deadwood

Al was also one of the survivors of the Great Lake Erie Tragedy jump. He was onboard the plane but elected not to jump. Good decision Al!

 

Al passed away on Jan 8th 2019 at 4:01 AM at the age of 83
Al was one of the sport's pioneers and started jumping in the late 50's.
He was a fighter pilot in Vietnam with over 300 combat sorties in the F-4, 1000 hours aircraft commander in the C-130 and spent 16 years as a crop duster pilot. He was Chief Pilot at the National Parachuting Championships and started the jump school at the Air Force academy. He was also an aircraft mechanic and avid motorcyclist and we made several long-distance motorcycle trips together.

I'll miss you my friend. BSBD

Help a guy out. I just got one in for repack and need a manual too.

There are some Comp Paraglider pilots who have two reserves in their harnesses. I helped a guy rig one up a few weeks ago.

Always wear 4 hook knifes.
The first one you will probably drop.
The second one you probably won't be able to get to.
So you end up using the 3rd one to solve your problem.

The 4th is your spare.

Three rules of skydiving.
1. you gotta look cool
2. You gotta feel cool.

Safety's 3rd.

RiggerLee

Every thing said here is true but you may be blowing some of it out of proportion. Cutting away under normal circumstances is not a problem with any system. If it were they would not be in use. Problems only arise in extreme circumstances. With extremely hard openings. With twisted risers. With out of spec components. It's not till things go wrong that it gets interesting. The problem is you're asking people that have spent there lives studying those cases. It doesn't attract our attention till a riser breaks on a line dump. Or a cable kinks and gets sucked through the grommet on a hard opening. Or a ring bends. Or some one goes in with twisted risers.

Mini risers work. We've all jumped them. We've all cut away with them. What I'm saying is this. The tolerances are at the limit of manufacturing. The mechanical ratio is not there. The reinforcement that is added to protect the grommet hole only reduces the mechanical advantage. It is fundamentally an inferior design. The advantages are. It's easier to pull the slider behind your head and it looks cooler. And in theory it has a little less drag. Some people even fold them in half to try to make them even more aerodynamic, but that's just anal. But it's the cool thing that really sold people and made mini risers the standard design for the industry. Let's face it. We sell cool. That's what skydiving is. The people that care about safety play tennis or go bowling.

Lee

Had a friend here with exactly the same problem. Sent it back and they fixed it. Good folks.

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, washed the car with it.

Many years ago when the Cypres first came out I made a ‘low” pull on my main, had my Cypres fire and got dual squares. Got them to a side by side and cut away the main without undoing the RSL. One riser left cleanly but the Velcro on the RSL side cause that riser to delay, trailing the main for just a second or two. When it finally released the riser and RSL was flung out with a lot of force and the RSL wrapped around one of my reserve suspension lines for just a moment. Everything finally cleared and I landed safely with a new understanding of how my Cypres worked in a low main pull situation.

So, if you have time I suggest you release the RSL as soon as possible after you have a dual square situation.

I would usually share my tips with the packer.

Nice to have that thing off your head isn't it?

I have the same issue with training senior riggers. I can pack a reserve in 2 -2.5 hrs. by myself. I've spent 5-6 on a reserve pack job when training people. Even when they have 15 or so under their belt it still can be 3 to 4 hrs.

But I still do it for select people and I don't charge. I just feel at this point in my life that part of my job is mentorship and passing things on. When I'm dead and gone some of the things I've taught these people will still be alive in them and they will in turn pass it on.

I am however, very selective in the people I start with. There has to be some dedication already shown. I've seen too many people get to 3 or 4 pack jobs, decide this is too much like work and then quit after I've invested a lot of time in them.

Check the RI site for service bulletins. If the rig sat in closet for awhile it may have several of them due. (Or, if it didn't sit in a closet maybe nobody has ever checked to see if they were due.)

I've found the chest strap mount is just a little too close to get an overall shot of the student head to toe. Moving it back to the belly seems just about perfect.
At least that's what worked for me.

With it on your belly its far enough back that you get the whole body in the shot, eliminating the need to do a full body scan. See the picture I up loaded a few posts ago.

What we are trying to fix is to eliminate the snag hazard of the GoPro on the helmet.

Hope this helps.
If you have hip rings you can just make a Velcro strap and attach it to them also.

I made a mount pillow for my Go Pro (like and old belly altimeter mount) that snaps on some covered clips on my jumpsuit on my belly. Nothing on my head to catch or bump anything. I snap it on a couple of minutes before exit. I can turn it on and see that its on and in the right mode. It gets a full shot of the student (see attached still capture) and I get to watch my canopy opening. Just turn it on right before exit and forget about it. Mindless, just like me.

I've seen them both ways on reserve canopies from the same manufacturer.

PIA-TS-108.1 allows using a sharpie on canopy fabric. Not sure how it would affect container fabric, but I can't see it being much different.

When building a slider, should you have the rolled rim of the grommet facing upward towards the canopy or downward towards the harness?

Can you send me the link?
I don't think I'll make PIA this year.

I have an MT1-XCCT manual (in PDF).

Let me know where to send it.

A good friend on mine here in Albuquerque was on the load. He and another elected to get out on a different pass where they could see the ground.

I believe he is now 79.

I'm getting old so I just upsized from 1.4 to 1.15.

It's part of my grand master plan for getting even older.

I just don't like that antenna sticking out there on the head. Looks like a nice place to catch a pilot chute or bridle.
But I'm just an old fuddy duddy.

When I used to do tandems I had a GOPO mounted facing upwards on an altimeter pillow that I would sometimes put on the tandem passengers belly band. In freefall it gave a nice shot of the passengers face and the cameraman in front of us. After opening it was a good shot of their face and the canopy. I would just turn it on in the plane and forget about it. The passenger hardly ever remembered it was there. It was good to edit in some of that video with the outside video for a complete video of the freefall and canopy ride. I never felt there was any extra risk in that (but I’m sure someone here will).