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JerryBaumchen

PEPs with square canopies

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1. What percentage of the PEP rigs that you repack/maintain have a square canopy in them?

I must be the oddball rigger here. I have a healthy pilot customer base (I do about 4 pilot rigs a month for aerobatic pilots in the Topeka/KC/Wichita area) and I would say that about 30% are with squares. Of all those with squares, almost all are Softies.

2. Have you never packed a PEP with a square canopy in it?
I Plan on doing one either tonight or tomorrow night. I have probably done about 75 reserve repacks of pilot rigs with square reserves total.


3. Do you ever recommend a square canopy to your PEP owning customers?
Every customer that brings me a pilot rig with a square has jumping experience. Two pilots from Topeka actually took a First jump course (Static line) and made 5 jumps just to be comfortable landing a square in the event of an emergency. Three pilots are either current or former jumpers. I have no issue recommending a square canopy in a PEP rig to experienced pilots, but would not recommend for ride alongs.
=========Shaun ==========


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If you did outfit a pilot with a modern ram air, and the [pilot has never jumped anything; would you allow it to have a standard skydiver brake release system and full range toggles?

Or, would you install some kind of limited travel/half brake toggle system now used in Parapernalia, Rigging Innovation and Butlers?

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dpreguy


Or, would you install some kind of limited travel/half brake toggle system now used in Parapernalia, Rigging Innovation and Butlers?



Is there any info about these systems on Softies and Butlers? There doesn't seem to be much about squares on either web page.

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.".......
Quote

Military tandem reserves have been MIL SPECed to much heavier weights and much faster airspeeds, but soldiers refuse to share their data with civilians.



........ Could you share what systems you are referring to? ......."

I was quoting a conversation with Bill Booth (owner of the Sigma factory: UPT). Bill was grumbling that the US military had drop-tested Sigmas considerably faster and heavier than required for civilian TSO-approval. The US military then approved Sigmas for heavier weights and faster airspeeds than civilians. Bill's complaint was that the military refused to share test-drop data with him.

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Hi Rob,

Quote

Bill was grumbling that the US military had drop-tested Sigmas considerably faster and heavier than required for civilian TSO-approval. The US military then approved Sigmas for heavier weights and faster airspeeds than civilians. Bill's complaint was that the military refused to share test-drop data with him.



In all of the boiler-plate in the purchase contract, my money says that somewhere it says that the military owns the data. IMO one should never sign any contract with the military or the federal gov't. without reading every page completely.

When the federal agency I worked for had contracts for design/development work, the contractor who did the design/development work could not even use it themselves or give it to anyone else; it completely belonged to us. It was in the terms of the contract(s) that they signed.

Jerry Baumchen

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I doubt they post that stuff on their website for the curiosity seeker.

I have packed the Paraphernalias and Butlers in my shop, and have seen and touched the Rigging Innovation Aviator at PIA. Similarities in designs. Brakes for opening and limited toggle travel are addressed in all three.

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dpreguy

I doubt they post that stuff on their website for the curiosity seeker.

I have packed the Paraphernalias and Butlers in my shop, and have seen and touched the Rigging Innovation Aviator at PIA. Similarities in designs. Brakes for opening and limited toggle travel are addressed in all three.



Curiosity seekers are potential customers. Seems like they'd want to draw in customers. Then again, Butler's site says "last updated 2004" .

We have a Softie square setup here, but it's not very recent and it uses a full range toggle setup just like we have on sport rigs.

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Agreed.
I have worked at the Butler factory, Softie factory and Aviator factory.
Most of the squares in PEPs had standard skydiving toggles. Never seen any fancy steering toggles on Softies or Butler PEPs.

If anyone has pictures of fancy toggles on Butler or Softie PEPs, please share them.

I have only seen Aviator 280 with fancy steering toggles.

