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Dogmatix

Packing innovations

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Being an engineer and just having finished my A certificate and packing course, I was surprised about how primitive I found the packing procedure. 

I don't know if it's maybe the student rigs that are harder to handle, or maybe bad technique from me. But it was quite a workout getting the rubber rands around the lines and jamming the parachute into the bag. Not only a workout, but also a safety issue when you as a student are so happy getting it together that you're not very keen to get it out of the bag if you see it doesn't sit in the perfect orientation. Or if there's a rubber band you'd like to redo, but it would mean redoing them all.

Are there really no better innovations and standards coming for this? I've seen some stoveless bags on YouTube, but never saw anyone at the drop zone having one. Is rubber bands really the best candidate to arrange the lines, isn't there something that's easier to handle? Why is the bag half the size it should be to fit the canopy easy? It could at least be expandable while getting it in.

What's your thoughts on this, is it just to suck it up and get used to it, or is there hope for easier packing procedures?

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First off, NEVER stop asking 'can it be done better?'

That's where innovation and improvement come from.

 

However, I wouldn't call packing 'primitive'. I'd call it 'simple'. 
Canopy opening is a dynamic and very chaotic process. Keeping the packing as simple as possible reduces chances for problems.

The D-bag is the size it is for a reason. They are sized to the container. They have to hold the canopy securely enough so that it can't shift around. 

Rubber bands are simple, consistent, fairly reliable and cheap. 
There are a couple alternatives to rubber bands. Silibands and Tube Stows were popular, but I haven't really seen them much in a while.
Stowless is a good alternative. I know a few folks who use that. There's a bit of 'institutional memory' that is against it, but one thing to know is that just about every reserve is a 'stowless' setup (so you do have them at your DZ, just not readily visible).

 

Another thing to remember is that a pack job doesn't have to be perfect. Early on, I had a rigger explain to me that packing was 80% psychological. Lines straight & to the inside, fabric to the outside. Slider to the stops & quartered. Everything arranged so that it comes out in sequence and sort of smoothly. Locking stows solid. Most of the rest is to make you feel better (some of it has an effect on 'quality' of opening). 


Student canopies are very big. So they are more work to pack (tandems are somewhat similar). 
Smaller canopies are easier to handle, but they go in smaller rigs, so the D-bag is smaller. 
Getting the canopy in the bag is partly technique, mostly experience. I can't really tell you how to do it, but I can tell you that once you get better at it, getting a sleeping bag, tent, car cover or similar into the storage bag will be a piece of cake. 

Same with stowing the lines. You will get better at it.

But, if you can come up with a better idea, one that offers more benefits than drawbacks, isn't more expensive, is more durable, is easier to use but still effective at holding the lines, then go with it. 
That's how the gear improves.

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7 hours ago, Dogmatix said:

What's your thoughts on this, is it just to suck it up and get used to it, or is there hope for easier packing procedures?

You are an engineer? Great. Go for it. Parachutes are simple devices you should be able to come up with many improvements. But to answer your question, yes, suck it up. After you learn how to do it the hard way you will find it's not really that hard. Then you can begin working on ways to improve things for all of us.

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Reexamining procedures and techniques is always a good exercise. But keep in mind that we have been doing this for a while. There are often reasons for every thing you see done but they may not be apparent. In asking these questions you may learn why these things are. Be careful about who you lessen to. Remember that the institutional in this sport is rather short. A lot of people only stay in it for a few years. So reasons for things get forgotten or things that had no reason become local dogma. Some one told them that once, they repeat it, then it becomes a rule. There is a lot of miss informed bullshit that is passed around as fact with limited understanding.

 

What makes a good pack job... Lines straight. Slider up. Breaks set. Really it's about getting the canopy to line stretch in that configuration. That simple statement conceals the complexity of that task.

