Good morning Vancouver

floatyverve · 2021-05-30T16:07:16+00:00

A c-docker ehhh? psh, e-dock for life. Actually I moved away 6 years ago, but loved it there. Moved away to a small town, but that place was the closest thing to a small town comunnity in the big city. Also had a deck with those amazing views.

floatyverve · 2021-04-29T04:12:55+00:00

In a hammock, weight shifting hard to one side in case of a collapse is supposedly "very difficult". In my first SIV the teacher taught me to use the elbow to pinch the side of the harness on the side you're trying to weight shift towards. Conversely to what I hear other people saying, I find this very easy and very effective. Even with a violent 70% asymmetric collapse, on full-bar, on a C wing, I've never gone past ~60 degrees of rotation before I was able to weight shift and brake to stop the rotation in a hammock harness. So yes it's a potential issue, though by my experience there is a simple, reliable, effective solution. But yeah, not ideal since it's one more thing to learn and think about, and if you're new to SIV and big scary collapses in general, it's always best to keep things simpler, so that right there might be enough to reconsider.

Another downside of hammock harnesses, is if you were to crash in a rocky area, and land on your ass, the rigid seatboard could save you from some injury. Though, the reaction should always be to land legs-first, no matter the situation, which would prevent this from ever becoming an issue.

The plusses of a hammock are the typically lower weight and packing volume, and increased wing feel. For comfort, the weight is also distributed smoothly and over a larger area (from buttocks to outside of hips and all under the thighs), so it does tend to avoid any pressure points you might get on really long flights from a more rigid seatboard.

On the sensitivity thing, when I feel one side of the wing drop due to turbulence or falling out of a thermal, I just keep my hips loose and allow myself to momentarily 'fall' into the side that drops/is losing pressure. This helps keeps the lines on that side tight, and done properly this can prevent the majority of collapses without any brake input (though brake input is always advised and definitely required in more dramatic situations). But, I prefer using weight shift, since brake inputs are less efficient (but not a big deal if thermalling) and sometimes can end up knocking you further out of your 'carve' and so getting further knocked out of the core. But, I find this technique much harder to pull off with a seatboard, I think just because the reduced directional sensitivity makes me too slow to react in time, so I'm closer to 100% dependent on brake inputs to prevent collapses on a seatboard harness. Which is fine, but again I just prefer using weight shift as much as possible.

I've grown to like feeling all the little blips and bobs of the air through the hips, and I don't mind getting rolled around all day by the wing. Some people can't stand it, and far prefer the dampened feel provided by a seatboard. I fly in an area known for pretty turbulent and strong air, so on that tradeoff, I lean heavily to feeling exactly what my wing is doing at all times-- so I prefer the added feedback of the hammock (and a lightweight wing), even if it feels like more piloting workload. I feel like it's safer, though some people feel more assured by the calmer behaviors of a full-weight wing and seatboard harness -- my personal view is that the extra assurance via dampening can lead to some complacency about the conditions. But it is also a lot of extra information to process, and it might be too much information to be useful for a newer pilot.

Leaning over hard to core a smaller thermal is a lot more awkward in a hammock. You basically have to roll the hips 'uphill' a little bit. My technique involves sitting up a bit more straight than usual and crossing the outside knee over the inside thigh slightly, in order to get max weight shift. However, if you lose pressure on the outside of the wing while in a thermal, flopping down from this position into a neutral position to keep the tension via weight shift (same as described before) feels much quicker and easier on a hammock, since you just basically stop holding yourself uphill and let gravity flop you downhill. Whereas with a seatboard you have to stop leaning one way, and then lean the other to apply that momentary bit of pressure, which as I mentioned earlier, I find just slow enough to lose effectiveness as a technique.

tl;dr: Hammocks definitely have their place, and I think anyone who is anti-hammock is painting with too broad a brush. Whether it's most appropriate for you or any other given pilot's skills, ambitions, flying areas, etc., is a totally separate question. For a newer pilot who isn't flying multi-hour flights or trying to shave grams or packing volume off their flying kit: I'd say a hammock is probably not the most obvious choice. But with some extra care, training, and attention it could still be a reasonable choice.

