AirtecKai

The jump numbers to choose from in the poll show that times have changed. The jump numbers 50-100-200-are in my opinion too low to consider an elliptical canopy at all. You might need more jumps until you have experienced all different wind and weather conditions, out landings - and this at different DZ's with different landing areas ( trees, buildings, with tricky wind conditions etc.) A small and eliptical canopy is unforgiving. And don't believe that the "biggish" 150 sqft elliptical will not turn like hell with a line over. It's difficult to name a jump number, but please take the time (+ jumps) until you have really squeezed out your actual canopy before going small or elliptical or both. ....with professional instruction, it will go much faster than my "career": Cruislite for approx. 700 jumps... PD 170 first jumps with Excalibur at ~900 jumps BT 50 Stiletto's and now back to 7 cells I had a few bad landings in the beginning , the docile canopy was very helpful. The same mistake(s) with a Stiletto would have been much worse. Take the time, Blue Skies, Kai

We have a new German national record, a 122 way. The formation was flown on the 26.03.2004 at Umm al Qaiwain in the United Arab Emirates. We arrived on the 19th of March at Dubai International Airport. This was my first trip to an Arabic country, and I was sure that this is something different as our bus driver stept into the brakes because of a camel which was not sure if it should pass the road or not. The hotel was a 10 minutes bus-drive away from the DZ. Later that day, we drove by bus to the DZ and had a look at everything and completed the paperwork (waiver, etc) The skydives on the next day (20.03) started with 20- 30 ways. My slot was in the 8-way in the center. The plan was to go start slowly and to go up to a 44 way to complete the base a few times times. The whackers did it pretty much the same way. This concept worked excellent, the Daedalus crew ( Dieter Kirsch, Pitt Weber, Christoph Aarns) payed attention to every detail, and were aware that the majority of the participants have not jumped since a few months because of the winter break. It really payed off not to go big too fast. On the 21.03, we made three nice 44 – ways with our complete base, the whackers were doing well too. Tomorrow was the day for the first 120 way jumps. 22.03.04: It was too windy for a 120 way in the morning . We drove back to the hotel, returned to the DZ in the afternoon and made two jumps without oxygen from 4600 meters. These two jumps worked out pretty well and made everybody optimistic for the next day. 23.03.04: To warm up, the first dive was from 4600 meters, 76 skydivers docked according to the judge. Everything was well structured, no bigger issues. After a very detailed oxygen briefing, including a trial with all participants in the quite hot plane, we made two skydives from 5600 meters. The first one became a 99 way, the second a 111 way. We drove back the hotel with a very good feeling. 24.03.04: First jump in the morning : a 121 way, the formation was flown for 1,3 seconds. Picture here : http://www.fscdaedalus.de/dubai/images/121er.jpg As Dieter Kirsch said that the judge confirmed jump was complete, the noise level in the hangar was extreme. The complete team drove back to the hotel – the party was excessive.. It was around 35° Celsius, so the pool was the place to be. Nearly all participants were in the water, voluntary or not. A few mobile phones didn’t survive the sudden unscheduled swim :-) The party continued until the next morning…. 25.03.04: no further record attempt planned this day. The skydiving fraction did 30- 40 ways for entertainment. Some people decided to go to Dubai to see something from the country, me too. We hired a taxi and spend the day in the city. It was quite impressive to see the Burj Al Arab hotel, the different “souks” (trading places) for spices, gold – or faked Rolex or Breitling watches instead. The skydives went not so well this day, maybe a bigger party tribute than expected… 26.03.04: One more skydive. The record package included 15 skydives from the Antonov 12. 14 have been done before. The team captains discussed lengthy the evening before. The decision was to go for another record attempt, a 122 way. One skydiver skydiver was already on the way home- maybe not the luckiest decision. Two videomen (JoJo Priedemann and Wofgang Müller) were added, and Barbara. She was busy all week with the organisation of all the details – and there were a lot ! After an exceptional briefing, we flew a smooth 122 way for 5 seconds. The 3 “stand- in” skydivers became heroes that day! Picture here: http://www.fscdaedalus.de/dubai/images/122er.jpg Party : see above. Thanks a lot to Daedalus, Pete Marsden,Tallis (DZ manager) and Sheik Mohammed for the excellent organisation of everything. Pete and Tallis did a very good job, there was no issue, everything worked perfect up to the oxygen in the AN 12. The aircraft (Antonov 12) is exceptional. The Russian crew was very experienced, the captain had over 7000 hours on this aircraft. Some statistics have been made during the attempt: Participants: Male : 94 Female: 28 = 22,95 % Age structure: Average age total: 41,59 years Men: 42,23 Women: 39,43 Jump numbers: Total of all participants : 334572 Men : 285149 Women: 49423 Total average : 2742 jumps Average men: 3033 jumps Average women: 1765 jumps Years in sport: Total average: 17,30 years The shortest time in the sport was 6 years, the longest 37 years. Wingload average: Boys: 1,58 (highest : 2,2, lowest 1,13) Girls: 1,21 (highest 1,41, lowest 0,94) The total exit weight of all skydivers was appx. 11,12 tons. The Antonov 12 did not move. So, that’s it. Tomorrow I have to be back in the office. I won’t have to watch out for camels on the way. Blue Skies, Kai

SSK does the maintenance at their facilities. The link in Tom's posting describes the work in detail. Sometimes units have to be sent to Germany. This does not affect the price of the maintenance. Blue Skies, Kai