 

The slider is a negative feed back control system for the opening of the canopy. The wind fights to keep the slider up, the canopy fights to open. The faster you go the harder the slider tries to stay up and control the canopy. As the canopy fills with air and the speed slows the canopy becomes dominant over the slider and starts to push it down and the canopy opens. That is a deceptively simple explanation. How hard the opening is is very dependent on how fast you are going when the canopy becomes dominant over the slider. If for any reason the slider is not dominant over the canopy in the early phases of the opening... google base jump and slider down to see the behavior of a canopy not controlled by a slider. At terminal, it's just a question of what will break first and unfortunately we tend to build our gear pretty tough. You might be the part that breaks and that's not rhetorical. Numerous fatalities and injuries from just hard openings. The heart tears lose inside the chest cavity and the aorta bleeds out into the chest and you die. See the same thing a lot in helicopter crashes with vertical impacts. 

 

The dominance of the slider depends on it being at the top of the lines. It's mechanical advantage depends on that. Just a few inches can make the canopy dominant and the slider fails to control the opening. Dynamic pressure goes up with the square of the velocity but it's worse then that because the fill rate of the canopy also goes up increasing the power of the canopy over the slider. The result can be an exponentially harder opening. 

 

The slider is also dependent on line tension. This sounds strange but if there is a pop where the lines briefly go slack the canopy can pull line through the slider as it tries to spread above the slider. Think of the canopy as a spring and the lines pulling the canopy down against the slider squeezing most of the cells together and closed at the grommets. The wind holds the slider up and the lines pull the canopy down against the slider keep it squeezed down. Sudden slack in the lines means that the canopy is lose to to expand above the slider and suddenly you get an explosively hard opening. How could that happen? Lets say you had a container with really tight riser covers, ether at the shoulders  or the secondary covers alond the reserve tray that have become popular. There can actually be a lot of variation in the retention force of those covers based on, for instance, where it curves over your shoulder. Depending on how long the main lift web is on the container the cover might bend over your shoulder or be farther down your back with little curve. This is part of why many people are trying to move to magnetic covers, if done properly they can be less dependent on geometry. The real truth is that tuck tabs were a pain to build constantly and booth was looking for some thing easier. They had the side effect of actually, or at least potentially, being better covers. Every thing else is hype but they did turn out to be more reliable in there opening forces. But lets say that they stay closed, bag goes to line stretch, canopy comes out, slider spreads, then the risers pop causing a loss of tension in the lines. Hard opening. How might this happen? Lets say you had one of those cool new stowless bags. They have almost no tension on the lines as the lines just slide out of that pocket. The last two stows can be poped just by the inertia of the risers and lines and may not open a tight set of covers. Take the bag out of the container on the floor. If you hold it and walk upwards do the line stows have enough force to lift the risers and unstow the covers. Keep in mind that this happens fast so there is an inertia thing you are fighting as well. Those new bags, as cool as they are, are just not the most positive form of staging.

 

 Worse if one or both of the risers are caught under the corner of the reserve tray. The length can be over three feet. Or if one is caught the difference in length between the two sides will be over three feet. So one side of the canopy is pulling down one side of the slider very unsymmetrical The difference can be more then the width of the slider. So the other side of the slider the grommets are actually pulled down the lines allowing that side of the canopy to open above the slider with no control. And since the slider is not exactly making a lot of drag being pulled down by one edge rather then being flat to the wind the other side opens almost like a slider down canopy. Know a guy that was paralyzed by that. He's a quad now. 

 

I'm not trying to scare you. I'm just saying that there are some important things going on during the chaos of an opening. There has been some thought put into some of the things that we do. The reasons may not be clear and worse people may have a hard time articulating the why. A lot of the why gets lost in time when the average generation of a jumper is only about 5 years or less in some areas. It's just what they were told but they don't know the why. Keep asking questions.

 

Lee

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How nice with all the positivity in here. The attitude I've been meeting while learning is more "don't try to be smart", and to just comply with some of the strange things. I some what understand why they have this mentality, when you're falling with a high speed malfunction it's probably best to just stick to the program. But there is also some parts where you just think there is a million right ways to handle some things, but it's important to not question and just do as they say if you want to pass. They told me they had some students cutting away because the slider had a different color than in the pictures etc, so they probably have to deal with a lot of that if they allow too much free thinking.

