Linking, learning and OOPS! Information coming in!

Found at the Scientific American Mind website, the adventuring into the upper reaches of the atmosphere has a cumulative effect on the thing that makes you think.

From “Into thin air: Altitude’s toll on the brain”:

Douglas Fields
National Institutes of Mental Health
Washington, D.C.

Three attributes of a good mountaineer are high pain threshold, bad memory, and … I forget the third. – R. Douglas Fields

Climbing Mount Everest is not so difficult; the hard part is getting down intact. According to a recent brain imaging study, almost no one does. Of thirteen climbers in the study who attempted Mount Everest, none returned without brain damage. The study also scanned the brains of climbers who attempted less extreme summits. For those of us who love to climb, the results are less than elevating. It seems that almost no one, whether the weekend warrior chaperoned to the summit or the seasoned mountaineer, will return from the high peaks with a brain in the same condition it was in beforehand.
[…]

Some of us will be able, based on a propensity to “get high” in aircraft or climbing, will be able to use this as a defense in our more advanced years to cover our mental errors. But then we know the other people who “get high” also will have that excuse…

Watch Lex’s posts for signs of too many rides when he took his O₂ mask off against the directives of NATOPS.

Note the BIG grins. Photo: Wyat Drewes
Over the last few months, my sitemeter has shown a number of searches for words to the effect of “what are the odds of dying while skydiving?”My blog ends up in the top ten responses on the search engine of choice. Writing this post will help elevate it, too, but that’s not my point. So, earnest searchers who might arrive at this post, here are a few thoughts from one who has made it though 28 years and 15+ hours of being propelled by gravity towards the “Blue Planet” many more times than once:

The odds? Not much at all. Way better than driving your car. There are many other ways to actually die faster, that you will be involved in daily and not give it a second thought.

Afraid of heights? I have known many a skydiver that wold feel unsafe on their two story house roof, clearing out gutters (way dangerous!), yet be there in freefall beginning at 13,000 feet with the biggest grin on their face you’d ever witness on a human being…quite honestly, from 20 ft, there’s no time for your canopy to deploy, therefore, it’s really scary!

The world looks flat (for the most part), from such heights, even in the low thousands for static line jumps, and the visual cues that make you queasy at 20 feet don’t have the same effect. Besides, a good jumpmaster is making you run through the “dive flow,” to enable the best conditions in your head to achieve success, once the plane is no longer cuccooning you (not even so) safely (but you think it’s a “perfectly good airplane” and that’s good enough for you at this point).

Consider this: The parachuting community, led by the United States Parachute Association (USPA) , begun about 40 years ago at the Parachute Club of America (PCA), has been, with the exception of the “Basic Safety Regulations (BSRs)” self regulating. The BSRs carry the weight of FAA regs, and are nothing to mess with, but is a fairly short, yet well determined list of the very basic safety do and don’ts. Scan them yourself in the Skydiver’s Information Manual (SIM) in Section 2.

Now, enough! Find the closest USPA Group Member drop zone (that means they play by the USPA rules…the ones that make the sport safe and fun…by checking here in the USPA Drop Zone Directory.

Go and make your smiling muscles do what they have never done before. I take no responsibility for the sore face muscles as a result, but I bet you won’t really care.

As a matter of my advice for the type jump to begin with, you ask? Do an Accelerated Freefall (AFF) course. If you can avoid the Tandem jump (which depends on the DZ), I’d just head straight to “doing it!” Being a not current now, but for many years Instructor and Jumpmaster, the fess the JMs and Is get paid are highly appreciated, but the far greater benefit is you will actually have skydived.

Telling your buds you “went skydiving” and did the Tandem “pony ride” thing is like pretending you flew the jet from LA to New York, when you actually sat in the back, eating peanuts and trusting the pilot. Do it for real and see what you have missed.

