angryelf

glad it worked out for you... Let us know what AAD says about it. Had a Vigil 1 go off in 2010 with a Katana 135. The unit somehow magically got itself into student mode with a 150' offset. Mine happened at 800'. Sent the unit back to Deland. Their take was that it was tampered with. My take is that the unit glitched after being unused for 6 months, then was woken up by a rigger who went thru every menu the night prior when he was repacking the rig. Either way-they were cool about it and helped cover the cost of the cutter. Irregardless it did 10 jumps in my pocket before I was confident enough to put it back in my rig. Still have it, probably has over 1200 jumps on it now... -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Try the Park tool cable cutter. (Made for cutting brake/shifter cables on bicycles). Cheap, small, well made most importantly it makes a very clean cut/end termination. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Jumped a Birdman Classic at Eloy with Scott Campos on jumps 201-202. Thought WS'ing was ok but not worth spending money on. Did another 2 jumps on a S3 that was too small when I had 600 or so jumps a few years later. Spinning line twists on my Katana 135 at opening convinced me it wasn't that great. Bought a Velo a few hundred jumps later-started doing XRW with a buddy who (at the time) was flying the daylights out of an S-bird, rekindled my interest in WS'ing watching him fly next to me. Put 15 jumps on the S-bird (with appropriate canopy/PC) and decided maybe WS'ing was worth extra cost. Made 2 scary jumps on an Apache (WS #16and 17, respectively). Did a few more jumps with the S. Talked Tony out of me trying to fly one of his prototypes at the time (I think it was Tulip) when I had like 20 WS jumps. I don't have a lot of sense, but that suit woulda been pretty silly... Bought an X-Bird and a Pilot 140 at around 1200 jumps and with 25 wing suit jumps under my belt. Have never had any issues flying the X. Have jumped the Funk and the Aura now. Nice suits, not buying one anytime. I like flying WS, I hate having to use "pig" canopies like the Pilot to do it. I really hate being in a gunny sack that acts like a boat anchor for the canopy, under the canopy. I'll WS at boogies or at the end of a day of teaching/throwing drogues or shooting video. I probably am not ever going to be a "really good WS pilot". But I am safe when I fly one. Have over 100 jumps on the X now. Maybe one day I'll take it to Brento. But I'll put another 50 skydives on it before I do. Not the best progression, but it worked for me... -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

I am looking into organizing some jumps in a few years in the Dutch Caribbean. We're totally at the assumptions/discussion stage ATM, i.e. still fact finding. Does anyone know who governs jumping in the NL? I found some info about the ILT (which seems to be the FAA equivalent) but their website is very limited and has nothing about parachute operations. The site also referred to the Euro Union Aviation becoming more and more prevalent. Is there a USPA/BPA/CPA Dutch equivalent? Thanks! -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

It's a great concept. The piece they aren't showing is the lanyard that opens the reserve container. How does that fit into the mix? My issue with it is that elastic loop that the bridle tucks under. I think it needs to be a pocket. Just speculating here-but if a lazy/inept rigger advances even an inch long bight through that loop and the "snare" collapses around it: you've got a main girth hitched to your reserve bridle and the jumper is totally screwed. I am curious to see this thing. Might be alright, guess we'll see... "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

That video was awful. How about you tell us the 5 W's: WHAT it is WHY I want it WHO tested it under WHAT conditions (good on Curt-but has anyone else jumped it?) WHEN available NONE of those questions were answered. Only a die hard (i.e. Blind), non rigger Mirage fan would go buy that after seeing that video. Mirage can do better... "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Not sure what suit manufacturer this would be but my guess is they're differentiating between a "fast slick suit" and a baggier suit made of heavier materials that would produce more "drag". Maybe fast/slow got changed to fast/powerful? Just guessing here... "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