 

Regarding the packing, one thing I thought about immidiately was the rubber bands. They're very tight, best way is probably to get your entire hand in there, grabbing the lines and get them through. Sometimes you have to double it up and when you're done the lines don't look as pretty as before you jammed them through and you've spend quite some energy getting them there. This constant stretching of the bands also stress them so they break frequently. I don't see why there can't be a construction where you easily get the lines inside the rubber bands, and then add the tension. Think like when you put on a clock with a metal strap, you have one part that is easily expandable and when you got it on you tighten it. It doesn't have to be remotely as advanced on a rubber band, just some way to add some optional slack, and they would hold longer since you don't stretch them more than you have to. When the slack is closed it could be identical properties of a rubber band.

But then again, we already have stove less bags, don't understand why this isn't a revolution. I saw one basejump packing where they stoved the lines in the canopy and some magnetic flap to hide it, seemed very smart and neat.

The closing loop also seems like a lot of hazzle for what it achieves. I understand you want a single point of release and opening the rig when you pull the pilot chute. The reason you need to struggle, pull, put your knee on it, get it through next flap etc is same as why you need to struggle to get the canopy inside the bag. You have something that is too big to fit unless you struggle. If there was a way where the flaps had more slack you could easily get the string through the flaps and add the pin, and then add the tension. I think of it like getting your foot inside a ski boot. Current way seems like you try to jam the foot in when it's closed. If it's open you can get your foot in easy and then close it.

It just seems like there is so much force used, when there should be easy routes around it. It might be good to think about these things when you're new. When you get used to it, you just figure it's as it always have been and you manage. But it's very stressfull to pack a parachute when you're new. You want to get everything right and you look at the lines and don't feel confident regardless how they look. If you wouldn't have to struggle and force everything, you could pay more focus on the details.

 

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7 hours ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Another thing to remember is that a pack job doesn't have to be perfect. Early on, I had a rigger explain to me that packing was 80% psychological. Lines straight & to the inside, fabric to the outside. Slider to the stops & quartered. Everything arranged so that it comes out in sequence and sort of smoothly. Locking stows solid. Most of the rest is to make you feel better (some of it has an effect on 'quality' of opening). 

That's something I thought about as well. As long as you don't roll it up in some strange way, have it inside out etc, then there should be a fair chance for the wind to catch it and deploy propery if the lines are straight. The pilote chute will pull it out and it's designed to catch the air in one way.

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Actually some of these things have been done. First off a lot of this difficulty is you using poor technique. Stowing lines. I'm trying to visualize and verbalize how I do it and it's been a long time since I even thought about it. I hold the bight folded in one hand with my thumb along it supporting the bight. I use that thumb to hook the rubber band that I'm wrapping around it with my other hand. I use that to wrap the band around and some how slip my thumb out in the process and have a nice neat double wrapped stow. Sorry I just do it and after 20 years they just come out perfect every time. You just need to practice more. It's not that stressful on the band. It's the pulling off that kills them. Strong used to use bungees to stow the lines on their tandems. You would stow the bight of line in the loop of bungee and then pull a plastic sleeve up to tighten that loop around the bight of line. Kind of a two stage process. Still on the freebag. It worked but it could be hard to find good quality bungee. They wore like any thing else. They went to an anti line dump flap. 

 

If you think about the pull up cord and flaps as pullies and pull in the right direction to use them as pullies and compress the opposite side with your knee so that your not doing all the work with your pull up cord all of a sudden you might find that the job is not so hard. If your packing a student rig right now you don't know tight. Try to make sure that you are wiggleing the bag down into that side and pulling the flap out, up, and around the side before you try to close it with the pull up cord. Some larger rigs, student rigs, use 1000 denere cordura for both the bag and the inside of the flap. Not slipery, does not slide well if you just try to close it with the cord too much friction. Pull the flap around first as far as you can before you try to close it. Use your knee to compress the bag. Then switch your knee to the out side to compress it towards the center as you pull it the rest of the way with the cord.

 

I'm a base jumper and free stow pockets have their place in base and reserve bags for special conditions but they are not the most positive form of staging. The stowless bags are a fad going around right now. I don't know if they will indure. They can be fast and convenient but that doesn't necessarily make them the best design.