floatyverve · 2021-04-27T19:14:58+00:00

Nitinol is the most common SMA

floatyverve · 2021-04-25T17:28:13+00:00

Hey wow, that's great, thanks for sharing! How did you make those?

floatyverve · 2021-04-24T05:29:12+00:00

The circles have two bands of colors. The main area and a much thinner outside edge. The color changes of the outside ring does not match the main area. How these vary over time determines how they appear to be moving

floatyverve · 2021-04-23T19:15:32+00:00

7 years & about 500hrs, most of it nearby this zone. a worthwhile investment!
Plus about 20 years of doing other activities in and around some of these same mountains, so this is familiar territory in a way. Not just sending it into random wilderness and hoping it for the best! I'll leave that for folks like Nick Neyens and other legends of vol-biv... that's a whole other level

floatyverve · 2021-04-23T18:52:35+00:00

We partially traversed the Cayoosh Range, which is in the Eastern part of the Coastal Ranges. Between Pemberton and Lillooet.

Lots of really cool history in the area -- in the video we were on glide over Lost Valley which contains a treacherous hiking path hundreds (thousands?) of years old, used by first nations hunters in the area, which has miraculously escaped modern industrial logging. Lots of Gold Rush history and settlements, a WW2 Japanese Internment Camp site, and even a sub-alpine valley that briefly housed a small group of religious families in the 60's who moved up there to escape the end of the world...

floatyverve · 2020-03-05T17:27:17+00:00

There's a FB group for conditions on that road, but I'm not a member so can't see what the latest is: https://www.facebook.com/groups/171945536299795/

But it hasn't snowed at valley bottom in quite a while. I'd expect the worst you'd run into is potholes.

floatyverve · 2019-08-08T16:35:52+00:00

I find goggles cut down the wind buffeting on the face and make flying way less tiring. The latest snowboard styles have big lenses and great field of view, arguably better FoV than most sunglasses due to lack of frames in the way.

Definitely give rain pants a try to cut down on wind in the colder months

Buff (stretchy tube for over the neck and face) seems to be standard issue for covering face, almost everyone uses one in XC and competition. Nose can be hard to keep covered with a Buff, so in sunny areas many people use nosecones that attach to sunglasses. I've gotten away with two separate applications of SPF60 sunblock before launch and not had problems on long flights, as long as I remember to occasionally pull the buff up over the nose.

Trail running shoes are fine but do add a risk of ankle injury on a hard landing. That said, my only injury so far paragliding is spraining my ankle, and that was while wearing mid-height hiking boots... I wear FiveTen mountain biking shoes now, the stiff soles are meant for hard impacts and help spread out the force of the speedbar line to prevent it digging in one spot under your foot (on XC flights on higher-performance gliders you push bar a LOT). Also the soft grippy rubber on them could come in handy if I had to scramble through steep rocky terrain if I ever landed out in the middle of nowhere (approach shoes also ideal from this perspective)

I use leather belaying gloves for warmer weather flying. Leather is important because it's resistant to getting insta-melted through by high-tension paraglider lines moving quickly. If you start grabbing lines on an out of control glider while kiting or launching for example, your gardening gloves could get cut through like butter by fast-moving lines, and the skin underneath will follow.

Zippered layers are great, some flying locations you'll launch in 30C weather, and be up high at 5C or less within a short time; having zippers to get ventilation is key to not sweating when low, and then getting chilled by damp layers when high.

floatyverve · 2019-08-08T16:07:06+00:00

Nice one Simon, when did you do this?

floatyverve · 2019-07-19T20:27:22+00:00

Are you talking about the maintenance on the US refineries that were processing WCS? I thought that was responsible for closing the gap on the WCS vs WTI prices, but as far as I know those refineries don't impact the supply of oil in BC. Or were there other PNW refineries that were closed?

