Beatnik

I am not going to beat this to death again in this thread. I have packed Racers in every configuration that has been made for them, including no diaper, two-bite, three-bite, etc. I do not find them difficult at all and stowing the lines is not a big deal in a diaperless or two-bite configuration. I use my steel bodkins and absolutely love them and I wouldn't give advice to not use them. But as good as all that is, I don't represent a large enough sample size to count as data. As for the disagreement on the stiffness of material. It might make little difference but that is what is being discussed. If you compared the two types of materials you can see the one is clearly heavier and if it is reinforced it will be tougher. It might not mean a lot but it is still there and I was just giving more information to this discussion. Really there is much more to all of these arguments than what is being discussed or being brought forward as supportive data by the manufacturers.

I am going to jump in here and put in a few comments. I haven’t seen a lot of actual facts on the deployment speeds other than what the factories themselves are publishing. That information you could conceive as being biased because no manufacturer is going to give information that could hurt the sales of their products. If an independent group did some research and published numbers I would be much more inclined to believe them over the factories which have their business as motivation. Going to the Bill Booth comment earlier. I completely believe the guy is a salesman. He has a team of engineers that he has intellectual rights over and when they invent something he can claim it as his own. Last I checked in the FAA database he still isn’t a rigger but since he is a manufacturer he can get around that. Regarding the Vector reserves taking forever. Well, I don’t know about that but they certainly aren’t as fast as many other containers. The no mesh pilot chute has a really low coefficient of drag and from what I have witnessed it takes longer to obtain the force required to extract everything. The Racer pilot chute uses a large mesh and does have a higher coefficient of drag compared to most. The Racer pilot chute does have a large coefficient of drag and that helps a lot with the reserve deployment. The other thing that is nice about the Racer is the reserve bridle. Being made out of Type IV 3” webbing has to increase the drag compared to the 2” bridles many manufacturers use. With the closing flaps and closing loops. As Rob said the Racer loops have to clear more grommets than others but the forces that are applied are more direct than other containers. Since the closing loops are connected to the pilot chute it is being pulled directly through them where as other containers have the pilot chute pushing flaps and have the closing loop zig zaging back and forth through the grommets and then through the pilot chute. You could also take into the equation the stiffness of the flaps as well. Stiffer heavier flaps should require more forces than lighter ones. Most manufacturers use 1000 denier cordura opposed to the 500 denier that Jumpshack uses. But that has its prices as well since 1000 denier is so much tougher than the 500 denier. You could look at the cypress cutter configuration on the Racer and have some concerns. I believe there was a pretty major incident recently about a AAD cutter not cutting the closing and causing the whole system to fail. The Racer does require two cutters and if the situations were just right, it could conceivably not cut one reserve loop or they could lock up which would cause the whole system to fail. The chances are I am sure almost nil but there is still the chance. Onto the rigger packing. Rob I really wish you wouldn’t try to submit your personal experiences or problems packing Racers as some kind of data. It may be your experience but that is all it is. You might be a master rigger and a CSPA rigger examiner but that means absolutely nothing as to the ease or difficultly of packing a specific container. We have had this debate before and I am not going to beat it to death again. But one person’s experience is not a large enough sample size to be considered as hard data. It may have taken you a decade to learn how to pack a Racer but it took me about two days how to pack one really well. So what does that tell you? It should mean nothing because some people are going to be able to do things better and easier than others and this applies to everything and doesn’t really mean a thing. Now if you said that it took 1000 riggers a decade to be able to pack them then it would have more meaning. Comparing containers is like comparing makes of cars. Every make has its group of followers and convincing them to change their mind is probably not going to happen. From what I have witnessed there seems to be a lot of voodoo in skydiving and usually the people with the strongest opinions against something are the ones with the least amount of factual knowledge and base their opinion on hearsay or advertising. When it comes to choosing a container just pick one you like. They are all very similar and I don’t believe that any one particular system is superior to another. They all have pros and cons.

Do a google search there are tons of them. I was surprised as well. It seems like a lot of them result from injuries from kicks or falls.