 

And there have been containers where you closed them, loosely and then tightened them. Once apon a time there was some thing called a stow band. They were actually springs sewn into straps to tighten the flaps and pull them open. This was in the days on cones and pins. We found loops to be much better. I suppose you could also call Racer reserves or Reflex reserves kind of a two stage closure. You close it loosely and then tighten the loop. They work but you can bend pins, cause hard pulls, your uncertain how tight they now are, etc. But it's been done. You'll notice that all the containers just close, It's not that big a deal just learn how to do it.

Lee

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1 hour ago, Dogmatix said:

Regarding the packing, one thing I thought about immidiately was the rubber bands. They're very tight, best way is probably to get your entire hand in there, grabbing the lines and get them through. Sometimes you have to double it up and when you're done the lines don't look as pretty as before you jammed them through and you've spend quite some energy getting them there.

 

 

 
 
 
 
1 hour ago, Dogmatix said:

 

Have you watched an experienced packer pack the rig you are struggling with?  I have taught probably a thousand students to pack and they all find it very difficult until they get practiced.  I could probably do every line stow on a rig in 60 seconds or so?  Possibly less.  The description of you doing it sounds like a crazy difficult way to do it.  Proper technique will help you a lot.

And I watched two packing students who were learning today and they struggled to close a container - I just reached over (my little 5' tall 48 year old female self) and just gave it a yank and it easily came through.  Pulling at the proper angles and such makes a huge difference.

 

Were you great at soccer the first 5 times you played?  Or did you have to play for 10 years to get half way decent?  Packing is like skydiving or anything else - it takes practice.  I would bet you could watch an experienced packer pack that rig in 5 minutes.  Learn the techniques.

I am torn about the stowless bags.  I know they work well for a lot of people but I notice softer openings when I double stow my bands instead of single.  And I have known people who were killed by hard openings and it seems like those kinds of bags would be more prone to it.  And having lots of slack lines that could easily fall out or snag on flaps killed multiple people back in the 80's when it was more popular.  

Packing is simple once you learn the technique - but it just takes practice.  I can easily pack 3 of my rigs in the time it takes a rookie to pack one and still have beautiful openings.  

 

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9 hours ago, faulknerwn said:

Were you great at soccer the first 5 times you played?  Or did you have to play for 10 years to get half way decent?  Packing is like skydiving or anything else - it takes practice.  I would bet you could watch an experienced packer pack that rig in 5 minutes.  Learn the techniques.

 

I think that's a good summary. Sure, I see experienced people everywhere getting it together fast but I would want parachute packing to be as easy so you don't have to do it for 10 years to get half decent at it. 

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I don't say my ideas were good, it was just something I came up with while writing. But I do think packing seems like a lot of hard work and there should be room to make it easier. I also think it makes sense to listen to the beginners, as in all fields. When you get someone loking at it in a fresh way, you may discover things that you've just gotten used to. Packing is a big procedure, a lot of steps, pulling and twisting. Maybe the current way really is the best, or there are improvements to be made.

Ideally I would wish for a parachute that is easy to pack in 2 ways.

Firstly, so it's very hard to do it wrong. Everything is marked up and just doesn't fit any other way than what's correct and natuarally falls in place. Like when you think when designing a video game, you shouldn't need instructions and you should get it within the first seconds.

Secondly, that it's easy and fast. As discussed with folding the parachute, getting it into the bag, getting the rubber bands on and closing the main loop etc. It's a lot of work for that 1 minute free fall.

I think one reason why things are like they've always been is because your life kind of depends on it. It takes some balls to make new innovations. I mean, we've only thought in terms of how to improve the current way of packing, how to make stowing easier etc. There might be far more bold solutions. It would be interesting to put a company like Apple on the task to design a new parachute and rig, and see what they come up with.

The purpose of the thread was basically that I wanted to get a feel if there were different systems and if I should look out for something when buying a rig. I've only seen the student rigs and have no idea if the real deal might come with tons of improvements that they've excluded for cost or other reasons on the student rigs. Like stoweless bag, no one has mentioned this, I only found it by googling.

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Ok, so you've gone from 'I'm an engineer, is there a better way to pack?' to 'It's too hard, there has to be an easier way.'

It won't take '10 years' to get used to packing. Maybe 50 pack jobs, maybe less if you can get a good packer to show you a few tips, tricks & shortcuts.

