Kenzdik96

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Everything posted by Kenzdik96

  1. It is a cool technique to know, and very useful for making field repairs where I don't have access to a sewing machine. When I am at my loft though, I seldom use it because sewing is rather fast, and I don't have to explain to people who don't know how it's done why the bartack is missing...
  2. Billvon is right, it is about skills and not the numbers. You might have been fine with that wl 50 jumps ago, or you might not be fine for another 200. Btw, is the Sabre in question a 1, 2, or a 3? If it is a 1, I would recommend staying clear of it in favour of some more modern design....
  3. Yes, exactly as described in that video, squeeze risers together and attempt to bring the linetwist as low as possible. That will help keep the canopy level, and once the line twist gets low enough, enable you to have some control of the parachute even before the line twist is fully resolved. This is the second best method of dealing with linetwists on all parachutes (square, elliptical, crossbraced), where the best method is, of course, preventing them in the first place. As for prevention methods, semi stowless bags help somewhat, so does packing technique (on some canopies), and having your gear sized properly and suited to the activity you are doing (wingsuit options for your rig if you are flying a wingsuit etc). But by far the best prevention method is having a proper body position on opening. A 360 camera can be a very useful tool when investigating body position errors. A useful anti-line twist tip (although I am not sure how applicable it is to wingsuit) is to keep your hands on your chest and rest your chin on your fists immediately after throwing your PC, while simultaneously getting your legs together and touching your knees and ankles together. This does several things: makes sure your body is as symmetrical as possible, keeps your hands away from grabbing the risers prematurely (preventing your hand or finger from being caught in a line twist, can lead to broken bones), and as your chin is resting on your fists it forces you to look at the horizon instead of at your deploying canopy, which in term boosts your situational awareness and gives you proper warning when your canopy is beginning to turn during the opening and enables you to correct the turn with your harness before a violent line twist fully develops.
  4. I would recommend using regular rubber bands and double stowing everything, and not worrying about the pull force that much. Hear me out. Single stowing can produce sufficient force on majority of the lines, but (speaking about locking stows) the line that sits on the bottom touching the grommet isn't as tensioned as the rest of them, nor does it have sufficient friction and can fall out much easier. If it falls out, it can wrap around something and cause a bag lock. As for the non locking stows, they are touching the rubber all around, but if you are using the same rubber bands for everything, they are going to be too loose to single stow for the non locking ones. You could use smaller rubber bands and single stow for the non locking stows, but that means keeping spares of both sizes, and that sucks. The most important thing is that your lines disconnect from the stows in the correct order. Bag locks aren't fun, line dumps even less so. Pull force is secondary to that. I would also recommend getting a semi stowless. Much easier to pack, better openings, less chance of a bag lock. If they are good enough for your reserve, they should be good enough for your main.
  5. I don't have the numbers but the thing about skyhook is that even though it was designed to disconnect based on force (ie is the RPC or the cutaway main pulling stronger) it actually disconnects based on pulling angle (ie which direction is the cutaway main pulling). Even though skyhook was the first available MARD, it isn't really the best one around. Therr are systems out there that work based on force, and are agnostic of pulling direction. I am hoping UPT will update the skyhook some time in the future to address this.
  6. While their perspective does take some getting used to, 360 cameras are great for showing your body position during track/deployment, not to mention for wingsuiting, but positioning one for best footage usually makes it stand out not really flush with your helmet. They can cause a very good snag point both with your own and someone else's gear, and you can easily hit them on the aircraft or on someone else during an exit. Not something I would recommend for newer jumpers.
  7. Even though in theory there is a miniscule chance that it could cause an opening delay or a horseshoe, I believe that in real life a properly made magnetic slider keeper (like the ones you can get at any major skydiving gear store) will not cause any issues, as the slider is loading the magnet in shear direction, and that is the way magnets release the easiest. Force of an inflated main being cut away is fairly large. I did see some homemade designs which incorporated magnets but had inadequate fabric length and construction which could possibly tie into a knot behind your head and cause the magnet not to release. Fortunately, the fabric quality on those was sufficiently poor that they would probably rip before causing a horseshoe. As for your original question, I believe that most modern AAD designs are fairly well protected against ESD or magnetic interference (at least in the order of magnitude that a small slider keeper magnet can produce).
