Bob_Church

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Posts posted by Bob_Church

  3. It's always hard to tell when you just like something more because it's what you've always used, but I've even talked to people who grew up using the metric system who prefer the increased number of degrees of F over using a percentage point in C. This seems especially true for people with jobs where they work with people a lot, lawyers versus engineers for instance. It's like the current debate over the woman with ebola in England. Part of the argument is over whether her fever was 32.7 or 32.5, which to me just sounds too close to call, but you probably hear a huge difference.

  9. promise5

    Yes, I'm begging for prayers, good vibes and anything else that will get me Sun on Saturday.
    Having an outdoor wedding and there's no backup plan. Yeah, I kinda overlooked the bad weather have a plan B thing.



    Congratulations either way. Just don't let marriage rob The Sport of yet another new skydiver.
    I remember when my wife got mad because I was spending more on jump tickets each month than our house payments. So I bought a bigger house.

  10. I was at Waynesville, Oh that day, jumping a Beech from a dirt strip. We'd just made a load and were packing when it came over the dz radio that was playing over the outdoor speakers. That was really of bizarre, it was like on some tv show when plot point radio announces something out of the blue that affects the listeners. I remember how quiet it got as we finished packing and on the ride up just afterwards. Nobody said a word, just kept their heads down and packed, like we've all had to do right after certain bounces.

  13. Something that seems to have changed big time is that gear, or at least rigs, don't go out of date like they used to. When I started jumping if you had a rig that was five years old people would stare at you when you got on the plane. I know, I always had old gear. But I bought my Quasar 2 twenty years ago and it still looks current and I see no reason to replace it.

  14. Here's a question for everyone. Let's exclude unintentional openings, the head down accidental pilot chute extractions, that sort of thing.
    This is a skydiver throwing out their pilot chute because it's time to get canopy.
    Which models of parachutes have killed skydivers during this sort of opening? Which models have put people in the hospital with injuries?

  16. I mail a lot of stuff via USPS and we live in a small town, village actually, where the two guys at the post office have become friends. They've both assured me that they consider USPS' insurance a waste of money. They have many many stories about something getting lost but neither can remember the postal service actually paying anyone, no matter how legitimate the claim. According to them it usually comes down to the higher ups saying "well, you claim that that was in the package, but we don't know that for sure, so claim denied."
    Anyone on here have any actual experience with trying to get paid for something that USPS has lost?

  17. riggerrob

    More than a decade ago, CSPA made rounds optional for the Rigger A rating.
    This was more a case of rule-writers adjusting rules to better fit reality. Since rounds had disappeared from Canadian DZs more than a decade earlier, young riggers whined about wasting time learning how to repack round canopies they had never seen nor expected to repack.



    I can't blame them for not wanting to bother. Fortunately they've still got tables at Xenia (Greene County) and a good rigger who is so young that I'm sure he'll outlast me, let alone this old rig.
    With the 180 day cycle I only get it packed once a year, that covers all the events where I might need it. I don't get any demos in the winter these days, at least nothing big enough that the FAA might show up. Which is good since it's hard on the knees. Our air show, third Sunday of September, tends to wrap things up.

  18. likestojump

    *********The biggest problem is getting a round packed but I've been lucky so far..



    Did you seriously have a rigger refuse to pack a round PEP with a round ???

    Remember, many new riggers for the last few years have no training on round parachutes. Dave DeWolf does not include training or testing on round parachutes and PEP's in his basic rigger course. For that training you have to stay longer and spend more money. On the other hand my FAA Supervising Inspector REQUIRES me to test senior rigger candidates on round AND ram air parachutes.

    And even if they know how to pack they many don't have the equipment and facilities to pack round parachutes and don't want to mess with them.

    The problem is with the ones that don't know how but still pack them.:S

    On the other hand there still should be a lot of old farts around the midwest. About all I pack are pilot rigs with rounds. He may not have tried very hard.;)

    I ain't no old fart, but but have plenty of round packjobs. It ain't nuclear rocket surgery, and freepacking a round into a bailout is easier than bagging a square. And I don't think you need much more than the floorspace to stretch the canopy out.

    Basically, my opinion is that if a rigger refuses to pack a back bailout rig, I would be cautious of how knowledgeable and competent they are.

    This is getting weird.

  19. Sort of off topic, but when I moved to Athen Ohio, a college town where the University is bigger than the City, in 1975 there was a garage named The Subtle Bug. They only worked on Volkswagens and it was run by a couple of nice young hippies.
    It's still here, but now they only work on Subarus and it's run by a couple of nice old hippies.

  20. After that accident in Wisconsin where the one pilot survived by bailing out I figured the FAA would start clamping down on that rule. I bought a used bailout rig with a Phantom for demos where the FAA might show up and want one. The biggest problem is getting a round packed but I've been lucky so far.
    Another thing that we used to do, and works ok, is to take an older rig, something like a Wonderhog, and cut off the main flaps. If you loosen up the leg straps, just a little, and let it ride up the reserve will fit over top of the seat of a Cessna.

  22. Lew Sanborn is D1. I made a couple of jumps with him in 1980 or so and he's a great guy. It was at a meet in Deland and they were going to bring a Twin Otter over from Daytona Beach. At that time a Twin Otter jump was something. They made us a deal, we could pay the night before and leave in a van early the next morning and ride back in it. We got discounted tickets for that. I remember getting in and noticing a pilot an co-pilot wearing neat uniforms, wood trim on the lights and nice carpet on the floors and thinking "this isn't' going to last long."
    We got two loads out of it before they left. Having skydivers in general, and especially floaters, hanging off their nice shiny executive aircraft just didn't go over well.

  23. mjosparky

    ***it is also interesting to note that when the first square reserve(safety flyer by Para Flite) came out, you legally had to have a square reserve rigger rating (administered by USPA). some riggers (with the rating)starting charging double or triple to pack one.



    USPA can't make anything legal or illegal. At one tome they sad that plastic rip cord handles were illegal. They were wrong. The rigs were TSO'd with them.

    I remember this from the Nationals in 79. Jumpers were finding out at registration that they wouldn't let them jump their gear.