Again, the bag is sized the way it is for a reason. I can't see how a 'bigger bag that squeezes down after the canopy is in it' would work. In the time between getting it in and squeezing it down, the canopy could/would move around. That wouldn't be good. There are effective techniques for bagging a canopy, and a couple of tools that help (look at the thread on the 'Pack Monkey'). Most of it involves managing the S-folded canopy. Some of it involves getting the bag around the canopy, not putting the canopy in the bag. 

Lines are stowed by rubber bands because they are simple and cheap. And they work. The idea of a system that is big, the bight is put through and then the band is tightened down has some appeal. But will it be reliable? How much will it cost. My rig has 4 locking stows and 8 more on the bag. The 'watch band' latch you envision could be a new way to do it. But 12 rubber bands are next to nothing. 12 of the watch band latches would not be. And you'd still need some sort of 'stretchy' loop so that the lines could pull out. Besides, like bagging a canopy, stowing lines in rubber bands isn't all that hard, once you get used to it. I hook the band around my thumb and middle finger, loop the bight of line, grab where I want the band to be, pull the band off my hand. 

Similarly, closing the container is more about technique than force. You put the bag in the pack tray, bring the flaps up and close them. Not all that different from putting your foot in the boot and closing the latches. The direction of pull is incredibly important. If you are pulling straight up, it takes a lot more force than pulling directly in the direction you want the flap to go (to close the top flap, pull towards the bottom of the container). This gives you the leverage that Lee was trying to describe. Again, there are a couple tools that can help (Power Tool/Packboy, PUCA tool), but they still need to be used correctly.

There have been a number of inventions and 'innovations' over the years. One reason there is serious resistance to change is because many of those 'improvements' ended up killing people and were abandoned. 

A 'complete redesign' of the entire system may be a good idea. However, the level of testing and certification that sort of thing would require is not trivial. Or cheap. The gear, 'evolved' from the older stuff, is expensive enough. I shudder to think how much an entirely new system design would cost. 

And as far as what student gear does and doesn't have, it depends on the DZ and the gear. At my current DZ, student gear is just regular gear, sized appropriately for students. 

Last - If you have ideas, see where they go. Not just 'I want it to be easier', but "I think this particular thing would be an improvement." Make sure you have looked at all the possible failure modes, as well as how it would help. This is far more something that would be discussed over beers at the bonfire than during jump ops. Especially during your student jumps.
Be prepared to have it torn asunder, as the people who have seen how stuff can go wrong will identify potential pitfalls and failures that you will miss (and you will miss some). 

But that's how advancements and innovation happen. Ask Bill Booth (look him up, he's done a lot for the sport). 

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4 hours ago, Dogmatix said:

Sure, I see experienced people everywhere getting it together fast but I would want parachute packing to be as easy so you don't have to do it for 10 years to get half decent at it. 

Now you are just showing off your frustration at needing to learn. Have you considered that before you enter a forum whose members are nearly all experienced and start going on about how we are all obviously wasting our time because you believe there MUST be a better way, you should learn to what the hell you are talking about? It does not take ten years. It takes determination and willingness to learn. People regularly become paid professional packers in less than a month. If you think stowless bags make a significant difference in packing effort it merely shows that you have yet to learn much about packing. Learn first, innovate later. The wheels on our carts are not square, and you have not contributed anything of value, much less round wheels.

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6 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Ok, so you've gone from 'I'm an engineer, is there a better way to pack?' to 'It's too hard, there has to be an easier way.'

No, I've not gone from anything to something else, read the posts again. I have an engineer degree if that's what you focus on and the motivation has been clear from the beginning, if anything can be made simpler, easier and faster with same quality. A better way is a subjective notation and it has been clear what it involves.

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9 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Now you are just showing off your frustration at needing to learn. Have you considered that before you enter a forum whose members are nearly all experienced and start going on about how we are all obviously wasting our time because you believe there MUST be a better way, you should learn to what the hell you are talking about? It does not take ten years. It takes determination and willingness to learn. People regularly become paid professional packers in less than a month. If you think stowless bags make a significant difference in packing effort it merely shows that you have yet to learn much about packing. Learn first, innovate later. The wheels on our carts are not square, and you have not contributed anything of value, much less round wheels.