Oh, and the entire time in freefall is spent having fun, not staring at an altimeter, waiting for pull time…

I have this guy’s signature in my logbook! Lew Sanborn, USPA D-1 (expert license)Met him in CA jumping in 1996. A legend in the sport. And I have met many, many interesting people from all over the world, including Charlie Case…and he’s a legend of old timey jump days, too.There…that should put me higher on the search engines and still get useful info to the inquisitive among us.

Tracked back @: SteelJaw Scribe

I can hear it now, a new parody song for NASA’s shuttle crews:

“Ground Control to Major Tom:
“Go out there and put some Duct Tape on”
You can work on the rest of the replacement lyrics yourself. You also can get credit for preforming it on YouTube.

NASA Photo: Expedition 15 Flight Engineer Clay Anderson holds a Crew Equipment Translation Aid cart as he rides on the end of the International Space Station’s robotic arm during STS-118’s third spacewalk. Image: NASA TVAnyhow, if you check out the link above, you’ll see it’s not so much a joke.Now, on the more serious side, think about being a bona fide astronaut and, having scoffed at skydivers all these years (for no real aviator would jump out of a ‘perfectly good’ airplane) and now you are in orbit, above the atmosphere and the safety of being able to depart a potential soon to be disaster and put some space age fabric in the shape of a wing above your head, mumbling to yourself while on the EVA, what Bill Cosby said (“Hope the plane don’t crash!”) and praying that it’s Duct Tape to the rescue on reentry…

I’m thinking it might not be such a silly idea to see if you can make a spacesuit and integrated lifesaving parachute for future Shuttle flights, but then again, I know how much fun freefall really is. Now that I think about it, in WWI, only the Germans supplied their air crews with parachutes, with the Allies believing that, once so equipped, pilots would rather jump than work to get the plane back to home plate. Oh, how wrong they were in that assessment.

If you’d like some real data on the STS-118 “issue,” check this page out to see several videos of the damage.

Too many have already been there and tried it before anyone today could try it: Going lower than the ground in an aircraft.

The USAF has a plan to keep it from happening: Auto-GCAS.

From Defense Tech:

Helping Pilots Avoid the Ground

Aviators have a saying: “You can only tie the record for low flight.”

Well, the U.S. Air Force’s Air Combat Command is installing a system in its jets that is designed to keep future pilots from tying the record. Press Zoom reports that the Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System is a software-based technology that has demonstrated a 98 percent effectiveness rate at eliminating aircraft crashes into the ground. The system is ready for operational integration on F-16 Fighting Falcons, F-22 Raptors and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.

Auto-GCAS differs from other crash-avoidance systems in that it doesn’t create nuisance warnings and activates only at the last instant to take control and recover the aircraft when it determines collision is imminent. The determination is made when the aircraft is within 1.5 seconds of the “point of no return” and no action has been taken by the pilot.
[…]

In the skydiving world, we have the “AAD” or “Automatic Activating Device” that monitors your rate of descent, and if you reach a certain altitude and are still moving at a fairly high percentage of freefall speed, the system activates a cutter that cuts the loop holding your ripcord pin on your reserve. There are versions designed to pull main parachute ripcords, and are commonly used with military related High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) equipment, but the sport world only uses them for activating a reserve canopy.

I, once, will acting as a jumpmaster for a SEAL just returned from operational deployment, had to get a requal sport jump (AFF Level 4) to get active sport jumping again. The exit was fine, his stability was great, but the plan to knock off turns once 6000′ AGL was reached went out the window. He kept doing turns. At this point, I was falling about 4 feet in front of him, where I had been since turning him loose a few seconds after exiting at 13,000′.

I gave him the hand signal to pull several times, then I began to fly in to position myself next to his main ripcord to back up his thought process. Instead of realizing I was moving, he thought he was turning (using me as a reference point, and not some landmark out in front of him on the ground), so he kept maneuvering to point at me. Net result: I couldn’t get into position to pull either his main or reserve ripcords), about hip position on the right side (main) and heart position on the left for the reserve.

