dyed round reserves?

[pchapman 261]

How rare was it for someone to dye their reserve canopy a different colour, back in the days of military style round reserves?

In any case, I recently came across a 1957 military round reserve (in a more modern Strong Stylemaster belly mount container), that was dyed yellow, along with the MA-1 pilot chute and the lines.

Funny to see. Seems like it would be best for a multi canopy descent like in the Gypsy Moths.

A photo is attached. Meshed mods were added later and are not dyed, nor are two lines that someone had replaced as a repair. Some large, well sewed patches on the canopy were of yellow material to match the dyed fabric.

Also, the apex vent (photo 2) had been sewn over with a patch of fabric, reinforced by sewn tapes. That also seems a bit out of the ordinary for a reserve!


A search showed very little about dying reserves, although a couple examples were mentioned.
"377" wrote this in 2009 in the DB Cooper thread for example:

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The reserve Cooper opened and cut some lines off of had pink lines and a pink canopy indicating a dye job. Can you dye an FAA approved reserve and still have it be FAA legal? Why would anyone dye a white reserve pink? I'd worry that the dye would weaken the fabric... and that pink would hugely lower the resale value.

One guy at my old DZ tie dyed a surplus main canopy. It was a sixties thing. He later blew some upper panels out on opening. He had used RITZ fabric dye and theorized that it caused the blowouts.

The RIT (?) dying method was described in http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=439117.

[stratostar 5]

I don't recall any reserves, but we had dye parties and tye dyed a bunch mains in big tubs, rit was there was back then.

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

[nitrochute 2]

that looks like a 26' navy conical. they were made with the closed apex. i used to have a 24 ' reserve that a previous owner had prifessionally dyed FUSCHIA. it survived several openings at terminal.

[piisfish 135]

what about the legality of repacking such a reserve ? My first intuition would be that it is a No-No

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[stratostar 5]

If it's not in the far's and it will pass a pull thumb test, friken pack that bitch! I'd jump it.

I away's thought it would be fun to do the multi canopy thing.

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

[skybill 18]

Hi Chappie,
Yup, that's a 26'NAVCON (Navy Conical) canopy, thus the plugged up apex, note also the reinforcing bands and the lines are zig-zagged to the radials and not continuous like on a 24 flat. Jog this old farts brain a little why don't ya'!!! What ya' tryin to do, cause me to have a brain anurerism?? 'Jez kidding, thanks for showing and telling!! 'Ya gotta' love it. 'Don't think there are any regs that specifically say you "can't" dye a reserve but because of the non professional in a pot on the stove Rit dye jobs tendency to heat degrade the material, oh well!! Most Skydiver-Rit-dyejobs that I remember most didn't last that long!! Had a really nice all white Navy 28' that was dyed really bright pink that I got from Oliver Duncan back in '65, put about a dozen jumps on it before it blew several pannels!! Cut the lines off and gave the canopy to Lee Butler who tacked it to the ceiling in her and Prissy Salleys' apartment in New Orleans!! That was the end of that canopy!! 'Had all kinds of pink 550 line for boot laces and tie-ups in general for quite a while after that!! 'Reminds me of that old Tony Curtis-Cary Grant movie with the Pink Submarine!!

SCR-2034, SCS-680

III%,
Deli-out

[piisfish 135]

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I away's thought it would be fun to do the multi canopy thing.

me too.. or three

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[pchapman 261]

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'Had all kinds of pink 550 line for boot laces and tie-ups

Yeah I think I'll have a lot of yellow 550 around the house soon.

Those Navy Conicals sure look built tough. Although not having continuous lines , in addition to the ULB & LLB, they have 6 circumferential bands (plus the bias construction tapes). Pull tests on this canopy went to about 37 lbs before the fabric started to creep and sound like it was about to let go. Not too bad for something from '57.

[dpreguy 14]

Apex covered with fabric. Not unusual. Apex was designed to be huge to prevent the high pressure area (the upper 1/4 of the canopy) from blowing out in a "hundreds of miles per hour bail out" Yes, military prop planes can go 300 to 400 mph, and the jets were coming then too. For us sport jumpers, it unfortunately meant that the canopy would have a high descent rate. So, our rigger would close over the vent at the top, add a "single T" mod for forward speed and we were good to go. The vented apex on all round parachutes is necessary to prevent oscillation. But, with an aggressive "T" mod there is enough air escaping to prevent oscillation. Many of us back then had this done.

