Beginner gear for a big guy - Safety first in mind

[zaofan 0]

Hi everyone,

After discussions with the wife, I think I may look to get licensed and start jumping more regularly. I just wanted to start budgeting for a complete rig, as I have nothing yet. I'm a bigger guy, at 5'11'' and about 200 pounds. I've been losing weight and plan to get to my target of 175 pounds by the end of the year. My question though is what type of gear should I look for? I want a canopy that's a bit safer and easy to handle vs. a performance canopy to start with. Any suggestions?

THanks!

[Bertt 0]

Since you said "budgeting", I'll mention that you can get used gear in excellent condition for somewhere around half the cost of brand new gear. Ask your local rigger for details.
Popular canopies for beginning skydivers include Spectre, Triathlon, Sabre2, Pilot, and some others that I'm sure someone else will mention. You'll probably want something around a 190 to 230 depending on how the weight loss goes. Get some advice from an instructor who has seen you fly a canopy before you purchase anything. Look at the classifieds here to get an idea about availability and prices.

You don't have to outrun the bear.

[JerryBaumchen 1,048]

Hi zao,

Send me an email; I have a rig here that I will be selling for an old friend (I'm just waiting on some new parts for it to arrive).

I'll be listing it when the new stuff gets here.

It's a Wings with Tempo reserve.

JerryBaumchen

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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Hi everyone,

After discussions with the wife, I think I may look to get licensed and start jumping more regularly. I just wanted to start budgeting for a complete rig, as I have nothing yet. I'm a bigger guy, at 5'11'' and about 200 pounds. I've been losing weight and plan to get to my target of 175 pounds by the end of the year. My question though is what type of gear should I look for? I want a canopy that's a bit safer and easy to handle vs. a performance canopy to start with. Any suggestions?

The lightly tapered used 230 of your choice (Lotus, Omega, Pilot, Sabre 2, Safire, Silhoutte in alphabetical order) would be the perfect place to start. Whatever is affordable and available in your preferred cell count would be next. A Triathlon or Sabre 230 would do if money is really tight. Something with only 200 jumps on the line set would be ideal, because then you can make a couple hundred jumps and it'll be easy to sell because the next guy won't have to reline it. If you get to 175 pounds and some more jumps a 190 or 210 might be appropriate but a pound per square foot (with the rig weighing 25 pounds) is a generally acceptable place to start. If you're progressing poorly listen to instructors who tell you to jump something bigger, but having lost count of the number of broken bones (mostly femurs and tibia/fibulas, I only knew one guy who got paralyzed) I've seen nearly all by people who exceeded Brian Germain's recomendations I'd take his Wingloading Never Exceed formula (10,000 jumps, teaches canopy flight, designs parachutes, studied sports psychology) over local skydiving instructors ' comments about going smaller regardless of whether they knew me personally.

A rig made in the last decade which fits it and a matching reserve size would be good. Every recent rig will be fine for any sort of flying you want to do although people will have their preferences.

PD reserves have better reinforcement than a lot of older designs and land nicer. A 235 would be the most appropriate size at your current weight; a 193 if you get down to 200 pounds out the door. Other designs will land well enough at your wingloading although having seen one unreinforced reserve split into 2 and 5 cell pieces connected only at the tail seam I think having a modern reserve with span-wise reinforcing tapes that's more likely to survive an over-speed Cypres fire is a very good idea. PISA added reinforcing tapes to the Tempo in 2001 (older ones don't have them). The Raven R-Max was the first Precision design to have span-wise tapes (the -M had span-wise construction which was better than nothing). The Aerodyne Smart is new and has decent reinforcement.

You want a Cypres. It'll run about $12/month in depreciation and maintenance. Lots of people (even a jumbo jet captain) who should know better end up having too much fun and neglect to have their parachutes open by a thousand feet. I've seen one fire where the woman dislocated her shoulder and didn't bother pulling with the other hand. I've seen two fire because people got knocked out only one of whom was doing blatantly stupid things, one five second reserve ride without a cypres, and had one friend go in with no cypres and no pull.

Assuming you keep jumping and don't suffer from abnormally low levels of testosterone poisoning you'll want something faster in the next year. That's fine, but what will be appropriate then isn't now. When you're ready to down size and sell your old main

- If you got a fair deal buying and selling, you'll have spent $1/jump in depreciation
- If you got a good deal, you'll break even when you sell
- If you got a great deal, you'll make a small profit

Most rigs with the main closing loop mounted on the bottom of the reserve container or floor of the main pack tray will accomodate two down sizes. After that you figure out what you really want, come up with a nice color scheme, and pony up the pennies (potentially 45,000 of them) for the new container+reserve+AAD combination of your choice. After up to six months of waiting it'll show up, but that's OK because you could get a decade plus out of it and you have something to jump while waiting for the skydivers building it to stop jumping and get to work. Smaller parachutes are progressively more of a handful; eventually you'll figure out a size you'll want indefinitely and buy a new main in your colors.

[NovaTTT 1]

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After that you figure out what you really want, come up with a nice color scheme, and pony up the pennies (potentially *45,000* of them) for the new container+reserve+AAD combination of your choice.
(emphasis added)

If you're selling custom rig/reserve/aad at that price, I'll take 10 - better make it 20

"Even in a world where perfection is unattainable, there's still a difference between excellence and mediocrity." Gary73

[zaofan 0]

Wow! Thanks for all the input Drew and Bertt!

I've been looking over the Triathlon and Sabre2, both look like what I'll want to get in to. Reviews say they're reliable, safe, and easy to manuver.
I guess that is what the beginner truly needs, so that's where I'll look. Hopefully, within the next year or so I'll be ready to go with this. I going to jump tomorrow, so we'll see where I end up before too long! I'll talk to the riggers at the DZ too, more info can never hurt.

Thanks again!