I lost altitude awareness, as had he, so we proceeded, at the speed of the pull of gravity (it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law!) towards the pine trees on the south side of the airport. I finally got smart and backed off and reached for my pull out for my main, and as I let go of the pilot chute, my AAD opened my reserve. A quick check of my altimeter put me just a little above 1000′. The setting for the Cyres AAD I was wearing is fixed at 800′, but apparently it comes on about 1200′ to monitor and when it saw the drastic change in the rate of pressure change (indicating rate of fall change) when my main began to open, it activated a little early. I had two clean canopies, so I cut away my main, checked my reserve for controllability, then hung a left turn into the wind and landed.

The student’s AAD also performed as designed. He got a talking to, and so did I from the DZ Owner. He made only one remark, but that’s all he had to say: “They have an AAD, too. It’s not worth losing your life if you’ve done all you are supposed to.”

Then George reminded me that training for students included “If you see your jumpmaster pull, it’s probably a good idea to do the same.” I had said it for years in class, too, but it’s one of those cases you just don’t happen into with regularity.

So, moral of the story:

• Jumpmasters: Don’t forget to pull on time
• Students: Yeah, what they did!

Oh…and I never tried to break the low pull record either.

Some one searched for Chances of dying while skydiving and my blog came up as hit #2…

Then I wanderer about the link forest. looking for link trees and found this article. From “Living the Risky Life?” by Gene Charleton, beginning with this:

A Risky Day
Few of us think of ourselves as risk takers. Skydiving, bungee jumping or street luge are not in the vocabularies most of us use to describe our daily activities. Yet we live with risk all day, every day, without jumping out of airplanes or off bridges, or zipping down the street on our backs. Most risks we take are unseen among the minutiae of getting through the day. They’re there, but few of us spend a lot of effort thinking about them.

Most of us live our lives as if we could escape from risk by being careful. Engineers look at risk differently.

But…the money quote I like is:

Through the looking glass Risk is often in the eye of the beholder. Here’s an example:
which is riskier, skydiving or commuting to work? Here’s what the numbers say: About 350,000 sport parachutists make about three million parachute jumps each year in the United States. About 30 of them die in accidents. That works out to one death for every 100,000 jumps. If you make one parachute jump each year, your chances of dying are about 1 in 100,000.

On the other hand, more than 40,000 people die each year in traffic accidents. That’s 1.7 deaths for every 100 million vehicle-miles driven. If you drive 10,000 miles a year, your risk of dying in a traffic accident is about 1 in 6,000. You’d have to jump 17 times in a year before your odds of dying in a skydiving accident equaled your odds of dying in a car crash. So why do so many people consider skydivers to be danger junkies while these same people happily risk their lives on the way to the office? People’s perceptions of what is risky and what is not are colored by how they see themselves in relation to the risk.

Oh, and it you drive about 20K/year….think of the odds…

So, all of you ground pounding “legs” out there will get in your car, but think I’m crazy? The joke is on you: I know what it’s like to hurtle towards the earth with others, making formations while going 120+ mph, yet all reaching the ground safely to begin to concoct the “jump lies” we will tell while drinking the free beer from the first timers (name the “first” and someone had to buy a case or beer/soda) just after the sun sets and we pack gear up before heading home; To meet people from all over the world, just because they were in the area of the drop zone you’re at, and they came by to get some air time, not because it was a special event; To be able to say “I can trust them with my life” and really know you can and that you mean it. Yes, and there’s lots more interesting things I’ve had happen in the 28 years worth.

Come Oct, there will be some video posted of two big ways. No one got hurt and we made a record….

Just thought you might like to know…and here’s the USPA drop zone locating page.

