gjhdiver

Sunrise is currently testing the skyhook for inclusion on Wings containers. Like Javelin though, it will not be offered as a retrofit to existing containers in the field. There's a lot of testing to be done on it to be sure that the device is compatible with all combinatons of sizings of the container that are available. There are TSO reworkings involved because of the nature of the design change to the reserve deployment. After all that is done, there will be more consultation with UPT to make sure that the skyhook works in a way that they are comfortable with licensing the device for use in the Wings. We've been doing the testing for some time now, and when all that is done and all the parties invoved have signed off on it, you'll see an announcement In the meantime, I'd like to remind everyone that there's no device currently available that can replace or outperform a skydiver that is well trained and current on reserve procedures and emergencies. When was the last time you went in a hanging harness and pulled handles

I don't have a double keel dactyl. I have a single keel reserve paradactyl. It carries TSO C23b and was built in 1980. We jump it very regularly at Byron. It was last in the air last weekend. Here's a video of it being jumped on a nice low clouod rainy day at Byron. It doesn't have the nose slider, so it opens fast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbTQr7KcHwE

Sorry. I have to call you on this. I had a misfire on a recently seviced Cypres that could not be explained. I use Argus now. My friend Adrian was killed by a Cypres II fire that the manual stated explicitly could not happen. I've spent a long time with the desgner of that unit, and spent a long time taking it to pieces and looking at the design and firing criteria for the different modes. The Argus test data is available for all to see with a request to the designer , which is important if you want to make an informed decision about a purchase. Too many people just parrot "Cypres good, everyone else bad" with absolutely no idea of the engineering of any of the units. As for why there are modes. The sport is evolving very quickly. I don't want to have one AAD for RW, one for swooping etc. Also, for a drop zone owner, having one AAD that can cover every rig on the facility is very attractive. Commonality across all the equipment makes sense. from both a safethy and an economic standpoint. I have nothing particular against Cypres, except that I have yet to see an explanation of my misfire. Also, my personal opinon was that they circled the wagons after Adrian was killed. I don't have a lot of respect for that. I won't buy another of their units.

Parachutist goes straight from the doormat to the recycling bin. We get two copies too. It's been so dull for so long that I can't remember the last time I ever bothered to open it. I wish there was some way to decline it on the USPA membership form and pay less, and from what I've been told, it's too complicated and costly to just send me the one each month, so two get thrown away evry time. Now the BPA magazine and the Swedish ones show how it should be done, and of course Skydiving Magazine still actually doesn't shy away from discussing controversial issues. I actually look forward to all those magazines arriving.

PM me for info on the WIngs container. I may be able to talk to the factory and help you out.

Cool. I thought I was just the only one who remebered them. Let's talk about blast handles now then They dissapeared overnight back in the UK, as they were the subject of a BPA ban after one or two "unfortunate incidents". I remember the whining of those who had to get them replaced.

I was explaining what one of these was to a new jumper the other day. They didn't really believe me. Anyone else remember the toggle on the Top Secret ? I remember the joke in the UK was that the top secret was the reserve wouldn't come out. We still jumped 'em though. One guy even had a blast handle fitted to his. He was safe though, becuaue he had drilled out the center post. We were good like that.

Don't get me started on pins and cones either. I'm pretty sure that a lot of old timers stopped jumping because the gear pretty much beat them out of the sport by around 1000 jumps.

We had the ropes and rings system on our old club square that you got to jump if you had over 100 round jumps. It was a heavyweight Cloud. If the thing opened, the reefing system was the least of your worries as you had to be built like Arnold Schwartzenegger to steer the fucking thing I also remember that just for fun, just about every piece of equipment at our club had a different type of release on it. The static rounds had two shot capewells, the freefall rounds had Meyers single point releases (conveniently located right by the ripcord), the Delta II had one and a half shots, the Papillon had one shots, the cloud had 3-rings, the Hornet (yes a Hornet, which I susbequently gave to it's designer Greg Yarbernet) had R3's, and the baby cloud had Boothwells. Funnily enough, none of that seemed strange at the time. I remember that confusing the one and half shots with the one shots made for an interesting jump.

I'm not the best person to ask about this. I believe that all children should be subjected to random electrical shocks. I didn't realise that you could actually get paid for doing it.

I've done quite a few out of them. They stall easily, the door is small, and the tail is easy to hit. At least they climb slowly

I've probably got over 7500 Stiletto jumps. I can only attest that they have to be the most consistently opening and most predicatble high performance canopies ever produced. There's a reason they are still around.

Not unless you want to wade through the dullest tread ever.

