Patkat

PM sent. But on a public note, all the manufacturers listed already are well worth the price of a phone call. You might also check out APCO http://www.apcoaviation.com/ Chiron, Elan, Hawk Wing, and ASAP/Summit/Steel Breeze. Not all these guys make chutes that will fit the bill for a little machine like the Paraplane, but they're all worth a holler. Sorry I didn't have time to track down urls for the rest of 'em. Try http://www.powerchutes.com or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/powerchutes/ for some hot tips and leads. And if all else fails, slap on a ParaCommander. Heck, for a little ol' Paraplane, a T-10 will do the trick - just make sure it has the 7-TU mod so you can steer. Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

And drink plenty of fluids, and pee before you jump. Mom was right. Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

Nah, there's no need to legislate against Skyride. Does Coke try to get legislation passed against Pepsi when Pepsi rolls out a new product? No - they try to out-market them. Skyride is just marketing skydiving. The way they market skydiving is shady, and they have made enemies of a lot of dzs which they should have been working with, but they are just marketing. The way to overcome the damage they do is to beat 'em at their own game. BillyVance's mention of USPA getting into the national skydiving marketing game sounds like a plan to me, and skydived19006's post also illustrates how an individual dz can out-do skyride. So, to paraphrase Diablopilot, stop whining and start doing. Skyride has been stumbling a bit, and it's the perfect time for our national organization, dzs, and individual skydivers to pick up the ball and do it better. Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

1. Whats your name? Patrick 2. How old are you? 31 this past February 3. Why did you decide to start jumping out of airplanes? There was this guy in a bar... and thne thye told me to come back. So I did. 4. Are you single or taken? Married? Not married, for sure. Not really taken, but there is this girl... 5. Do you have kids? No 6. What do you drive? 2001 Focus 7. Have you ever done a kisspass? No 8. Where do you live? Lancaster, PA 9. Do you have any pets? One very fat cat named Sail. 10. How many jumps do you have? 403 11. What color eyes do you have? Brown, flecks of green. 12. What is your nationality? American. Go back far enough, you'll find a 3 to 1 Irish to German ratio. 13. Have you ever dated someone you met off the internet? Nope 14. Favorite Movie? So many, so many... maybe The Princess Bride - but I liked the book better. Really. 15. What do you do when you arent skydiving? Edit a magazine, play guitar. Sing badly. 16. Have you ever BASE jumped? No 17. If not... do you want to? Maybe. 18. Do you have siblings? 1 sister 19. Where do you want to travel to the most? Peru 20. What's your favorite color? Purple 21. Where was the last place you flew to ( not skydiving )? Maine Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

Handsome Dave is runninghis annual course February 18 through 26 2005. There's still slots available last I talked to him. Matter of fact, I think he put an ad in the classifieds, if anyone is interested. I'll be there. Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

Why not have them act this out, in a simple and safe manner? Just a quick idea, and you know your class best, but what if you paired your students up, and had one member of each pair give the other a simple compliment - a list of acceptable ones would be good - keep it within bounds. The first time, the receiver of the compliment is supposed to do nothing, no smile, no acknowledgement at all. The second time they are supposed to smile and say thank you. Then the whole class discusses how it felt pretend they are "nobody" as opposed to giving and receiving. As I'm writing this, I'm not sure that it would be workable - depends on the students, and how easily you can keep them within non-hurtful limits - the idea is to explore the positive side of openness briefly, and lead into a discussion of the negative side as seen in the book. The essential question in the exercise is, "What is it like to be 'nobody'?" If you try something along these lines, let me know how it worked, eh? Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

If it's got seatbelts, and it should, per the FARs, then it is configured seating. Just 'cause there ain't a chair don't mean it's not a seat. Now, if you can convince the FAA field agent those are cargo tiedowns for the purpose of ferrying a cargo of air molecules to another DZ... Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

Wistfully? How about this use of the word - "The reporter smiled wistfully, and said, 'I wish we had had dictionaries when I was in college.'" Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

