MakeItHappen

Really?.....Really? OMG that comes from the USPA site---- We are fucked now. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Send me a copy & I'll split it up for YouTube. I need more practice with Vegas. Name & address in the magazine. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Just go get some ankle weights and have them sew them together, add a fastener. $20 total for the weights and sewing. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Does anyone know how to contact Rita's family? Please email me at aerosoftware_AT_MakeItHappen.com _AT_ = @ Thanks. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Why is that 'Odd'? SSK or Airtec investigate all the CYPRES firings that are called into question. Vigil investigates all their firings that are called into question. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Don't know where some of you learned how to do a baseball slide. It starts with both feet touching the ground at the same time. The lower leg is slightly bent. The sole of the lower shoe is about even with the ankle of the upper leg. You still press your feet and knees together. In baseball, you'd use the 'breakaway slide' for when your lower foot touches the bag. Your lower leg bends more and then is used to transfer your momentum to stand up as your lower leg hits the base, so you can continue on if the opposing team throws the ball away. You can even do this with breakaway bases because the force on the bag is not enough to break it away. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Please see "Average Landing Force Dependence on Length and Direction of Landing, Parachute Velocity Components and Wind Speed" AIAA 9th Aerodynamic Decelerator and Balloon Technology Conference, 1986 J. Meyer University of Arizona (yep that would be me) In a nutshell, yeah sliding in as though you were stealing home would be a good thing if you were doing a downwinder in relatively high winds. From personal experience, a wind shear hit Coolidge one day. The sock showed winds out of the north. The guy landing about 40 seconds before me (to the North) & slightly offset from the wind sock, had his canopy crash down in front of him (indicating a downwinder). I was following him into the landing area. My ground speed was increasing even though the wind sock showed I was going into the wind. I leaned back in the harness as far as I could, picked my legs up to do the best ever "stealing home in the bottom of the 9th winning run" and landed safely after a ~70ft slide across the 'grass/weeds'. The guy before me broke his ankle & was helo out. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

A little known technique to use when a trail plane is really far back from the plane in front is to hold on longer after the lead plane(s) exit. Let the plane give you a ride to make up the horizontal distance. We used this technique on the 100-starfish dives at Perris. The planes were flying at proper spacing but there was traffic between the middle people of the 3rd trail with the people from the 2nd trail. The staging of the 3rd trail was changed to floaters leave right away and the first row waited a few seconds. People from the 3rd trail were docking at 6 o'clock, 3 o'clock and 12 o'clock. On another dive at Skydance with a Otter lead & KA trail, we had a really big horizontal spacing. I was front floater on the KA and held on for about 3 seconds after the lead started emptying. I got to the formation much faster than the other floaters that left when the lead jumpers left. The art of assigning exits slots on a big way is a tradeoff between how fast the plane can exit and traffic flow to the formation. It is not always necessary to get everyone out of the plane as fast as possible. If you jumped in the DC-3 days, you can appreciate this better. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Hey Kevin I got word that there was some AC issues on a previous dive or two. Something about a KA stalling, one guy breaking ribs & one guy breaking his back by hitting the door on the way out. Then something about a two out jumper that broke his back on landing. Any truth to these accounts? . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Yeah and the guy jumping demo mains has a sticker that does not agree with the sticker (if you could get that to work) But this reminds me of something .... A guy on a big-way went low and in the video you could not really tell who it was.... so in the next dirt dive he changed rigs ( and the rigs looked very different ) so that no one could id him. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Whoa. Does anyone know if all the documents listed as attributable to a specific mfg were actually released by the mfg or do we have sort of 'wikileaks' going on and PIA is posting anything & everything it receives (not that, that is necessarily a bad thing)? An interesting feature of the Vigil released document states that there is a mechanism (retaining dot stamps) that ensures that a minimum pressure is developed within the chamber before the cutter starts to move. Does anyone know what the equivalent mechanism is on a CYPRES or Argus? and what the blowby would be? Or if either of those AADs have such a mechanism? . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

One thing everyone ought to realize is that each of the three collisions this year were between 2 jumpers with similar WLs. These collisions did not have issues of greatly disparate nominal descent rates. One collision had a severely errant jumper doing turns down through the pattern. I thought were were done with these blatant violations after Danny took out Bob. The other two collisions had two people apparently doing the right type of pattern, yet they still ran into each other. To me, this highlights the fact that we are not looking where we are going and clearing the space of where we want to go, especially when turning. Every jumper should personally own the problem of 'It might be me that runs into someone else.' Stop this blaming a mystery person that could take you out from above and behind. Repeat this out loud: "The issue of canopy control is with me and my actions." "I need to see and avoid." "I need to only do 90 degree turns." (when landing in the general conventional pattern area) "I need to create and maintain horizontal and vertical separation from others, starting up high and all the way through landing." "I need to fly a predictable pattern." . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

I got deluged with inquiries from people after these two accidents. They all started off with 'What the hell is going on at Perris?' I tried to set up a meeting with Dan, Melanie & Scott, the RD, over the weekend, but the logistics were not there. So the next step was email. Then next weekend, hopefully we can have a conversation. Here are my emails to Perris: Dan's reply: And my reply regarding double manifesting: . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

