tkhayes

lung and stomach at a dim sum place in Toronto - it was pretty disgusting

sad yes, but you are probably right....

1. Buy parachutes that habitually open slow and soft 2. Stop being afraid of slow openings and learn to enjoy them (open higher) 3. pack carefully and learn the best method for your system. Stick to it, and pay attention to the little details, like line stows and slider placement, etc An opening can kill you, disable you, and over 20 years can ruin your back, neck and degrade your life considerably. It's important, and most people seem to write hard openings off as part of life. When you are 20, you will get over those openings very quickly and you may not even notice them that much. By the time you are 40, you will feel every fucking one of them every time you get out of bed. Just an opinion from an old guy that did thousands of hard openings....

I have not been living in Canada for 12 years now, but I am still pretty sure that most Canadians would rather have their livers pulled out through their noses with a fork than become part of the USA. We appreciate the neighbors and all that, no one hates anyone, but we have no more interest in being American that we do in being Brazilian. We're Canadian - and that is pretty damn good. Now do I see someday when the USA invades and takes over Canada for its natural resources? Absolutely. It would be right in line with the imperialist movements that have gone on since WWII and further back than that. The USA has a global arrogance that Canadians do not want to be associated with.

you are one of the lucky ones. My folks have had good luck with theirs too, but the only thing they use it for is email and web browsing. You can do that on your TV these days. I bought the missus a Gateway with Vista for Xmas. 5 weeks and dozens of hours later, I sent it back. It would crash 5-8 times each day. reboot for no reason. get bluescreens running simple applications. Gateway would not support it since I could not 'prove' to them that all software running on it was Vista compatible. Microsoft would not support it until I called Gateway first of course. The vendor was only going to replace it, but since they had no more of that model, they finally refunded it, but it cost me $80 to ship it back to them. Have not convinced my missus to go to Mac yet, but I switched Feb 17, 2007, Imac and now a Macbook to go with it. I have never been happier. I actually USE my computer instead of fucking with it. And I seldom worry about whether or not I will have some stupid problem while I am using it. At the dropzone (Skydive CIty) we run a small Windows 2003 Server, several XP machines. XP is good, but every machine has something fucking wrong with it - none of them work the way they should. All have quirks and bullshit issues that are just too much trouble to try and fix - so we have workarounds for every little bullshit problem we have. I wish JumpRun ran on a Mac, I would buy it in a second.....

we advertise 240, but can actually take up to 250 at Skydive City/Z-Hills TK

should be a good turnout again this year see ya there

Take a look through the attached stuff, including article from Bill von. PD has several articles as well on their website. Keep in mind that every time you flare, you are trying to create LEVEL FLIGHT. then hold LEVEL FLIGHT throughout the flare until the parachute slows down. Do not just mechanically pull the toggles down. When you do that, the canopy will respond differently depending on the wind, weight, speed etc. Practice a flare by paying attention to the elevator feeling in your stomach, are you climbing or dropping? Or in the middle somewhere? (just right) When you do a practice flare, pay attention to how much input it takes to get the right amount of elevator feeling in your gut, then practice continuing that amount of flare input and continue all the way to stall or 'full stop' when practicing. Add all the other steps to your practice flare, hands up - eyes front, feet ready etc. We sort of elude to that in the articles, but it is better if you practice the flare properly - and I am still working on that written article myself. The rest is timing it just so you reach level flight when your feet are inches above the ground. Of course your parachute also has to cooperate. If you are jumping a 1980's F-111 baffed out parachute, all bets are off - it will not flare. If you have a properly loaded, Z-po student canopy, then you should be able to pull it off. From your post you initial problem seems to be flaring too high. So force yourself to look forward when practicing. And practice properly. ask more questions if you need to, but at 15 stone, you need to get it right sooner or you will get hurt sooner or later