One relevant difference is that a stalled canopy loses its shape, unlike a rigid aircraft wing. If a canopy enters a spin state as defined by fixed wing flyers, it will tend to depressurize and start acting like a pile of nylon attached to some strings. Of course, because it has a weight suspended below it, and because of the way it is trimmed, and because of it's leading edge and crossports, it will reopen and become a functional airfoil again, given sufficient altitude and no tangles. So, speaking from relatively minimal experience with both aeronautics and canopy flight, I'd say that any stall induced spin will quickly be transitioned to a repressurized, normal canopy flight, or a ball of s*** that will recover if you're lucky. An attitudinal, straight-ahead stall is possible, and even fun to do with your canopy, given a safe altitude for recovery. Just haul down your toggles til it folds in half and you start falling fast! Then let 'em up slowly and evenly, lest you spin it and have to chop it. As for the flat spin, worry about that in freefall Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

A recent (just before Halloween) issue of Newsweek had an article which discussed why people like scary movies. Basically, the thrust of the article was that people don't actually enjoy being scared, but rather enjoy the relief after the fright. I think that this is the point Brian is making here. We do not enjoy the stressful nature of skydiving, we enjoy successfully overcoming the stress of a skydive, and saving our lives once again. Leaning forward into the energy, in this case, is implementing effective strategies for using the stress created by a skydive to challenge yourself to better performance, to focus yourself on jumping better, and on responding correctly to sydiving stimuli. If we just hopped out and pulled, like, whenever, because we were bored with skydiving, most of us would be scary, unsafe, unstable skydivers. The stress which even very experienced skydivers feel is what keeps us challenging ourselves to do it safely, and to do it better. Wow, this thread has given me a ton of great ideas for working with students, and for working with myself as well. I wonder if maybe we should not be teaching skydiving so much as fear abatement? Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

I would say that the best antidote for fear is familiarity. When people ask me how scary it is to skydive, or ask how you ever get used to jumping out of airplanes, I tell them that it is amazing what human beings can get used to. Most skydiving training is aimed at abating fear by familiarizing the student with the equipment and procedures, and practicing them in a relatively controlled environment. More effective methods allow students to feel an optimum ratio of fear and familiarity. In other words, in order to accomplish scary things, like exiting an airplane at altitude, people need to feel that they have adequate training, adequate preparation, and adequate confidence in order to perform. They also need the ability to function while in a fearful state. Speaking from personal experience, I am very fearful in new situations. For example, on my first jump, I was barely able to climb out of the aircraft. As a relatively experienced skydiver, I am now quite comfortable with exits from the aircraft I have jumped the most. I am still nervous in the face of new situations in skydiving, such as unfamiliar aircraft, new DZ, new canopies, new disciplines, and so on. Because I am familiar with the general skydiving environment, and because I am familiar with and confident in my skill sets, this nervousness is minimal, and I generally perform well despite, (or maybe even because of) being nervous. My main coping strategy at this point in my skydiving career is knowledge seeking. Because I have enough experience to visualize myself performing a new skill in skydiving, I can simply be briefed by a knowledgeable person, mentally rehearse my actions and possible outcomes, and experience only slight nervousness. The further outside my experience something is, the more stressful it is to attempt it. Earlier in my skydiving career, I relied more on blind confidence in my equipment and instructors, and simply gutted it out on my first few jumps. What I think is most interesting about this subject is examining ways to measure a person's ability to cope with the unfamiliar and find the optimum ratio of familiarity and fear which produces the largest gains in performance. Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

Dave DeWolf put together a similar system for a jumper at Maytown a couple of years ago. It was a purple PC on three ring risers put in a big ol' Dolphin container, with a square reserve and a throw out PC. Quite the combination of old and new. Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

Wait! What am I doing? I am definitely taking a shower and putting on some clothes - right this instant! Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

Too bad Malcolm in the Middle hasn't addressed this problem - I'm sure that kid knows the right answer. And anyway, I'm an English major. I don't know much, but at least I cite my sources I'll stick with my basic answer - that gravity and water's fluidity enable it to flow down the drain, and postulate that the spinning effect is caused by the fact that the drain is round and that water tends to adhere to surfaces. The spinning effect is the most efficient manifestation of the water's tendency to flow down the sides of the drian pipe. I just made all that up on the spot. [takes break for a quick education in fluid dynamics.] http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~dvandom/Edu/newcor.html http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=00069EE7-6D24-1C71-9EB7809EC588F2D7&catID=3 These two sources suggest that it really is just residual motion left over from the filling of the sink, or other motion imparted while it was filled. Coriolis effect can be measured under verrrry controlled circumstances, but is negligible in real life. Guess I overthought it. Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

