tbrown

"He also did the skydiving scenes himself and the film's aerial jump instructor Jim Wallace found that the actor was a natural and took to it right away.[3] The actor ended up making 55 jumps for the film." Didn't get to jump with him myself, but maybe others here did. JW My friend Dave Schulz remembers Patrick's days out at Perris. Said he enjoyed being able to just hang out in a crappy old pair of cutoffs and be accepted as one of the guys. Swayze was a trained dancer, so it's no surprise he took to the air so well. Two years is a very long hard fight with pancreatic, he really fought it like a man. He even had the guts to make another TV series, which is tough enough when you're in good health. I'll miss him. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I suppose we should thank Congressman Joe Wilson for exposing the depravity the Republican Partei is willing to sink to. In all my life, I have NEVER heard a member of Congress call the President of the United States a liar during a joint session of Congress. Not to Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon (who was a liear...), Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr. Clinton (another real life liar), or Bush II. None of them. No Democrat, no Republican, ever displayed such a vile or venomous display to an elected President. But this is what the Republicans - a party of liars - are willing to sink to. A party so obsessed with power and so enraged at the loss of power because the electorate finally got wise to them, that their number 1 mission is to wreck any administration but their own. But then there's nothing new about this either, it's only been a few years since Vice President cheney told Senator Patrick Leahy to "fuck off" on the floor of the US Senate. The Republicans seem to need to have their mouths publicly washed out with a bar of Ivory Soap. They are a disgusting and foul mouthed gaggle, unworthy of any public forum until they can learn some manners. In the meantime, I think speaker Pelosi might have the option of expelling Congressman Jones for his behavior - Congress DOES have the right to make and enforce its own rules. Jones hould be thrown out the door on his ass. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Looks like a worn out blue eye - or one with a cuncussion. Ho-hum....more cheap shots.... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Yeah, right. In the days of my misbegotten youth, we all knew the easiest girls in town could be picked up at the local all girl Catholic high school. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Under those circumstances, you don't need to be a CReW Dog for that to be the right answer. Remember - at some point, doing anything is better than doing nothing. All true, but fact is Jeni is a CRW dog as well. Might have given her an extra edge. So glad she'll be okay, Perris has had enough this week just losing Eli. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

They're a varied bunch. Some you'd never know were Christian unless you asked, others won't shut up about it. Some are noticeably kind and giving people, others are complete a-holes. It's kind like asking how do you view black/white/asian/hispanic people.... Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

It's a shame that Ted Kennedy wasn't able to take a vigorous part in the debate this summer. If he had, some real legislation might have already been passed. Whether you like him or not, Ted Kennedy had a greater lasting effect on our country than his brothers combined. As for Mary Jo Kopechne, that's being judged now by the only one with the right to judge, so just let it go. I'm bummed at his passing. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I've already got an AAD, so I'd spend the money on jumps and MAYBE my first time in a wind tunnel (or maybe not...). But in another 4 years, I'll have to replace my Cypres. I do know 2 people (maybe even 3 or 4, but definitely 2) whose lives were saved by their AADs. Anyone who's old enough to have been jumping back in the days before AADs were common can name too many old friends who died too young. But for now, I can spend it on jumping - so I will. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Nice work. I won't rain on your parade either, but I do want to add a word of caution. Maybe you just didn't mention it in your narrative, but I didn't see anything about checking your altitude as you worked with your problem. When you finally cleared it, you'd used up 1900 ft. You were still at 2600, which is just above the usual hard deck for your experience level. But if you'd pulled at 4 grand or 3500, you might have been down to 1500 ft - or lower. It's EASY to spend the rest of your life trying to fix a canopy that doesn't want to open. Like I say, maybe you were checking your alti as you worked. But time & altitude melt away awfully fast in situations like this. And your 3 rings & reserve WILL actually work. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

