Leaderboard

Some fun headlines from the onion headlines reddit. The weird thing is with him, half of these could easily be things he would claim. Trump Utters Factually Correct Sentence Trump's Makeup Team Resigns After Trump Demands They "Turn Him Black" JD Vance Caught With IKEA Catalog, Claims He Was Only "Reading the Articles" Donald Trump Managed to Escape Titan Submersible and Swim to Surface Seconds Before Implosion. Trump Claims He Was The Only Survivor Of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 And Only He Knows What Happened Donald Trump Recalls An Incident Where He And Charlie Brown Were Trapped In The Oval Office During Active Shooter Breach. Trump Recalls Historic Moment When He And Seal Team Six Captured And Killed Osama Bin Laden Taylor Swift Surprised By The Size Of Trump's Political Rallies "The Last Time I Saw That Many People Gathered In An Arena Was My Overflow Section On Tuesday"

To me, this has always been a crucial clue/tell, which if taken at face value strongly suggests that he could not have been a pilot.

I couldn't disagree stronger. What strikes me more than anything is the incongruence in his knowledge. He knew the flight could make it the 2,000 miles to Mexico City, but didn't realize the stairs and landing gear down would impact it's performance. He knew enough to check the packing cards, but didn't know or didn't care that the chutes didn't actually come from McChord like he had anticipated. Moreover, he didn't bother to bring his own gear on the flight. He claimed to know where the oxygen tanks were, and the re-feuling procedures, but didn't know how to lower the airstairs which was a very elementary thing to do. That doesn't even get into whether he wanted 2 chutes originally and changed his mind or wanted the airstairs down at takeoff or after takeoff. The point is that, it seems to me, that Cooper apparent holes in his knowledge is indicative of someone who tried to plan this with little prior knowledge and little planning time. I don't think he had extensive knowledge of aviation, the 727, parachutes, or skydiving. Rather, I think he's guy who planned this in less than two weeks and tried cobble together a coherent plan on the fly. I have 25+ years in education, and to me, this screams a guy who crammed for an exam rather than someone who actually knew the material. However, for Cooper, his plan was successful, and as a result, it makes him look like as an expert or a genius, when I think it's more likely that he was just lucky.

It's just data. The 26 highest obesity rates are in red counties. If you conclude from that that obesity is tied to a political party, that's on you.

What goes around comes around.

I live in california obesity is alive and well in this blue state. Anybody trieing to tie obesity to politacal party is an idiot. maybe a college educted one

Yes. ... and I wrote that back when F-111 canopies were the norm. More recent (since 1990) zero-porosity fabric allows you to load canopies heavier, but heavier wing-loadings also require more skill to land softly.

Ohhh boy. First off welcome. This is more of a question for "Safety & Training", but it does fit here too. Stalling (aerodynamic stall) isn't really an issue for what you're asking. While it is a function of canopy size, it's not really what you should be worrying about (intentionally stalling a canopy is a normal drill and is something you should have familiarity with by the time you get licensed). Canopy size is more about speed and responsiveness. A larger 'student sized' canopy is analogous to a large family sedan. Slow, not terribly precise in handling, but predictable and easy to control, especially for beginners. Small canopies are similar to sports cars or race cars. Very fast, very responsive, very precise handling. But potentially lethal in the hands of the inexperienced or untrained operator. The typical metric is "wing loading". Weight of the jumper (weight is the total weight of the fully geared up jumper) in comparison to the size of the canopy. Because of the prominence of the US in the sport, weight is in pounds and size is in square feet. The standard recommendation for newly licensed jumpers is less than one pound per square foot. Students generally go lower. That's why, at 180 lbs (probably around 215 fully geared), you are under a canopy much larger. Different DZs have different policies on what kind of wingloading students should have. Most allow higher (smaller canopy) as the student progresses. Some DZs have limited student gear, so your size choice may be limited. Where I started (a small club DZ), all the student gear was 288 Mantas. So, at ~150lbs, I was loading that canopy very lightly. The last DZ I jumped at had a much wider variety of student gear, from 265 down to 170 (the 170 was more for rental to licensed jumpers, but was used for very small students who had nearly reached licensed status). At this point, I wouldn't worry about what size canopy they are giving you. Work on consistent landing patterns, approaches, accuracy and flaring at the right height. Larger canopies are more forgiving, and it's ALWAYS better to err on the side of caution.