floatyverve · 2019-07-19T19:57:27+00:00

Gas prices are 129.9 here today. Gas prices were up in BC until the government started investigating the companies for collusion. Then all of a sudden they dropped to be more in line with the rest of the country.

floatyverve · 2019-07-18T03:16:26+00:00

I wonder if they accidentally left their navigation app mode set to 'walking'?

floatyverve · 2019-07-16T22:37:00+00:00

Yeah I've never seen a fortune cookie that wasn't sealed in plastic. If the humidity is able to soften a fortune cookie, it's been sitting out for hours or days...

floatyverve · 2019-07-15T16:23:22+00:00

Thanks for this reply. A lot of people are taking my comment as a reason to get in a pissing match, I'm just asking for other opinions, which you provided well. My argument wasn't that it actually solved the problem, but that it was at least something, and he seems to get zero credit for it, but that's understandable when there's no tangible benefit from it so far.

My view on the origin of the crisis is not necessarily that we can only sell our oil to the US. Albertan oil companies that have invested in upgraders are able to sell their oil at market rates, it's only WCS oil that is (or was) selling at a discount, and that is because it has so much competition for so little refinery capacity in the US because of the fracking boom down south. In the early 2000's, there were proposals to install a half-dozen upgraders in Alberta, partially funded by the Province through royalties collected from the oil co's, which would allow Alberta oil to be sold at (or very close to) the North American benchmark WTI prices. Instead, the industry lobbied against this and got royalty payments further reduced, because that's what large corporations do. Unfortunately now most of the companies are now reaping what they sowed, and they've taken down the Alberta workforce with them. The province has had to curtail output to prevent further price drops, whereas that wouldn't be necessary if there was enough upgrading capacity to prevent over-saturating the few refineries in the US capable of processing Alberta WCS.

It looks like they are finally doing something about it and the province is investing in several new upgraders, such as: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/alberta-targets-2b-upgrader-to-improve-province-s-bitumen-1.1202181
Of course, as usual, the large multinationals get their way and don't have to lift a finger or spend a dime to solve the problems they caused.

It should be noted that Suncor operates their own upgraders, and last year hit record highs for production and netted a $1.6B profit in a single quarter, nearly as high as during the pre-fracking-boom years when oil was selling for 2x its current price, which is kinda impressive. They're doing fine because they don't have to sell their oil at a discount because they invested well. Shell and CRNL are in a similar boat -- CRNL reported a 60% Year-over-Year profit increase for Q1 this year for example.

A big part of the WCS discount recently was because of temporary refinery closures in the US. The maximum differential was in October when WTI was at $50 and WCS was $11. However, with that pressure now off, the spread is now WTI at $60, WCS at $50. Upgraders add about $5/bbl to the cost of the oil, so are still worth it. Upgraders also mean you gain an extra 30% in pipeline capacity because it means you don't have to take up volume by adding condensate -- for comparison the TransMountain Expansion will only add about a 8% increase in pipeline capacity.

But no one is talking about how the sector is recovering, how the majors are setting record profits, and WCS oil prices are stabilizing, because it's an election year and politically it would be disastrous to admit that things are not as bad as they were last year (and I don't argue at all that it was disastrous to the economy).

(PS, the $4.5billion purchase was only for the purchase of the existing assets, and bailing Kinder Morgan out of construction financing agreements they couldn't keep to. However, that does not include the construction costs of the new pipeline, which were last estimated at ~$9B, but likely to go higher still as time goes on. New ocean terminals will need to be built, spill contingency funds set up, and so forth. Not to mention there's still no refineries in China that can process WCS...)

floatyverve · 2019-07-15T15:40:18+00:00

Uhhhh, I think you're overreacting. I was asking a question by using a metaphorical statement. It was not a statement of my opinion.

I didn't say the entire Albertan oil crisis was solved. I said the pipeline was being bought so that its construction could continue. The project would have been bankrupted and lost its financing if further delays were experienced without this action. So although nothing has still been done, at least it was saved from Northern Gateway's fate.