I have relined my velo 103 twice with the bartackless method and my 96 once with it (made the linesets from scratch 500 lb Vectran/1000 lb for the brake lowers). I did it because the concept of no bartacks interested me and I didn't have immediate access to a bartack machine. As for performance, I don't see a huge difference between factory lineset (bartacked) and scratch (no bar tacks). All that being said I prefer the bar tacks. My thoughts on it are as follows: It works fine. Primary problem area is the brake settings. These wear better if bartacked. I probably wouldn't reline a canopy for a customer with this method as I believe it could cause confusion. I think it is a great tool to have for a field line replacement repair (I would use it on a BASE canopy for a few line replacements if in the mountains of Europe with no rigging loft, for example). For production it would suck as measuring is a little more time consuming, as is hooking a fid up twice. I haven't tried it, but I think a softer material like HMA would be a real PITA to do a whole lineset with... IIRC there was a thread about this in the past and the reason for Jumpshack not using it anymore was time consumption/quality control. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Three things to think about here: 1) Camera/Helmet security (mounts on cameras secure, chin cup not so loose that it levers off your head) 2) Get small, get small. If you're chasing tandems or other heavy objects with small surface area expect to track your face off towards the subject. (I think of it as chasing it under the A/C). A head down exit can help with this as well (if you're a freeflyer). 3) Rig security and handle checks. At 150kts a premature deployment of either canopy is going to hurt really bad and could lead to a catastrophic neck injury. Your gear MUST be tight. I've done camera jumps from C-130's with exit speeds in the same neighborhood. As long as you keep the wings folded and everything is secure it should be no issue. Fun part is decelerating to terminal after coming off the hill. Never jumped this A/C but it should be pretty cool. Have fun, -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Like anything it's a judgement call... But from approx 100 AFF's and over 200 coach jumps here's my system (I'm 6' and 200lbs): 1) small/thin students (over 5'6 under 130 lbs/ 5'0' under 110 or similar) go in tight/spandex suits. If it's cat A or B I'm more comfortable flying less suit. If it's a release/coach dive I will wear an XXL W student suit that I have to rubber band the legs up over my shoes while on the ground. 2) medium range (5'6 160+lbs up to my size) student goes in a suit that fits them with minimal drag. I wear my freefly suit and am very comfortable. 3) large students (anything pushing 230+lbs/bowling balls/meat missiles) wear baggy suits and I'll wear a fast RW suit and/or add lead. *** It's all about sizing up the student AND if it's a C or D that I haven't jumped with I go ask their A or B instructors what to expect. *** Eventually you'll have a student get the better of you even if you dress him/her and yourself for sucess-like the 125 lb 6'1" cat D last summer I had jump in his skinny jeans, I was wearing an 80's RW suit and was still sinking on (he refused to arch). In this case it might be a good option to recommend they jump with a smaller/lighter AFFI (if available at your DZ). Cheers! -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

pretty tough without bail out bottles, thermal protection and then there's the issue of getting out of a plane at over 250kts... Above 30k ft you're looking at being unconscious in seconds rather than minutes and -50deg F, which means exposed skin flash freezes. Mind the trailing edge of the door and know that if you have a premie you're gonna not only blow your canopy up but also die from the g-forces of an opening at that speed. Maybe if the plane had issues right before/after landing/takeoff. But still unlikely. It is fun to carry on a rig and have someone recognize what it is though... Have really freaked some people out. Another poster brought up a good point about being suspect numero uno. Hadn't thought of that. Also-if the plane had any chance at all of being landed (i.e. both wings still on) and you bailed out of it, you'd feel pretty stupid if the pilots landed it somewhere safely. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

This topic is very well covered in past threads. A search should get you a lot of info... I've traveled all over the US, Europe, Canada and to Puerto Rico with rigs and have had minimal issues, both as checked/carry on. The wallet card that comes with the AAD can be your friend or induce more questions. If you choose to carry on, pull any hook knives on your rig off, have the card handy, don't broadcast that you have a rig (unless asked), plan on spending more time going through security. Being polite and courteous will always get you places as well... I had a couple of overeager TSA guys in Vegas call me back through security (with one carry on rig that raised no flags), to inspect my second rig (which I had checked). They were bored and wanted to see what a parachute looked like. I wound up unpacking the main next to the ticket counter so they could pat it down. Big thing that saved me time was firmly but politely refusing to open the reserve because "only a FAA rigger can repack it" (I neglected to mention I was a rigger). I had a guy on one flight watch me stow my rig in the over head bin and ask me if "I knew something that he didn't"... I winked and responded that something important on the plane was guaranteed to be secured with duct tape Good Luck, -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Nicely done. "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

