mathrick

You might want to talk with other people who started building canopies after throwing a lot of CFD at them. Fluid Wings people are skydivers with a paragliding background they're applying to skydiving canopies, including working around the traditionally loose tolerances allowed in skydiving, as opposed to very tight ones in paragliding. They might be able to give you useful pointers. And if you do learn anything interesting that isn't their trade secret, please share :) "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

Your education is fine, the main difference is in DZ economics and student retention (AFF students tend to go on to become licensed and stay in the sport much more often than SL students, at least in DK). About the only actual difference is that many AFF graduates retain a panic response to hop & pops and won't exit below 1200m/4000ft, which to someone who started with SL is laughable. Personally I had my lower bound at 850m right after I got licensed, and these days I'd be happy to jump out at 700m no problem. "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

Not just a candidate. You can see from his entire behaviour that he'll get an entry in the BFL sooner rather than later. The only question is whether a wingsuit will be involved or if he'll manage to go in before even that. "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

Ah, I see, the old one still surviving in "if in doubt, whip it out". I believe even under rounds you could get into spinning situations in which care was required to pick the right direction to throw it out? "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

How do you make their regular reserve cut-able? "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

AFAIK Strong makes a system (called Tri or something similar I think) specifically for cutaway training, since TI course retains the "must've had a cutaway" requirement. "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

I was told it's because of the risk of fogging. It's weird to me too, but then your A is like 10 jumps. "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

1) Ask your instructors in Sweden 2) I thought it was 100 for fullface? "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

As WV177RG stated at the beginning of his post, a number of posts in the thread concerned Garrett vs PWC engine reliability, and that's what he addressed. It's a topic that draws heated debate. So he was addressing a topic that came up in the thread and added to that (with a lot of very relevant experience), that was also relevant to the original thread topic, even if it wasn't addressing the single and related question that revived the thread some years later. Which is not at all helpful as an answer to a concrete question in a thread specifically made to address the very specific mod named in the title. As P&WC notes, they have 49K engines installed in 28K different aircraft and PT6A are the most widespread turboprop engine family in history, and consequently, are the most familiar and most discussed ones in the industry. General notes based on flying some P&WC's "in the 90s", regardless of how true and interesting they might be otherwise, do nothing to add to anyone's knowledge on the topic. On the contrary, they actively contribute to the lack of knowledge, because now anyone looking for that specific information will have lost time wading through yet another off topic discussion, and it will very likely obscure the actual, factual answers when people search for them. I'm a total sucker for general knowledge and love gaining and sharing it on the wildest of tangents, but this kind of utter lack of respect for others' time and effort they spent on formulating their questions clearly drives me crazy. Please, don't be that person, take your general knowledge to a general knowledge thread where it will be both appreciated and useful, and leave the signal to noise ratio of specific threads unmolested. "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

Would also very much like to hear people's experiences. I had a chat with Brian and their upcoming feature list looks excellent, essentially fixing all my gripes with Viso. So I'm very much considering switching to Ion (just started WS, so I'm in the market for a second alti anyway), but would also like some opinions from the field. "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

Thanks! "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

Loops as in elastic ones (bungee or similar)? Do you still use that arrangement, or have people moved to cables + interleaved loops? It seems to me the latter would be nicer to pack, but I might be mistaken. "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

Thanks. I imagine they're held together with a lolon cable routed through a series of loops on alternating sides of the split, much like RDS sliders are anchored to their rings or wingsuit wings are rigged for cutaway (for those that have cutaway wings)? "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

https://youtu.be/DMk0jzfc3Bs?t=2m8s I've been watching the 1988 Olympics opening demo, and noticed that while everyone else had non-collapsible sliders, the camera flyer has an unusual arrangement with what looks like slider separated in two when under canopy. Am I interpreting it correctly? Does anyone have better pictures of that system, both prior to and after deployment? "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

Vortex. I have a V4 sized for 150, and am packing a sabre2 170 in it (tight, but you can learn to pack it). I know someone flying VK77 in an another V4, with the smallest canopy ever packed being non crossbraced 106, and I personally jumped Optimum 143 in mine, which packs roughly like a 97 ZP. "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

Thanks. Re: Pilot7, it's definitely a dedicated WS canopy. I put 15 belly jumps on it, so it's not that you can't survive a terminal opening, but even with "pack it as slow as you possibly can" by the packers, the opening is something you brace for and dread somewhat. It should be fine for an occasional demo jump, especially if subterminal (it loves subterminal), but I wouldn't want it as a switch canopy where I regularly put on a significant number of terminal jumps. "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