I think important information that you have would be the reserve and container sizing parameters from both rigs. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Who withheld the rig? The owner? The rigger at SSM? or someone else? And why? There seemed to be quite a bit more going on other than just the Argus incident as it's my understanding the rig didn't even have the right repack card and the one that was in it was supposedly pencil packed. The whole thing from the get go including the rig owner is weird. If you read the report written by Kirk Smith you can see that a local SM rigger (Eric Butts) had the AAD from the time of the incident to the evaluation that Kirk did with the FAA & others present. The rig was given back to the owner and has not been released for further evaluation. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Thanks for the photos. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

I guess they never heard of the accident at Cal City where the chase helo that sliced through the otter tail and all on board bailed. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Would it be possible for you to post similar pics of a CYPRES & Vigil? Thanks . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Yeah, that may be the issue for the Argus. A simple solution is to place a cap on the end of the cutter that has 'arms' with retaining hoops that effectively narrows the portal that the loop passes through. It would at least keep the angle to a certain angle, but not necessarily perpendicular. This would make packing a bit more tricky, but it would address the 'angle' issue, if that is really the issue involved. If the cutter placement was such that you did not need a pullupcord to thread the closing loop through the cutter, then the packing issue is not that big of a deal. You could also place a spring under the cap so that the hoop opening could be enlarged for packing and then the spring narrows it down once the closing loop is threaded. Or you could redesign the cutter such that the portal for the closing loop is smaller. My thinking is that since the Vigil, that also has a cylindrical cutter, and a recess anvil and the Argus type failures have not appeared with the Vigils, is that the tolerances between the OD of the cutter cylinder and the ID of the recessed anvil are different between Argus & Vigil and that the distance is larger on the Argus than on the Vigil. Since the specs of these cutters are proprietary we may never know. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

On the Racer it goes pin, grommet in the bottom pack tray panel, cutter, bag, side, side then either the top flap or bottom flap then the PC. The PC does not push on any of the flaps (ie no Chinese finger trap issue). . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

My thoughts are that this set up would be extremely easy to forge and that you potentially add up to 12 # of pull force to the RC pull. #1 extremely easy to forge Any time you cannot verify the entire continuity of the seal thread is easy pickens for a forgery. It would not take much effort at all to thread seal thread to look like it was attached to the lead seal or 'seal card'. You could do a continuity check by pulling on either side of the seal thread, but that seems impractical and would also lead to broken seals. #2 excessive additional pull forces The way you have it set up, both sides of the seal thread would need to be broken. In a worst case scenario that would be about 12# more added to the pull force required to extract the RC. If it was rigged, as the BPA suggestion, so that the pin could slip through the seal without breaking it, then that would not be a pull force concern, but would put it back into a forgery type concern. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

On rigs where the pin is on top of the top flap, placing the cutter under the topmost flap most closely mimics the deployment sequence initiated by pulling the pin. On rigs where the pin is under the bottom of the pack tray, placing the cutter at the bottom of the pack tray most closely mimics the deployment sequence initiated by pulling the pin. When you place the cutter location 'someplace else' [eg under the PC, above PC & under several flaps, at the bottom of the pack tray on rigs with the pin on top of the flap stack, top of container for pins under the pack tray etc] you change the deployment sequence when it is initiated by the cutter. These changes include, and are not limited to: - a tendency for the cut loop to act as a Chinese finger trap - a tendency for the cut loop to relieve pressure on the packed reserve asymmetrically Delays in complete pack opening may occur because the loose end of a cut closing loop may have to unwind itself through a three dimensional stack of grommets and bags. Excessive friction, whether permanent or temporary may be experienced. Excessive friction may be because of long closing loop, insufficient lubrication of the closing loop, incompatible container/reserve sizes etc. Also important in these situations is whether or not the 'normal pack opening sequence' (when the RC is pulled) has the spring of the PC splaying the flaps apart. In one situation the opening sequence is more like trying to pull your shoelaces out from the toe end of the shoe and in the other situation is more like how a towel moves when you snap it. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Looks like it may jam the RC housing and possibly prevent someone from pulling the RC cable all the way through and getting the sticker stuck inside the housing. Or when you do a pull at your rigger's for a repack get that sticker jammed in the housing. Also the ink on tyvek - even if you use the special pens - tends to run when it gets damp or wet. As for the 'forgery-proof' aspect - think again. Enough moisture can be absorbed by the ink & run it by 'June gloom fog' by a rig sitting out waiting for the fog to clear. Paperwork belongs in the paperwork compartment, not on a seal thread. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

Hey Spot, In video 3, I do not think you should be suggesting cutting the corner from base to final if you are too low. That is not a predictable pattern and it builds in a 'Get-home-itis' mentality. Doing a pattern like that at congested DZs could get you, and maybe someone else, killed really fast. A better suggestion would to turn onto base leg sooner with a more right angle turn (aka predictable pattern) and then land offset to the X marks the spot. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker

AFF category videos are at the bottom of this page There is also "Fly to Survive" video on that page. . . Make It Happen Parachute History DiveMaker