it wasn't until 2015 that I had another cutaway and I can say with no hesitation that that was due to sloppiness on my part. I did a poor, supposedly temporary, job of sewing up a keeper, then instead of getting it to a rigger the first chance I had I ignored it. If you take care of your gear it will take care of you. I consider Skydiving to be a dangerous sport than can be done safely.

Give Ralph a call. He's always been good to me. (503) 630-5867 I hope this doesn't come across as advertising. I have nothing to do with his business except being a very happy customer.

Grunt, another factor is that once you get some jumps in you might realize that you're a fellow mutant who actually enjoys being in the sky and isn't in such a rush to get to the ground that they'll risk busting their ass for it with smaller and smaller canopies. I weigh 165 and jump a 210 Hornet. The Hornet flies flat anyway and combined with the low wing loading I can cruise around for a long time and cover some serious distance. I enjoy it. A lot.

Does your dropzone have a dealer? Sometimes that's a good way to go since you're dealing with someone who will be there after each jump and won't want to hear about your bad landings due to the wrong canopy choice.

Exact quote from the front page of today’s Athens Messenger “Federal Judge: Ohio’s three-drug death penalty cocktail poses ‘substantial risk of serious harm””

"My left hand hadn't even gotten to the reserve handle by the time my right hand pulled the cutaway. (No RSLs are used in CRW) As I pulled the reserve, I looked down and saw that I was directly over that set of sewage tanks that Bob described. There's pretty much nothing to do on a cutaway following the reserve pull other than stay stable and hang out. I didn't even want to look over my shoulder for fear of getting unstable. I know now that it was a pretty quick deployment, but I had time to think that maybe cutting away wasn't a good idea, because those tanks were getting big very quickly. Just then, the reserve opened. I popped the brakes loose, thinking, "OK, which way was the landing wind ?" At the same time I realized that I was too low to turn and landed straight ahead. The reserve ride was approx. 20 seconds. " It's really amazing how time shifts during a malfunction. On the jump we're talking about someone watching probably would have trouble seeing the lines clear, it would happen too fast, but I felt each rubber band separately, pop......pop.......pop.... then woke up under the open SAC. Those 20' canopies open hard. My first malfunction was on my 9th jump still on student status. I'd been given a canopy that wasn't supposed to be jumped, it had knots tied in the lines so of course the sleeve never budged. Those student rigs had the shot and a halfs wired up so we couldn't accidentally cut one away. When you lay a belly mount reserve on the packing table with the bungees attached and pull the handle you can't even see the flaps retract, it's that fast. I felt like I was watching one of those stop motion films of a flower opening up. It just slowly and lazily folded back. I had enough time to think that it wasn't going to open. It did, but it was a spooky sight watching the white reserve with no pilot chute to hold it taut dancing beside the straight as an arrow sleeve being held by its pilot chute. Once the reserve opened I sighed with relief, then *BAMMMM*. I'd forgotten about that stainless steel spring in the pilot chute. Then I started thinking about things we'd said about steering an unmodified round reserve and decided to try slipping but as I reached up two things happened. One, it started to oscillate a lithe, and I looked down and saw that opened reserve pack where there's always been a canopy packed and waiting. It was a stark reminder that I was down to my last parachute so I just folded my arms and told it to take me wherever it would. But that time shift thing, if you could do that on command even when not skydiving you could rule the world.

I sort of do it the other way around. That is, I never jump a canopy that I wouldn't be comfortable landing with rear risers.

If you get a chance, watch the 1960 movie "X-15." It's a great movie anyway, but especially interesting is MTM as a marriage busting bad girl sex kitten.

"come see the violence inherent in the system!!!"