Kenzdik96

I didn't specifically see a 308 with a full fitting main and reserve at the same time, but I have seen a V309 and a V310 with full fitting things in top and bottom, and I have seen an ancient V34X (can't really remember exact number) which was overstuffed beyond factory full fit in both top and bottom, but somehow managed to handle it as it was old/stretched. Basically, all of those were safe, but the look of the container was not really good. I would still recommend that over getting a smaller reserve than you are comfortable having, especially because with your KA being a KA you might be needing that reserve a wee bit more than if you were flying say a Crossfire.

AO(N2)s X2 also has Bluetooth connectivity, among other features similar to Dekunu. X2 – AO(N²) (aon2.co.uk) On the subject of life advice, while I agree that in the 21st century digital record keeping should be the norm, aviation in general (skydiving included) is not really quick to accept any change, and there are places that will not accept your digital logbook as proof of anything. I am not saying that they are correct in doing so, but as a private company, it is their right to provide or decline service to someone based on basically arbitrary requirements. You might make your life easier if you keep a paper logbook in addition to your digital one...

Age of the rig can also play the part. A 15 year old rig that was routinely overstuffed with canopies will basically stretch and go up a size when it comes to canopies you can put in it.

Loose fabric on the arms is generally a crutch people use while they are still learning freefall, and while I agree that a forearm mounted alti would negate some of the advantages of a loose jumpsuit, hand mount has a big disadvantage of someone being able to dock on you and grab you by the hand and in turn the altimeter (people tend to grab each other by the hands when doing their first FS jumps) which can obscure it, or even worse if it is an analogue unit, can actually turn the calibration ring rendering your altimeter useless. Even with a forearm mount, you will still have loose fabric above and below it, while keeping your altimeter much safer (albeit not 100% safe) from obstruction / interference. As for getting an audible for the decision altitude alarm only, statistically it can be a good idea. Taking into account the average frequency of people needing the decision altitude, you are more likely to learn altitude awareness before experiencing enough emergencies to train yourself to wait for the alarm like a robot.

Forearm mount gives you much more flexibility when it comes to placing the altimeter, and adjusting the angle for ease of viewing. You can also adjust it during your jump when required (when flying a high performance canopy, you need your altimeter under canopy much more), as viewing angle for belly freefall and canopy piloting is not the same. Because of its greater accuracy (which is why they are used for swooping as Binary mentioned), I would always recommend a digital altimeter over an analogue one to a licensed jumper. However (and this might not be what you want to hear), I would recommend holding with your altimeter purchase for 30-40 more jumps, and only then getting a digital. When you are still learning, an analogue altimeter with a colored scale (the kind you can rent at your dropzone) is much easier to process in your head (ie you do not need to see the actual number to asses the situation, it is enough for you to process that the needle is entering yellow vs checking if it is actually pointing to 4000 feet). A digital one just gives you a number and it is up to you to interpret it. While you will eventually learn to process the numbers, imo it is better to have a color coded fail safe while you are learning. As far as an audible is concerned, they are great tools, but if you don't know how to properly fly without an audible before you get one, you will train yourself to become a robot who waits for an audible command to perform an action. One day that command will not come (your battery died, you forgot to turn it on, you lent it to a friend and forgot it isn't in your helmet), but the ground will keep coming closer, and you will find yourself with a problem. Only when you are proficient in breaking off, tracking, and pulling at proper altitude without an audible should you get an audible.

Speaking of Airpods, you can actually buy proper earbuds/headphones from reputable companies like Bose or Sennheiser where you will get an order of magnitude better sound quality for equivalent or lower price.

You would think so, but I have seen some rigs (15+ years old) where the hardware seemed almost destroyed, if I had to guess, I would say rings looked like they were exposed to salt water and corroded because of it. I have also seen 20+ year old rigs where hardware looked new. I don't know if some manufacturers use something other than stainless for the rings?

I wouldn't call any form of training "best". They each have their time and place. For the first jump, static line or IAD work well, and I would lean towards static line as it removes instructor skill out of the equation (IAD does give you less line twists which is better for the student, but it can also attach a student to the horizontal stabilizer of the Cessna, which is less fun for all involved). You (as a student) will have a canopy safely above you without having to do anything, and it will help you grasp the feeling that you are alone in the air. I remember my first jump (static line), it was so intense I barely knew which way was down. I would not like to ever have that feeling in freefall. Once people have put a couple of jumps in, and have a basic understanding of flying their canopy, AFF will help them learn freefall stuff faster and in a more controlled environment (or tunnel plus AFF if they can afford it). While you can learn freefall using conventional methods, having a competent instructor holding on to you for the first couple of freefalls decreases the chances of a terminal reserve deployment followed by a cutter replacement.

