ZigZagMarquis

LOL!!!! Sorry... Anyway, I know lots of folk who psycho pack... personally, I don't... because I learned to Pro-Pack ZP before the psycho pack came along. If you really want to see some "old school"... find yourself a big F111 PD or Falcon, hook it up, and find someone to show you how to "roll pack" or "stack pack" it. Dunno who told you "...psycho packing was only invented because no one really knew how to pack the square canopy’s...", "...psycho packing gives you a 70% more chance of a having a malfunction...", and "...and that with a high-performance canopy I would kill myself if I psycho pack...", but I'd encourage you to just smile and nod when they talk and hopefully they'll go away sooner.

Good observation on the deployment seeming a bit longer... using a smaller pilot chute is one way of slowing down the opening. Anyway, you asked if you're putting yourself at "risk"... well, duh!... you're jumping out of an airplane!!! ... but serioulsy... here's my experience... I've got several hundred jumps on a PD190 out of a 94 Talon using a 24", kill-line, ZP pilot chute... worked fine... now I will caveate that by saying it is not recommended to use a 24" pilot chute on anything bigger then a 150, if I recall the small print correctly... . Right now, I've got a Sabre170 in my old rig and a Sabre-2 170 in my new rig and I've got 24", kill-line, ZP pilot chutes on both... both work fine at terminal, sub-terminal, openings are a bit slower as one would expect. The bridle length you quoted sounds about "standard"... the only folk I can think of going to longer birdles are the "bird-suit-folk", but I'm not 100% sure as I don't jump a wing-suit. Personally, I swear by Jim Cazer's ZP, kill-line, pilot chutes. If you've got a 27" kill-line ZP PC, that sounds fine... as long as those slower openings you described are not in-ordently slow... don't forget to cock you pilot chute! Anyway, I encourage you to continue being inquisitive about your gear... talk to your local rigger, jumpmasters, experienced jumpers around the DZ, etc.

True enough... I bought my new Jav, Sabre2 & PD Reserve back before they all hiked their prices... and I went though Ralph who seems to have good prices. I've got Cypres 1s in both my rigs... and seeing as how I'm a Rigger... my gear is always in date... Anyway, the way the price of gear is going, its just making it that much harder for folk to get into the sport.

And this "old guy" will hobble out to board the plane for you Ash dive. Sparky ------------------------------------------------------ Manifest me for that jump too, Mike. :o) bozo Hey! What did I do to you's guy's...

3 Grand for a 6 year old rig and an 8 year old Cypres!!??! 6 years is not an old rig. It's a Vector 3 which is modern enough to have all of the safety concerns addressed for freeflying. A new one would be close to $2k. Have you looked around for a used cypres lately? The ones with an 8 year done are selling for around $500.00. Fact. A new PD reserve is about a grand. Used ones generally go for around $700.00 The Silouette may be valued around $800.00. So yes. Around $3,000.00. Depending on the condition of the rig. Give or take. Not to argue with you... but that's insane! I paid $4500 for a complete new rig, granted not quite about 2 years ago, but still... if a 6 year old rig with an 8 year old Cypres is going for 3K, might as well throw another 1500 at that and get a new one... couse I think 2K for JUST a new container is NUTS too. As for getting $500 for an 8 year old Cypres... well, if someone wants to pay that for an 8 year old Cypres, okay, but I wouldn't.

... what she said.

3 Grand for a 6 year old rig and an 8 year old Cypres!!??!

"Price of Container when it was New" minus $1 per jump it has on it. ... and same thing for the main... "Price of Container when it was New" minus $1 per jump it has on it. ... are rules of thumb... again... JUST RULES OF THUMB, but they at least give you a starting point. Cypres... a little over 8 years old... about 4 years left on it... Cypres is good for 12 years total, so figure its got a little less then 30% of its life left... so what's 30% of the cost of a new Cypres?? Go from there... Take the rig to a couple of riggers too and ask them. Hope that helps some...

_______________________________ No thank you!

__________________________ The perils of rip-stop tape! That's fine! Keeps us riggers busy! Chuck No arguement on the long term affects of putting Rip-Stop tape on your canopy... however, its not like your canopy is going to explode moments after putting Rip-Stop & some stitching on it vice doing a Simple Patch (French Fell) or better yet lets go back to Navy Patches...

*sigh*

Without seeing the damage myself, I really cannot 100% say its not a big deal, but if its as small as you say, its probably not a big deal... I have a couple like that on my main, one I threw a piece of rip-stop over on the inside of the canopy and sewed the rip-stop down. If you do sell the canopy, you should tell the prosepctive buyer about it... OR.. have a rigger patch it before you sell it. That is the right thing to do.

Is it just me or do others here recall the days when PD and/or most gear stores would toss someone out on their ear if they walked up and said, "I've only got 38 jumps and want to buy a Stilletto." ... but seriously, to the person who started this thread... if you were just "trolling", good on you, you were successful... if you were serious, stick with a Sabre 2 - 170 or the like for several hundred jumps like most folk have advised... if you insist on jumping a Stilletto 120 at this point in your jump career, I really hope you don't hurt yourself, but I think its likely you will.

I hear that!

I jumped a "legacy" Sabre for years before the Sabre2 came out. I still have an original Sabre 170 in my back-up rig that I jump from time to time. The best I found on controlling Sabre hard openings is: 1) Roll the nose! 2) When you quarter the slider, make sure the 1/4 that comes out in the front, at the nose, isn't rolled up with the nose so it has a chance to catch air before the nose unrolls... is my theory on correct slider placement & the old Sabre. 3) TIGHT stow bands and I developed the habbit if making the bites a bit bigger like palm width wide vice 3 fingers. 4) Don't dump in a track! ... this is just worked for me, others may differ in opinion. Having said that though, I've had some rouge... Saber... hard openings with that type of canopy. One so hard I "saw stars", instinct kicked in and I went for handles as I thought there was no way the canopy was still in one piece... imagine my surprise when I found that it was... I must have stared at it for awhile and checked and re-checked it as my head cleared and I flew back to the DZ still in disbelief that it could open so hard and not bust lines and/or blow-up. Another Sabre opening at a different time had me sink to me knees after standing up the landing trying to figure out if the pain in my back was just a bad strain or something more serious. Somehow I managed to get back to the hgr, pack, and then wound up laying on a heating pad someone had & drinking beer to try to make the pain in my back go away... next day I had a sore back and hangover... . Point is, Sabres just plain open hard sometimes, they're just known for it and its my belief that they are not a bad canopy, just not as forgiving when it comes to packing. The suggestion that if you're having hard openings on an old Saber that you get the canopies s/n and measure the slider size and call PD to check to see if the correct sized slider is on it I think is a good one too. I believe that somewhere in the evolution of the original Sabre, PD did up-size the sliders and you may have just gotten a hold of one with a smaller slider. A smaller pilot chute is a good suggestion too, but be sure not to go with too small a pilot chute in combination with the rig & sized main you're jumping!! Since going to a 26", Jim Cazer (sp?), Kill Line pilot chute on all my gear past and present, I haven't gone back to that 30+" F111 "tent" pilot chute you get "free" with a lot of new rigs. I'm not sure if I can say the lines being out of trim will make an old Sabre open "harder"... I can say from experience that the openings on an old Sabre can get really squirrelly when the lines get way out of trim...

Ya know... seems to me, this topic has appeared in one way or another in several threads... it also seems to be a frequently asked question by many novice jumpers; that's a good thing, the more you learn and are currious about in this sport the better off you are... Frankly, I'm not I can say exactly what I would do if I broke 1, 2, 3... more lines on my main on opening. I've had 2 malfunctions in my jump career... #1 - A Line Over... #2 - An SBOS, so it is a situation I haven't personally been faced with. From my experience... a couple of things to consider... 1) I've seen more then one person come down, gather up their canopy, walk back to the packing area, drop their stuff and start packing only to discover a broken line that they didn't notice before... thus, the canopy obviously flew & flared just fine. 2) I've seen people land canopies with obviously broken lines... canopies the "flew" & "turned", but when they went to flare, the canopy just shut down and they thumped in... in some cases, just bumps and bruises, in others broken bones. So what's my point, just because the canopy will "fly" with broken lines, doesn't mean it will "flare"... so it would be advisable when doing those controlablity checks on a canopy with broken lines, cut to the chase and try to flare it up high and see what it does. 3) I think Sparky said it... soemthing like... under canopy is not the time to do rigging... think about it. So, what is my plan you may ask? Well, if I get open and notice a broken line (lines ?)... if I note that AND the canopy is deformed or spinning, I'm probably going to chop it and go reserve and sort it out later. If it is flying, the first controlability check I'll do is try flaring it... and then make decissions from there depending on how it behaves. One parting thought... one of the worst things that can happen to you skydiving is to look up at your main right after opening and think, "What the F*ck is that?"... this should be an indication to you that you need not panic, but should start dealing with the situation in an immediate manner.

