Classic Skydiving Gear

[frawley308 0]

It struck me the other day that for many other sports such as sports cars, aircraft, motorcycles ect. that there is a subgroup that keeps the sports history alive and tangible by restoring and using classic equipment. I have always felt that if we in the skydiving community do not keep some of our classic equipment airworthy that future generations will lose the sense of where our sport came from and the development of its early years. I think it would be great to have a group of skydivers that maintain and rebuild vintage equipment and get together once and a while to jump it or allow relatively new jumpers a chance to jump it. I am currently working on a project to rebuild (replace most components under the supervision of a master rigger - I am only a senior rigger back/chest/seat) a North American Mini System for a pristine Paracommander and Phantom 28 that I own. Are there any other jumpers from the classic days interested in the same?

[Andy_Copland 0]

All i've seen through AFF is top gear and i think it would be a very rewarding experience to try some vintage stuff :P.

For example i see a lot of S/L students using rounds and i'd bloody love to go up and try one for myself.

1338

People aint made of nothin' but water and shit.

Until morale improves, the beatings will continue.

[speedy 0]

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i think it would be a very rewarding experience to try some vintage stuff

Yeah, go for it. Nothing like cutting away with capewell's.

Dave

Fallschirmsport Marl

[winsor 187]

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It struck me the other day that for many other sports such as sports cars, aircraft, motorcycles ect. that there is a subgroup that keeps the sports history alive and tangible by restoring and using classic equipment. I have always felt that if we in the skydiving community do not keep some of our classic equipment airworthy that future generations will lose the sense of where our sport came from and the development of its early years. I think it would be great to have a group of skydivers that maintain and rebuild vintage equipment and get together once and a while to jump it or allow relatively new jumpers a chance to jump it. I am currently working on a project to rebuild (replace most components under the supervision of a master rigger - I am only a senior rigger back/chest/seat) a North American Mini System for a pristine Paracommander and Phantom 28 that I own. Are there any other jumpers from the classic days interested in the same?

I have a number of such rigs, but do not tend to use them very often. A couple of drawbacks are that they are a bitch to pack, and the procedures are all different.

Packing with sleeves, spring-loaded pilot chutes and ripcords on the main is more of a pain in the ass than I prefer.

Trying to remember where the hell all the handles are, both at deployment time and if something doesn't work as planned, is too much of a distraction to be a lot of fun. Focusing on any kind of RW is tough when you know that the procedures that have saved your life thousands of times won't work this time.

I thus generally stick to hop and pops, where I focus on the main ripcord between exit and pull time, and am expecting to fire the shot-and-a-halfs and bellywart if I don't like what I get overhead.

An airworthy Wonderhog is my rig of choice when jumping ParaCommander class canopies. A BOC throwout works just fine with a round, and a D-bag packed round is as reliable as anything going (ask any military rigger who has worked on T-10s and the like). The handles are all where you would expect them, and emergency procedures are standard.

As long as you have someone to hold tension, it only takes about 10 minutes more to pack a PC than a square.

I am now setting up a rig with a UT-15 (the Soviet original from which the "Russian PC" was copied) and a Safety Star. Having had numerous rigs with square mains and round reserves, I find the idea of a round main with a square reserve amusing.

Regarding people who get together to jump vintage gear, at Richmond Revisited there is a group who breaks out their airworthy vintage gear to make jumps on an annual basis. There are other groups that jump the old stuff on an informal basis, and if you ask around you can stumble across them.

For anyone who has never tried a round, I highly recommend finding out why Bill Booth viewed the ParaCommander as the pentultimate parachute.


Blue skies,

Winsor

[DrewGPM 0]

Old time hear is alive and well in Chicago. There is a group of guys at Chicagoland Skydiving that bring out the PC's and lo-po's just for fun. They did a 4-way a few years ago. It would have been a 5-way, but one guy forgot to bring his reserve.