Coating is probably black oxide, which means it wont flake, but it can wear over time. It does not weaken the material in any way, but it also doesn't improve it in any way, so I would treat it as purely aesthetic. Do take into account that wear will not be uniform so after a couple of years, you might see some spottiness in the black hardware (which will probably impact your aesthetics negatively).

Really depends on the place. I have had experience with really awful places, that would basically treat you like a second class person if you jumped at another local dropzone, to the point of being unofficially denied service (you were not asked to leave directly, but manifest made sure you had a bad experience, with the goal of you not returning again). Speaking of cliques, there are dropzones that will treat you poorly (again with the goal of you not returning) if you dare to disagree or question any of the local policies (ie why is the jump run in this direction, why are there more people on the plane than regulations and common sense allow, why am I on a load I didn't sign up for, why was the jump altitude less than agreed, etc). Basically, your mileage may wary wherever you go. I have met some of the best people in my life on a dropzone, I have also met some of the worst.

It really depends on the dropzone. I was taught two stage flare from jump #1. I was given zero canopy piloting instructions on jumps #2 and onwards, I was forced to learn stuff from sport jumpers / internet / and eventually canopy courses when I managed to attend them, so it doesn't really mean that the dropzone was good, it was just the method used there. As for your last sentence, I can agree with you but only up to a point. I think that you shouldn't teach students something which you believe is fundamentally unsafe, just because it is the way the dropzone does it and you want to be consistent with the rest.

Dear Riggerrob, I believe that you misunderstood the point I was trying to make. I agree that canopy control is a very complex process and that you can't teach people everything at once. I am not advocating bombarding students with excessive information from day one. The problem is that "bare minimum needed to walk off the dz un-injured" is all the instruction in canopy piloting that students at certain dropzones will ever get. One stage flare is taught for jump #1 and nothing else is taught for jumps #2 o wards. Landings will not be critiqued, as if you walk it off, it was a good one. Any kind of knowledge "layering" that occurs will be done by well meaning sport jumpers, and not by instructors, as they are busy teaching the next batch of first jump people. If by some miracle people at those dropzones continue jumping and end up eventually buying that Sabre 2 190 as their first sport canopy (as there are plenty of places, at least here, that have nothing except of Navigators for rent), we have a problem because un-teaching someone who has been doing the same wrong thing for a hundred jumps is a serious task.

Number of safe landings is not a real metric for anything. Yes, you may land your current canopy well when you are in the safety of your dropzone with plenty of landing space, wind sock, and good separation from other skydivers. But one day, someone will screw up their pattern and will cut you off, a pilot will taxi into the skydiver landing area, the wind will change, you will go to a boogie with tons of people in the air, you will have a bad spot/aircraft failure which will require landing off, and a million of other things will happen. Once you can land your current canopy in any conditions regardless of the wind direction, pull off low altitude course corrections safely, and generally be confident that you can react to changing circumstances safely, you are ready to downsize. But from a different angle, 1.08 is a fairly low WL. Depending on the canopy model, a Safire or a Pilot loaded at 1.08 will still allow you plenty of room to make a mistake and walk it off. A lot of people downsize before they acquire all the skills listed above, and get away with it up to a point. Not knowing how to compensate for crosswind on landing will get you a dirty jumpsuit and a bruised knee on a 1.08 loaded Safire. But get to a fully elliptical canopy at 1.8 WL without knowing that skill, and it will probably end wind broken bones. I know that this is an unpopular opinion on these forums, as people publicly advocate being conservative and asking a CP instructor those questions, but it is a fact that a lot of people get away with downsizing that may be too rapid at low wing loadings. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

Don't count on earning a living as a parachute packer and getting skilled at skydiving at the same time! When the weather is nice and people are jumping, you will be packing parachutes all day, pay is relatively bad and you don't have time for jumping as you are working when others are in the air. Flying camera is serious work, that requires serious skill. To get to that point, you need to jump a lot of jumps, jump regularly, have tunnel hours, and generally build a lot of skill. Becoming a TI is slightly different, you will need more jumps, but less specific training, and even then, you will be working while the others are jumping so it isn't really the best way to earn money for jumping. Before turning your hobby into your job, I would look into other avenues of supporting your skydiving habit, I don't know what your background is, but pretty much anyone can get a commercial driving license, or work construction. The jobs might not be glamourous, but they get you best money/skill ratio if you don't have a specific trade/education. If you are tech savvy, you can consider making websites, it is also not super difficult and there is a market for it at the moment.