Falcon's are also TSO and can be used as mains.

Mentioning your opinions of a rig is hardly blasting it. I own three Racers and I like them very much and continue to jump them so get your facts straight before blowing your BS off on me. There are things I like about it and things I don't and I am not going to say that it is the greatest rig in the world if I don't think so even if I like them a lot. The point about JCO supporting JumpShack must have went right over your head so I will bring it down a little for you. JumpShack wouldn't have been able to survive as a company and continue making rigs if it wasn't for their other company keeping them alive. Whether or not the product is good or not doesn't matter with this since they would have went the same way as many other businesses have done in the skydiving industry. If you want to defend John Sherman. Why don't you talk to some of the people who have designed and built custom rigs at the factory. My friend Nykolas when he worked there built a pretty sweet rig to his own cosmetic designs. John Sherman didn't like it because it didn't have the pinstripes on the main pin cover like he likes. Restricting people to your own views of cosmetics is not a good thing. I thought the rig was super comfortable as well that is until I tried some other rigs and did a lot of jumps on them. Here is a challenge to you on the comfort factor. I will challenge you to do 100 jumps in one day under a Racer and then doo 100 jumps in one day on a rig that offers the spacer foam and then tell me which rig you think is more comfortable. I have done both of these things and I will continue to speak on my personal experience with these rigs. Unless you have done that, don't comment on my post of comfort. Any rig will be comfortable for half a dozen jumps in a day. Also, the design that made the Racer one of the most comfortable rigs out there was lost when they switched to the current design. I have never brought up a rig of death that you have speak of. So please don't start putting words in my mouth and stop running yours off. What are you talking about with JumpShack not redesigning their rig to make it freefly friendly. That is why they redesigned the whole rig and came up with the 2K3 model. Their other design they had wasn't freefly friendly and they re-engineered the whole thing. I will call you on your last comment that canopies are the only thing that has evolved in the sport. Look at the reserve system on the Seven. I think that is pretty new and not something that other manufacturers have done. You could look at the articulated harnesses, magnetic covers, flaps to prevent lines from getting caught. To me you don't seem to know what you are talking about. If you want to talk canopies, lets look at some of the things that are out there. Crossbracing has been around for over 20 years starting with the excalibur. There has been a airlock patent since the 60's and the big change with canopies, zero-p, happened in the 1990's. I am not saying that there hasn't been advances, I am just showing you that for someone that is claiming that others are spreading BS, you should start looking at yourself first. I have done nothing more than put my first hand facts on this thread and if you don't like it tough. I am a Racer owner and have been a very large pro Racer jumper for a lot of years but I am not going to lie about the company or my experiences with them. If you want to comment on anything else I have said, send me a PM and I will gladly discuss it with you.

Rob the AGM was one of the most uneventful in the last half a decade. Very few changes. Short term memberships are going to be available soon, the membership cards are being redesigned and there is a AAD survey or study going on. We were all out of there before 3PM.

I like my picture better

The PZ-81 opens fine and flies even better. It is by far the best parawing I have flown. But it is not the most exciting one. Nothing can beat the paradactyl for that.

And you are missing the point I am making with your statement. There are people that have survived a skydive that have done nothing at all. Which makes that statement inaccurate. Of course it is better to actually save your own life than trusting a device to do it. But I can't say that 100% you have to do something because I have seen many people live through skydives that haven't done anything. I don't like the past statement but it is true.

I am well aware of the accuracy in AADs. I was pointing out that your statement was inaccurate that is all. For the record I do not have an AAD in any of the forty rigs I own. So I am willing to take that gamble as well.

They have devices for that. So that statement isn't entirely accurate. Just pointing that out.

Reverse 3-ring rigs have the main rig set higher up on the harness to allow the risers to release properly. On normal harnesses the main ring is near the collar bone. Putting a normal set of risers on a reverse 3-ring harness is not a problem but the other way the rings can get sandwiched between the main ring and the harness preventing the release. That is the main reason why they aren't supposed to be used in that configuration.