It would be legal, yes. You would have to find one that has been de-milled (i.e. cut, damaged, etc.) or potentially "acquired" which opens a whole mess of things you don't want to fool with... After that you have to find a Master Rigger comfortable working on 80's gear, doing major mods/repairs (assuming you want a BOC installed and it has lines cut, canopy cut as is normal with de-milled gear). Once all that is done you have to look at why you want to jump a 60lb monster with a 360+ sq ft wing... If you are in the 300 lb club, or want a water rig for the one week of water jumps your DZ does every year, need to jump an 80 lb flag and don't want to invest in a tandem rig, etc. it might make sense. Otherwise it's just silly. No one will think you're cool because you have a "HALO" rig, they'll just be super pissed at how much room you take up on the airplane. As far as the comment about it being designed for "high alts/loads and not safe for civil use"-I don't agree with that per se-but would say that opening a 360 sq ft reserve requires a wee bit more alt to ensure inflation. This is why the 1500A Cypres (Military) is designed to activate at 1500' instead of the normal alt for the Expert Cypres. Additionally-most folks jumping canopies of this type routinely pull at 4,000' to give the (usually) low experienced/non-current military jumper more time to make a decision and add some buffer for that higher activating Cypres. So-if you decide you want an MC4/5 AND you want an AAD, what is on the market is not compatible towards actually working in the event you install an Expert Cypres and expect to get a fully inflated reserve before you crater. I wouldn't spend my money on one. -Harry FAA Sr Rigger, AFFI, TAN I, MFF JM "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

That's an interesting video... "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

The lineset on my 103 was made by another rigger. The lineset on my 96 was in awful condition and (I'm guessing here) from the early 2000's. My theory is that PD updated the measurements a bit. Point I was trying make is that scaling 1"-2" hasn't made my Velos crazy. There have definitely been improvements copying the latest from PD, but the wing flew and is flying with some big variables between linesets. Not sure if that would translate over to the newer canopies like the Peregrine and JPX... -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Disclaimer: This is what I've done-not saying it's recommended. I have built linesets for both my velos and a BASE Canopy. I borrowed a NEW lineset from someone else to measure off of for all three. Although I had HMA and Vectran lines on them originally (The Velos), there was a ton of discrepancy b/t new linesets from the factory and the old ones on them. (On the outer D's almost 2.5"). Replacing the lines made the canopies fly way nicer. I can only imagine it would be drastically more pronounced on a Microlined canopy with lots of slider heat over a period of jumps. I'm sure some of my measurements on my linesets were up to 1" off, 400 jumps on my canopies and they have been fine. As long as the measurements scale together I (personally) think that there is some wiggle room for errors in length. The canopy may not perform at it's peak-but it will work. In my experience with the above canopies the cascading portions are the same length (B's & D's), but that doesn't mean thats always the case-ask one of the guys on here who is really sharp on canopy design. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

This thread has been fun, thanks! "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

quote: What are you measuring against (don't say the ground)? For the purpose of this discussion: The space between two points. Point A: The point at which the skydiver (who is perfectly neutral on his/her belly) throws the PC into the relative wind. Point B: When the canopy is inflated. I'm saying that wind lateral to the "column of air the jumper is moving in" will play a part in heading performance between the two points. I agree that the jumper is a column of air. I just think the column is a twisting/bent/dynamic column that is at an angle from the ground to the plane (reference points of import if we look at the whole jump). Where I'm disagreeing is that this column of air is like a really long toilet paper tube. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

That's cool. Proxy flying without consequences:) "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