That is the way that some first jump factories teach their students to flare. It is easier to teach someone a single instruction, than it is a set of two, much easier to just yell "flare" over the radio at the proper time, than to follow through with the two stage. If by some miracle those people continue jumping after their first jump, someone needs to unteach them the single stage and teach them the proper technique before they find themselves under a faster more responsive canopy that will not take kindly to having the toggles fully stabbed at 3 feet.

It gets worse when they are not students. I know a guy who injured his foot playing football at jump #60ish., and he decided to keep jumping but slide the next few landings in, so he would not put more stress on the injured foot. This was sometimes last year, the foot has healed, he has 200+ jumps and still slides in most landings. He has now started doing double front approaches, and is on his way to learning 90/270 accelerated approaches, and yet is still landing on his ass.

The only issue that I see (based on experience with other electronics) is that your aad might not like those conditions. Other than that, if they are hermetically sealed with desiccant, and kept safe from pests (we had some issues with rodents damaging gear), I don't see the cooling cycles at those temperatures damaging anything, especially as they are slow.

This video might also be useful, albeit it is not overly technical.

While both of these (wingsuit rodeo, and Mr Bill) shouldn't really be attempted by someone with low jump numbers, both are essentially an exercise in holding on for one of the participants, so I wouldn't say that either of those are super dangerous, providing that the other participant (canopy/wingsuit pilot) is sufficiently skilled and has sufficiently briefed the less skilled person.

It was a solution of sorts for the problem of canopy collapses and wing rigidity, and both of those issues have been eventually solved with crossbracing and overall better canopy design. In this day and age, airlocks belong in a museum.

From my experience flying both NZ Crossfire 2 and Raptor in similar sizes at about 1.6 wl (10ish jumps on both, as neither of them were mine), the only thing that the two canopies have in common is the number of cells. Crossfire has good stable soft openings and very short recovery, while Raptor openings are very random, (both in term of force, heading, and number of line twists that you get), and it is very ground hungry with long recovery arc (similar to a KA).

If you create spectra "socks" for the bottom of your lines, you can fingertrap the spectra through your suspension line at the top side. On the slink side, you can pass the spectra through the loop, and then fingertrap spectra back through itself (as you can't do it through the suspension line, fingertrap / bartack is already there for the loop). Very important thing when doing this with highly loaded lines (as opposed to lower control lines which are lightly loaded) is to cut spectra with a taper, so that the finished fingertrap will not cause sudden change in line dimension, but a gradual one. For securing the bottom, some people use electrician rubber which contracts when heated. If you do this, make sure you don't put it too high up the lines, as the lines spread out from the slink to the canopy, and you don't want your lines spreading out the rubber too much.

Yeah, the level of technical illiteracy that I have witnessed with some skydivers is beyond anything that I have seen in any other hobby. It is like people don't have the slightest idea how their equipment works, that certain parts (lines and closing loops) wear over time, and that it might be a good idea to replace them before they break. Cypress is apparently used as a generic name for any AAD, regardless if it is mechanical or digital (as if you ask some people, they are all the same), and peoples knowledge of RSL begins and ends on the question on their A license exam, where it is basically described as "something that opens your reserve automatically if you cutaway". A further aggravating factor is that students are actively taught against using internet or finding information by themselves at some places, because god forbid that a student asks a meaningful question that will challenge the schools program which was last edited some time in the last millennia. Rant over.

I suggest going to the Facebook groups dealing with used gear, and look there. You will find your basic selection of "first canopies", ie Safire/Sabre/Pilot/Volt if that is what you are looking for. If you are feeling a wee bit more adventurous, you can get a Crossfire / X-Fire / Stilleto in that size as well. As for the rest of your equipment, you will want a serviceable AAD (all of your Cypress/Vigils/M2s basically work, Argus doesn't so stay clear), a reserve in the 170 size range that was made some time in this millennium (you can go older but I wouldn't recommend it), and as for the actual harness/container system, that one is up to you, it needs to fit properly, and it would be nice if your 170 canopy is at the top of the acceptable size range for that rig, so that it can facilitate rapid downsizing without changing the rig. At your jump numbers, I would say RSL mandatory, some type of MARD highly recommended but you can go without it. Get a freefly friendly rig if at all possible, you will end up on your head or ass sooner or later, weather on purpose or by accident. Some final notes about the harness/container system, don't get a racer or any of the obscure last century stuff, you can't really go wrong with the modern ones made by reputable companies, I happen to know that Vectors in that size range can usually fit one size larger main and reserve than listed, I don't really know about the rest.

I recommend laying the canopy out on a flat surface, getting a tape measure and comparing the line lengths with the ones listed here. While you are at it, you can also check for proper routing of the lines onto the soft links, if you crossed or twisted them, you might have distorted one side of canopy enough to cause a turn.