Let me get this straight….over 7 minutes of freefall, supersonic speeds (with no source other than gravity for power), a face full of plasma for a light show part of the way down, and then landing at the DZ….So where do I sign up? I’m really not interested in what’s in it for me, but I’m all about being a “Test Diver” so future astronauts can leave their fragile flying/gliding machines (you know, “who would ever jump out of a perfectly good space shuttle?”) with he confidence that I, and other brave souls like me, had risked it all to plummet from space to make sure the suits and parachutes were safe and reliable in the event of an emergency.The article isn’t online. You actually will have to pull yourself away from the keyboard, hike to the local magazine rack, or library, and put your hands on the dead tree version to see what it’s about. There are three men who are working together on this idea. One is a retired Navy Flight surgeon (and I believe the spouse of one of the astronauts lost on Colombia, another guy and John Carmack (yes, the guy of “Doom” fame) from Amradillo Aerospace.
Armadillo Aerospace plans to use the DC-X vehicle to do the transport of the diver to space. Who says computer games are bad for us? Look what it funded?So…now they have to get the guy from Finland with the Jet Cat booties and really come up with something swift!

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Also, from the Popular Science website:

Toughen up those neck muscles! 6 pounds balanced on your noggin will get you some cool virtual reality (like real reality isn’t scary enough sometimes!)!

Is this the future of the home theater?

No, it’s not a prop. This six-pound helmet monitor is a real prototype, built to demonstrate next-generation television-watching technology. Modeled here by one of its developers (the regular TV is shown only for comparison), the device was built by Toshiba and unveiled in September at an academic conference in Osaka, Japan. Equipped with a built-in projector and a dome screen, the monitor plugs directly into a DVD player or computer and provides an immersive experience that surrounds the wearer with the action of the program—think of it as a portable IMAX theater. Although the invention was popular among testers, who reported that it rests easily on the shoulders and is comfortable enough for a two-hour movie, Toshiba has no solid plans for commercialization.

As I was chatting with a customer on site this morning, we hear a droning above and I look up to see 8 Dehaviland Twin Otters cleaning up a “V” formation, heading south, maybe around 12K ft…

So he tells me that are working this week to break the 200 way “sequential” freefall formation record (meaning making multiple, planned formations together on the same jump – all with 200 participants….). I think I might head back up this way Saturday, armed with sunscreen to see what happens.

Skydiving: When formations are that big, it is a great spectator sport….

It’s almost like this could be in the WaPo or NYT any day now…

Dateline: Washington, DC March 14th, 2007

Congress, acting quickly on their success of changing when Daylight Savings Time goes into effect wasted no time in trumpeting their resounding success: The US is noticing a cooling “climate change” and Speaker of the House Pelosi wants people to know it was her push to change daylight saving time which actually accounts for the cooling seen last month as well, that made this happen.

To continue the trend is establishing a downward track of US temperatures, several House and Senate committees have been holding hearings on how a change in the Law of Gravity would further reduce the production of greenhouse gases. Initial response from the public has been over the top positive, says a new USA Today poll, showing a solid 92.7% of all those living in the US (includes, but did not identify by name and address illegal aliens responding) think it would be “a great idea” to reduce gravity by 25%, while another 5.2% would support the President signing a bill that had a long term reduction equal to 20%, implemented over a 10 year period, rather than a large cut all at once.

Harry Reid (D-NV), at a press conference to announce the bill he was sponsoring, the Unified Gravity Reduction Bill of 2007, told the fawning Washington Press Corps the change in gravity would reduce the amount of fuel needed for all sorts of transportation, therefore, a reduction of greenhouse gases would be achieved and the planet would once again find itself cooling off, possibly as early as August 2008, in time for all American citizens to see how once more, the Democrats have been real problem solvers, while the President did noting by try to make more pollution with his tax cuts, that encouraged economic growth and manufacturing.

