Streamers >> Paper << not malfunction

[TFFTM 1]

Low level demo coming up, no budget for smoke but I did want to add the extra "Bling".

I read this in a previous thread
"On low profile demos I had a steamer bag. It was a velcro bag that had red/white/blue streamers in it about 15-20 feet long. -Ron"

What is the best way to rig streamers? Attachment points, do you fold to increase strength?, store in a flag bag for deployment?, 15-20 feet long enough?,do you attach the ends together or space them?,etc... What is you method?
Any comments, suggestions would be appreciated.

BSBD
Home of the Alabama Gang

[SkymonkeyONE 3]

Lots of ways to do this, Daniel. Yes, you can attach them into a flag bag and deploy them once you are under canopy. You can also jump in cargo pants and deploy them from the side pockets. WDI's work fine and I bet I know where you can steal some of those if you choose not to use ribbon from a party store. I am sure others will chime in with other ideas.

Chuck

[airtwardo 6]

One way to do it is...

I get 6 rolls of 'party streamers' 2 inch wide 50 feet long...for each jumper. The local dollar store has them, 3 roils for a buck.

I actually have a custom made belly pouch to hold them, but a larger 'fanny pack' is just as good.

Attach the ends to the fanny pack on the inside, tie them or what I do is sew a large spring clip (office file type) to the inside of the zippered compartment.

Clip the ends of all 6 rolls together, and put the rolled up streamers in on top.

Deploy, unzip and toss....
When ya land tear of chunks of the streamer and give it to the kids...(no clean up)

Walmart also has a bunch of 'shiny metallic' streamers of various colors...more expensive by a few bucks but they really reflect the sun neat, and look even better.


...any help?

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

[TFFTM 1]

Thanks as always Chuck. Your dad is getting low on smoke and for this particular demo its not worth the expense.

Thanks Airtwardo, any advice you give on demos is always well recieved by me.
Hopefully one day I will get to meet you and listen to some of your demo stories firsthand.
I just bought 21 streamers (all they had in R/W/B) they are 2" X 81' I am not going to worry about trimming them since they are paper.
I couldn't find the metallic ones but I bet they would look better with the glint an all.

Any way thanks again. I am sure this will work alot better than the damn flour I tried at the dz last weekend .

BSBD
Home of the Alabama Gang

[councilman24 36]

When I do high school demos I find out the colors of the home team. Then I buy two roll of crepe streamer in each color. I unroll them, lay them on top of each other, duct tape a line to the center of the stack duct taping them togther. Then fold in half and roll up. Usually just tie to leg strap and stow in jumpsuit pocket.

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[jurgencamps 0]

A roll of toilet paper works also

[popsjumper 2]

I did my first streamer jump yesterday. I learned a couple of things.

We have red/white/blue plastic streamers attached to velcroed wrist/ankle bands. I used 2, one on each wrist with the streamers stuffed into the sleeves of my jumpsuit and here's what I learned:
(note: these things were discussed on the ground before the jump and I used the jump itself to test and verify.)

1. Two streamers can (and did) get tangled together into a wad trailing behind you when making turns...even slow, flat turns.

2. Making quick, hard turns very much increased the possibility of getting the streamers entangled around your body or, much worse, entagled in your lines. The longer the streamer, the greater the possibility of turning right back into the streamer trailing behind unless you are careful and are aware of exactly how you are turning so you can avoid this.

2. Velcroed wrist/leg bands were hard to cut loose in case you needed to while in the air. It was a little harder to do in the air than it was on the ground before the jump. It took way longer than I was comfortable with considering that I may have needed to lose them quickly and I would have had to use my teeth the get them off my wrists with speed. Probably the velcro strips were way too big for what was needed to hold them on...I'll modify the bands for smaller velcro strips and pull tabs. A cut-way device instead of velcro would be even better.

3. If you want pics from the ground on landing, make sure the cameraman is not directly in front of you on landing. The streamers will be trailing behind you and will be hidden by your body.

Happy Trails

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[TFFTM 1]

I did 2 jumps on Saturday using 81 yrd paper streamers 6 total, I rolled the ends of each around some 550 chord and then taped around them. Made a loop with the 550. I left the rest of the streamer on the roll. I stuffed this in a walmart bag in the front of my jumpsuit. After opening before releasing brakes I grab the streamers and released,holding on to the 550 loop, I then using a carabiner , clipped to a poket on my leg. The streamers looked good and the length was such that I could turn below the following spiral but since they were paper I didn't worry about entanglment with my lines.

There was some tangling of the streamers behind me but the very ends pretty much stayed clear of each other I think next time I will try to stagger them on a weighted 550 chord and maybe have one on each side. All in all I did 2 jumps with them , one into a JROTC group and one into a b-day party and both times the crowds said that it looked great and added something to the display
.
On the second jump I used a deployment bag on my chest and it was a lot easier and quicker to get them released. I don't know that I would use plastic streamers yet unless it was fragile enough to break, not tear, but break.
Any way good stuff

BSBD
Home of the Alabama Gang

[popsjumper 2]

Thanks for the info TFFTM.

Since this was my first jumps trying this, I purposely used shorter streamers to lessen the possibility of entanglements on turns. And yes, since they were plastic, I didn't push it and really chance entanglement with lines.

I did several turns starting with 90s and slowly increased the degree of the turns to watch what happened as I got closer and closer to 360. I tried flat turns and diving turns and could easily see that the longer the streamer, the more chance of turning back into them. I didn't try a steep diving 360 to see if I could get the canopy under the streamers.


81 yds of streamer would not have fit in my sleeves. A D-bag of some sort is better, yes.

Anyway..it was very much fun and a good start on learning how to do it and learning about the inherent dangers involved.

I would highly recommend that before anyone does this, to talk with experienced people and find out about, and prepare for, the gotchyas that could happen. I thought of a lot of the stuff beforehand but the experienced guys came up with plenty of stuff I didn't think of.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239