Gravity, and the fact that water is a fluid, allow it to flow down the drain. All other things being equal, the spin the water takes on is caused by the coreolis effect, imparted by the earth's rotation. It's clockwise in the northern hemisphere, and anti-clockwise in the southern. You can get it to spin the other way with a vigorous swirl of the hand, or with that device featured in the Simpsons episode where Bart placed that expensive call to Australia. Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

i thought real philly cheese steaks had provalone cheese, not swiss.. the best sammich so far has to be flyingferret's stilton burger... peppercorns and roasted garlic... mmmmmmmm i had a roast turkey with grilled eggplant and swiss cheese on foccacia (sp?) one time that was awesome, once i nuked it to get the cheese all melty. Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

$5.00 to get on, plus $1 per thousand feet of altitude. So, 10,000 = $15. We're always encouraging our pilots to fly verrrrry efficiently. And to get us that extra 500 feet that ain't rounded up Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

Wow, the price is right! Only $245! Of course, that's about 800-900 $USD according to this conversion table - http://oregonstate.edu/Dept/pol_sci/fac/sahr/cv2003rsx1.pdf. Still not too bad. And available in five, count 'em, five color schemes. It'd be kinda neat to have a rig as old as me. To think I was just lying there, crapping in my diapers instead of investing in classic skydiving gear back in '74. Why, one of those in good shape has got to be worth at least $250, maybe even $260! Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

Here's some quick answers to your questions, Miguel. 1. A kill line pulls the pilot chute inside out once the bridle stretches all the way out. This minimizes the drag from the pilot chute on your main canopy. 2. A regular old PC with a plastic handle is fine. The only two caveats are that a) it will create a bit of extra drag while under canopy - which probably doesn't matter under the type of canopy you are (hopefully) flying at the 88 jumps your profile indicates and b) you won't be in the habit of cocking (turning it right side out while packing, so it will work)the PC. 3. You don't "need" the kill-line PC. They are nice to have, because your canopy will fly a bit better with a kill line PC, and it's good to get into the habit of cocking the PC and checking to make sure it's cocked. Probably a kill line PC will make an appreciable difference on your next main canopy, so why not get in the habit of dealing with it now? You should discuss the issue with your friendly local rigger, and find out if there are acceptable and affordable substitutions. If you are jumping a big ole new guy-type canopy. a new PC may not may much sense, budget-wise. But that's for you and your rigger to decide. -Blues, Patkat Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. Very good, semi-biographic (but isn't all good writing semi-biographic, at least a little?) novel about Vietnam. Enjoy

I was off for, let me see, about a month and a half - pretty much as soon as the tissue had a chance to fully knit around the incision. The really frustrating part was that I felt great after week! Interestingly enough, my surgeon was pretty cool about skydiving - unlike many other healthcare professionals, who tend to freak out at the mention of the sport. Blue skies! - patkat Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

"You will not survive the night" . . . . . oh yeah - "in bed" Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

Damn good thing for Trevor he wasn't hungry -patkat Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

Y "¿cuanto cuesta su hija?" Tu nunca conoces.... -patkat Patkat gotta exercise my demons!

I hate the stupid people. I have stupid co-workers, who either a)mess up and make me have to pick up their slack or b)work so slow that I have to pick up their slack. I meet stupid customers. People don't know a)what they want to order 2)what their phone number or address is third)how to stay home and listen for the door d)how to count their change or complete a simple transaction (pizza for money - c'mon people, it's not that hard - give the money, take the pie, give the tip, say 'thank you') Some people take the pie, give the money, and just stare at me. Do I get a tip? Do you need the change back? All of it? Is there anyone in there? People have their very small children pay me. Sometimes the kid is too small to hold the pizza. Sometimes, the kid doesn't know about tipping and winds stiffing me. Sometimes, the kid does know about tipping, and keeps the tip for themselves. Sometimes the kid is too scared to do anyting but stare at me. People yell "Hey, pizza guy!" No shit. What gave it away? The shirt that says "Metro Pizza," or the pizza? I don't yell "Hey, moron!" at you - why do you yell "Pizza guy" at me? You have no idea how bad I need a skydive some days. -patkat Patkat gotta exercise my demons!