lyosha

You mean like a Bluetooth enabled flysight? Or just Bluetooth enabled GPS? It exists for paragliders. Maybe you guys can look into integrating? http://www.blueflyvario.com/product-category/variometers/ They make a new hardware revision every few months based on market demand. Pretty sure they'll build you a box with some sensors if you asked for it.

I don't blame you for feeling alienated by the C6 mess. I didn't order one and am better for it. I have ordered other things that haven't materialized in Skydiving though (for a price for which I could buy several C6 helmets). You should take reasonable precautions. However, my words stand. It's one thing to advocate reasonable precautions and not invest in new products yourself, it's another to advocate blind abstinence and encourage others from doing so. Advocate responsibility, accountability and preparedness not abstinence please. :)

If there are no early adopters there will be no innovation. Don't discourage early adoption. I will strongly consider forking over some cash for one of the devices come start of skydiving season. Because innovation is good and not evil, and new products need financial incentives to survive "the first year". If the company goes bankrupt and doesn't deliver - that's what credit card protection is for.

post pics?

You are correct and I'm dyslexic. However, the statement that fronts increase odds of a collapse is still true. by aggressively decreasing angle of attack and exposing yourself to the risk of collapses. When you initially decrease your angle of attack you are more likely to suffer a collapse. Some time later, your canopy picks up speed and that risk once again decreases. When you release your fronts your angle of attack increases decreasing the odds of a collapse. I haven't tried to intentionally collapse my skydiving wing (harder to accomplish), but I've intentionally collapsed my paraglider a bunch of times and the acceleration makes the turbulence worse and its effects on the canopy more dramatic. There is a definite point where you are not gaining stability, but are losing it but are just after the remainder of the speed you can milk from a wing. I would expect my skydiving canopy to have similar dynamics. On the one hand the extra speed makes your wing more rigid making it harder to collapse your wing. On the other if it goes, it'll be more dramatic and recovery possibilities will be worse.

Hi, Short answer - yes. Long answer - pulling on fronts increases your wing's angle of attack, decreasing the resistance to collapses (wings collapse from a sudden increase in angle of attack). However, pulling on fronts eventually increases airspeed which produces more lift and internal pressurization making depressurization more difficult. So it's nuanced. Here is a short document about dealing with turbulence under ram air canopies written by some Germans. https://www.dhv.de/web/fileadmin/user_upload/monatsordner/2004-06/Ausbildung/activ_flying_english_text.pdf

There are two things to consider with regards to skyhook: 1. There are those out there (I don't have the data, so this is second hand beliefs - albeit held by master riggers) that believe that a skyhook isn't that much more effective than an RSL. Talk to your trusted rigger about what his/her opinion is with regards to the actual difference in feet between deployment in with a skyhook and an RSL is. Maybe Bill Booth can comment since he's active in this thread. 2. Some disciplines it complicates things. For example if you wingsuit, a skyhook may complicate AAD deployments (there's a thread about that somewhere on this forum already). This is the reason my wife's Vector has an RSL, but not a skyhook. There are more WS friendly MARDs out there in my opinion. But my understanding is in Bill Booth's opinion they do worse in spinning line twists than a skyhook. Pick your poison. Which isn't meant to discourage you from getting a rig with a skyhook. I'm just mentioning that there are legitimate reasons for making personal decisions with regards to your gear.

Also worth noting hookknnife quality varies greatly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raxIO5DQZZg

At what wingloading do you think it had the best flare?

Because a dust devil would not form where he landed. He's not flying over any apparent thermal triggers or thermal generators, and I'd expect the area that he was flying over to actually be the opposite - a source of sink, since there appear to be generators surrounding the grass field (so the air would lower over the grass field and not rise). For a dust devil to migrate there, it would (by my estimates) have to form elsewhere over dirt then get blown by the wind onto this person's location. This is no longer a weak dust devil but a strong one. One that should have some residual particles floating around and you're not going to "just lightly clip the side" of a dust devil and one that should impact other canopies in the air. I don't see any evidence of any of that. So I'm skeptical that a dust devil is what caused the slight push off course that this person experienced. There are additional phenomena that can cause turbulence - gust fronts, wind shear. That's why I ask if the weather changed that day. May be a front coming through and the guy landed at an inopportune time and caught some of the shear. The commentator in the video also states "that's why we're not jumping right now" which makes me think that there were several people that got hit with turbulence on landing.

There's only one problem with that - there's no trigger or source over where he is flying. Yes "bunnies can trigger thermals" in the same way "a meteor might crash into the earth today and wipe out all of humanity" but more realistically that's just not what happens...

That's was not likely caused by a dust devil. Were there solid objects upwind from you? Was there weather moving in?

