accumack

Everyone is over 18!

I believe what he has is a Strato Cloud not a Para-Plane Cloud. The dual bridle was was used with slider canopies up until the light weight cloud. There really aren't any reinforcing tapes you can remove.

It is most likely a Strato Cloud. There should be 2 rectangular windows on the bottom surface. I have many jumps on them remember it is a 50 year old design so it is not like modern canopies. They are fast opening, heavy, it was a good accuracy canopy it is 230 sq ft. I worked for Para-Flite from the early 1970's to mid 1990's.

The regular evolution had a separate panel on the top creating slits to vent during opening.

That is me jumping the canopy on the brochure photos by Mike McGowan taken at the Z-hillz Turkey boogie. Interesting side note: During testing the day before we were leaving for the U.S. Nationals in 1989. I jumped in a tuck to terminal. When i deployed it opened so hard I have a herniated disc at c-5/c-6 and bulging at c-4/c-5. It delayed the introduction of the Evolution. The pilot chute controlled slider made openings softer. We didn't find an obvious reason for the hard opening Such as broken locking stows. Later we converted most of the standard Evolutions to non pilot chute controlled sliders. The Super Evolutions hard zero-P on the top skin. Para-Flite always measured our canopies differently than all the other manufacturers, so if you use their standard way of measuring Para-Flite canopies were alway larger and bulkier.

I can't believe it's over 2 years since max left us.

Sorry to hear this. He was a good guy i remember him jumping a monstrous B&W video system he videoed our 8 way team exit at Lakewood paracenter in New Jersey when we were practicing for the Z-Hillz turkey meet in the late 1970s.He was shooting video of a team from Pelicanland.

Unless you are willing to spend the money to TSO do not expect to jump it in the U.S.A. Don't know about other countries.

You could always tell the people from our DZ (Ripcord in NJ) at Z-Hillz By the separation at pull time. We were very practiced at having the most separation at opening.way back in the 1970's.

Practice makes perfect. Practice during the week. Ask experienced packers for tips.

found here page 14 par 13 https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_105-2E.pdf

The 5 cell swift reserve was TSO'd in the swift harness and container system. The 7 cell swift plus was TSO'd in the EOS system. It was up to the rigger or harness container manufacturer to determine compatibility with other systems as we did not test them in other manufacturer's systems.

The swift plus was TSO'd in the EOS container system. Other manufacturers were free to determine compatability in their container systems.

I would put steering guide rings on the inside of the front risers as they came from the factory that way. Otherwise you will be replacing steering lines or more after a few jumps.

Unless i'm mistaken most reserve deployments are from cutaways not terminal. I worked for Para-Flite when we were developing the first Ram-Air reserve. We did lots of testing on all components. The pilot chute got lots of attention. We looked at the most common reserve use being a cutaway (low speed at the time) and developed the high drag pilot chute with the large hole mesh. In the early 1980's we developed the meshless Swift main pilot chute as part of the Swift System as part of weight savings to build the lightest jumpable production system of the time with a target weight of 16lbs. when the standard rig weighed well over 20 lbs. We looked at the all fabric pilot chute but wouldn't compromise on the low speed drag from cutaways.

Wasn't it Martin Cadin's(spelling) Junkers? I think there was a story in Parachutist about it.

I've know Jerry since about 1962. He was one of the nicest guys around. I can't remember him ever being mad.

My brother and I grew up next to the airport where they started jumping in the early 1960s. Made my first jump a couple of days after my 16th birthday in 1969.

In your picture of line attach points at the canopy, the line attachment point looks like the zig zag is slightly above the stitch line of the seam. This will be a failure point.

Yes we knew what caused them. It was still proprietary when I left.

When I worked at Para Flite we found shortening the outside b line was the most effective (no more than 3/4") although we never did that on a customer canopy we either repaired the problem or built a new canopy and replaced it.

The old Scotty "Lost my wallet trick".

Is a jumpsuit important? At your experience level,Yes! When you have a few hundred jumps you should have the experience to make your own decision but at your level you don't have enough information. Can you jump safely? Probably. Have there been fatalities? Most likely, but those people are no longer here. All the things that have been talked about are factors, handles being covered, loose pieces flapping. Is your life worth spending a few minutes in an uncomfortable jump suit?

The glide path changes with wind and the perceived glide ratio changes but the actual glide ratio does not unless you make an input i.e.: brakes. Glide ratio is how far forward you go for every foot down no reference to the ground. http://parachutistonline.com/safety_training/foundations-flight/relative-glide

Wind has no effect on glide ratio! Distance over the ground yes.