While most Americans seem fine with this measure, “non-weight challenged” citizens voiced displeasure with the plan, one man outside on the Capitol steps, a short, skinny, buck-toothed redneck looking idiot, held up a handmade sign with this inscription: “Reduce Gravity and What’s Next? Slowing Down the Speed of Light?” In an interview off the record, this rube had the audacity to question the wisdom of such a great and obviously spectacular bill being forwarded by Congress. He must have been expelled from elementary school for carrying a licensed firearm and missed his environmental science lessons. He went on to say, if the trend caught on, since most Americans are “weight challenged” (his words of “d*** obese” have been changed as to not offend anyone who is too lazy to stop eating), if they chose to reduced gravity even more, he and the other skinny people would be the first to suffer “unintended consequences” by being blown away in a stiff wind. He went on to comment that fat people just liked the idea because their excess wouldn’t be pulled down so hard and for once in their lives they could claim “normal” weight values on such documents as medical insurance applications, while staying reasonable affixed to the earth, even in strong winds. Not stopping there, he said some of his weight lifter friends were complaining about how people who never had set foot in a gym would soon be able to lift like they have been all along, drawing a parallel to Barry Bonds taking steroids just so he could pound the ball out of the park all the time: It’s an artificial advantage and is an uneven playing field.

Not everyone is happy with this measure, which will benefit the entire world, even if the law is only placed in effect in America to begin. While 90% of the scientists are in consensus that this is a good thing to do, there are almost a full 10% who have taken a hard line of junk science saying mankind has no way to reduce or eliminate gravity at a whim or the placing of some ink on paper. It can be done for short periods, but they say it requires a significant expenditure of energy, thereby negating any savings of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Several well known scientists have refuted these types of statements, calling them part of the outcasts in the science community and labeling them as “reality physics deniers.”

Al Gore, was not available for comment, but his spokesperson said he was holding a conference with the Boards of Directors of the company he currently purchases carbon credits from before he makes any press releases on his position.

One organization that is heralding such a measure passing as “great news for us” is the United States Parachute Association (USPA). A boon for jumpers and pilots alike, getting to altitude will take less energy and jump ticket prices should start dropping, which, as the USPA Executive Director, Chris Needles, projects will “begin to increase our stagnant membership numbers, as jumping becomes more affordable for more people and experienced jumpers will love being able to put 25% more freefall time in their logbooks per jump!”

The United Nations Secretary General, while not yet making a full statement, has been heard discussing with his staff if this might give the US an advantage over the other nations of the world, further having the appearance the at the US is “going it alone, without testing this new idea in the Court of World Opinion.” He also has wondered out loud if this measure might be looked upon as a leadership in global environmentalism and actually be a good idea for the rest of the world to try. The ambassadors for both China and India were heard to be protesting that they might be subject to any such rules in a working group of the Security Council this afternoon, fearing it might somehow cut into their productivity and fight to reach economic parity with the US.

President Bush, the worst President in the history of the US, was asked about this new proposal during his press conference where he was falsely claiming how the Surge in Iraq was already quickly reducing violence and civil unrest, said he wasn’t sure what gravity current was rated at, once more demonstrating what a shrub he is.

C’mon….someone must be writing good material out there…..

Anyhow, while I’m waiting, here’s more of the story I left you hanging with from last week…

Now, the tables had turned and it was going to be the crew of the USS SEATTLE (AOE-3) that would be holding the other end stick during an intrusion drill. Not to fear, OSC Mac, who had done some work with the SEALs in the South East Asian War Games, was in control. I was still and Ensign in training, so I didn’t comprehend all that was going on. Anyway, the Chief concocted a wonderful plan. Step one was to get three believable “intruders.”

• #1: ET2 Mike Krutsch. Disguise? Jeans, flannel shirt, hair pushing the regs. Story? Navy Exchange delivery guy with flowers for the SEATTLE XO.
• #2: OS3 Tom Mazzula. Disguise? Not really, he just wore his dungarees, but…he had a plastic baggie of “green vegetable matter” partially hanging out of his pocket.
• #3: OS2 Relph (I’m not completely sure I have this one right). No disguise either, and nothing special in hand/on his person.

“The Plan:” ET2, with a 3″x5″ card made black with magic marker, covering his red base sticker on the bumper of his personal Vega, drives down the pier (you actually could do that in those days), parking at the foot of the brow. Using his “excuse” of having to deliver the flowers, he would attempt to gain access to the ship. OS3 would, as soon as Mike got almost all the way up the ladder (about 30 feet long), would commence towards the quarterdeck, acting stoned/drunk. As he got the the top of the brow, OS2 Relph would also head aboard the ship. Saturation of the attention of the three watchstanders was the plan, in hopes of getting at least one past the security of the ship.

