FrogNog

That's half the fun! A note I'm sure is also searchable in the archives: 7-cell canopies tend to fly more like reserves than 9-cells. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

There is some question about how safe it is to unstitch and restitch harnesses, in terms of final strength. I know there is theory (with some testing behind it) that will explain the strength of webbing before and after it has received a reasonably-well-known number of potentially fiber-cutting punctures. And stitch theory (based on lots of testing) explains how much stitching it takes to bond webbing in certain ways for certain strength. But is there any actual testing of webbing that has been punctured a multiple of the appropriate number of times (e.g. instead of 50 punctures for a stitch pattern, give the webbing 500 punctures) followed with proof or destruction strength testing? I am uncomfortable that the state of the art could be riggers saying "I think it's OK to repair something once, but not twice." (No offense meant to the guy who actually said that; there's nothing wrong with your opinion, I'm just saying I'd like some practical science.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Are any of the manufacturers near enough to you that you can go visit them directly to get measured? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I saw who I believe was a solo student doing refresher jumps. He had his feet together, legs straight, and must have had no arch because he flipped head over heels over and over again. But the canopy came out when he was in the belly-down portion of his constant flipping. Apparently it always does for this guy. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

This is why the student main canopy brake lines are lengthened so much: so they can wave with their hands in the toggles without deflecting the tail. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

can you explain why it would create a horseshoe ?? Never jumped S/L myself, so need some explanation. Maybe he meant it would create a jumper-in-tow? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I believe there are "verified" and "non-verified" PayPal accounts. (This is how I thought it used to work; I may have always been wrong, or it may have changed.) And I also believe it is possible for someone to have an unverified paypal account backed by a stolen credit card. This may or may not be easier in other countries. (This is the reason a lot of eBay sellers will only sell to the U.S. and Canada.) I would base my decision on my trust of the buyer. If you don't trust the buyer, don't go with a payment method you also don't know about. That being said, other payment methods are not foolproof (I've seen checques that take the bank 3 weeks to realize are fake, and fake cashier's checques that also weren't discovered as fake until they physically reached the supposed source bank). -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I skipped emailing the seller and went to eBay's customer support, calling it a "fraudulent listing." I made the point that this is a life-saving device that the seller does or should know is beyond the mfgr-indicated lifetime and is therefore illegal to use in the U.S., but that he didn't list that explicitly. Instead, he said it looks and cycles like new. I finished with a note that I respect "caveat emptor" but since the purpose of this thing is to save the life of someone who is about to die, maybe this listing is different. I expect eBay to do nothing about it. I expect someone making minimum wage will read two sentences of my email, find no caps or exclamation points, realize the rest of the mail goes on for too long to read and understand while maintaining a good speed ratio on cleared cases, and send me some canned email response for an unrelated issue. However, if someone does take a shine to my email, then it's fairly likely the listing will be pulled because he's not a power seller. Little guys on eBay have no rights, as I understand; only big guys who pay eBay lots of money every week. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

* You could inflate the canopy at a specified loading-speed in a wind tunnel (i.e. at the speed it would glide with either brakes set or full flight with a specific weight under it) and find the area of its true shadow. * You could do the same wind-tunnel thing and identify the left or right angle from vertical of the normal vector of the topskin at every point, and use the cosine of this value as a "lift factor"; multiply the lift factor by every area of the actual topskin size. This would attempt to address canopies with more "cell bulge" flying smaller than canopies with more rigid shapes. Of course, not every part of the chord from nose to tail produces lift at all, so this measurement method still contains misleading assumptions when producing a size number. (Specifically, it assumes that a 150 sq ft canopy has 150 sq ft of topskin or effective topskin that is producing lift.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