Ok, so this discussion is heading somewhere else than what it was intended for. I basically wanted to know what is out there, if there are different options and something to think about when buying a gear, so I know what to buy and not buy. If newer rigs maybe offer new innovations etc and if there are any experimental inovations out there that people use, that you think will become standard later.

Yes, 10 years is ofc a ridiculous claim, I just used the example in the quote and used the same exaggeration. 

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Just now, Dogmatix said:

if there are different options and something to think about when buying a gear, so I know what to buy and not buy.

In my experience, no. As a matter of fact the newer and somewhat fancier harness/container systems are harder to close rather than easier. The trend is for newer jumpers to buy containers that barely fit the canopy they buy therefore making it even more difficult to pack. If you want the easiest packing possible in your first rig your best bet is to buy used and well broken in.

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(edited)

Dogmatix:

"Tough shit for the beginners." People tend not to like newbies coming in and criticizing everything. First, just learn to do things the way they are done...Even if I agree the discussions are perfectly logical about why things are done a certain way, and not some other. Which is useful in understanding different ways to do things in the sport. And it can be cool to dream up new ways to do things. But it helps first to have a really deep understanding of why things are the way they are, and what the pros and cons are.

Some newly added complexities to rigs, or different ways of doing things, become common in the industry, some don't.

- e.g., Aerodyne has different coloured line attachment tapes, but other companies don't bother. People learn quickly enough to distinguish between line groups. Yet coloured tabs would help do the job quicker. (And I've used ink on one of my own canopies' attachment tapes).

- e.g. Aerodyne has elongated 2nd rings in the 3 ring system. They clearly improve the leverage of the system, which sometime has been a problem. But no other company has bothered to follow their lead, to get similar rings designed and produced the steel hardware companies.  Maybe that innovation should have become more popular. Who knows.

- e.g., Wings recently has made main d-bags with bungees, which will last longer than elastics, although can have downsides too. But other companies aren't interested in that, so that remains, for better or worse, an outlier.  Even if you don't have such a main bag, you have the option of Silibands and Tube Stows, as was mentioned earlier, if you don't like rubber bands breaking. But you need to know what can go wrong with those options too.

- e.g., A few canopies from PD use plastic snaps to hold the slider to the canopy a little bit, during the start of the inflation process. Keeping sliders in place is a serious issue as it can avoid openings that injure people. So will that technique become more common or not? Who knows.

Become a rigger. Then you can sew stuff up the way you want it. Well, some countries require TSO's and such, but other's don't, so limits on changing one's rig other than the main parachute system vary.

So I can do things that no company is likely to try to push for everyone. I built a flap system in my main container so foam blocks can be inserted, varying the volume of the container. So the rig can take everything from a non-crossbraced 75, to a 150. That works for me, but isn't likely to spread across the industry even if some company marketed it. A solution for me, but not for the industry.

Packing a parachute isn't like dealing with software where things can be automated, as you almost seem to wish. 

Unless you pay someone else, you'll have to deal with compressing a sometimes slippery parachute and compressing the air out of it. And using some sort of deployment system that will keep it from malfunctioning or killing you. You can buy a tool like a Pack Monkey. Again, who knows what will happen with that on the market. It might become somewhat common for newbies and the occasional other jumper dealing with a tough to pack canopy, or fade away. We used to all use pullup cords to close containers, while now the majority of jumpers buy some sort of pack tool that allows pulling harder on the closing loop, more easily. 

Don't know what to buy? Don't know what's out there? Yeah, it is tough for newbies. Just keep talking to people at the DZ.

 

 

Edited by pchapman
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4 hours ago, Quagmirian said:

Fuck this forum and its beginner bashing. Fuck the oldiewonks and their egos. I can't wait to see an improvement in packing.

Ugh.... We have not really seen any new ideas in this thread. Just vague complaints that things need to change because someone is frustrated. The "oldiewonks" have seen a shitload of changes over the years and have embraced a lot of them. Dude has gotten some solid advice from people here.

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6 hours ago, Quagmirian said:

Fuck this forum and its beginner bashing. Fuck the oldiewonks and their egos. I can't wait to see an improvement in packing.