Well…the results were in quickly, once the “Plan” was put into motion….Krutsch parked right at the foot of the ladder and was hailed from the Quaterdeck. He replied he had flowers (Holding the box high) (oh, yeah, Chief Mac paid for the flowers), and was waved to come up. They never asked for any identification, but then a guy looking kinda drunk was coming up the ladder just now. All attention focused on Mazzula. Mike stood by, then quietly wandered aft on the main deck area and proceed to head for the after superstructure area, where the Executive Officer’s stateroom was. IN the background, imagine the hoots and hollers of the OOD, POOW and Messenger when they “caught a doper!” red-handed….Oh…OS2 Relph came up just as the commotion was in full swing and, not being fully questioned, inquired as to what happened. “WE just caught this guy!” (Holding up baggy of green vegetable matter as proof of the valiant response. Relph siddled off to the side, out of the gaze of the watchstanders….

Oh, yes…I almost forgot. SEATTLE was one of those ships that we could not confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons aboard. Why does that matter? You had to have two response teams on call, the Security Alert Team (SAT) and Backup Alert Force (BAF), who would “respond to intrusion attempts and were 1) armed and 2) trained specifically in the use of “lethal force” rules of engagement (ROE).

Mike Krutsch made it to the XO’s office/stateroom and, finding no one in the space, left the box of flowers (with included note “THIS IS A BOMB”) on the desk of the Executive Officer of the USS SEATTLE (AOE-3), having never been challenged by any of the crew on his way through the ship, looking like a civilian or over scruffy sailor in “civies.” He then wandered back to the Quarterdeck area, at which time, the faces of the watch team went white, realizing they had been penetrated in a most unkind manner. “SECURITY ALERT! SECURITY ALERT! QUARTERDECK! AWAY THE SAT! AWAY THE BAF!” sounded on the 1MC General Announcing System. Mike, all grins, when asked if he was an intruder, answer “Yes” (the game rules) and then, realizing, as armed sailors came running, there was someone else unaccounted for…..

“Are you working alone?” “No.” “SECURITY ALERT! SECURITY ALERT!…” They finally found OS2 Relph in the forward part of the ship, where he had wandered off to.

Well, they were mightily embarrassed at being humiliated, but…it was nothing more than payback, with attitude. The Command Duty Officer was obligated to sign three Z-5-O letters, with two having to be indicated that they had been penetrated and failed the drill…..And, our manliness was feeling more intact, having paid the SEATTLE crew back in spades…

Oh, Chief Mac didn’t just roll over and go back to sleep after this operation….come back next Wednesday for the follow on report of sailors in port running drills.

H/T: Military.Com News

Project Excelsior. 102,800 feet. Basically freefalling from space. You have a pressure suit on. You ride up in an open gondola. You begin the experiment with only 6 parachute jumps in your logbook. You have been raised to believe no one wants to get out of a “perfectly good airplane.” “Passing a baton” between two freefallers is still a skill to master in the sport (stability required). Olav Zipser and company haven’t been born yet, let alone developing head down freeflying. Who’d want to jump a “square” parachute? Space: Back then it really was a final frontier. One the way “back,” you lose your glove and your hand begins to 1) freeze and 2) swell from the pressure differential.

Col Kittinger still holds the record for altitude for a freefall set Aug 16th, 1960.

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Take a few moments to read about Col Joseph Kittinger. Not only did he do this project, he also was involved in testing observations of space from balloons, flew 483 combat missions in Vietnam in A-26s Invaders and F-4 Phantoms, was shot down over North Vietnam and spent 11 months as a POW. Quite a ride, I’d say. Oh, and I guess he still ribs Chuck Yeager about beating him to being the first man to go supersonic….