  8. In what time period did the person in question make the 30 skydives? There is difference in getting recurrent after 40 days for someone with 30 skydives all made in 2 months and 30 skydives made over 3 years.
  9. I wouldn't bother with creating a "one size fits all people and all cameras" kind of rule, as neither people nor cameras are one size fits all. The primary consideration for me would be the type of camera setup and the likelihood of such setups causing issues with any of the phases of flight. While I would be comfortable giving the integrated camera glasses to any licensed jumper, I would expect someone to demonstrate adequate body stability during opening in all circumstances (opening in track, in a turn, and similar) before having a foot or a helmet mounted camera. There are trainings and examinations for many aspects of our life, you don't just get to drive a forklift after 50 hours of driving your car. Why can't we start teaching people stuff and making skill based decisions instead of limiting people from doing things based on arbitrary experience conditions just to cover our own asses? Exactly this! The video many are using to advocate against flying camera is just an example of people trying to link up without sufficient skill to do so, getting too invested in the process, and loosing altitude awareness. The only difference the camera makes in this particular example is that we know about it because they were wearing cameras. Otherwise this would have been covered up, as for some weird reason we still have a stigma against AAD fires compared to other malfunctions. I am fairly confident that examples like these happen somewhat often but we just don't know about it. While the benefits of AAD are numerous and they are one of the greatest skydiving inventions since the 3-ring, the drawback is that many things that would have been over in the incidents forum remain unknown. And this is exactly the kind of thinking that holds back progress. We have been doing it like this since forever so just keep doing it like this regardless of it being bullshit or not. Many years back, there was a requirement of having 100 jumps on a round before being permitted to jump a square. Some Lord might have kept that regulations under the same logic "we've been doing it like that".
  10. There is no better learning option than analyzing camera footage after the jump, as I find that jump detail recollection of even very experienced jumpers is usually rather poor. These things can help enable people with jump video without presenting a snag hazard on the exterior of the helmet, making weak spots on helmet surface caused by drilling, and without endangering people on the ground by falling externally mounted cameras. Therefore, I would absolutely recommend these as a good learning tool to licensed jumpers. Image quality will not be the greatest (especially with a full face camera visor over them), but going back to the situation OP described, very few people under 200 jumps are on a high enough flying level to be concerned with jump video quality. By the way, even though OP said that these looked like somewhat bulkier sunglasses (and I remember them looking like that some years back when they first appeared on the market), a quick google search reveals that todays models look like ordinary sport sunglasses, or even like ordinary thicker framed eyeglasses. Even though there are still some recommendations that say your safe camera flying abilities miraculously appear on jump #201, the reality is that in the 21st century, people who want to mount a hidden camera will go out and do it, as the camera technology is sufficiently advanced to allow it. I would much rather have low experience people wear a snag free camera, show their videos to more experienced people, and having an option of someone telling them what they are doing wrong than forcing them to wear the camera in secret and teach themselves from the footage.
  11. There is an app called spot assist that is advertised (among other things) to help find cutaway canopies and freebags.
  12. Over here, they are somewhat popular, maybe a third of the jumpers use them. Openings are rather good, as they help reduce the linetwists, as the bag is.more stable when leaving the rig. Improvement in speed of deployment is marginal, and so is the improvement in speed of packing. My primary reason for using them is less line twists, and fewer rubber bands to change out.
  13. Yeah, if you decide on modifying the rig yourself I would recommend talking to a professional about it (if you are not one yourself), or if you are inclined to perform some DIY rigging, at least doing way more research than the person who did the modification in the picture above. I would for start look into military tandem systems, NAA makes some that are (probably) legal to jump in the USA, but I don't know if they will sell them to civilians. If that fails (or if legal to jump in the USA is not a requirement for you), you can find expired Strong tandems relatively cheap and use those, or alternatively, there are some non TSOd manufacturers in Russia / Eastern Europe who will happily sell you a military (or regular) tandem for not that much money (although some are of dubious quality), and equally happily sew you any kind of "passenger" harness you ask for.
  14. I stand corrected, I haven't seen any Icarus or Parachute Systems reserves, I have checked the Icarus (NZ) reserve manual and the Icarus (World) manuals, they both have the checkboxes, couldn't find a manual for the decelerator. People around here mostly jump Smart, Techno, and PD stuff, so I didn't really have that much contact with Icarus reserves. You learn something every day :)
  15. Only on PD reserves, AFAIK other manufacturers don't require any markings on the reserve.
  16. That looked like something a 20 jump student would do unintentionally, low toggle turn followed by trying to flare it out in the bank instead of trying to arrest the turn.