One guys loves to teach younger jumpers about the gear and routinely lets people jump the gear. Last weekend we watched him give a woman a briefing as she prepares to make her first jump on a Paracommander. Hopefully the winds will be low enough and she'll get that thing in air this weekend.

Great gear! The date on the pilot chute was in the 1950's. The main is a "competition model" that was orginally made for a member of the Danish team that attended the 1973(I think) world championships. Neat little bit of history.

[Andy9o8 0]

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Yeah, go for it. Nothing like cutting away with capewell's.

Been there, done that. Don't want to repeat the experience.

However, I'd love to jump a ParaCommander again -- but definitely in a modern BOC/EP's setup. Took me long enough as it was to un-learn the old muscle memory so that I didn't pull the cutaway cable when my old memory made me want to pull the main ripcord handle.

[BIGUN 1,065]

Every year here in Tulsa we have "Vintage Day" for those who want to jump rounds. At Skyfest, there is a symphony of vintage gear laid out for viewing and a suspended harness with capewells and training for those who wish to jump the gear. [Guess who does the REAL PLF training]

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[tombuch 0]

Old gear is fun. I made my 25th anniversary dive on the same day I started jumping (plus 25 years) using an old T-10 and belly mount reserve. Very enjoyable throwback to the days of yesteryear.

Many of the larger drop zones have old timers who still have and maintain the old stuff. Seek them out and ask if they will clue you into the fun (and dangers) of the old gear.
.

Tom Buchanan
Instructor Emeritus
Comm Pilot MSEL,G
Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

[Airman1270 0]

I'll bet there are people who have a running bet going as to how soon I'll speak up here...

Yes, my Wonderhog is in great shape. I've been using it since 1990; before then I had an even older, more worn-out 'hog. Only last year did I finally get a new rig, promoting the 'hog to second rig status. I removed my Star-Trac and took the Strato Cloud out of storage for a completely classic set up, and jumped it twice this past summer. The 'Cloud is much heavier & bulkier than the 'Trac, making packing near impossible and resulting in a rig that weighs about 40 lbs. So far I just do hop 'n' pops, but I could use it to go base on a big-way.

When you jump an old rig as a novelty, people think it's kinda neat. When it's your only rig, they think you're an asshole. Last year someone gave me grief, comparing my rig to the Wright Flyer. I think a better analogy is the P-51: Long since outclassed in every way, but the best of its type back when it was introduced. (Of course, the analogy begins to unravel at the seams when you bring up the subject of resale value.) And, with about 700 jumps on the H/C system and about 300 on the main, there's plenty of life left in her.

Anyone wanna borrow it?

Cheers,
Jon S.

[wmw999 2,136]

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When you jump an old rig as a novelty, people think it's kinda neat. When it's your only rig, they think you're an asshole.

When I started jumping again after a long layoff, I still had my old gear; a 1983 Rapid Transit Mirage, with a Firefly and a KXX round (with no acid mesh). I got the looks; I got the comments. But, well, they generally shut up when I told them "I bought it new."

Wendy W.

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)

[NewGuy2005 51]

[For anyone who has never tried a round, I highly recommend finding out why Bill Booth viewed the ParaCommander as the pentultimate parachute.


Blue skies,

Winsor

[Eule 0]

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It struck me the other day that for many other sports such as sports cars, aircraft, motorcycles ect. that there is a subgroup that keeps the sports history alive and tangible by restoring and using classic equipment.

Caution: student/low jump numbers here. Some thoughts.

There's a young guy who jumps at the DZ I go to whose dad jumped back in the day. His dad brought
his old rig one day and jumped it a few times. From his comments I think it dated from the late 70s or
early 80s. It looked mostly like the rigs I am jumping, except for the riser releases. I _think_ they were
Capewell releases - something like a big buckle on the risers where the three-rings goes on a newer rig.
I pointed to the release and said, "Hey, yours doesn't have the three rings." He laughed and said "This is
old stuff, you don't even want to know about it." At first I wondered why he didn't tell me about it - I
was expecting something like several people have said here, that the older jumpers like to talk about
"back in the day". Thinking about it now, he might have not wanted to talk about it so as not to get
me (a student) confused.