There are no government "death panels", this is just another Palin/Limbaugh LIE. It should make another chapter in SENATOR Al Franken's book, "Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell". The insurance companies have had their own death panels in place for years. Every time they've denied a drug, denied a therapy, or cancelled coverage on someone being treated for cancer, they've passed a death sentence. I'd actually like to see some public hangings for the insurance executives who have passed these death sentences. I really would. That "lefty" enough for y'all out there ??? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The thing that disgusts me is the obvious hero's welcome he got back in Libya. In the last few years we have been led to believe that Gadafi's son has been turning Libya away from extremism, abandoning nuclear weapons, and seeking a place in a law abiding world community. Reminds me of the fuckin' Palestinians dancing in the street and firing their precious AK's in the air on 9/11. Fuckin' kill them all. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

One guy ( Ron something [ Sorry, Ron ] who posts on here on occasion ) got 10 straight dead-centers using one at the Nationals. JerryBaumchen Jerry, I was just a student on T-10s at the time, but I remember reading about this in Parachutist. These two guys not only dead centered out, it was the first time ANYONE had ever done it in Nationals competition and all of a sudden two guys did it at once. Those were also the days when the disc was 10cm and judging was done by real judges who had the nerve to get in close - no scoring pads in those days ! The Strato Star was a bit of a surprise, because it hadn't really been designed as an accuracy canopy (that was for the Strato Cloud, which won some titles before the 252 Foils muscled in). The Star had been designed for relative workers to get the weight and bulk down - to something like 13 1/2 lbs for a 180 ft 5 cell canopy. But it did have a rather low and "boxy" wing aspect ratio, so it gave everyone a pleasant surprise in the accuracy event. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

You're right of course. I remember now, after reading your reply, that wear on the cones was the problem. I'm not a rigger and it's been a long time. Most kids today would be horrified if they ever saw a set of cones, or the bungees we used to hook up, or almost anything else we used to jump. I just wouldn't jump a piggyback in those days, not until the "Wonderhog" generation of rigs came along at the end of the seventies. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Uh yeah, that one was called "What Dreams May Come". I checked the credits at the end of the film and spotted Jack Brake's name as one of the stunt men. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

There was a beautiful real live BASE jump off Angel Falls in that Robin Williams film where he'd died and gone to heaven. Also, some spectacular airborne footage in "A Bridge Too Far". They hired the British 1st Airborne Division to make those jumps, static lining out of DC-3's, with their 1970's direct bag deployed canopies with anti inversion netting. But the door shots were stunning ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I haven't really given much thought to evolution in New Zealand. I also don't "have to pretend" to believe in anything. I am a practicing Christian, but one with a lot of doubts. I doubt whether Jesus was actually God and even doubt that he considered himself anything like that. But that's just for instance. I don't have any problems with evolution either, though some of my more fundamentalist friends have assured me that this flaw in my thinking will send me to hell ("whatever..."). But I have a real problem with people who have nothing better to do than bait believing Christians with cheap shot arguments over obscure points of belief. Unlike some of my more conservative American brethren, I'm not interested in telling you how to live your life. I don't care whether you believe or not, or what you believe in, short of human sacrifice (which I am against...). So what's with the cheap shot ? Don't you have anything better to do, like go and mow the lawn ? Or make a skydive ? Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

With the Last Hope Rope the issue wasn't with a blast handle, because I remember many LHRs attached to cloverleaf or Martin Baker type handles. The issue was possible cone lock on the reserve container. This was before closing loops, when a steel cone with a hole drilled through it was where you slid your ripcord pins. With the tension of the spring loaded pilot chute underneath, it was quite possible for the cones to lock up in the grommets, even though the ripcord had been pulled. The other issue with LHR's was that if they were attached to ANY kind of a ripcord and the ripcord was thown away after the pull, the LHR would catch the ripcord and leave it trailing up into the deploying reserve lines. It was recommended that LHRs be attached to the chest strap as a precaution to prevent this. I once mentioned this to a friend, who said he wasn't worried about it. Less than a month later he went in under a streamered reserve, where his LHR on the ripcord contributed to the chain of events. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