I think it's a good idea. Maybe a good band will do it

From reading the first reports of the crash site, and the fact that the tail isn't there, I have a feeling that they may find that the plane suffered a catastropic failiure in flight. That would maybe explain the rapid descent and the lack of an emergency call. It might also explain why the ELT failed to transmit, as they are commonly located in the tail section of aircraft. They are describing the debris field as fairly compacted and localized, so the missing tail section is a huge red flag. I have a feeling that when they find the tail, they will find the missing jumpers nearby, or at least have some kind of a track to follow to try to locate them. I hope that they do find them. I'd hate to think of them as being unrecovered in that wilderness, for their families and our communities sake.

Im sure you have a PRO rating and a lot of jumps, but I do think that you being a guy who jumps a stiletto might not be so trained to see "nailed" recovery arc from a JVX Don't be so sure.... I've got a lot of jumps (700 plus) on tri cells, and as I made the point in discussion with someone else, I'll be these guys land that way on every jump, demo or not.

Firstly, you're not the demo police. Secondly, the first two landings were perfectly executed HPL's into the demo area. They looked like they nailed it too. The crowd seemed to love it, as they always do when they see good swoop landings. I have a PRO rating, and I don't see anything wrong with the way that they landed those high performance wings. The last guy should have leaned forward and transferred his weight slowly onto his feet to keep the canopy flying. Having said that, he didn't and had to butt slide it out. If it a toss up between hurting yourself and landing on the flag, the flag's going to get it every time.

A common misconception, usually spread by conservative talk radio and the delightful people at Fox News. The facts are these. There are two idiots on the San Francisco board of Supervisors that table a motion every year to ban the Blue Angels. They were this year, as they are every year, told to go pound it. You can read about the attitude towrds the military in San Fransicso here, printed today in the Chronicle funnily enough. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/10/04/MNH0SILMH.DTL

Is it a Jalbert Square Mulitcell ?

Why is it fallacious? Wasn't the Cypres (first mostly reliable AAD) developed because somebody got tired of people dying from no-pulls? Wasn't the dirt alert first developed because someone got tired of people dying because they lost altitude awareness? Indeed. The point I was making is that really what they have done is just allowed dumb people to move their accidents to another part of the skydive.

I believe this to be a fallacious argument. When you try to make somehting idiot proof, nature just develops a better idiot. Back when I started, the most common cause of fatalities was the no pull, either of the main, or more commonly, of the reserve after a cutaway. We solved that with reliable AADs. Now, it's dolts flying themselves into the ground under good canopies. That's going to prove harder to stop. When I was a student, we didn't have AADs. We were essentially told to "pull or die". We had to reply on being very heads up on our procedures. There's nothing wrong with the new safety improvements, but over the years, we have fostered a generation or two of jumpers who have replaced common ideas of currency and piloting with an over reliance on the magical properties of mechanical devices. I meet many jumpers with thousands of jumps who last practised emergency procedures on their first jump course. But I digress.....

I'm not sure exactly what you are basing this on but I know of many BASE jumpers that do use AADs and actually advocate their use. Sorry for the thread drift. No problem. Just personal experience. I know a lot of BASE jumpers, and a lot of them don't have AADs.

The Argus has a Swoop mode that detects an open canopy and goes into standby mode to avoid an situation where a canopy pilot exceeds activation criteria during an agressive approach. It re-arms itself on ascent on the next jump to protect the jumper in freefall. Therefore, it is possible to have a unit know when there is a canopy deployment or not. As for the idea that an AAD should have a firing altitude regardless of descent rate, there was one such AAD. It was called the Sentinel, and a huge sigh of relief was breathed when they were finally phased out. That idea comes around every now and then, and it should be reminded that it's an idea that kills people. As for the WS jumper that was recently killed. Apparently he was also an active BASE jumper. He made an informed decision to not use an AAD. BASE jumpers tend not to have them in their sport rigs. It's an informed choice which I respect. Any AAD is an add-on to good emergency procedures, good judgment, and sound practice. The system you proposed is so complex that any jumper would be insane to get into a plane with it on their backs. In an emergency, you'd be fighting that system for control. What we have now is quite complex enough.

I'm biased of course The Vision has exactly the same harness configuration that you like on your present Wings. The diffence is mainly two-fold. The riser covers are now two piece, and the container is more parallel, with a longitinal piece of binding running down each side, a little similar to a Javelin. I've had very good comments from a lot of people who jump different systems, who didn't like the aesthetics of the Wings. Both system are still offered, so you can choose between the two styles. Functionally, they are exactly the same.

Three, and it was cozy at that.