If you have multiple currents (relative wind of 112 kts and, say a horizontal breeze of 40 kts) and you "stick a paddle in it"-it has to affect you to some degree. For the boat analogy I offer this: a boat in a consistent current will move with that current-I agree. But, float that same boat in a big river going 6 kts downstream/midstream and let it roll past a small tributary pumping out a 1/4 of the main river's volume at 3 kts and I guarantee it will affect the boat in the main current! Where it hits the boat, mass of the boat, amount of water the boat is drawing, how much initial and secondary stability the boat has, whether the boat is sideways (broached) in the current, etc will add to the variables. Sticking a paddle into the 3 kt side current adds an infinite new layer of variables... What if you have wind velocities varying in the 200-800 vertical feet it takes your canopy to open, while you decelerate? Hypothetically, lets say at pitch we have 20kts from 270, but as the canopy's outer cells are inflating winds are 10 kts at 250. This will have to impact the opening to a small degree! "wind" is 3 dimensional in skydiving. It has to have some (minor, yes) impact on the whole deployment sequence. It affects how planes and canopies fly, it affects us in freefall, why would it suddenly stop affecting us because we dumped a PC? I'm not a scientist, and without investing a fortune in doing hundreds of jumps, charting heading, freefall delays, exact weather readings, perfectly consistent deployment altitudes/barometric pressures/etc and then plugging it all into a computer to get some abstract numbers that really won't affect my openings (skydiving, that is) a great deal-I don't have a way to "prove" the above "hypothesis". At the end of the day-I'm making it up as I go and maybe I'm dead wrong... I learned why bigger Sabre 1's had secondary brake lines a few years ago by stubbornly hammering at what I thought was the right answer-so maybe this will be another one of those learning experiences. Or maybe it will be another fun internet discussion that gets people thinking. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Yet you can have horizontal drift in freefall? "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

I assume you are talking about a belly to earth deployment, with lateral winds affecting a normal parachute activation, line stretch and inflation with all other variables of opening being normal/taken into consideration/controlled/accounted for. Personally-I think it greatly affects how a canopy opens. I know for a fact low ambient winds present in the BASE environment are a HUGE factor in heading performance. How much does heading in relation to high wind affect an opening at terminal? No idea. Scientifically quantifying that variable for every canopy, orientation to wind would be tough; but I suppose doable. I think that some variables are just too much of an ass pain to dissect down to raw numbers and are part of what makes this sport fun. If you think chopping a spinning x brace that wound up for no reason is fun, that is... "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Put a couple jumps on a S-bird, if that's comfy get a X. That being said... I would rent a S, rent a X and then check out the Squirrel Suits. My personal view is that the Squirrel suits are the fastest inflating, most symmetrical and safest big-ger suit out there. Guys are doing incredible things in these suits because they are better and instill confidence in their pilots. I have: 2 jumps on a Birdman Classic, 2 jumps on a S3, 1 jump on a Phoenix suit (don't remember which one, 20 jumps on a S-bird, 2 jumps on an Apache, 50 jumps on a X bird (which is what I own, rarely jump, but enjoy to fly and am comfortable in when I do...) I'm NOT A WS EXPERT BY ANY MEANS AND MY PROGRESSION IS NOT RECOMMENDED. Do what you want, but be safe. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."

Cross-braced anything at 120 ft2 is pig-ish. (imo). I said the same thing when I downsized from a Katana 135 to a Velo 120. "Just want to see what it's about, gonna jump the 120 and that's it.." The 120 felt like a much bigger canopy to me, front riser pressure was heinous, etc.(10 jumps on that). Jumped a 111, liked how it flew, didn't like the openings. (7 jumps on that, and a cutaway). Jumped the 103 and really liked it. Bought one (500 jumps on it now), now have a 96 as well. The 103 has great range and I would prefer it on weird wind days or on a off DZ landing. The 96 is tough to get back from long spots, but opens better than the 103. (for me with 30 jumps on it). Made 2 jumps on the 90 and thought it was too fast for me and not something I wanted to land in all possible conditions (off, downwind, etc.). As far as the Xaos (only jumped the 27 in 98 and 88): very stable, great openings. Short recovery arc (compared to Velo). I would love to have a 98 for a work canopy (video and AFF). Openings are badass, everything is great but the swoop. Nice, safe landing, but it's not as (easy to go as) fast as the Velo. The 88 had great range, but I was too big for it at 2.6:1. Landings were more than I wanted to deal with. Sensei (jumped the 101 3 times): Didn't like it. I like Brian, I like his canopies. I really liked the Jedei 150 I had for a long time. I didn't like the Sensei. It opens ok, is better to fly than a Sabre 2, but wasn't much hotter than a Katana. It's a very safe, entry level cross-braced canopy. (And might be a monster with longer lines...? Don't know, Brian knows way more about parachutes than I do, seems like he wants people to be safe...) All that said, I'm just some schmuck with less jumps than you. Good luck finding your next wing. -Harry "Sometimes you eat the bar, and well-sometimes the bar eats you..."