I like all kinds of music and have been broadening my horizons a lot the last year or two. But I'm still hopelessly stuck on the Grateful Dead, especially seventies Dead. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Because the reserve is still inside the bag, inside the container. The jumper can sit with his back to the wall so it doesn't fall out, and he can hold the pilot chute in his hand, sit on top of it, stuff it inside his jumpsuit, or whatever, to contain it so that it doesn't escape. Minimal danger here. But please consider that if everyone else jumped, there would be one lone jumper sitting in a windy cabin with an open door. You can't expect the pilot to close a fabric door and you certainly wouldn't want the jumper to try. Sometimes, as frustrating as it can be, we simply cannot abandon our friends to face needless added risk. We just have to swallow the adrenalin and do the right thing. The door stays shut and you take your friend back down to a safe landing. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

The three that come to my mind are Charlie Chaplin movies, Harold Lloyd films, and a seventies remake of "Nosferatu", with Klaus Kinski. The other morning, as I was eating breakfast before leaving for work, there were a series of Harold Lloyd films on a cable station. He and Charlie Chaplin are both so astonishingly brilliant it's almost impossible to explain - you just have to watch them. Then a while back, I rented the seventies re-make of "Nosferatu", a 1920's classic Dracula film. Something about the pacing got to me and caused me to mute the soundtrack completely - only to discover that no sound track was needed at all ! The entire film had been shot and paced exactly as though it were a silent film to begin with. It was even better without any soundtrack at all, though at least in the olden days, music had been added. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

You shouldn't be asking a bunch of strangers on a public forum. You should be asking your Instructor. These people don't know you from Adam and will tell you anyting. Your instructors should know you well enough. Talk to them - and let us know how your next few jumps go ! Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Read the owner's manual. It's important to know how your specific AAD operates. The thing about AADs is that they can pop as high as 1200 ft, if you're at line stretch and your main is sniveling and shaking itself out. It has to do with air pressure in the upright position at 1200 ft being very close to the low pressure area over someone's back in freefall at 750 ft. It's why people who accidently pull low end up with so many reserves out at or just above a grand. Obviously, taking your rig off to disable your AAD, then putting the rig back on is not a good or practical idea in a bailout situation. So the question would be more like "Can my main open by about 1200 ft above the level of the dropzone ?" (as there may be hills across the street). Then, if the terrain is sketchy, you might also want to consider that a ZP canopy, especially a 9 cell, probably has more glide than your 7 cell F-111 reserve. Plus, you've still got the option of using your reserve if your main decides it's "not in the mood". Finally, and it happens over and over again - and is another main cause of having both canopies out - no matter what people think or say, they will often reflexively reach back for Mr. Hackeysack, no matter how low they are. You can train to go for silver all you want, but silver is a handle you have to DECIDE to use. The main is something you do so many times, it's just automatic, whether or not it's the best idea. Anyway, above 1500 ft I'd probably go with my Pilot main. Below, I'd be deciding in the door to go reserve and bail out looking for my ripcord handle. Glad to hear everyone was okay on this bailout. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Time was when the newbies had to stick together and slug it out, learning the hard way, because nobody with over 100 jumps would have anything to do with them. That situation has generally improved, especially at dropzones that use real load organizers. At Perris, which is admittedly one of the largest operations going, there are designated LO's for both formation and freefly jumping and they will steer you to which one works with people at your experience level. Other dropzones don't have designated LO's and I've found myself (with a D license) in the same boat, looking for somebody, anybody, to jump with. Dropzones really ought to use LO's on a regular basis, just for business sake. If you let your LO's jump for free and tell them they need to manifest something like at least one load an hour, you'll make more money, getting more business in the air. It's simpler than stupid. Sitting down and watching TV is giving up though, you can do that at home or in a hotel room. Try to learn to sitfly, or track on your back, or even just on your belly (perpendicular to the line of flight, of course). If nothing else, do a hop & pop and if people ask you how come you're just hop & popping, tell 'em why ! But don't sit and watch the idiot box. You'll never jump with anybody doing that. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Sexual response, whether for men or women is entirely what's going on in their heads. Whether any particular act gets you off or not is up to you and your partner and the mood you're in. Oral can be fantastic, it can also be an oversensitive tender bore. So can any other kind of sex. It all depends on what's happening in the erogenous zone of your mind. And that's the truth. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

Absolutely ! She'll put the boys to shame and be able to drive anything. I've taught my wife, our daughters, and maybe half a dozen of the kids' friends to drive stick and especially the kids attain a kind of ninja status for it. Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !