Paradactyl landing

[gjhdiver 0]

Here's what we do at Byron in the rain. My old reserve Paradactyl being jumped as a main by Tim Mattson. Byron's now probably the only drop zone where you can see one of these flying regularly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbTQr7KcHwE

[Beatnik 2]

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Byron's now probably the only drop zone where you can see one of these flying regularly.

That I will probably agree with you that your is where you will only see one flying around. The dropzone I am at, a friend and myself usually fly ours in pairs, so far this year there has been about 20 dactyl jumps. Last weekend my para-sled came out this weekend we got dactyl, T10, thunderbow and paracommander jumps already planned. I might bring out the strato-cloud and strato-star.

I will see about getting some video and pics up shortly. I am waiting for everything to photographed before posting any of them. But it is very cool that there are others that are jumping this stuff regularly. I starting to wonder why I have a safire 2 that I hardly ever jump. Maybe I will jump it more in 20 yrs.

[gjhdiver 0]

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That I will probably agree with you that your is where you will only see one flying around. The dropzone I am at, a friend and myself usually fly ours in pairs, so far this year there has been about 20 dactyl jumps

It would be nice to see a few more out here, but as far as I know, I'm the only one who's got one in the area. I got rid of my Delta II parawing a few years back. If I had kept it, I might have considered jumping the thing again, and no good could have come from that

[councilman24 36]

Courious what the loading was on that?

And you said "reserve". Was the Paradactyl a TSO'd reserve? If so I didn't know that.

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

[usedtajump 1]

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Courious what the loading was on that?

And you said "reserve". Was the Paradactyl a TSO'd reserve? If so I didn't know that.

I thought at one time that Perris was using Paradactyl main and reserve rigs for static line students. Mabye that was something else I misunderstood after a "safety meeting".

The older I get the less I care who I piss off.

[lekstrom10k 0]

Actually as I recall they were using the double-keel Paradactyl. We sat on the bar curb in Saline,MI in the rain waiting for it to open. We found out Julie Newmar was jumping on a sports show 5 hours from then . She was Catwoman from TV Batman . She jumped one for the sports show.Then the long drive home and lived to tell.

[gjhdiver 0]

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Courious what the loading was on that?

And you said "reserve". Was the Paradactyl a TSO'd reserve? If so I didn't know that.

Wing loading on that jump was about 0.7 I'd say. It can land quite well at that loading as you saw. I have to PLF it if my fat 190 pound ass jumps it, though I have stood it up before.

The Paradactyl does indeed carry a TSO23c certification as a reserve, and mine was originally used for that, as it has no nose slider, and why you really don't want to take it over about a 10 second delay.

I know, reserve and Paradactyl shouldn't really appear in the same sentence, rather like teeth and penis.

[Zing 2]

I did a couple thousand jumps on my Paradactyl. The first thing i did when I got it was to cut the nose slider in half and sew the first two rows of slots closed along with the center slots in the third row.
It would almost keep up with a Stratostar, and descended slower, so I almost always made it back on the long spots.
I weighed 130 to 140 pounds and had a 19 pound rig back when most weighed 25-plus. It was a tiny Wonderhog w 3-rings (one of the first at Ghoulidge with that fancy new cutaway handle) that was sized for a Dactyl main and a Piglet reserve.
I side-packed it by stacking the line groups, splitting the nose and wrapping it around the tightly rolled canopy, then S-folded it into a bag.
I gor rid of the bag and free-packed it into the container for about 1200 jumps.
For about 20-25 jumps, I took of the pilot chute and sewed a Racer pud directly to the center of the point of the nose. When I pulled the pud, it opened the container and pulled the nose out into the air ... sometimes it worked just fine, but a few times, it was squirrely. I never had to cutaway from any of those, but I did put the pilot chute back on.
Handbury watched me freepacking it once over at Elsinore and then said, "You're crazy!" But he gave me a few tips and tune-ups on the canopy and later it was certified as a reserve.
Over three and half years of hard-core jumping, I broke a line once, a keel line in the center, and landed it, and had it streamer once that I did cutaway.
When I walked over to pick it up, the nose was still wrapped around the tightly rolled, side-packed canopy, exactly like I'd packed it except it was straightened out and the lines and risers were tangled.
It was about the most reliable parachute I ever owned in terms of malfunctions per jumps. I stood it up the majority of the time, and can't recall any exceptionally hard landings. It would hook to a landing pretty nicely, and, luckily, I never screwed up the times I did a hook landing. In a trun, it will attain a non-survivable rate of descent.


Have you gotten it into a deep stall and then let the toogles all the way up quickly for a dynamic recovery? Do it high!

Zing Lurks

[councilman24 36]

TSO C23 C?

C didn't exist when they were made did it?

I checked Poynter and no mention of the reserve status. I learned my new thing today.
I don't know the supposed sq. ft. so the more correct question was what was the suspended weight?

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

[gjhdiver 0]

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Have you gotten it into a deep stall and then let the toogles all the way up quickly for a dynamic recovery? Do it high!