I don't think that this is done on a regular basis - and it's not recommended either. Please open a Cypres1 battery casing only if a change is due or if something is unclear. There is for sure no safety gain if a Cypres would be opened 4 times for control reasons between each battery change. Please act carefully when you change the batteries on a Cypres 1. The procedure is described in the Users Guide and also in the rigging section on our *new* website: www.cypres.cc Blue Skies, Kai Koerner

This is definately no stupid question. I did this with the last 2 reserves I bought. It's a good way to avoid surprises and to get an idea about the handling of YOUR reserve. Take your reserve out and connect it to other risers. Borrow a rig, and put your reserve in as main. If your reserve has a ring for bridle attachment, you can mount the main bridle as usual. If the reserve has no ring at the center cell, take a static line deployment bag and pack the rig as static line. Contact your rigger if you should not be firm with any of the above issues, especially about the routing of the static line (if applicable). Make a static line jump or a clear and pull. If you really want to check out the stall point and the general performance you should go up to at least 5000 feet. Put your reserve back in your container. In case you should need it later, it's one unknown player less. Pull before we do Kai

... Hello, The price for a maintenance is always the same, independent from the amount of work on the individual unit. There are no different prices for maintenances. When the units are at Airtec or SSK for the maintenance, this is what we do : - cable check (electrically and visually) -the internal electronics are removed from the casing -heat and cold tests up to extreme areas - calibration check and adjustment - power consumption - test of the activation programming ( electronic cycle, precise duration and magnitude of ignition impulse, etc.) - any applicable updates will be done - cutter(s): , condition of cable, shielding and heatshrink, condition of the brass cover Some numbers : approx. 85% of all units are returned to the factory ( the rest is hidden in the closet and most likely not in use) Approx. 90-92% of all units pass the maintenance procedures in the normal amount of time ( 2-3 weeks) The remaining 8-10 % require more work. 8 year old units are affected more often by this than 4 year old units, time does matter. The necessity to take a unit out of the test cycle can happen at any point of the maintenance. If it's outside the acceptable tolerances, it will be brought back into them. The reason has by far not to be a "dangerous one", f.e. a too high power consumption may require a repair. Each repair requires at least the same time as another maintenance. The repair has to be done and tested, afterwards the unit has to pass all testing stages again (plus a long term test cycle for 4,5 days) with a positive result before it leaves the building. Some work can only be done here at Airtec. As you see, there are various different reasons for additional work. The technical details remain in the technical department for further reference. The test certificates contain the most important information: This unit is now good to be used for another 4 years as live saving device. That's it, I hope it clarifies a little bit what we are doing at the Cypres maintenance. Blue Skies, Kai Koerner Airtec GmbH

"The only gripe I have is that I was told by the rigger that there is no room in the reserve portion of the container to fit the cypress module. But other than that Im totally happy with it! " ... to get back to the original intention of the thread - looks like you got one of the really narrow versions ( f.e. V3 ). Here, indeed the partition wall does not leave enough space to sew the CYPRES processing unit pouch in as it is. The "upper" binding tape of the pouch is above the edge of the reserve container when the pocket is hold in place. There is a way how to sew the pouch in these extreme narrow rigs. It helped in the past on some narrow Sweethogs and Vectors: The lower binding tape of the pouch has to be sewn "from the other side", then fold the pouch back inplace and sew the other sides. This way you only have approx. 5,5cm from the upper to the lower seam - instead of 8cm. This might help at your rig. The Cypres1 still fits in the pouch, the Cypres 2 fits perfect Enclosed two pictures, C1 and C2 in the pouch. Blue skies, Kai Koerner Airtec GmbH

I know Kai from Airtec reads these forums and certainly read Skydiving so I wouldn't be surprised by a response from them ...Yes, we do read Skydiving :-) In the new issue(#267), there is a detailed response on page 36-37. Blue Skies- long swoops Kai Koerner Airtec GmbH

Hi, A Vector 1 can be retrofitted with a CYPRES set - up by a qualified rigger. A Vector 2 pilotcute is mandatory when a CYPRES is installed in any Vector container. The old style Vector 1 pilotchute (small cap, mesh, low spring force) must not be used. ...By the way - looks a little bit like an early rig from Norman Kent. (Vector, the colours, SOS...) Blue Skies, Kai Koerner Airtec GmbH

Yes, it can be done that way: The installation of a 2- pin Cypres in a 1- pin container can be done and is safe when the following points are considered: One cutter has to be installed as usual in the cutter elastic. The second cutter must not be installed to cut the loop, it has to be stowed in a way that it does not interfere with a reserve opening and in a way that the cutter cable is not kinked. The best place to stow the second cutter is in the cable channel for the control unit cable, beside the control unit cable. Best regards, Kai Koerner Airtec GmbH Bad Wünnenberg Germany

Hello, The flea running in a cage connected to a generator is my personal favoured To make it short: The CYPRES 2 is battery powered. One of the major tasks during the years of development was to achieve what we have today - 4 years of skydiving without limitations. This is possible through a good power source and a very smart power - management / low power consumption. When the CYPRES 2 is due for the maintenance, we take care of the power source. The price for a maintenance will be pretty much the same as today for the Cypres 1 (exchange rate/ inflation changes possible) - but the power supply will be included. No ba..... will appear on any invoice, neither will something like this be available in the field. The word ba..... does not even appear in the CYPRES 2 manual. For the skydiver, it really makes no difference if we would give the generator flea after 4 years a new portion of Airtec's secret astronaut-space food (thousands of calories on a few mm³) or take care of the power source in another way. This might have been the reason for the rumours... Blue Skies, Kai Koerner Airtec GmbH Wünnenberg Germany