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chuteless

Skydiving is like many other sports

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I vote we bring back drogueless tandems, sliderless squares and/or sketchy reefing systems, low-pull competitions, and shelve AADs completely while we're at it!

Get those Lodestalls and Beech-18s flying again!

Let's put the "black death" back into skydiving! B|B|B|

NSCR-2376, SCR-15080

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I'm kind of like Twardo in this; I started about the same time, and am still jumping. I have 500+ round jumps, and now willingly jump a square. About 200 jumps with quick ejectors, and don't miss them (but I bruise very, very, easily). My first 3-4 :$ cutaways were on R-2's (which were an improvement over Capewells, but not as big a one as three-rings, in my opinion).

A couple of months ago I made a jump out of a Cessna with a Starlite main, in a Starlite container with shot-and-a-halfs. Practice determined that they were minimally sticky, and that I'd have to really focus to get them both released, or just accept that I'd have to get one, then the other. I landed about 20 ft. from the peas after throwing a WDI and spotting, with a nice PLF. But it was a harder landing than any I've had in years -- I didn't even try to time a riser flare, and would have flubbed it if I'd missed.

The only real advantage to the round (besides bragging rights, which are significant :D) is how wonderfully quiet it is. You're really floating in air under a round, and it's really nice. I felt quite reasonably safe

I'd go back to FOL throw-out in a heartbeat, with reverse step-in hardware. It's not FF-friendly, but I don't FF (or at least not recognizably so :)
Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

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Great post and brought about a smile from memories of days gone by.

One could do no better than the first rig I owned which was a two-shot capewell B-4 with a 32' 7-TU lopo and a 24' chest mount (hand deploy) reserve...............the cat's meow for certain.

The 1 /12 shot capewells were replaced by tapewells on my Super Pro that contained my sporty red Para-Commander (yes, a darn nice canopy to jump and we did stadium demos with them too), attached to the high mounted D-rings was my new Joe Smith 26" lopo reserve complete with a MK2000 Sentine AAD (AOD back then).

Yes, those were the days when men were men and we went home sore with riser burns and sore ankles. Sport parachutists from the old school when sex was safe and jumping out of airplanes was dangerous.B|

Good point about the high tech pretty gear swaying folks away from the basics of our sport such as spotting.

But all in all, that new fangled high tech pretty gear has helped our sport grow beyond imagination. That high tech gear of today even makes it possible for a crippled dinosaur like me to keep skydiving. :)
Would I ever go back to the old days with custom colors of OD and sage green, Para-Commanders, Capewells, and lopo round reserves? Sure would in a heart beat especially if it were the only gear on earth and a plague ravaged village in a remote rain forest needed life saving serum to be dropped in to save them.

www.geronimoskydiving.com

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I am not sure your intention in asking your question, but I will answer it anyhow. I did use a harness with Capewell releases on it for the chuteless jump. When practicing, I wore that harness, with two 3 ft risors which were attached to a rigid D ring on each. Overtop of that harness, I wore my Para Commander in its Pioneer 3 pin pack. I therefore had two harnesses on.
Once I had the D rings which ran down my arms , snapped onto the reserve ( a brand new red and white Strong 26 conical), I decided I would open this new reserve and see how it was in flight. My intention was to use that reserve on the actual chuteless jump.....so why not try it out.
I pulled the ripcord on the Strong reserve and it literally blew to pieces. About 1 million holes from pepper and salt size to 4 ft long, covered the entire canopy.
I cutaway the reserve and rolled over to activate my main chute, my Para Commander.
I bought a 28 ft C-9 canopy from Dale Gates and we rigged in onto a board with two hand holes . The combined weight of myself and my Para Commander just was too much a strain on the conical, so that is when I used a cutaway in practice for the chuteless jump. On my 2nd chuteless jump, I used the same 28 ft C-9 and everything else was as my 1st jump.




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chuteless

I am not sure your intention in asking your question, but I will answer it anyhow. I did use a harness with Capewell releases on it for the chuteless jump. When practicing, I wore that harness, with two 3 ft risors which were attached to a rigid D ring on each. Overtop of that harness, I wore my Para Commander in its Pioneer 3 pin pack. I therefore had two harnesses on.
Once I had the D rings which ran down my arms , snapped onto the reserve ( a brand new red and white Strong 26 conical), I decided I would open this new reserve and see how it was in flight. My intention was to use that reserve on the actual chuteless jump.....so why not try it out.
I pulled the ripcord on the Strong reserve and it literally blew to pieces. About 1 million holes from pepper and salt size to 4 ft long, covered the entire canopy.
I cutaway the reserve and rolled over to activate my main chute, my Para Commander.
I bought a 28 ft C-9 canopy from Dale Gates and we rigged in onto a board with two hand holes . The combined weight of myself and my Para Commander just was too much a strain on the conical, so that is when I used a cutaway in practice for the chuteless jump. On my 2nd chuteless jump, I used the same 28 ft C-9 and everything else was as my 1st jump.



I still don't see where you would use them doing a chutless jump. Since you are wearing a chute what are you going to cutaway.

Sparky
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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mattjw916

I vote we bring back drogueless tandems, sliderless squares and/or sketchy reefing systems, low-pull competitions, and shelve AADs completely while we're at it!

Get those Lodestalls and Beech-18s flying again!

Let's put the "black death" back into skydiving! B|B|B|



I'am in. B|:)
Sparkyhttp://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp55/mjosparky/Skydiving/FirstRigElsinore-1.jpg

Every rig I've owned had Quickeject or B-12's.

http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp55/mjosparky/Skydiving/Quickejectsnap.jpg
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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fastphil

***What heavy metal.? The quick ejectors were so much better because immediately on landing you could pop your leg straps and your body was free from the lower harness restrictions. How many jumps did you ever make with quick ejectors....I will bet not a single jump. You new skydivers didnt know how good those things were because you never were on the scene when they were being used.




I made several jumps with quick ejectors, and I have 350 on a PC and several hundred more on small round canopies. I like a harness to be light and comfortable, then I don't need to hop out of the legstraps on landing. Pull out pilot chutes are another great change, giving more control over deployment, not to mention making it lots faster. A rig over 16 or 17 lbs seems such a waste of gravity...

And you park a car on your rig overnight so you get one more guy between the door and fuselage. The less weight you went out the door with farther you could carry your speed before flaring. I think it was called swooping before the term was high jacked.

You 10 man freaks are all the same.

Sparky

http://s397.photobucket.com/user/mjosparky/media/Skydiving/Movie.mp4.html
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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mjosparky

******What heavy metal.? The quick ejectors were so much better because immediately on landing you could pop your leg straps and your body was free from the lower harness restrictions. How many jumps did you ever make with quick ejectors....I will bet not a single jump. You new skydivers didnt know how good those things were because you never were on the scene when they were being used.




I made several jumps with quick ejectors, and I have 350 on a PC and several hundred more on small round canopies. I like a harness to be light and comfortable, then I don't need to hop out of the legstraps on landing. Pull out pilot chutes are another great change, giving more control over deployment, not to mention making it lots faster. A rig over 16 or 17 lbs seems such a waste of gravity...

And you park a car on your rig overnight so you get one more guy between the door and fuselage. The less weight you went out the door with farther you could carry your speed before flaring. I think it was called swooping before the term was high jacked.

You 10 man freaks are all the same.

Sparky

http://s397.photobucket.com/user/mjosparky/media/Skydiving/Movie.mp4.html


I like that; and going 40th out of the small door DC3 was even more fun.

My favorite rig was an SST Racer with KXX reserve and StratoFlyer main. There was little time wasted under canopy, a quick front riser spin and I was standing in the pea gravel half a minute after I pulled...

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I think Bill has a good point.

1975 was probably about the last year where shot and half capewells and rounds dominated the DZ. In the USA there were around 50 fatalities resulting from about 350,000 jumps.

If no one spent all that wasted money on useless upgrades, then we would have more like 400 fatalities per year, given the 3 million + jumps made now days.

That was great gear; it was all you needed. And just think about all the additional good discussion you'd be having in the Incidents forum ;)

For that matter, think about how safe things would be if half the Otter load carried the parachute for the other half, and passed it off in freefall?

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There was one thing about the "rounds" that is a little different and that is the amount of color that filled the sky when everyone was open. They really were more colorful and visible than many of the canopies of today. And collisions were not as big of a concern.
C
But what do I know, "I only have one tandem jump."

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"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."


Charles Darwin
"Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way." -Alan Watts

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fastphil


And that's the point exactly, I have fixed wing and helicopter free fall jumps at 1100 ft and felt comfortable with my light weight fast sure opening three ring equipped rig.

I've done fixed wing from there and felt okay with my F-111 7 cell main. I wouldn't enjoy doing that with my 9cell ZP elliptical.


Quote


Skydiving is like many other sports; it was created, grew up and now I guess it's matured. I think I participated during a growth spurt...

You lived thru the gear revolution of the 70's and early 80's. A whole lot of new ideas were foisted upon us. Not all of them were great. Think of the "frap wrap" release system, the backpack pocket for the pilot chute, the leg mounted pilot chute.

The things I think modern rigs could use is a saddle strap and maybe a belly band. I used a detachable belly band the other day while freeflying. It kept the rig snug and tight into my back, very comfy. :)

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When I started jumping, the DZ had an OUTHOUSE and no-one wasted all that time messing with seatbelts.
I lived through that, I'm OK, so that must be the best way.
And don't forget training the old way.
A good ass chewing when you screwed up but nothing to tell you why or how to fix it.
And the sentinel AAD's, they were so much better.
I really think we should go back to all that......NOT.
and don't get me started about adding machines...
This is the paradox of skydiving. We do something very dangerous, expose ourselves to a totally unnecesary risk, and then spend our time trying to make it safer.

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Chris, rounds are much less likely to be involved in collisions with each other because they all drift equally in the wind and have very little forward speed to get into trouble with. That is why they are still used for mass troop drops. Today's canopies are plenty colorful enough.

Please, more reading and less typing. You can do it.
Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

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gowlerk

Chris, rounds are much less likely to be involved in collisions with each other because they all drift equally in the wind and have very little forward speed to get into trouble with. That is why they are still used for mass troop drops. Today's canopies are plenty colorful enough.

Please, more reading and less typing. You can do it.



No, now they are starting to use “square” canopies for mass drops. ;)

Sparky

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peosoldier/4997094074/
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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Quote

You lived thru the gear revolution of the 70's and early 80's. A whole lot of new ideas were foisted upon us. Not all of them were great. Think of the "frap wrap" release system, the backpack pocket for the pilot chute, the leg mounted pilot chute.



I started test jumping in the early 80’s and was lucky enough to survive. But I was also lucky to have the exposure to the rapid development in gear. I learned from some of the best inventive minds in the sport and am sure those lessons contributed to my survival over the years.

Jumping today is in many ways just like jumping when I started. For the most part those that took time to learn survived, those that didn’t got talked about in the bar.

Sparky
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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FB1609

I too started with a T10, then a PC, then a parafoil 252, and so on until now, truth be told, gear has never been better than it is now.



I won't argue against many of the innovations we see in 'this' generation of gear...but ~ I'd be willing to bet that 10 years down the road it will start looking a lot more like the 'last' generation of gear.

I think we've pushed the envelope in some cases, too far toward the 'form' at the cost to some of the reliability 'function'.

The rigs in general today have never looked better, but I think that eventually the tight corners, tapered trays, overstuffed containers, harness geometry etc. will start to show a noticeable negative performance trend that the market will demand be addressed.

We're just throwing bandaids at the problem right now, some containers it seems are failing to perform as they should...throw a MARD on it and rip that reserve out.

Let's raise the AAD firing altitude & give the thing more time...funny, that was never an issue before.

Remember the old 'solid saddle' days...split saddle is so much more comfortable - just don't forget the bungee cord which makes it a solid saddle (kinda) again, or you may fall out of the harness.

Yeah the harness...now with all kinds of articulated rings & bling. Sure it's comfy on the ride up, but in a lot of case the container is no longer tight against the jumpers back while falling - we can 'fix' that with another belly band. Gee, just like the Piglet container I jumped in the 70's...;)










~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

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mjosparky

***I too started with a T10, then a PC, then a parafoil 252, and so on until now, truth be told, gear has never been better than it is now.



Every time I jumped a 252 it hurt. [:/]

Sparky

Ya gotta turn that PCR into a pulley and gain another factor of mechanical advantage!

Sure my line was twice as long going out...but she opened as soft or softer than any rings & ropes I jumped. ;)










~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

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