FL 140 is just 140 hundred feet. Below a certain altitude I believe it's technically incorrect to say "flight level" anymore because that's some sort of ATC term that they only use above a certain altitude. (I have no idea what the cutoff is.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Did the parachutist article indicate the reserve deployment started at terminal? Do canopies take more altitude to get to line stretch when they are deployed in a low-airspeed situation (such as cutting away from an open canopy) vs. a high-airspeed situation (such as a nothing-out activation)? I should note that hop-and-pops at 80 MPH would be a medium-airspeed situation. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I second that. I once thought I was good enough (well on the tail end of a cold) and got a little sinus "pop" from a 3k hop-and-pop. The pain was manageable - it certainly wasn't going to prevent me from flaring and saving my life - but I got a new sinus infection that took another week to totally clear (so I couldn't jump the next weekend, either). Now I just won't screw around like that. Plus I know even a 1,500 foot altitude pressure difference can do the trick. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Point of order: this is an ad hominem argument. What do you really mean to say? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

My gear is colored to do a number of things: * be visible, as people have said. * be affordable but fit well (the suit was secondhand) * help me find everything that is mine, at night, while blind drunk. * prevent theft. * demonstrate to other people that I am extremely secure in my masculinity. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I believe the politically correct term is "anti-submarine strap". -=-=-=-=- Pull.

How big are your breasts? Do the 1" (or wider) straps have to cross between them? Edit: Oh, to just _below_ the handles. So this would be "cross-my-gut" straps. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Don't forget anti-inversion netting, Bill. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I've done it both ways. Since the purpose is to simulate a breakaway, we usually hook the normal breakaway handle to the first main. We then use two short pieces of yellow cable, attached to two separate loops, which are velcroed up onto their own risers. Is this basically a riser set with its own cutaway cables entirely self-contained? (And, obviously, one would have to release each side individually like capewells.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

You could put it on your borrowed iMax camera in case it gets away from you... -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Regarding the real problem the poster asked about, separation: varying delays can have a lot of difference for separation. I try to ensure on my loads the longest delays go first. I also try to ensure the highest wingloadings go first, too. Sometimes this means lightly-loaded terminal hop-and-pop lovers with nevr-spin canopies (knock on wood) like me have to do things differently to be compatible with heavily-loaded folk who want maximum canopy time and want lots of altitude in case they spin up.

It's interesting to note that if the angle described between the relative wind and gravity represents the most likely place for the PC to travel during canopy inflation, and if we prefer the PC to travel backward on the canopy vs. any other direction, then technically opening in a track should be less likely to allow the PC to wrap around the front of the canopy, which could be called "safer". Weird. I'm not really worried about where my PC goes after inflation, though. It'll either get into trouble or it won't. (This sort of thing does make me happy about reserve freebags, though.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

How come? IMO the canopy is always infalting against the (relative) wind. In any deployment there are two forces that could act on system components: aerodynamic and gravity. When we are falling straight down these are in-line with each other. When we deploy while tracking or in a hop-and-pop while facing the relative wind, head-up, then the acute angle between them is toward the rear of the canopy. This may be important because at first the major force on determining where a PC goes is aerodynamic. Once the airspeed decreases, or the airspeed decreases and the PC is collapsed by its kill line, gravity will play a larger role in determining where the PC goes. If "down" in gravity terms is toward the front of the canopy, it is possible that when the canopy starts inflating and the PC finds itself in an "air shadow", the PC could fall toward the front of the canopy and slip off. At that point it might find itself out of the "air shadow" and get blown back under the canopy. For systems that deploy with spring-loaded pilot chutes, the weight of the PC is significant and periodically leads to these sorts of weirdnesses. And the randomness of every deployment means weird stuff happens in various directions. Another interesting issue is where the jumper's body is relative to the canopy when the relative wind and gravity are in different places. I believe this leads to a fun "swing forward" effect when deploying on a hop-and-pop with the belly into the relative wind but head toward Earth. I'll try to keep an eye on my PC when I do this.

Yay, pacpoop! -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Skydivers are like motorcyclists: crashing happens eventually. That's why preparation is not really optional. (And by "crashing" skydivers I don't mean hooking in. (That's not inevitable.) I mean things that are unavoidable if we choose to jump, even in "safe" conditions, such as gusts.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Snohomish, WA, USA has one but it's hard to tell cloud details other than blue/gray. So I used to look clouds, wind, etc. up on the Internet before I would go. Then I moved about a mile away from the DZ so now I just look out my windows. (One window will show canopies. ) -=-=-=-=- Pull.