tbrown

Your tax dollars at work, and are any of us really surprised ? They lie through their teeth, don't honor their own agreements, and are probably immune to any lawsuits. USPA can only try to play by the rules. I'd have more confidence shipping a rig with an insured carrier. At least UPS would be on the hook to pay up if they screwed up, the Feds could give a shit. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Well yeah, it's the Feds' money, BUT when the Repeal Amendment (don't remember which number amendment that was) passed in 1932, it gave the states the right to control, or even ban, liquor sales as each state saw fit. Which is why some states like Utah, Oklahoma, and some southern "Bible belt" states have such restrictive liquor laws. But if a state WANTS to set 0.10 limit, or permit sales to 18 or 19 yr olds, the CONSTITUTION gives them that right too. Except the evildoers in Washington hold those rights hostage to highway funds. I'm surprised none of the states have ever sued over this. It's probably not worth the expense. Maybe the liquor companies should sue. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Drugs used to be out in the open twenty or so years ago. People would light up out in the parking lot during the daytime. There were definitely some fatalities where drug use was involved. Those days seem to be over. I'm not so naieve as to think people aren't still using drugs these days, after all skydivers are people and drug use is human behavior. But it doesn't seem to be the wide open thing that it was in the old days, and thank God for that. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

My thought exactly, that's a hard act to follow. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Uh, yeah Pete, actually we're a little behind, so we'll be expecting you to come in all say Saturday, okay ? Yeah, and uh we'll expect you to come in all day Sunday too, alright, uh, good... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Sprained an ankle on a student jump under my old 28 ft surplus tie dyed canopy. Also bashed a shoulder pretty hard landing a round reserve on a very windy day in a flooded field. Must have hit my head on a rock too, never did see what was under the water, but it split my hockey helmet in two. My head was just fine & I found the two halves, still joined at the chin strap - made a helmet believer out of me (this was at the time those useless leather hats were coming into style). Anyway, the shoulder hurt quite a bit. Never did see a doctor about it, but the following day happened to meet a faith healer. Had never seen the guy before in my life and the first thing he did was put his hand on the shoulder and say that I was in a lot of pain there. He prayed over my shoulder and I could feel something come right through his hand. By the next morning my shoulder was fine. I'm not very religious, but I gotta admit it happened just like that. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I've had a lot of those dreams too. Over the 22 years I was out I'd have skydiving dreams. Sometimes really vivid El Capitan dreams. Then about 5 years ago, I started dreaming about putting a new rig together. I'd dream that UPS deleivered a bright orange reserve, or a blue & yellow main. Or I'd dream some loft had called and said my new container system was ready. A threapist friend of ours thought these dreams were very interesting. Now I'm jumping again and trying to put a rig together. I might just try to get an orange reserve, just for the hell of it. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I thought that rumor was about Paul McCartney? Chris Well, there WAS that picture of ol' Strom in a walrus suit... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I like the part about the Red Back spiders, who somersault into their sweetie's waiting jaws. Those guys evidently know how to party! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Not only that, but up until yesterday hetero couples, even married couples could get busted for sodomy. Sodomy laws aren't just targeted at gays, they define what "acceptable" sex is for everyone. Doesn't matter if you're married, if you enjoy going down on each other, or even having the little lady on top, they were all illegal. While the illegality may add some spice to the ride, the idea that a cop can wander into your bedroom and cart you off to jail for good clean fun is just offensive and ought to be un-American. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Don't forget that a first freefall is a hop & pop, or at least is supposed to be. But anyway, it's a sub-terminal jump and you aren't nearly as close to the ground timewise as a terminal freefaller. It takes something like 12 seconds to fall the first 1200 or so ft, or something like that. Still, for the first time, it is a bit low. Mine was 3200 ft, back in the seventies. At least you won't be scared to death of anything below 5 grand, like too many AFF grads are these days. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

