Bob_Church

I support the USPA, but the one thing that sticks in my throat and has from day one is the Pro rating. I know, I know, this will get me roasted, but I think it's a scam. And I've jumped with Pro rated skydivers who prove my point.

Not a very good pilot, in my book, sheesh. To paraphrase many many other people under various circumstances "I get to altitude with the pilot I've got, not the pilot I want."

Never hog the passing lane.

"I have given 90 degree corrections in the past. " We had a pilot at the airport (not a dz) that wanted to learn to fly jumpers to help out at the air shows. The first time he took us up the wind was coming straight down the runway. A couple of days later he took us up and used the same flight path, figuring "hey it worked last time," and I finally got to say "90 right!" Even with regular pilots that have a little jump experience I've learned to navigate completely differently. Since the pilot we usually use seems physically unable to do a correction of less than 30 degrees I get him going in the general direction but set it up so that I can give one big correction that puts me over the spot. Since I can't control the direction of approach I just make sure I'm ready to go as soon as he is over it.

How are you set for AADs? I may be able to get my hands on a Sentinal or two.

RC Cola and Moonpies! Memories of the deep south in the early 70s.

We have an airshow this weekend but I told the weather gods that if it had to rain at one but would leave the other dry then to rain on us. And it's starting to look like maybe they listened. I hope this doesn't get me kicked out of the skydiving club, but here's hoping for a nice day for you. Having had three of them I'm kind of sentimental about wedding days.

One time, and one time only, I found microwave popcorn with butter but no salt. At home, for us, it's strictly Orville Redenbacker popped in a dedicated sautee pan with melted butter poured over. I know, I know, I always believed that you'd be paying a lot more for just a fancy jar but one time they were out of the other non-microwave popcorn (they had walls of different microwave but two versions of non-microwave, the little plastic krogers sack or Orville) so I had to get it and I've never gone back, it's worth the cost.But anyway, microwave is handy at work, the airport, everywhere. But they always put at least three times as much salt as I like. It's very easy to keep a thing of popcorn salt and add the amount I like, but adding butter when I'm not in my own kitchen would be more trouble than it's worth. This stuff was perfect, so I never found it again.

It sounds like you're ok with older gear. Call Ralph and see if he has any of those Hornets left. The hornet is a nine cell zero-p canopy. My 210 reminds me for all the world of my Cruiselite, which I still consider the best canopy experience I've ever had.

***I came back into the sport after a long layoff about 15 years ago (!). Some friends wanted to get back into the sport about 2008 and I took them to Taylor Air Sports. Brad was gearing Jim up with a rental and Jim wanted to know what a Triathlon was. I asked Brad to compare it for him with a Cruisair. Brad: "What's a Cruisar?"

I think it's worth knowing what your instructors say before and then after an event. In 1978, on my 9th jump, I had a high speed malfunction and had to use the belly wart on my student rig. I tried to do a plf but hit butt first, hard. I mentioned this back at the dz and was told "oh, yeh, when you use a low mount reserve you have to pull yourself up into the lines." He told me this AFTER the jump, and it always sort of modified my outlook.

You should probably ask yourself how your decision compared to what you were trained to do.

Thanks for the info. I'd always assumed they used some ground based system for measuring the speed.

Was this just head down, or were they using special weights?

Right, sorry. So how did they achieve this much speed? And know their altitude, etc?

the fever (also, did you mean 35.2 vs 37.2? Because 32.7°C I was quoting the article from memory, bad idea. But I remember the F numbers made more sense to me than the C.

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.

I don't know where google got that definition for precision but I hope you didn't pay anything for it.

Ed Vickery, the man who developed the Paracommander and was the first to land a ram air canopy spoke at our 2014 Bidwell reunion, as did Mike Todd. That's going to be a tough afternoon to beat with upcoming reunions. http://www.mywvhome.com/more/reunion2.html

I can use either system, and make conversions on the fly, but I don't like Celsius for temperature. I prefer the higher precision of Fahrenheit.

If it's for a demo try a jump or two before the day of the demo. If things do ofwam then at least you won't have a crowd watching you downwind or land a reserve off site.

You might want to tack down the loose parts, like the vest. Just a few loops of nylon thread to keep things from flapping around or feeling like handles at the wrong time.

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.

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.

Whether you ever jumped at Bidwell or not come to the 2016 reunion get together. Catching up with old friends doesn't have to be limited to funerals. http://www.ohio.edu/people/churchr/show/reunion_2016.pdf