You are asking the wrong questions. Rubber bands have very high elasticity. Lets pretend that your bridle wraps around your chinmount and the rubber bands don't rip and the situation is clean aside from that (miracle if you ask me, but lets play pretend). The impact force on your head will be MUCH lower than if you didn't have the rubber bands there and instead had a direct attachment. Rock climbing ropes are dynamic for a reason. The elasticity greatly "smoothes out" the force transfer (think slider off terminal opening vs. terminal opening with a slider). You actually want the rubber bands there because in the event of an entanglement they'll make you much less injured than otherwise.

How about for XRW? Isn't that supposed to be the Hunter's forte?

You are wrong. There is a video somewhere (cant look for it right now) of a guy trying to do this under canopy. He failed. Are you talking about this one? In fairness, in this idiot's case, he had used a nylon screw to attach the snag hazard, and OP is just talking about adhesive. https://skwrl.smugmug.com/Video/Videos/i-WHSJRJx/A Nope that's not the one. The one I saw was from a guy that intentionally tried to remove his camera in the scenario that we are talking about. He did not have an entanglement; he just wanted to try it (and found out that he could not). I'm 99% sure he used only the sticky tape and no screws. Too bad I cannot find it :-( These mounts are tough, especially after a few months. Edit: That being said, your video is still a nice example. Those nylon bolts are pretty small and I am willing to bet that they are much weaker than the GoPro adhesive. Also, a ringsight has fairly good leverage, certainly not worse than a gopro. At the same time I've seen GoPros go missing forever from incidental contact. Seems 3M tape is not the best solution. DID I MENTION YOU SHOULD USE A GODDAMNED GRELLFAB MOUNT UNLESS YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL VIDEOGRAPHER? There, in caps and bold.

They should have just named the canopy what they probably wanted to name it from the beginning: Icarus ass fire.

How much more expensive is PN10? I mean, manufacturers often pass the additional costs through to consumers (i.e. ZPX Pilot costs more than standard ZP). There are plenty of people who pay the premium for a variety of reasons...

Porcher PN4 (standard ZP) and PN9 (low bulk F-111) is commonly used by many companies both Europe and America to make canopies that are in the market

The breaking strength is still stronger than PN9 - low porosity used widely in low bulk parachutes. Is it really only the fill elongation? Has any company actually tried to use the stuff?

Typically pn4 (standard zp) is used. But they also have pn10 (low bulk zp). I'm curious if any manufacturer has tried to make a canopy out of it, and if not what about the material makes it unworthy?

It wasn't 201 but it was 20X. Maybe 21X or 22X(although doubt it). I'd have to break out the logbook. Plus, there's the question of "do base jumps count"? I think way more people jump a Go Pro on jump 200 than a wingsuit. Also line entanglements? What exactly are you planning on doing at deploy time?!

Way better than most of my friends! The freak seems to be where they buy "wingsuit specific canopies" to compensate for lack of consistency at opening time and not wanting to downsize to a smaller wingsuit because everyone at the DZ has a Freak. Lots of people had their first and second cutaways after buying one of thems... some who previously flew big suits from other manufacturers even! Hope none of them are reading this lol... But it is kinda funny the dichotomy I see - there are people that fly a crossfire loaded at 1.8 in everything (including C-Race) with zero issues... and there are people that can't get a single reasonable deployment in a Freak with a lightly loaded Sabre and fork over $$$ just to not downsize wingsuits and spend a hundred jumps learning how to deploy cleanly.

I bought one of those magic 1993 Sabres with

Which by itself is a very sad and scary sign of the times.. Structured progression with a focus on skills vs gear, would do so many people so much good in practicing this sport long, safe and without incident, as well as increasing the fun and skills once one finally does get into that big suit category. Getting a big suit asap seems to be the new 'teach me to swoop...' I agree, but I think that the Freak is the biggest culprit (I noticed you edited my quote). It was marketed heavily on how easy it is to fly. All the cool kids instantly wanted one and whatever guidance was given in the fine print (175 jumps, freeflying experience, etc.) literally all of my friends found some way to reason around or simply didn't care to know. Did I mention I know someone that bought one having three jumps in an i-bird?

Up to your DZ S&TA. I attached a GoPro somewhere around skydive 6X after my first cutaway so I could have a video logbook to debrief from. I put in some hours of research into safety (i.e. I used Grellfab mount from get-go). As opposed to some jumpers I know that had a cutaway on jump 201 because of a wrap on their brand new GoPro mount (good thing they waited until jump 200 and were so eager to jump a GoPro they decided nothing bad happened in 200 jumps and they didn't actually need to think shit through). While this is anecdotal, a much more reasonable approach would be a "camera course" where risk factors and mitigation techniques are discussed - similar to canopy course that's required for a B license now. In before people start accusing me of having "mad skillz".