To me, the different handles/EPs would be the biggest concern. I've seen a lot of things happen out of
force of habit, mostly in cars, where there wasn't the added bonus of a planet coming at you. When I
was learning to drive, I switched back and forth between a '79 Olds with a column-shift automatic and
an emergency brake pedal and an '84 Nissan with a floor-shift automatic and an emergency brake handle.
When I'd driven the Olds for a while, and then got into the Nissan and tried to drive off from being
parked, I would quite often pop the hood and turn the wipers on instead. Another time I was riding
with a guy who had driven a stick for 8 years and had just bought a floor shift automatic. We were
pulling away from a light in Drive when I suddenly heard his foot hit the floorboard and saw him reach
down and flick the shifter forward. Thankfully he didn't push the button, so it only went into Neutral.
It took him mashing the gas, hearing the engine rev, and realize he wasn't getting any thrust before
he figured out what had happened. Sometimes it's not force of habit, but just lack of knowledge -
take somebody who is 25 or younger and knows how to drive a stick, put them in an old VW, and
watch how long it takes them to find reverse.

One way around this, _if possible_, would be to modify the old rig to have handles like a new one. I
know that takes away from it being an "old rig", and if somebody has one in really nice shape they
probably don't want to hack on it. Something like this happens in countries that have strict vehicle
inspection laws; people that have old cars will temporarily hang turn signals or a third brake light or
whatever they need to be legal on the outside of their car, drive to the show or campout, and then
take the extra stuff off for the "stock" look. But I think it's easier to make those kinds of reversible
mods to a car than to reversibly mod a rig.

Having said all that, after I get lots more jumps in, I think it would be interesting to jump a round
that's set up on a "modern" container/harness/three-rings with the same handles I'm used to. (Mostly)
the same procedures, but a different ride. (It might even be a license requirement somewhere past A;
I haven't looked.)

Eule

PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

[rasmack 0]

You may find this thread interesting.

HF #682, Team Dirty Sanchez #227
“I simply hate, detest, loathe, despise, and abhor redundancy.”
- Not quite Oscar Wilde...

[stratostar 5]

Richmond Revisited there is a group who breaks out their airworthy vintage gear to make jumps on an annual basis. (quote)

Yes we do, and have 25 complete & jumpable rigs, and six other mains with H/C but no warts for them, yet.
Many of the rigs have a lot of history behind them.
We have an all white rig, H/C main and wart from Bill Cole.
Garth Taggerts 75 jumbo has all of 20 jumps or so on it.
Billy Webber donated his dads orginal SST racer complete rig this year, needs overhauled but will be flying next season.
We have 1965 switlik T-10 with two jumps on it.

Just to name a few, I have been meaning to post a few photos of the colection, so when I go to the dz tomorrow I will try to take a few and post them.
Everyone who sees the collection are blown away buy the amount of stuff we have and the condition of the rigs, most are in like new condition.

~

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[sundevil777 94]

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You may find this thread interesting.

So, did you do it? Tell more please.

I still think the only rational thing to do is to use it for an intentional cutaway or water jump.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[Eule 0]

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You may find this thread interesting.

I did, thanks! Have you jumped a round yet?

Eule

PLF does not stand for Please Land on Face.

[rasmack 0]

Sorry, never got around to it. Ran into regs. It turns out that we have regulations about transition between round and square parachutes. It turns out I need to do some SL jumps, and that they will make me do a lot of T10 jumps before letting me move on to a PC. I am pretty damn certain these regs were made in the days where people went from round to squares, and I might try and push that point a little more.

I also have to work a bit on my rigger to have him understand the merits of putting a round canopy in a modern rig. Apparently it has never been done in Denmark.

In other words it turned into a long term project...

HF #682, Team Dirty Sanchez #227
“I simply hate, detest, loathe, despise, and abhor redundancy.”
- Not quite Oscar Wilde...