The Precision P124A-280 canopies packed into Aviators have all the steering lines attached to the rear connector links, then an extra steering line goes down to a steering toggle. The extra steering line is primarily a steering line. It only helps a little for braking. If you pull an Aviator steering line below your shoulder, dramatically increasing control pressure. The increased control pressure discourages anyone from pulling an Aviator steering toggle below shoulder level, making it almost impossible to stall a P124A-280 canopy.
But you don't really need to flare a P-124A-280 canopy, because it already descends slowly enough at the factory steering setting. Towards the end of the manned drop tests, I landed down-wind, hands-off and my landings were softer than under most rounds (C8, C9, T-10 main and reserve and a couple of LoPo 26' conicals)

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1. What percentage of the PEP rigs that you repack/maintain have a square canopy in them?

We have about 10% now and the number constantly growing

2. Have you never packed a PEP with a square canopy in it?
Do that all the time :)


3. Do you ever recommend a square canopy to your PEP owning customers?
Do that all the time :)
They are safer (IMHO) then heavelly oscillating C9.

About damage on square:
while droptesting our rig we almost torn in half russian-made reserve K-15. (we call it K7 and K8 now, when new riggers
learn, trying to fix the parachute).
It had top and bottom panels holding only on reinforcement.
Despite that - the canopy was flying straight.


About square reserves for high speed:
we succesfully static-lined Skylark Reserve with SWS Fire h\c at 400 km\h (216 knt) and 165 kg (366 pounds) from Ilushin 76 heavy transport without problem, numerous times. We (Skylark and SWS) dont have TSO, so that mean nothing in US :))

SWS working now on PEP with opening speed 600 km\h.
Lexa

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My last "save" was on a Precision TR-350 tandem reserve.
The orange label says: "Maximum operating weight limit 500 lbs" and "Maximum operating speed limit 185 KEAS."

Precision TR-350 reserve canopy is standard in Eclipse Tandem and Wings Tandem. It is also installed in Wings military freefall rigs.

NEXT tandem is placarded for maximum 225 kg at 150 knots.

The PD360 reserve (installed in Vector and Sigma) is rated for 500 pounds.

Strong Tandem reserves are rated for 500 pounds.

According to Jump Shack's website, their Angelfire 400 reserve is rated for 425 pounds and their Angelfire 500 reserve is rated for 500 pounds. Though I suspect that the website is "dated" because it says they applied for certification to 600 pounds.

Bottom line, if a pilot with a big "bottom" (more than 254 pounds) wanted a PEP, I would steer him towards a large square, maybe even a tandem reserve.

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You have a point. Although I have total faith that a C-9 would not blow you on some one so fat I doubt he would walk away from it. On the other hand People like this break just by falling over.

I have a skewed view on this. I'm 140 lb's And that's as fat as I've ever been in my whole life. Basically I've never met a round that scared me. The flip side is that I've never ever seen a PEP with a tandem in it. And even some of the smaller tandems, like a 360, would be a bit sporty with a 300 lb fat ass under it.

Bottom line. Any one that fat doesn't have any business flying a plane any way. He probable wouldn't even fit in the cockpit.

Lee
Lee
[email protected]
www.velocitysportswear.com

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Agreed! RiggerLee,

Many Warbird pilots were born into tall families and never missed a meal in this lifetime. The last time they weighed 254 pounds was in high school.
Hah!
Hah!

Some of my most challenging jobs have involved recommending PEPs for "well-nourished Texans" who recently bought warbirds. Too bad the cockpit was originally designed for a jockey ... enrolled in the Yugoslav Air Force.
Hah!
Hah!

We enlarged a military-surplus harness for one "Texan." A few months later, he sold the airplane to an even larger "Texan", so we lengthened the harness a second time.
Hah!
Hah!

The canopy was a "stout" MIL SPEC round, originally designed for an ejection seat. I expected that round to survive almost any opening, but was not half as confident about the pilots' ankles surviving.

When I packed those Para-Flite 340 reserves into Butler chair packs (aka. along-back) it was because they were the only civilian reserves certified for a "Texan" that heavy. That was a few years before Butler certified his HX series with sombrero sliders.

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