Yeah for all that development and redesign that Racer is famous for! I agree with you on redesign. When you have a product that works the way it is supposed to why would you redesign it? Most designs happen because there is some flaw in the product. As for the development part, I disagree with you 100%. There has been developments from JumpShack and some have been fairly large.

I agree, well for the most part. There are a couple more features that I like but I really don't know how much they really make a difference or if they would be enough for me to purchase or recommend a Racer over something else. I do want to mention something about comfort that many people bring up with these rigs. They are comfortable but there are plenty of comfortable rigs out there some much more than the Racer. Last year I did 202 jumps in 24 hours and the rig that was really helping me out as far as comfort goes was not the Racer 2K3 that is sized for me but another rig from another manufacturer. Doing 5-10 jumps in a day, pretty much any rig that fits will be comfortable. Doing a lot more than that and things change quite a bit.

I think what is keeping jumpshack alive more than anything is JCO metals their company that builds handles, ripcords and pins. They supply most of the industry with them. Their military contracts probably help as well. Really once John Sherman retires the company will probably start to do a lot better. I have never met him personally but met pretty much everyone else there. My impression is that he really controls how some of the things are because he designed it and doesn't want it to be changed or it is of the nature that he tells people what they need and want. If they acted more like other companies where they listened more to the customer and gave them a product they asked for I feel they would do better. After all that is why some of the companies have grown to the size they have.

John Sherman has had a one-pin design and patent for years. He believes the two pin is a better system and sticks with it.

The Stealth Racer is not called that because it is all black. The Stealth Racer is a very standard Racer with very few to no options to keep the price down.

I know, I own three Racer's (one of which is a 2K3) and a Strong pop top. I know a lot about Racer's and Jumpshack's services so you don't have to preach to the choir. I was pretty much factory trained. I was just making a reference to what was said with two pins being 80's tech when one-pin reserve came out in the 70's.

Mine is yellow and black.

I want a Volplane.

The pop top has been around since the 70's same with one pin reserves. I guess it is all old technology.

CSPA while they issue the rating they are a sport association. They don't have the ability to govern it. I used to be director I know that all too well. And if you start asking Transport Canada to start regulating things, they will start regulating things and they will do what makes sense to them not what makes sense to us. Transport Canada should not do anything with our sport more than they have. If you start asking Transport Canada to do things it will only get worse. That is what happened when a dropzone owner asked them to regulate planes because he felt it would be better for his business, then they started to want to regulate everything. IMO all that should be done is the TSC should mandate what is allowed. But I doubt you will get them to agree with the TSO thing since one member has been building gear of his own for years and another one works for a company that builds military gear that doesn't need TSOs.

No real market but there are some of us out there that collect this stuff. I am always looking for more stuff. Send me a PM if you want to share your source.

I think you are taking things out of context completely. There is gear all over the world that is not TSO'd should it all be band because you feel that the TSO is the be all end all for making gear safe? I would like you to find me a court case in Canada that they said the cause was from non TSO'd gear. Other country's use other forms of testing. Just because it wasn't under the FAA's TSO process must make it bad then. Or what about the military gear that is built like a truck that isn't TSO'd, it must be bad too under your thinking. Its gone through way more testing but who cares it doesn't carry a TSO so according to you it is crap. This argument is ridiculous. Do what ever you want but there is no way you will convince me that Transport Canada should follow the FAA or this theory of yours that TSO'd gear is the saving grace to parachute equipment.

I wouldn't believe Rob's theory of why Transport Canada doesn't regulate skydiving gear. I believe there are many reasons for it and anyone who has done a lot of work with transport Canada can probably tell you a few of them. As for Transport Canada following what the FAA does, I don't think that you completely understand what you are saying there. That doesn't only apply to skydiving but also in aviation. Throwing a suggestion out like that won't stop at one point. As to TSOs. There has been tons of gear without TSOs that has been completely safe to use. Just because there is a TSO doesn't mean that it doesn't have "any kind of shit" as you put it. There has been some TSO gear that is not worth anything. Having a TSO just means you passed some tests. Not having one doesn't mean it is crap either.