ZigZagMarquis

DOH! ... when I read the title of the thread, Bill, I thought you were talking about a belly-mount-Reserve!!

... and whether it has or hasn't come through in this thread... isn't that one of the implied points??? ... that there's too much reliance on radios in both instructor's and student's minds, if, as you say, "Even with all that radio, we still managed to break our fair share of students" Something to think about maybe.

I've heard talk from one of the old grey hairs at my local DZ about back in the day before they got all fancy about putting in-flight doors in place of the cargo doors of a U206 that they would just leave the cargo doors off the U206 they had then and climb to altitude with the doors off always and the pilot flew from the left position... in the summer... but then in the winter, they would put the cargo doors back on, the pilot's seat was switched over to the right position, and they had an in-flight door on the left side of this U206 ala-C182-right-side in-flight door... so I guess it can be done. What would be really interesting would be to take a U206, set it up with the pilot on the right and an in-flight door on the left-front and also have the cargo doors off... lauch a 3-way from the cargo doors and a 2-way from the left strut... not sure why, but I guess its just the stuff of bored skydivers... but I digress...

What Nicky-D said... ... to which I'll add and ask NSEMN8R... assuming you learned with a radio... What did your instructors teach you to do if you couldn't hear the radio?... and... did they point out that the radio was just a back-up, it could fail or not get turned on , so listen up on this here called "canopy control", "landing pattern" and "how to read a wind-sock"... recall anything like that from 1st Jump Course?

Um... hello... BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!! BEER!!!!

... so you are paying him (or her) for coaching, just not paying in money...

... dunno, its basically up to you. I've always worn a ProTec & goggles because I too wear glasses and its a pain finding a full-face that you can get your glasses on underneath... a lot of times you wind-up picking a pair of glasses that will fit under a full-face is what I've seen other folks too. One cool thing about a ProTec... I've never worried about dropping & scratching it...

I've seen DZ's do, "Show up in a dress and get a free jump ticket... experienced jumpers only", but had to knock it off when the guys started showing up in dresses too wanting a free jump...

That's about what my experience has been too... Over the years, about 4 times I think, I've sent this or that canopy back to PD for a re-line and in all cases its taken about 2 weeks for them to get it, inspect it, re-line it, do a few patches in a few cases and send it back to me... of course, I do cut down on some time by springing for over-night FedEx to and from. Now I've never actually ordered a line kit and had them send it to me and re-lined it myself... so I'm not sure how long that takes. If you've ordered a line-kit from PD and its a month now, I'd call them, because that doesn't sound like PD... they're noted for having great customer service... IMO... or did you ask someone to order you a line kit and maybe that's where things fell through?

Dunno, I've always heard from my CRW-Dog buddies that you should always carry at least 2 hook-knives... why?... if you have a problem, pull the first one out and throw it away... you were going to drop it anyways... then carefully pull your back-up hook-knife out and get to work.

Daniel_Owen_UK, Mr2mk1g beat me to it, but he said basically what I whould have. Thinking about it more... now I can think of a reason where Bill Booth's RSL set-up on the V3 makes some sense in this scenario... the Reserve Pin is on the end of the RSL, not on the end of the Reserve Rip Cord cable, effectively, the V3 Reserve Rip Cord is just a pin puller, instead of the other way around, where the RSL is a pin puller. In this secnario, where the ball comes off of the Reserve Rip Cord cable, the V3 RSL would pull the pin straight away since the pin is on the end of the RSL. I don't know if that was part of Mr. Booth's thinking when he set-up his V3 RSLs that way, but maybe...

Ya know, I thought about that too... in the scenario where the ball comes off the end of the Reserve Rip Cord... an RSL may pull the reserve... but then I did a double take thinking it just may strip the cable through the housing and leave the pin in place... hmmmm... guess the only way to know would be to do some sort of test drops... MJO! You up for it???

I didn't know Don well, mostly just by good reputation... I only meet him once or twice, but never the less... God's speed Don... and my sympathy to his friends and family.