Awh, come-on Mikey, we could go back to "Ropes and Rings" and such! ... now I know why all y'all "old guys" hobble around the DZ the way ya's do...

I've always bought Tony Suits. Although, Bev Suits look to be well made too and for some reason look better on women folk... like they've got the design down to make a gal's butt look better in them...

Gutted 550 works just great and the price of a little bit to make a new closing loop is usually right... FREE! The first time I saw another jumper make themselves a new main closing loop my reaction was, "That's Easy! Please teach me"... no need for a rigger to do that...

The operative word there is ALMOST...

YeeeeeeAAAAAAA!!! ---------- Anyway ---------- Its been so long since I went through first jump course... it was staic lines for me back in those days... but as I recall, it went something like... 1) Always listen to the pilot in an emergency. 2) Students will listen to their jumpmasters who in turn will listen to the pilot. 3) I'd imagine that if our static line was already hooked up and an emergency occurred where we needed to exit... we'd be put out on our main / static line. ... after that... 4) I can recall the jumpmasters telling us we would be told to get in the door as normal, but told to take hold of our cutaway / reserve handles (SOS), told to exit, but count one thousand, pull thousand... basically getting out on our reserve. ... the only other thing I can recall too is my first jump course JM telling me that if something really really bad happens and we need to get out NOW, that it would probably go something like him telling us to get out and then we'd see the bottom of his sneakers leaving the airplane... at which point, we should follow and use our reserves... ... hey, don't knock him, it was a different era! Anyway, today, my personal plan... 1) Always listen to the pilot first! For example, I've been in two Cessnas where the engine has coughed, things would have been "bad" if we had started fighting for the door. 2) Anything below a grand, you're better off tightening down that seat belt and landing with the plane. Hopefully the pilot will do a good job of putting it down so at least y'all walk away, who cares if he or she bends the plane a bit. 3) If told to get out... between 1000 & 2000 feet, my plan is to go reserve. 4) If told to get out... 2000 feet or above, my plan is to go main... depending on how high above 2000 and where we're at will factor into how long of a delay before pull time. In the case of something catastrophic... e.g. smoke and flames in the cockpit or wing falls off... sorry pilot dude, let me know how that turns out... I suppose anything up to 2000 feet I'm going to get out (or at least try... it may just give me something to do until impact ) and go reserve, above 2K, main. Having said that, I've got several friends that un-assed themselves at about 900 feet from a burning Queen Air and they all reverted to the most familiar handle at exit... they all threw their mains, but fortunately this was a few years back before the days of snivelly elipticals, it was all big F111 PDs and Falcons and such on the load... and they all got good mains before landing, not much of a canopy ride, but they all landed and walked away. The pilot managed to tear-drop the burning airplane back onto the runway and get out and run before it burned to the ground.

I've only had 2 thus far in 2700+ jumps... Had my first reserve ride at 20 jumps, back in 94. It was a line-over mal with a moderate turn to the left. Looked up after opening, recognized it for what it was, never looked back at the main, looked at my handles, did my emergency procedures, was under a reserve pleanty high, landed and walked away. Had my second on jump number 1700-and-some a couple of years back. It was an SBOS mal on a badly out of trim Sabre that I was trying to get "just one more" weekend out of before sending it in for a line kit. Opened into a turn, right side of the canopy collapsed and put me into a spin so fast I was on my back within a rotation. Looked at my handles, got ahold of them, did my emergency procedures, choped the main, shot the reserve as I came back belly to earth, reserve opened nicely... OBTW, I had packed that reserve myself ... landed uneventfully, gathered up my sh*t, went back to the hgr, inspected and repacked my reserve and that main was on its way to PD for a line kit that Monday.

There are canopies other then PD? Sorry... nevermind...

Looks like normal wear you'll get in time on a bridle. Years ago, I was packing my rig and noticed something similar to what appears in the photos, above. I got to looking at it closer and found the pin attach on the bridle was the better part to about halfway gone! Fortunately I had a spare pilot chute in my gear bag and I replaced it before the next jump. Anyway, if you're seeing wear like that on the pin attach point on the bridle, its probably about time to replace the whole pilot chute & bridle anyways. In the photos it looks like its a kill-line type pilot chute, which you probably want to replace every 5 to 700 jumps anyways due to wear on the kill-line and changes in porosity (sp?) of the pilot chue fabric. My 2 cents... replace the pilot chute & bridle... if for some reason the pin attach point / bridle breaks in such a way where it leaves the pin in the closing loop... you're screwed... can you say, "Going through 2 Grand, Pilot Chute in Hand, Then I let it go, Pilot Chute in TOW!"