FrogNog

When you say "[not] enough room", do you mean the passageways (riser end and suspension line ends) seem to be "full" from the slink passing through just once? Or do you mean the slink seems too short to wrap all the way around through everything again? I got a used set of soft links of some sort from someone that are lengthed for the "twice through" standard, but the instructions he sent with them said to loop them through three times. I spent quite a while trying to get them to go all the way through one more time. (I'm sure that's not your problem but it's funny.) If you can't seem to make something work, you need to get someone who can make it work. If you're not sure how something is supposed to work, you need to get someone who does know. (Or who you think knows. Because you may never really know if they know.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Which AFFI wisely pointed out varies by canopy to some degree. (Some things may apply to all canopies, but some things are model or even canopy-specific.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

The purple cordura doesn't match the purple webbing / tape, unfortunately. Welcome to life - nothing's perfect.

OK, I think I failed to post mine when it was new. So here it is after 400 jumps. I've put about 10 dirty landings on it in just under 400 jumps, but I swear friends borrowing it put 10 dirty landings on it in 10 loaner jumps. I'm calling you out, Shayla!

I'm going to guess Louisiana? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Nobody mentions that uncoated lead shot rubs against itself when stored in a flexible fabric container, and the result should be lead dust, which is long-term toxic. Steel shot or steel bearings are an alternative that might be cheap. Then there's gravel... -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Another problem with deploying in that situation is that even if the parachute opens perfectly and doesn't touch the plane, it's connected to the jumper's shoulders and, by the harness webbing, his pelvis. This sounds like a very good way to have a parachute pulling the top half of the jumper's body one way while the airplane pulls the jumper's foot the other way. There's no telling what will tear apart in what order. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

KellyF knows more than I do about this, but... I'm pretty sure wrinkles on Infinitys at that flap point are a packing issue - the main bag not being filled and shaped wide enough, or something like that. Two of my Infinitys have wrinkles on the left side right now - clearly _that_ is a packing error on my part. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Bill, isn't the extra line length on very large canopies another risk factor for tension-knot and bag-lock malfunctions? I thought you or Strong said something about that (in reference both to tandem mains _and_ tandem reserves). -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Are you buying these canopies under contract? If so, did the contract specify that the line groups will be maintained with something like links? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I was going to make a new post, but it would only get deleted so I'll just say it here: "C-5 Galaxy vs. Cessna 182?" -=-=-=-=- Pull.

If we were wrapped up in big enough canvas balloons and we could survive repeated 20-G bounces, we could skydive without parachutes all we want. It would be hard to fit in the plane with all that on, and we wouldn't be good at freeflying or flying canopies anymore. Regarding drop accuracy, when they drop something onto Mars they're really happy if it lands within a couple of miles of where they meant it to. That kind of spotting accuracy is marginal to most skydivers.

It's hard to check things in the plane, and we all know there's the danger of breaking something (e.g. prematurely opening a container) in the plane that would be more dangerous or inconvenient in the plane than on the ground. So I wonder why anyone would expect to look, in the plane, for problems that can't get worse or better between when the jumper dons the rig and when they exit. A misrouted bridle should be found on the ground, not in the plane. (I'm assuming a bridle cannot be routed correctly on the ground then be misrouted in the airplane.) Shouldn't in-plane checks be for things that could change in the plane, such as pins or cables unseating (or overseating) themselves, B-12s opening/unclipping/bending-binding, handles getting buried or coming loose, and battery-operated devices conking out? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

We should be careful not to confuse "experienced" with "good". They are not tied to each other. Any skydiver is only as good as his last landing, no matter how much experience he has. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Some Summer days we get sparse cumulonimbus clouds that buzz through, shooting rain as they go. Because most of the day is beautiful and warm and blue, we tend to "jump around" these clouds and when we get too close to an edge that's when things get interesting. But, yeah, I jumped ahead of a cold front once and wished I hadn't done that. There were no nearby clouds to indicate the 1,000 fpm updraft and 30 mph wind at the landing area. That's what spirals, RSL Swiss links, and cutaway handles are for. (Followed by untangling the canopy and refusing to jump anymore until the next day.

Certain types of clouds do this. In Western Washington they are common only in Summer. I believe clouds with a nimbus component are the "suckers". Flying under canopy beside or underneath one of these clouds can result in the ground getting farther away, in my experience. Thankfully I have not gotten too close to one, so I have only enjoyed "mild" effects. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

If you use a sufficiently accurate accelerometer, it can determine your 3-d location over the Earth's surface and, if the ground height at that point is known, your altitude above ground level. Accelerometers of this precision have been in use for quite a few years in commercial airline flight, if I understand correctly. And an accelerometer would need nowhere near that amount of precision or intelligence to be able to tell when you had gone from 13,000 feet AGL to 750 feet AGL and what your descent speed was at that point. It would be reasonable to tell your accelerometer device what altitude you were exiting at _when you exited_ and it could figure out the rest (assuming it knew which way was down ). Switching gears, and talking about misfires and anti-fires, what you're basically trying to cover is how to tell the AAD when you're under canopy and not about to die. The classic AAD-compatible way to do this has been to 1. not fly wingsuits below AAD save altitude and 2. not fly canopies at descent speeds that mimic freefall. An AAD programmed to fire regardless of descent rate could catch wingsuiters who lose altitude awareness (but still manage to fly at a low descent speed), and would require the wingsuit jumper to disarm the AAD under canopy before passing activation/save altitude. An AAD that can be disarmed once a good canopy is in place should work for people who fly their canopies all crazy and don't want the AAD to get scared. (On a swoop that looks like freefall, there's really nothing helpful the AAD can do other than yell "yeehaw!" through a little speaker.) Are there already any AADs that the jumper can turn off under canopy? And are there already any AADs that will fire at the lowest current wingsuit descent speed? (Certainly, there are existing ones that could be reprogrammed to do so.) Are there any AADs that combine these two things? Ironically, if I remember correctly there are old, untrustworthy AADs that incorporated both these features, and the advent of new, trustworthy, electronic AADs shifted the feature set (i.e. removed descent-rate-independent firing and, in some cases, in-flight-user-disarmability) as a coincidence of increased precision, reliability, and ease-of-use under most conditions. Perhaps we need only ask that the feature set be shifted back the way it was. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I concur that the wording "femur is not a verb" is inaccurate. If they wish to say "femur should not be a verb", then they should say precisely that. But I've sort of given up on complaining about marketing peoples' grammar. They say what they like, for whatever their reasons may be, and two things they don't seem to care strongly about are technical accuracy and engaging extremely literate readers. The message I'd like to share is "Femur is a bad verb." -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Add some more zeroes and you can open a DZ. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

About $340 of cash, from what I can see. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002802076_dbcooper13m.html [inline 2002801731_story_cooper.jpg] -=-=-=-=- Pull.

White or yellow, I say. I dislike that baby-blue color. And, just what we all need up in the blue sky: a sky blue reserve. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

How does sinking the canopy not slow the pattern down, resulting in the people behind them "catching up"? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Slapping a USPA sticker on the back of your sewing machine can help with that. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I prefer to buy things I can look at myself. If a harness/container is damaged in a way I won't notice, chances are pretty good it's reparable at a reasonable cost. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I would make them let you get it inspected at your nearest industrial sewing machine repair shop first. I tried doing that with someone with a Juki DDL that had been used "daily for 15 years" and they wouldn't sell it to me. Now I think that was a blessing. -=-=-=-=- Pull.