In our area you could dye your reserve if you wanted to, but for some reason if you did, you considered to be a "pussy".

We also considered the warning that dyeing nylon would weaken it. Even so, I dyed the top 1/4 of my main cnaopy (28 foot white flat circular, with a "Hustler" mod) with dark red dye, following the jagged appeareance of the panels as they progressed around at the 45 degree bias construction patterm. It was quite sexy - or so I thought. I put over 200 jumps on that canopy and the dyed portion never failed in any way.

[jackwallace 3]

You sure that's a navy conical? I thought they had dump pockets to close them in the water. If it doesn't have them it could be a sea anchor, thus the closed apex.

U only make 2 jumps: the first one for some weird reason and the last one that you lived through. The rest are just filler.
scr 316

[skybill 18]

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You sure that's a navy conical? I thought they had dump pockets to close them in the water. If it doesn't have them it could be a sea anchor, thus the closed apex.

Hi jw,
Yup, the water deflation pockets were an add-on later to the design back when. They were called a,"Change 5!!" If you were a Navy Rigger back when the "Change 5" came out all canopies had to have them sewn on at the next repack!! The mod was incorporated into future buys but it took a while to catch up. Lotza' fun!! The Chg 5 came out in the mid 60's some time so the '57 DOM canopy didn't have them. It reached the end of its shelf/svc life in '64 pre-mod.

SCR-2034, SCS-680

III%,
Deli-out

[Krip 2]

Quote

Quote

'Had all kinds of pink 550 line for boot laces and tie-ups

Yeah I think I'll have a lot of yellow 550 around the house soon.

Those Navy Conicals sure look built tough. Although not having continuous lines , in addition to the ULB & LLB, they have 6 circumferential bands (plus the bias construction tapes). Pull tests on this canopy went to about 37 lbs before the fabric started to creep and sound like it was about to let go. Not too bad for something from '57.

Hi Chappie?

What are the spec limit's for the pull test?

How bad is 37#'s. or or etc.

The double rocket I was jumping was dyed Blue but it wasn't a reserve either]

[pchapman 261]

Normally a 40 lb test is used , but I've seen it suggested (entirely unofficially) that 35 lbs would be Ok on older canopies, since the 40 lb test is at the edge of being destructive. Pre- F-111 style fabric also had a lower strength specification. (E.g., F-111 and the milspec that covers such fabric = 45 lbs; while MIL-C-7020 Type I, as used for Navy Conicals, C-9's etc, is listed as 42 lbs.)

I did find another spot on that canopy that tore at 35 lbs. So the material isn't what I'd want for a reserve, but despite age and dying, it still has some structural strength.


Thanks skybill for clarifying the sea pocket info, and dpreguy about when people would sew over the vent.

[vanair 0]

Hey, I'm from 57.

[chuteless 1]

When I first started jumping, I did a lot of dyeing of canopies. I used commercial dyes at a temperature of minimum 172 degrees. This worked well, but eventually the porosity came back. I never had an extremely hard landing, on dyed mains or reserves.

Bill Cole D-41

[riggerrob 558]

40 pound tensile test for the PIA test related to F-111 suspected of acid mesh damage.

30 pounds for Performance Designs' reserves.

30 pound tensile test on military-surplus round canopies, according to Manley Butler. Mind you, I have pull-tested dozens of (recently-manufactured) C-9s to 40 pounds and only saw minor weave separation.

I can count on one hand the number of reserve canopies that I have pull-tested to destruction. Two of those were faded, frayed and filthy, military-surplus T-10 reserves.
One was a Handbury (or Embry) round reserve that was made of some pre-F-111 fabric.
And the last reserve - that I pull-tested to destruction) was an early Para-Flite square reserve (Safety-Flyer or Safety-Star) that was also made of some pre-F-111 fabric.

[Krip 2]

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40 pound tensile test for the PIA test related to F-111 suspected of acid mesh damage.

We had one of those rounds about 20 yr's ago our rigger tested it failed

Rigger Sent it back to the factory who sent it back as is Passed.

K-RIP