I was 20 in 1981, did an IAD at Gananoque, Ontario

Fun is what you make it. If you are not having fun, then you are already a pain to a DZO. Quit and go do something else. If the DZO is the reason you are not having fun, then quit and go do something else. Eventually the DZO will have no staff and will either have to change *OR* quit and go do something else. Fun is up to the individual, not the sport as an entity. Make your own fun. Or quit and go do something else. If you are not going to have fun, then I certainly do not want you working for me...... TK TK

how about all that subsidizing we do of the military? Now there is a socialized institution if I ever saw one. Maybe only those that WANT to fight a war and USE the war should be the ones paying for the military. Oh that's right, somewhere in the twisted view of things, the military is excluded as a 'socialist concept'. We can't fund healthcare or education cause that's damn near communist, but we can pour hundreds of billions into the military...... The user fees will add more than $1/jump to our costs at Skydive City, given that we contact Tampa approach every load, and we do about 4000 flight each year, adding $100K to our operating costs. But I have a solution. We DO NOT contact Tampa ATC, we DO NOT request radar service and we squawk 1200 all day long, which I am allowed to do and I just go ahead and drop jumpers all day long without any reports from the tower on who is flying around us. That will be safe for sure..... Kallend said it - the FAA is ALREADY BEING FUNDED. THeir own financial people already have reported that the funding scheme is good for the NEXT TWENTY YEARS. the user fees are a red herring generated by lobbyists. "NextGEN" is a slogan, not an air traffic control system. It has not yet been invented and is simply a catchphrase for some pie-in-the-sky system that has yet to be invented, implemented or even budgeted. TK

I just picked up this thread and a few folks have it right. "If I ever fuck it up, please let me know." I am part owner, the manager, generally there most days and actively involved in the student programs. I work in the office, in the planes, I do jumps (not as many as I would like) and I just spent the entire weekend working with two students on radio for accuracy and canopy work. I regularly help students with their yellow cards, brief them on various things to do and I think my staff does exactly the same. As for being handed a bunch of tickets and then left alone - I really doubt that it went that way. You cannot jump at our dropzone 'alone'. Just to get a rig or an altimeter, you would have to ask someone on staff to get that for you. That is the time to ask about what your next step should be if you are in doubt. So anyway, I do not want to get defensive, but the program is not directed by us necessarily. You have to participate in that as well. If you have a question, then ask. Yes, you have a card to get filled out, but it is perfectly OK for you to march up to ANY staff member and say "What should I be doing on this jump?" And I tell every student to do just that. If the instructors do not give you the time of day, then you tell me and I fix that. Some days we are very busy and time is short. If you arrive Saturday at 3pm, no, you will not get much attention. If you arrive Saturday at 8am, I have a dozen instructors that are sitting around doing nothing and would be very willing to help out with all kinds of stuff. If you want to be directed by a personal coach, we also sell that package too, it is called the 'gold package', costs $3600 for the A license, and includes a lot more coaching and video and we will indeed hand-hold you through your license. We do not sell too many of those. Also try to find an instructor that you like. If you 'click' with someone, we do not have a fixed rotation and you can ask to work with one person in particular. That person will give you their email or telephone so you can call them ahead of time to let them know you are coming and they will be there to work with you. Bottom line is that you probably fell through some crack. I would like to fix that. Call me at the dropzone or email me directly tk@skydivecity.com and I will sort that out for you. As far as jumping through the clouds, some days the clouds are just building and spotting is difficult. Sometimes we go up to have a look and if it is reasonable, then we go. No one has a measuring tape out to see if we are violating FARs, but in 12 years of running the dropzone, I have only ever once had the FAA give us flack for jumping through a cloud. Does it happen? Sure. Do we ignore the rule? Definitely not. Most of the experienced jumpers will not even get out if the clouds play havoc. And as a student, I would MOST DEFINITELY comp your ticket if you rode the plane back down. The experienced jumpers sometimes too, but less often - they should know better before they even get in the plane. Hopefully you get in touch. thanks TK

very very sad - what a waste - what a great guy

Communism is still alive in parts of the world, and where it fell apart, it certainly did not fall apart due to a desire for 'religion' And no I would not want to live in a communist country, but not for the reasons that you assume. (lack of religion) TK

there you go again, tying morality to religion. I am a moral and ethical person. I support NO religion. To say what you just said would indicate that I have no (or lesser) moral values and in fact, I think I have very high moral values. No, I did not always, but I have grown and learned as my life has progressed. morals, religion and atheism are mutually exclusive and have nothing to do with one another. try this: "An eminent historian described COMMON SENSE as a "faculty of human nature". That the perversion of this faculty (COMMON SENSE) has contributed to much of the confusion in society and the conflicts in and between individuals can hardly be denied. But neither can any fair-minded observer discount the preponderating influence exerted by COMMON SENSE on the vital expressions of civilization. Furthermore, its (COMMON SENSE) indispensability to social order has repeatedly been demonstrated by its direct effect on laws and morality." does that make me a soon-to-be eminent historian? I need no religion to tell me what moral beliefs are. when I stole a pack of gum when I was 6 years old, my Dad whacked me good, put me in bed, spent an hour telling me what was right and wrong. I got it. God/religion/Allah was never mentioned. He didn't go to church either..... TK