For the record, my lowest intentional pull to date is 3,600. That was low enough for me. Plenty low. In thee olden dayes it was not uncommon for a first freefall student to hop & pop from 3200 ft, that's what I did on jump numero 6 back in 1974. I thought it was pretty good, because they'd gone UP from the 2500 ft I'd been static lining at and I could tell we were higher and the ground was smaller. Nowadays, students and A licenses are required to pull higher and that's fine. Everyone else is pulling higher and that's a good thing too. Our canopies didn't snivel as much back then either, you threw your pilot, you opened. Nowadays I'll let it go at 3 grand and I think it's weird that I'm all the way down to 2 grand before the Spectre is ready to get to work. But I'm still under an open canopy by 2 grand and that's SAFE. Sooner or later everyone goes low. It WILL happen to you. But 3 grand isn't low either and I think people should at leat be comfortable with 3 grand. It's a realistic altitude. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Was open at 1200, under my main. A long time ago at the Rumbleseat Meet. Back in the days when we were young, stupid, and knew we'd live forever. We broke off our 10 way at 2500. Believe it or not, nobody said a word about it either. One cutaway at around 1200, the reserve was open just below a grand. That was stupid too - but fun to look back on! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I'd be more than happy to invite that chicken over to my place for dinner ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I think a lot of people have a phobia about cutting away. You're committing yourself at that point, so it makes people want to cheat, wait a little longer, try deploying the reserve first, etc. That's not good thinking. Cutting away is what we do if things go wrong. Sure it's scary, but it works. While it's good that people are pulling higher (really, I'm all for it), it's creating an unsafe paranoia about doing anything below 3 grand. If you need to cutaway, you're almost always going to be below 3 grand. Hesitating and losing altitude by the precious second isn't helping you, if anything it's giving you false hope. I was dumb enough to try and clear a problem all the way down to 1200 ft once before I gave up and did what I should've done higher. That was a long time ago, so there was no AAD or RSL, with a round reserve at a DZ with about a 1400 ft. ground elevation. The cutaway, once I got off my ass and did it, went by the book, I was open very quickly. Those who hesitate shall inherit the earth - and that hurts. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Yeah you better not hope you're one of them. Because if you can't afford a top gun attorney, being in the wrong place at the wrong time can land you on death row. Not many people can afford the likes of Gerry Spence. What slays me is that the same people who won't trust the government to so much as deliver the mail are willing to let that same incompetent government take a person's life. It's like givng a six year old a loaded Magnum and telling him to go out and play with it. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[State sponsored killing to make people feel good is pretty despicable, IMO. I'm not a passivist bleeding heart. Killing someone to stop them from hurting you, no problem with that. There are a couple people that I've personally felt needed to be killed in revenge for their actions. But that's a personal emotion and I didn't act on it. The state is just sanitizing the same thing and making it easier for people to swallow because it's "the law". But morally, it just comes down to revenge. This just in - she's guilty. The jury convicted her of murder in less than an hour of deliberations. The state is NOT seeking the death penalty, but is going for life imprisonment. Even revenge can be a motive, but capital punishment is just not good public policy and it isn't good law. There are too many mistakes. Most of these crimes are highly emotional, the killimng of a child, elderly woman, police officer, etc and people want revenge so badly they're glad to kill off any derelict who had the misfortune to be camping in the area that night. It's just plain stupid. It doesn't lower the crime rate, it doesn't put a roof over anyone's head, get a child an education, or save a single job from going overseas to wherever it is they're going. It just gives the asshole politicians a bloody shirt to wave on election day so that the average moron will get an erection and vote for them. My dad was a jury foreman on a murder trial in Boston about 8 years ago. MA didn't have the death penalty in those days (they do now). It was a complicated case, based on circumstantial evidence. He told me it was so much easier to focus on the facts and not have to worry about whether he was making a mistake that could cost another person his life. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Time to get busy !!! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

You might question whether you even want this rig at all. I know, renting sucks and we're all deserate to buy a rig of our own - I'm in the same boat myself right now. But once you buy it, you own it and whatever rig money you have will be gone. Let's see, this rig needs work and has an "iffy" reserve that may need a Service Bulletin repair. Is this the rig you want to strap on and trust your life to every jump for the next 2-5 years ? The price is too high in any case (my opinion). The hardest, but most important thing for those of us looking to buy our first rig is to RESIST the urge to commit to the first thing that comes along. Renting sucks, but gear regret is even worse. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Is there any possibility it will be licensed to other manufacurers? Licensing would be great, but won't the licensees also have to get it TSO'd for their own reserve systems ? I mean the Skyhook does essentially break the bridle in two, you have upr and lwr bridles connected by the Skyhook. So wouldn't any licensees have to have their reserves retested for TSO ? You couldn't just do a garage job on this. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The caveat here is that in skydiving, a very small number lose a lot of years while the overwhelming majority lose none, but with smoking, most smokers lose a few years. So WHY do so many skydivers smoke ? Honestly, for active people participating ina such a demanding sport, I'm still amazed at how many jumpers smoke. I mean I'm a libertarian and I think people have a right to smoke (outdoors) if they want, but compared to almost anywhere else these days, there are a lot of us lighting up. What's up with that ? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

A great man once said, "If you're not scared, you don't understand the situation". Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The first horror movie I saw was on TV when I was 5. The Tarantula. Basic early 60s movie about a tarantula that is fed radioactive food & gets REALLY big & goes on a rampage. My brother cried at the end of the movie when the people finally killed the giant Tarantula. Tarantula was way cool. And it was Clint Eastwood who killed the Tarantula. Yeah, "make my day" Clint was the fighter pilot who dropped the napalm on Senor Spider, it was Eastwood's very first movie role. You can't even see his face for the helmet and oxy mask, but the voice is unmistakeable. "So, tell me spider, do you feel LUCKY ?". Now that I'm a big kid I really enjoyed "Aliens" (the 2nd film) a lot and "The Ring" is one of the most thoroughly sinister films ever. Hopefully there will be more, it's derived from a trilogy of Japanese "Ring" films. That nasty little girl is just awful ! Talk about a 3-D screen ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Tularemia ? Geez Louise, they use that stuff for bio warfare, so it can't be pleasant. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I think so too. You've got every right to feel the way you do about what Faber said. But look, even as he was saying it, even then, everyone else was weighing in on your side. I would be deeply offende to feel that anyone was ever run off these forums. You've got the love and support of 99.9% of the people who post here, which is better than I can probably say for myself. Please don't leave. Take a break if you must, but we'll never get the whole picture without your $.02. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !