weight bags for packing parachute

[djta0707 0]

if i could get anyones help on where i can get weight bags or maybe some pictures of your weight bags so that i can have some made i would appretiate it very much. also any ideas would help to thanks

[jsaxton 0]

What the heck are you talking about?
A weight belt?

[AggieDave 6]

A milk jug + sand + duct tape = decent packing weight that costs nearly nothing.

Just keep the tape off your gear and be mindful of spilled sand out of the jug on your gear. Better yet take the lines off your shoulder and hold them in your hands. Then you don't need a packing weight.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[freakflyer9999 1]

http://www.paragear.com/templates/base_template.asp?group=29#S7080

[djta0707 0]

no thats not what im talking about .ive only packed my rig 4 jumps so sorry if i dont know the termonology. alot of people use orange juice bottles and set it where the main goes while they run the lines up and sort the chute out. ive tried using the orage juice bottles but i for now i cant seem to keep my risers flush. skydive atlanta has some weight bags that i use to set on the risers instead of where the main goes

[AggieDave 6]

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i for now i cant seem to keep my risers flush.

A pull-up chord tied through the big ring of the 3-rings works like a champ.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[jsaxton 0]

See AggieDaves answer.

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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no thats not what im talking about .ive only packed my rig 4 jumps so sorry if i dont know the termonology. alot of people use orange juice bottles and set it where the main goes while they run the lines up and sort the chute out.

With moderately small skydiving rigs (~135 main and reserve) and bigger the rig has enough weight to stay parked and keep tension on the lines when packing.

Bigger rigs (288 main + 253 reserves) have a lot more mass and definitely stay parked.

Smaller rigs might be fine too; I haven't tried one.

[djta0707 0]

it might stay parked for the more experienced but without weights i would start of on one side of the hanger and end up on the other. jumping a 190 by the way

[shermanator 3]

I had a really good one that I had aquired from disneyland when i worked there... it was one of those weight bags they use for movie sets, sometimes you see them on caltrans signs to weight them down. unfortunately, someone stole it from the dz. I have my suspicians, but no big deal.

I mostly see water jugs that have been filled with sand, or even some concrete slabs with rope set in with it as a handel. Anything works, as long as it is heavy enough to hold back the rig. Or just practice packing without one, you'll eventually get it!

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[phoenixlpr 0]

Get a clean 5-10 L plastic canister. Fill it with sand or dirt and you got an excellent packing weight.

[sid 1]

I use lead shot (reloading supplies from a sporting store) it comes in 25 lb (I think) bags and I sew a protective bag around it because the bags it comes in WILL spill. Keeps even tandem rigs in place (and I've packed a lot of'em).

It doesn't just stop you moving along the packing area floor it also helps keep the risers symetrical and even.

Remember, packin's easy!

Pete Draper,

Just because my life plan is written on the back of a Hooter's Napkin, it's still a life plan.... right?

[kimemerson 7]

weighting the container for packing is for people who have no clue what they are doing. They are unnecessary and are a burden. Don't get one. As the use is ubiquitous nowadays there are probably no packers left anymore who don't use them, so I know someone is going to come on here and defend the use. But they are all wrong. Give me one good reason why you need to weight the container and I'll show you why it just isn't true or necessary. Again, it is for the ignorant.

[michalm21 0]

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weighting the container for packing is for people who have no clue what they are doing. They are unnecessary and are a burden. Don't get one. As the use is ubiquitous nowadays there are probably no packers left anymore who don't use them, so I know someone is going to come on here and defend the use. But they are all wrong. Give me one good reason why you need to weight the container and I'll show you why it just isn't true or necessary. Again, it is for the ignorant.

Agree. I don't use weights either.

[hackish 8]

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weighting the container for packing is for people who have no clue what they are doing. They are unnecessary and are a burden. Don't get one. As the use is ubiquitous nowadays there are probably no packers left anymore who don't use them, so I know someone is going to come on here and defend the use. But they are all wrong. Give me one good reason why you need to weight the container and I'll show you why it just isn't true or necessary. Again, it is for the ignorant.

I use weights all the time when I pack tandems. Can't do a 4 line check without them. Even with them the container sometimes moves. They also need relines so it's not at all the same as doing a sport rig with some slippery little microlines.

Some of it may be related to the surface you have to put the rig on. At all the DZ's I have been to they had some sort of container filled with water or sand. I prefer something a bit larger than a gallon windshield washer bottle.

However I agree for the oldschool folks who still flatpack or when you're packing your PC mk2 you really don't need them.

-Michael

[rehmwa 2]

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A milk jug + sand + duct tape = decent packing weight that costs nearly nothing.

Laundry detergent bottle is more sturdy and has a bigger mouth.

Then you can put in rocks instead of sand.

sturdy handle, etc.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[kimemerson 7]

Generally, a sliding container should not pose a problem. Unless space is severely limited, what does it matter if you move a bit? Also, insisting on tight lines while packing is more or less a throwback to rounds. Packing a square can be done is less space than the container and lines will take. In other words, you can pack a square main in a closet if you have to and all will be fine. It's been done. Racers were always very light and did indeed slide several feet. Packing a Racer on a tarp - as opposed to carpet or grass - meant you needed about 50 yards of packing space.But a packer can learn how not to just keep sliding right out the door without the use of a weight. First step is not being intimidated by lines that are not stretched out as you pack. You can recover the tautness as you stow. Easy, really. Gus Wing, famous for his packing, would actually put a single coil in his lines after he laid down the canopy. I never knew why, and it was always taken out before he stowed his lines. But Gus is dead so we'll have to wait for his answer on that.

Container sliding generally only happens before the canopy is laid down. So why the weight after that?

My whole thing in this is that I love efficiency. I will always try to find a way to eliminate steps of a process without sacrificing quality. I try never to allow extra steps to be introduced if I can help it. And after packing probably over 20,000 pack jobs in my time as a packer, not once with a weight, I just see the use of a weight as primarily one of ignorance and of the packer coming along well after the practice had been established.

How many times have I seen a packer scurry about to find some sort of weight as the as yet touched canopy lies in wait, untouched? If making $$ as a packer is your task, best to make up the loss of time looking for and caring for and using a weight when it is largely an extra step which eats away at efficiency. No team member wants to hear any shit about not making a load because the packer couldn't find a weight. Or couldn't pack without it. As Gus would say, "Give me hope."

If I could be there with you I could show you. It's hard in writing. Bottom line: Weights are not a necessity for any aspect of packing. Not the lines, not the risers... nothing. But when you are starting out as a packer and all you see is packers lugging weights around from canopy to canopy, what else are you to assume unless you ask? Even then... Anyone who uses weights has not been shown how packing can be done without them, subscribes wholeheartedly to the notion that packing cannot be done without them, and has never thought to question the efficacy of their use.

But why can't a tandem four line check be done without weights? That one has me fairly confused. Tandems are the heaviest of all rigs. they ARE weights!

[JohnRich 4]

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for the oldschool folks who still flatpack or when you're packing your PC mk2 you really don't need them.

The young pups may be in the mindset that packing has always been done indoors, on carpet, in air conditioning. Not so! Back in the old school days we packed outside on the ground, and if you didn't use packing weights, the wind would blow your panels around where you didn't want them. But being spoiled brats who have always had nice packing facilities, some young pups can't even imagine factors like that being in play...

Back then, we learned how to position a canopy relative to the wind so that the wind didn't work against us. I was reminded of the kind of lesson we got from that this weekend, while watching a young pup struggle to collapse his canopy in strong wind after landing. He just didn't know how to make the wind work for him, so he kept resisting straight against it, and the canopy kept pulling his ass back down onto the ground. Maybe if he had learned how to work the wind from packing outside, he would have understood how to work the wind to get his canopy collapsed when landing.

Attached: my packing weights from old school days used to pack my Paracommander. Made of tubular nylon. You sew one end shut, insert a funnel in the other end and pour in some lead shot, then remove the funnel and sew that end shut. Made of a color which contrasts with the parachute colors, so they're not easily lost and left inside. Riggers still use them when packing reserves to hold everything in place.

[peregrinerose 0]

I have 3 seasons as a packer behind me at a busy DZ, so craploads of pack jobs, and saying that 'using a weight to pack shows ignorance' is a bit on the harsh side. I can pack fine without a weight, but being short, it's a lot easier with one when I'm flacking the canopy. I tend to have the canopy as high on my shoulder as possible, stand on tiptoe, and lean forward a bit to flake to get a bit better reach. A weight keeps things from moving around and I can flake a bit faster. Without the weight, I hold the lines on my shoulder with one hand, flake with the other, so my lines are still neat, taut, and even, but it takes an extra couple of seconds.

If I'm packing on grass or carpet with no weight, I don't slide forward at all, if on a slippery tarp, I eat up an extra foot or so, but that's it.

If a newer jumper and new packer feels like life is easier with a weight, then fine, use one, it won't hurt, it's one less thing for them to worry about, and as their packing skills improve their 'need' for a weight will eventually dissappear too.

Same with risers... yes, tying them together will keep them even, but eventually with more experience and pack jobs, the OP will find that even that isn't necessary. Other than when I'm doing reserve repacks, I never have the risers tied or weighted, and they are always perfectly even, beginning to end of pack job.... but I started out tying them together or using a weight on them to keep them that way until I had the mad packing skilz to do so without it.

Do or do not, there is no try -Yoda

[diablopilot 2]

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I use weights all the time when I pack tandems.

My 2000+ tandem pack jobs say they are not necessary, and since I've seen a packer close one in a rig, I think they are a bad habit.

----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[Andy_Copland 0]

If you're anal like me its a 25lb dumb bell in the container tray, 3 rings tied together with a pull up cord and another 25lb on the risers. I like symmetry and i tend to wrestle hard with my rig when i pack.

1338

People aint made of nothin' but water and shit.

Until morale improves, the beatings will continue.

[BillyVance 34]

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i for now i cant seem to keep my risers flush.

A pull-up chord tied through the big ring of the 3-rings works like a champ.

This is what I do, every time. I have a pocket on the inside of the MLW to keep the pullup cord in.

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[rehmwa 2]

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my packing weights from old school days used to pack my Paracommander. Made of tubular nylon.

Ack - I completely forgot about packing snakes. I used to have those too. This post is all about a container weight, but what a great digression. As far as a container weight. We used to call them 'girlfriends' ... and they 'sat tension' on the rigs.




I tie the risers together and use weights, just because it's easier. However, one can open up the risers in way that keeps the risers aligned - without the tying. and not having a weight isn't a big deal.

also, carrying a tent stake is another way to keep line tension during packing. just throw the legstraps over the stakes. ditto on various velcro straps, etc.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[kimemerson 7]

I mean "ignorant" only in the sense that one has no knowledge of something. I don't mean it as a derogatory comment at all. If someone doesn't know something, they are, simply stated, ignorant. If all anyone has seen is people using milk jugs with rocks in them, they are likely ignorant to the fact that people before them did not use weights. No fault. No blame. Just ignorant of the fact. I apologize if I was taken as saying anything harsh.

Keeping risers even is a matter of how one lays out the container. Tying them together is unnecessary.

To the other post (can't remember who) about using weights on the canopy in the wind in the old days: I think we're talking something different here. Weighting down the canopy against the wind is one thing. Weighting the container end so it doesn't slip is another.

[brucet7 0]

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I mean "ignorant" only in the sense that one has no knowledge of something. I don't mean it as a derogatory comment at all. If someone doesn't know something, they are, simply stated, ignorant. If all anyone has seen is people using milk jugs with rocks in them, they are likely ignorant to the fact that people before them did not use weights. No fault. No blame. Just ignorant of the fact. I apologize if I was taken as saying anything harsh.

As a new jumper with 29 jumps after yesterday, I accept the monicker of "ignorant" though "inexperienced" might be more applicable. Every pack I do I learn lots. I was told yesterday that I had the "ugliest" line stows they had ever seen. So we started over and my next set looked quite nice thank you. I suppose that one of these days being able to keep my contain from moving and my risers straight will come naturally, but right now just trying to remember all the steps in the right order, knowing how much roll to put on the nose (and I wasn't doing that right either and had to be corrected), making sure the folds are somewhat in order and getting those "S" folds down is about all I can handle. So call me ignorant, because I sure am. But less so today that Saturday.

POPS #10623; SOS #1672