we are nit-picking, their manual says never exceed 130kts deployment speed, therefore it does not matter what you have experienced. It is what is documented by the manufacturer that the FAA looks at. If you advertise TSO C23xxx whatever, then whatever that spec is is what your gear is rated for. to exceed it is 'violating federal law' we all know that a Twin Otter can do aerobatic maneuvers, but the manufacturer prohibits it, therefore you cannot. If it is a question of safety, then the gear alone does not answer that question. Whether the gear can handle it or not is not the only issue, there are exits, landings, deployment speeds, canopy control and a host of others. The sport as it is today is not designed to teach 300lb people to skydive (as a general rule). There may be exceptions, but I have yet to see one.

do you mean tso-c23b? That refers to parachutes, not harnesses. Mirages website does not appear to refer to any weight limits so maybe you are right. However, I also said: "bottom line is that even if you find a place willing to take you does not mean that it is safe for you." if what you say is true, then I could be 550lbs and still use a Mirage harness, which regardless of what any documentation says, would not be safe and would most likely be considered gross negligence in the legal world.

before anyone gives you the WRONG advice. there is no harness out there that is TSO'd for 300lbs. while a tandem system may be able to carry 500lbs total, or whatever. the harness that YOU are wearing, a single harness, is still no TSO'd to carry 300lbs. It is a sticky and gray area, even PD makes a reserve that carries more weight than the TSO of any harness that it can be packed into. S suggestions of a 100lb tandem master and the 300lb passenger being legal, is not really. Or at least I am not interested in testing those legal waters. bottom line is that even if you find a place willing to take you does not mean that it is safe for you. 100lb people do not play pro football and 300lb people do not skydive.

who said anything about simplistic? Science makes no such claim take a look at anyone with a brain injury that has emotional/cognitive/rational/other changes because of it. It is science, not spirituality, which explains it. And yes, science too has a long way to go, I expect it is an endless search for knowledge since the deeper we dig, the more there will be to be explored. Science has done a pretty good job so far. religion is dogma that has been around for 2000 years, rarely changing even when the facts are obvious (the world is flat, you're a heretic, molesting young boys, crusades, corruption from obscene power, fear mongering). And you can be spiritual without being religious - or even Christian. You can have meaning in your life, and lead with moral and ethical values without ever having a religious/Christian/spiritual thought ever enter your brain. I have constructed a reality, as you say, without the slightest bit of input from "God's Word" TK

contracts aren't worth the paper they are written on anyway. Most operators won't give you one for the simple fact they will be locked in - they would rather be able to hose you at the last minute if something comes up.

As are yours, when it comes to the issues that really matter.....to you. The matters you speak of have no meaning to us 'atheists'. We believe in provable scientific processes; a repeatable and objective look at life and the universe. Not 'magic'.

Mach Bowzer Span Flip

It would be OK to 'taunt' the Nazis, it would be OK to 'taunt' witchcraft and voodoo, it would be OK to 'taunt' many things that are readily NOT accepted in normal everyday life. If my belief structure dictates that there is no God, then I have every right to taunt those who believe in it - it is a free country. Not to mention the evils that religion has perpetrated on the world over the centuries, which even further remove any shred of belief in it being 'good' for me. He's not an asshole, just a guy with an opinion, you can choose to watch or ignore it. You can also choose to call him an asshole I guess......

our pilot here got pretty bad service from Sony when his Vaio locked him out because of a BIOS failure. Even when he was willing to pay for the repair, it took months and headaches, always talking to a different person in India over an 800 number. Once he sent it, no one could tell him the status. It finally came back, but the 'black hole' it went into while it was being repaired was pretty unacceptable and disturbing. They really did not seem to have a good process to manage repairs and such. buy a Mac.

attaboy - let's continue to promote hatred and separation in the world - it keeps big business in business and drives the military machine - certainly we would not want anyone 'trying' to make progress would we? Get over it - America is a free country, supposedly, and if Carter wants to go wherever, then so be it.