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Posted

Day 26.

E8487FBA-CECD-405C-93C6-4E3BBC4FB061.jpeg

January 26, Australia Day.

On the day we celebrate this awesome country, I’m grateful for the opportunities provided to me to enjoy a wonderful life.  
Thank you to those that came before me - those that were dragged here, those that came here voluntarily, those who were born here.

 

Posted
20 minutes ago, Nick Jones said:

Taking the photo or in the photo?

Have a great Australia Day!

That’s me.

The (loose) rule is I have to be in the photo, and it should somehow represent my day.

This was last load of the day at the DZ, i’d been on the ground working with students/novices all day and some friends helped me get one more plane load in the air so I could take my flag for a whirl.

Home now, glass of red in hand.

Posted

Nice one!  The flag, not the pommy.

How good can it be to celebrate your passion, and your country!

But what a flag!  It's six times bigger than your parachute!    That must be quite a weight, else it will be flying you.

John

Posted

Alan,

Generally I like as much weight as I have available/can carry.  That flag has a 40 pound triple skinned bag of lead shot.

John,

Yep, she's largeish, about 1500 square feet.  Mate of mine built it, I've jumped his 5000 square foot one, thats a whole different level of intensity.  I know where the other big Oz flags are, but I reckon I own the 3rd or 4th largest Aussie flag in existence...

Flags are interesting to fly.  You don't fly the parachute in the direction you want to go, but rather use it to turn the flag to catch the wind so the whole construct will move in the direction you need to.  It's like using a small underpowered boat to manoeuvre a much large barge into a (quite often very tight) parking spot. The landings are interesting, there's a tradeoff where the more performance and manoeuvrability you chose carry with your parachute, the worst the crash will be when you land.   Interesting trade off.

C.

Posted

You  weigh more, but use the same parachute?  So you will go down faster?

But the drag of the flag will slow you down, so you don't move along so fast?

John

Posted

It’s a strange trade off John.  More weight for the same parachute generally doesn’t make it descend much faster, it gives it more forward speed instead, but the trade off is that it will dynamically stall and collapse earlier in its control window (its sort of like the more downforce for cornering, less for straight line speed conundrum.). For flags I use parachute 3 times the size of my normal “sport” jumping rig, ‘cos I want to go slowish and minimize the crashes...  They’re very different designs though, the sport rig is built for speed, the flag rig is for stability.

The flag has little drag when it’s knifing into the wind, and a hell of a lot when it’s broadside to it, so you don’t fly the parachute, you use it to turn the flag, and fly it too where you want it.  Tricky mental game, especially on tight displays when the winds can be from 2 or 3 directions at different heights.

I like lots of weight under the flag because it keeps it more stabilized under me rather than penduluming around.  The law of unintended consequence kicks in when you have to carry it all to the plane though.

Posted

I know I'm not supposed to spam you thread with pics..... but I thought this pic, shamelessly swiped from the Beeb, summed up the current Australian heat wave...…..

water my wallaby.jpg

.................if it's so hot the wallabies come out of the bush and lie on your porch to be watered...…  It's far too hot!

Posted

**** Pedant Alert *****

Wisdom teeth usually have more than one root each.   The usual reason for removal is the tiny jaw that evolution has given us, leaving no room for the wisdom teeth, the back ones that come through last of all (hence wisdom?) , so they 'impact', get lodged sideways (!!) against the next tooth.    That usually happens in youth/early 20s, which with great respect, Craig, you left some time ago!   So probably not a 'wisdom' tooth!    

John

Posted

John, 

I can assure you it's a third upper molar (I held it in such a way to minimise the gore in the photo, but it's definitely multi rooted).  

I had an 11 year monthly or fortnightly association with an orthodontist that began just before my teens and ended in my 20's.  He was a university professor, and used my gob as a teaching example.  

I have a (physically ;-)) small mouth, but teeth the doc described as "befitting a medium sized horse".  That mess resulted in all the fun of being a weedy, nerdy teen, with the added bonus of plates, retainers, and a decade of braces.  My third molars pushed through at age 20, and the lowers were indeed impacted, but had to be stood up and straightened, as my 6 year molars had been extracted years earlier to give room to reorganise and reorient my crazy canines and incisors (an extra two years with braces!!!).  The uppers came through straight, and I've kept them until now, even though they have nothing to match against below, 'cos I figured (correctly that it would hurt having them out...

Time for more drugs. 

Posted

Craig, I respect your wish to avoid Sidewaysers fainting as they view your gory fang!

Sympathy - I lost mine in my 20s, and the fang-wrangler had to use so much local he paralysed my face!  Didn't hurt until it wore off!

John

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