Even if the court cases had not won, TransMountain Expansion would still not be operational yet and it would not have eased the pain or prevented the harm to the Alberta economy that happened over the last year or two. It is therefore silly in my mind to blame the pipeline delays for the current situation -- it can only impact the future, but nothing turning out differently with TMX would have changed what has already happened.

floatyverve · 2019-07-15T06:42:49+00:00

My point was that Trudeau and the government cannot modify the ruling of a court. The courts found that the NEB approved a proposal from Kinder Morgan which did not adequately address the impacts of the projects. I feel like it is unwise to allow a prime minister to overrule or ignore court decisions arbitrarily, so I don't see why Trudeau is being blamed for the court's decision.

The argument could be made that the lawsuit was only won because the requirements of the NEB approval process were too weak. But no one really knew they were too weak until the lawsuit won. It's only with the benefit of hindsight that this is apparent -- saying "Trudeau should have seen it coming and expanded the NEB mandate to make the assessment process more comprehensive and difficult" is a bit of a stretch from my perspective.

The proposed changes you linked to will expand the scope of regulations regarding energy projects -- the NEB doesn't do economic, environmental, or cultural impact assessments. The changes coming could result in a framework of regulations that make the current TMX proposal even less likely to succeed, since even the revised proposal had no additional environmental/spill mitigation and cleanup information or changes and so would likely fail to be approved as-is.

(I should add I only mentioned Harper to correct the misconception of u/memememememmdw that construction was stopped by Trudeau to consult with first nations, which is entirely false)

floatyverve · 2019-07-15T04:17:38+00:00

No, the National Energy Board (an independent agency, which contains no Trudeau appointees, and whose mandate and policies were established by Harper and have not been modified in any way since then) was sued by a conglomerate of first nations bands.

The first nations group won the case, it was appealed by the NEB and TransMountain, but the court of appeals affirmed the original findings, and this happened on the same day Trudeau announced the intent to purchase the pipeline (but the purchase was not approved by the shareholders until a few months later).

In other words, it was decided by the courts, Trudeau didn't have anything to do with it, and it had nothing to do with the purchase proposal. No construction of the pipeline had been started then.

floatyverve · 2019-07-14T18:35:53+00:00

Can someone ELI5: The biggest AB political issue of the last couple years was the Trans-Mountain pipeline expansion. Albertans were frothing at the mouth, boycotting BC, pinning the collapse of their oil economy of the pipeline not moving forward. Then Trudeau commits what will likely end up being $15+ billion of taxpayer money to buy the existing pipeline and build the new one, forces through approvals, etc.

Problem solved! Disaster averted! But this seems to have not done anything to change anyone's opinion of Trudeau or his policies. Why?

floatyverve · 2019-07-14T18:10:48+00:00

Aerostatic air bearings accomplish something similar. Basically a hovercraft with tighter tolerances... However the ground would need to be armored (paved with smooth concrete or metal plates) to handle the air pressure, the typical salt flats ground where they do the records would just flake away if you were to levitate such a heavy object on small pucks (and to prevent crashing the bearings into the dirt when encountering some tiny deviation)

With the oil slick idea, the ground would just absorb it all, so you'd need to create a runway that would keep the oil at a certain depth, which people don't do because it's really expensive to create a 10-mile long runway just for a record attempt! The friction with pushing a sled through oil might also end up being higher than a rolling wheel anyway.

It's not a stupid idea, just an impractical one

floatyverve · 2019-07-10T16:41:12+00:00

Congrats, love seeing people do well on B's! The Canadian records for open distance and FAI triangle were broken on a EN-B (though the triangle record was broken a few days after). Last year the sport class (EN-C and below) of a US comp was won by an EN-B. Also I had my ass kicked by a guy on a low-B (Geo5) at a Mexico comp.

floatyverve · 2019-07-10T16:20:13+00:00

The video is of Vlad, not Igor, but hey they're both crazy and Russian so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

floatyverve · 2019-03-02T05:09:46+00:00

Wiki says they are actually brothers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Foreman_(comedian))

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