Indeed. I nearly crapped myself. The manual says to do that real high up. I don't even attempt to flare it on the toggles. I just grab the rear risers and push them out and down at the same time for a landing. I pack it just like the pictures in the manual, but I bought it 15 years ago to save it from becoming a car cover and put it back into service. Since that day, I've never seen another or met anyone else who's jumped one, so I've been kind of making it all up as I go along. I'm sure there's all sorts of ways to fly it that I haven't worked out yet. We did it oout on the low cloud days at Byron as you saw from the video. I took it to terminal once and the damn thing nearly broke me.

[gjhdiver 0]

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TSO C23 C?

C didn't exist when they were made did it?

I checked Poynter and no mention of the reserve status. I learned my new thing today.
I don't know the supposed sq. ft. so the more correct question was what was the suspended weight?

The sq ft of it is about 249 I think, and the suspended weight was about 170 for the jump int he video.

MIne is a ater one. It was manufactured in 1980 by Advanced Air, which I believe was Jim Handury's company.

[councilman24 36]

TSO C23c was test standard was written in 1982 by the SAE and adopted by the feds April 25, 1984. A 1980 canopy couldn't be a C because it didn't exist.

Comments??

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

[longtall 0]

Post photos please.................................J.............

" 90 right, five miles then cut."---Pukin Buzzards

[gjhdiver 0]

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TSO C23c was test standard was written in 1982 by the SAE and adopted by the feds April 25, 1984. A 1980 canopy couldn't be a C because it didn't exist.

Comments??

I's probably me getting confused then. I'll drag it out today and look at it. It's got it stamped on the data panel. It's probably TSO23b then. It's been a while since I read it.

[councilman24 36]

No big deal. But curious if it's low speed catagory or standard speed. There were no weight placarding requirements.

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

[DougH 270]

I would so jump one given the chance!! The video looked awesome!

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

[councilman24 36]

I'm too fat!

But I did jump a Phantom 28' reserve as a main a couple of years ago. I'm sure glad I hit the peas!

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

[brianfry713 0]

I jumped it as a main right after this video was shot and I'm about 230 without gear, I think that's a little over max recommended weight. After a very short delay the opening was softer than most of my slider down BASE openings. It was a lot of work getting the slider down but I later heard that it's not supposed to come all the down. I got a little downwind of the LZ and couldn't make it back as I wasn't moving forward at all in light Byron winds. I tried to flare on rears, but I don't think I did too much. I landed on a small hillside and did a PLF downhill that wasn't that hard of a landing. Fun stuff.

[murrays 0]

Jim,

I should loan you my Dactyl so that you guys can do a 3 Dactyl load!

Murray

[Beatnik 2]

Murray:

That would be awesome. I got a delta II on its way, so we should have some fun stuff going on. Let me know if you are going to do any traveling either this way or south of you, I would love to make a trip and get a couple of dactyl or other vintage gear jumps in. You would have got a kick out of my para-sled jump last weekend. That thing is in a class of its own.

This weekend should be good, I might add a few naked old school jumps on list of activities.

Cheers,
Jim

[Krip 2]

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Murray:

That would be awesome. I got a delta II on its way, so we should have some fun stuff going on. Let me know if you are going to do any traveling either this way or south of you, I would love to make a trip and get a couple of dactyl or other vintage gear jumps in. You would have got a kick out of my para-sled jump last weekend. That thing is in a class of its own.

This weekend should be good, I might add a few naked old school jumps on list of activities.

Delta 11 with the strap or a slider
Was the sled the sqr with the hydraulic/pneumatic reefing system?

[howardwhite 4]

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Was the sled the sqr with the hydraulic/pneumatic reefing system?

Nope, that was the Pioneer Volplane. I made a fair number of test jumps on several different Volplanes with different revisions of the hydraulic system.
I still have the reefing latch; I'm trying to get my Volplane back from someone I loaned it to several years ago. It now has a slider on it.

HW

[ZigZagMarquis 8]

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Courious what the loading was on that?

And you said "reserve". Was the Paradactyl a TSO'd reserve? If so I didn't know that.

Dactyls are definitly before my time, but I too have heard of them being used as a reserve. I guess I never gave it much thought. I must have heard it though from Philly or Celaya or Hank or the likes when drinking beers at Cal City.

I too remember someone bringing up the fact that Perris used to use Dactyls as student canopies when several years back folks were getting all worked up over some DZs starting to put students out on big ZP canopies.

[Beatnik 2]

The Delta II has a OSI and it has a slider for it. I will most likely use the OSI. You have to keep it real and original.

The sled had a split in the tail and long lines. This one isn't original right now but it will be when I am done with it. It has a slider and some line mods done to it but it is jumpable in its present configuration.

[gjhdiver 0]

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The Delta II has a OSI and it has a slider for it. I will most likely use the OSI. You have to keep it real and original.

The sled had a split in the tail and long lines. This one isn't original right now but it will be when I am done with it. It has a slider and some line mods done to it but it is jumpable in its present configuration.

I had the OSI on my Delta II, but I cut it down, as all sane people did eventually.

I found someone to sell me a Volplane too, until he realized I was actually going to jump it, not put it in a museum. Then he bailed on me.

I'm still looking for a Barish Sailwing or a Vortex Ring canopy.