  17. Yes, you are right that optimizing a canopy for openings alone will lead to F111 as a choice of material. However, there is more to a main (and even a wingsuit main) than openings alone. For start, an average wingsuit canopy will have more jumps in one month than a reserve will in its lifetime. While your openings need to be without linetwists, they don't have to be as short as those of a reserve, as comfort is one of the considerations as well. And finally, as it is your main, it needs to get you back from that long spot you will inevitably find yourself landing at if you are doing wingsuit. With todays cfd technology, it is possible to design a zp wingsuit main that will have all the performance you need (opening and flight) without having to resort to f111 unless pack volume is the major consideration.
  18. I did say "with a Vector, you can't really do much with a bottom mounted closing loop" I've known about that series, they did change it back to bottom flap rather soon though. Good info for the ones who didn't know about that series (without highjacking the topic and going into the pros and cons of both systems).
  19. I believe he said that his wannabe wingsuit rig is a Vector with an OP 193, and he is jumping a 120 in his primary rig (which he didn't specify the make, size, or reserve). So with a Vector, you can't really do much with a bottom mounted closing loop in terms of over-shortening it (you will just wind up touching the grommets together), but you can have a go with a larger main Dbag, or having your reserve packed to be bottom stiff and push the AAD out. Alternatively, you can get a regular pack volume ZP wingsuit main like the WinX or Pilot7. ZP will give you better flight characteristics, and since you already have a rig that holds a 150 standard, and you want to put a 150 in it, you will really experience no benefits from going for an ultra low pack volume option.
  20. Exactly which problem are you attempting to solve? Is your main too loose in your container, and not putting enough pressure on the closing loop, keeping the pin unsecure? On some rigs where the closing loop is located at the top (Javelin), you can shorten it to "compress" the main dbag and help keep a smaller than spec main secure. Putting in an oversized main dbag can also help, as it will allow the canopy to keep some air in it and fill more space in the container. Putting a maximum possible size of reserve in the rig can also help with keeping an undersized main in check. Having your rigger pack your reserve with more material at the bottom can help keep the dividing wall rigid, and even push the AAD into the space normally reserved for your main, again helping to keep an undersized main in check (do not do this on Javelin/Wings/any other pop top - on rigs with enclosed reserve pilot cutes this will only make the rig less comfortable, on pop tops it is a safety concern as it creates a gap between the top of the reserve pilot chute and your container). As Binary said, logos and Dacron lines help push the pack volume up, but if you are willing to make that level of investment (relines (most canopies don't come with Dacron default), and especially custom canopies with logos are expensive), you are better off finding a used rig in the size that you need for your intended canopy to be a proper fit and selling your current one. If the smallest size your rig can hold is a 150 ZP, it can hold a 170 and probably a 190, which makes it a popular size for first rig, which makes selling it easier. I would advise against adding any sort of padding to your container/dbag to help with the pack volume. Doing the padding properly is not easy, and your rigger will probably charge you a lot for it, doing it the quick and dirty way might interfere with your openings, and both will significantly lower the resale value of your rig. I know that your question was largely hypothetical, but my $0.02 is that some additional information can't hurt.
  21. I am talking about getting from a student canopy to a properly loaded sport canopy to learn some slightly more advanced aspects of canopy control. There are basic things you can and should learn on your Navigator 240 (like making a proper landing pattern, making a flat turn, accurately landing in a designated place, avoiding traffic, and timing your flare), but once you are at 50ish jumps, a good number of people who were interested enough to learn those things will have learned them. Those that are not interested to learn them will not learn them in 300+ jumps. But things like front and rear riser flight, as well as harness input are almost impossible to learn on such canopies at such wingloadings as the forces required to use the risers are insanely high, and harness response is non-existent. Please note that I am not talking about high performance landings here, just knowing how to pilot your canopy the way you want it to go.. And the idea that would totally eliminate the danger is to ban skydiving all together, as no one can get hurt landing a parachute if no one is jumping out of airplanes, but eliminating the danger is not the point of this sport. What I am proposing is to help those who are interested in and capable of learning to learn as quickly as possible, and as in any sport, there are certain risks if you want to progress faster, which some people are willing to accept.
  22. And we agree here, as I would not encourage anyone to do downplanes or make stacks with anything but a dedicated CReW canopy. (which doesn't have to be a 7 cell, nor does it have to be lightly loaded, have you seen the PD Tango?) But downplanes and canopy docks are exercises which are applicable only to people doing CReW, and I don't want to force anyone to get into full contact canopy relative any more than you want to force people to go into swooping. Contactless canopy proximity flying on the other hand is an exercise that makes you a much better canopy pilot, regardless of the discipline you choose to pursue afterwards. When you have another canopy in the air next to you, you can see exactly what happens when you initiate any sort of toggle, riser, or harness input, because you will have a frame of reference (which you normally only have during landing, when the ground is getting closer), and you will learn how to control your canopy horizontal and vertical speed, as you will need to match them to another person (and this can't be done properly on very lightly loaded wings, as both the front and the rear risers are way to heavy to be useful, and harness is almost unresponsive). Glide ratio is a constructive characteristic of the airfoil, and is independent of wing loading. A 9 cell will typically have a better glide ratio than a 7 cell, purely because the aspect ratio of the wing is greater, and aspect ratio positively affects wing efficiency (that is why gliders have very big wing spans in relation to their chord, and consequently very high aspect ratios). When we say glide ratio, we are referring solely on airspeed. When it comes to penetrating wind, it is not only the glide ratio you need, but horizontal speed, as ground speed (difference between you airspeed and the speed of the wind) is what you need to get over that powerline/highway/barn. When wind gets sufficiently strong, you will be standing still with anything loaded at 1.0, but something at 1.4 might get you moving forward. And before someone responds with "you shouldn't be jumping if winds are too strong", wind can change during jump, and people are eager to jump so in the real world wind limits will routinely be pushed.
  23. It is neither necessary, nor inevitable, but it will statistically happen to a vast number of people. I have read your post in the Perris fatality thread about pilot progression and encouraging learning other (than high performance landings) aspects of canopy flight (like canopy formations, practical accuracy, and similar), and while I agree with you that those are valuable skills, it is not really necessary to teach those at 7 cells loaded below 1.0. Slightly higher wing loadings give you increased ability to penetrate wind and higher stability in turbulence, while 9 cells give you a better glide and better flare over 7 cells. A Safire, Sabre, Volt, Pilot, or a similar semi elliptical canopy loaded at 1.4-ish gives you ample opportunity to learn majority of aspects of canopy flight, will tolerate all but the stupidest of mistakes, and still enable you to get back from that bad downwind spot. Adding on, a 170ish canopy with vectran lines has a sufficiently small pack volume for you to have a normal sized rig that will not kill your back while you are waiting to board the plane, and will help prevent snagging your pins on objects in the airplane (which also requires training and attention on the side of the skydiver, but is also much easier to do with something holding a Safire 169 than a Navigator 240). I have not seen people being forced to downsize everywhere, and while I have seen some instructors push people to downsize more and more, those were rather rare instances. The reality is that a lot of (especially younger) people perceive high performance landings as fun. While those carry certain risk, a lot of people are willing to accept them as after all, if our primary concern was safety over fun, we would be playing chess every weekend instead of jumping out of somewhat serviceable airplanes.
  24. Without knowing the skill of the person in question, and altitude/climate of the local dropzone, it seems excessive, but I can see the circumstances under which those would be considered acceptable. A lot of people don't have the money to change gear very often, so the idea was probably to get the guy a container that will be useful for a couple of future downsizes, providing he doesn't get hurt for the first 20-30 jumps while he is getting used to the canopy. If the local dropzone has rather constant winds, low altitude, and a C182 which limits the number of simultaneous people in the air to 4, it might not be the smartest idea in the world, but it isn't a catastrophic one. I would also recommend a Safire over a Sabre as it has a shorter recovery arch. While in the ideal world of the average person advocating safety on this website (conservative people with infinite money, strong safety culture, and highly regulated skydiving) this situation would be frowned upon and this person would be prevented from jumping that gear, we are living in the real world, and things often need to be optimized using more than one parameter (the likelihood of the jumper getting hurt). I have seen it very often that the first canopy a person buys at under 100 jumps is a 170 by default, regardless of a wing loading (and sometimes even a 150 with a very light person).