Like what? What specific improvement would you like to see?
How much are you willing to pay for it? 
How would it be implemented?
How would you make sure it didn't have any unintended consequences (bad ones)?

I know you have done a lot of work with your canopy project. That was truly impressive. 
So you have a bit better idea of what goes into component construction that the average jumper. 
So, what would you do to improve it?

It wasn't 'beginner bashing' at first. The OP asked if packing could be improved, and (not terribly clearly) if there were innovations that he wouldn't see on his student gear.
It sort of devolved into 'packing is hard and takes too much time, there has to be a better way' (not specific). 

Which is far more of a generalized 'new guy' complaint.

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He actually has asked some legitimate questions. He's a newbe and has discovered that packing sucks. He will in time get better at it. The question of is their a better way is perfectly valid. 

 

He's asked if there is a better way to make stows. He has asked if you could build one that can be tightened after the stow is made. It's a perfectly good idea and strong in fact did this and still does on their tandem reserves. The idea had it's own problems and never spread. If he or any one else wanted to play with it any rigger could add the little bungee holders to your bag. 

 

He asked if stowless bags were better. Valid question. People are making and jumping them. There are real advantages to them but I see problems as well. I say the jury is still out.

 

He asked if you could close the container losely and then post tighten it. We do that with the loop on some reserves. It can be made to work but we have also seen issues with it. I've never seen it on a main. I can't think of any modern equivalent of a pack opening band but we could use a strap running to say a buckle under the back pad to do some thing like that. I actually did some thing like that with compression straps on a back pack/base rig kind of thing. It was a monstrosity but it did work I jumped it on trips. Honestly if we really wanted to make packing easier all we would have to do is become a little more rational about how we size rigs. 

 

He hasn't come up with any thing new or revolutionary... yet. I keep waiting for some gem to fall out of his mouth that will revolutionize  the world. It could happen. Monkies might reproduce Shakespear. It might take longer then the heat death of the universe, but it might happen tomorrow. You'll never know what will stick and you wont find out unless you throw it against the wall. 

 

Lee

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1 hour ago, RiggerLee said:

He actually has asked some legitimate questions. He's a newbe and has discovered that packing sucks. He will in time get better at it. The question of is their a better way is perfectly valid. 

 

He's asked if there is a better way to make stows. He has asked if you could build one that can be tightened after the stow is made. It's a perfectly good idea and strong in fact did this and still does on their tandem reserves. The idea had it's own problems and never spread. If he or any one else wanted to play with it any rigger could add the little bungee holders to your bag. 

 

He asked if stowless bags were better. Valid question. People are making and jumping them. There are real advantages to them but I see problems as well. I say the jury is still out.

 

He asked if you could close the container losely and then post tighten it. We do that with the loop on some reserves. It can be made to work but we have also seen issues with it. I've never seen it on a main. I can't think of any modern equivalent of a pack opening band but we could use a strap running to say a buckle under the back pad to do some thing like that. I actually did some thing like that with compression straps on a back pack/base rig kind of thing. It was a monstrosity but it did work I jumped it on trips. Honestly if we really wanted to make packing easier all we would have to do is become a little more rational about how we size rigs. 

 

He hasn't come up with any thing new or revolutionary... yet. I keep waiting for some gem to fall out of his mouth that will revolutionize  the world. It could happen. Monkies might reproduce Shakespear. It might take longer then the heat death of the universe, but it might happen tomorrow. You'll never know what will stick and you wont find out unless you throw it against the wall. 

Thanks, it's really not more complicated than this. Can't believe it resolves to me complaining and not respecting more experienced jumpers. It's a very general question and I throw out something to get the discussion started. I very much identify myself as a monkey that might get lucky, it actually happens once in a while that people mistake me for being smart.

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10 hours ago, mr2mk1g said:

I've joked for a long time that we should crowd source funding within the skydiving community for an AFF course for someone like Dyson so that they can come up with a packing machine. Sad fact is that they are rich enough to just pay packers.

Imagine that. You get back from your jump, dock your rig, walk the lines and give it a good shake. Then press the button and the lines start pulling into the rig like a vacuum cord and packing the cute where it belongs. :)

*duck and cover*

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