While we're at it, what about Ventus, Hurricane and V-max? How do they compare to better-known canopies? I'm totally interested in matching my PS container with a PS canopy, but the lack of info and demo programme is a bummer that prevents it from happening so far. I'll probably be in the market for a downsize in 50 or so jumps, and I'd really like to try out a PS canopy, but I know better than to commit to a canopy I've never flown (case in point: I demoed Pilot7, which touts "great, soft openings". I kept getting spankers and the best efforts by packers got it to "not quite painful". After 15 jumps, I'd not willingly fly it as my daily canopy for terminal openings on non-WS jumps). "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

That's exactly how packing education works in Denmark. You must complete 20 supervised packjobs (any licensed jumper or packer might teach and supervise), and 5 exam packjobs, in which you demonstrate the ability to teach someone else, find packing errors, untangle a horrible mess, reassemble a cut main, etc. Exams are supervised by "senior packers" (a formal qualification that exists in the Danish system). All of the 25 packjobs are signed off on a progression card, and afterwards you get a packer licence, which is a requirement for all licensed jumpers. Education costs nothing, since it's all club activity and is considered the proper thing to do (plus it gives you something to do during all the weather holds). Additionally any packjob in which the student participates to any extent is traditionally considered to be a self-pack, so they don't have to pay for packing, even if the participation is limited to listening to the instruction. "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

Well, there we go. Not exactly data, but at least anecdotal confirmation that it was at some point a significant problem. "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

Absolutely, I never intended to suggest SOS is not a good choice for people who need to jump SOS gear. I only ever objected to training students who will then progress to two-handle gear on such systems. "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

I don't have the data because nobody has the data. The biggest incident database available only goes back to 1995 and ends in 2008. DZ.com's DB only goes back to 2004 and is very far from being comprehensive. USPA used to have an online DB, then they made it close to impossible to use, then in the latest website revision removed it completely. I know there were fatalities related to the SOS use, but I have no way of finding them. Similarly you have no way of showing the lack of correlation between SOS use and incidents. So we don't actually know that data haven't popped up, it might simply be hidden because nobody can analyse them enough. "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

DFU bans them though. USPA is only one organisation, and not necessarily one with best guidelines for everything (cf. cameras, where DFU lets you jump one after 150 jumps, but makes you take a FJC with formally qualified instructor who writes off for your camera flying when you pass. It's a better approach I feel. Same with requiring AADs). Re: pilot chutes, DFU also does spring loaded S/L, and it's an unnecessary complicatoin, as USPA has concluded decades ago (going counter to USPA from a few years before that) and DFU is finally getting around to. But at least that is a fairly simple change to only one component that you will be practising on every single jump without fail. Not something that will be used in high-stress, unusual situations your life hangs on. There's a lot of organisational inertia for many things, even things that interfere with education or safety. "X allows it" is not yet a proof of correctness and safety (of course "X bans it" is not proof of incorrectness either, but you already know which side I find more convincing in this case). "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

I'm interested now, do you have any pictures or description of how it's built? I still think it's better to train people with gear they will actually be using, but at least here it's real pros and cons one can weigh against each other. "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

Experienced jumpers switching to necessarily different gear used for different things is one thing, making students switch to different gear for no reason whatsoever the moment they get their own gear (or perhaps the moment they're done with AFF and get generic rental gear) is an awful, dangerous idea. What, pray tell, is gained by giving students instruction for gear they won't use, that will kill them on the gear they will? Why make students go through "a lot of practice to change process" right after they got down their procedures when you could spend that time on reinforcing the right process from the very beginning? About the only thing you could cite as an advantage for SOS is that it makes it impossible to fire a reserve into deployed main without cutting away, but it's more than offset by the fact that, should the jumper use the same handle they were taught to on the actual gear every sports jumper in the world uses, it will do just that -- fire the reserve into the main without cutting away. There is already a "single operation" system in common use applicable for students, it's called RSL (with or without a MARD). Which has the features of the SOS, but not its deadly problems. But the actual single-handle SOS systems are misguided, and at least DFU agrees by banning them for student use. "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."

No. She chose not to open the main to check it. Umm, no. Lots and lots of places have the "rental gear must be packed by staff" policy with the packjob being included in the rental price, and also opening the packed main to inspect the lines is not a reasonable part of pre-flight inspection. It's not an externally accessible part that is inspectable without redoing the packjob. Should she also have popped the reserve to check its lines? The DZ renting out packed gear is implicitly stating it's fit for the purpose, and is responsible for maintaining it in that state. No reasonable jumper will expect to need to check lines on packed rental gear. Same as no reasonable driver will expect to need to inspect brake lines on a rental car. This is rental, not purchase, we're talking about. "Skydivers are highly emotional people. They get all excited about their magical black box full of mysterious life saving forces."