I had the same thoughts about how the pillow type cut-away handles were put togehter... so when I found a dropped one that had been out laying in the desert for awhile (the side of the pillow facing up was sun bleached white & the yellow cables cracked when flexed)... I took it apart carefully to see how they were put together... its one of those things that makes sense when seen, but hard to explain.

Good question. Take this with a grain... just passing on info... Years back, I believe, some reserve handles got out of the factory where the "ball" on the end of the reserve cable had just be "set" (lite hammer tap ?), but had not been swedged; thus a good "tug" would pull the ball off. However, if the ball on the end of a rip-cord cable is properly swedged... you're not strong enough to pull it off... but if by some freakish accident of gama radiation you were, that force required would be well above what it takes to extract the pin on the other end of the cable from the reserve closing loop... IMO. I also believe that once put together, a reserve rip cord handle is supposed to go through a 100% proof test, which would have caught the problem I believe once happened and also would catch the problem you fear. There are several riggers here on the forum that have worked or are working for manufacturers. Hopefully they'll chime in with info on how things are done at the factory and QA'ed. As for tying a knot in the reserve cable... well, that may work, but my first few thoughts are: -- It may "shorten" the useful length of reserve rip-cord cable to the point where the pin could be pulled by mistake. -- It would certainly be bulky and attract attention from other skydivers. -- Have you tried tying a knot in aircraft cable? Anyway... just my thoughts... * puts on flame suit *

What ever you get, make sure you go over it really well with your tattoo artist if he/she isn't a jumper as any skydivers you show it off to will be critical of any inaccuracies... like the time someone showed up on the DZ years back with the tat of a jumper undercanopy... an 8-cell canopy...

True... but given there are 111349 Threads and 1909412 Posts... and rising... on DZ.com even a simple search for info on this may take some time. Never discourage anyone from asking questions about gear when it comes to skydiving, the more you know, the better off you are... is my 2 cents.

ChrisClark... if G-Girl cannot hook you up... I was going to suggest you contact Bob Celaya at the California City Skydiving Center (760) 373-2733... but then I noticed you were in the U.K... would proably cost more to ship you something from SoCal then it would be worth...

Mstlaurent... looks like you're doing the right things, asking questions, doing research, doing the math, etc. Keep it up! Anyway, it just may boil down, in part, to what is available on the used market at the time you're ready to buy. Good luck.

________________________________ The Micro-Raven is a smaller Super Raven (150, 135 & 120sq. ft.). Not to be confused with the Dash-M series. Chuck They make it so easy, huh?

Yes, your Raven "G" version is what is called the Super Raven. The original post asked about revision "B", which was adding the bikini slider to the old-style (non Super Raven) canopy. The canopies designated as "Super Raven", those made after Mar. 88 (pretty sure about that date) do not require the use of the bikini slider. It is an entirely different canopy design. The only thing in common is the name. DOH! That's right... I knew that.

Hmmmm... * confused *... I've got a Raven IIg in my back-up rig that has a DOM of 94 or 95 and it has a regular slider on it, not a bikini slider, although I know what those are. Anyway... not that dropzone.com isn't a good place to ask questions... but you could always call up Precision and ask. http://precision.aerodynamics.com/

Oh, absolutely! Anyway... I fired a question off to Airtec... if / when I get a reply I'll post it.

Then you realize there wouldn't be a continuity problem and wouldn't be adding a failure mode. Derek HnS, If it is true that a 2-Pin Cypres will not fire if one of the cutters fails a continuity check during the processors pre-firing checks... again, I'm not sure and will query Airtec... but say that is true... then if you were using a 2-Pin Cypres as a 1-Pin, and by some reason the extra "stowed" cutter was damaged, then the good cutter inplace with the reserve loop passed through it would be of no good... i.e. unit senses 1 of the two cutters failed, doesn't fire when it should... it doesn't know the failed one is stowed. Of course if this was a presistent condition, the unit may not even turn on in the first place and it would all be academic.

Doh! My bad. Thanks for coming along and correcting me, Nick. I'm glad someone from Perris came along and gave a correct account of the story... as its obvious what I heard wasn't correct... but I didn't want to go and "out" the DZ even though I recognized it from the background in the video.