SethInMI

This is awesome. Thanks for the tips! It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

1. stow slider behind head 2. unstow toggles 3. loosen chest strap I recently switched 2 and 3. I found for me it was not hard to loosen my chest strap with toggles in hand. Reasoning: if you have a stuck toggle or a canopy control issue that gets revealed when you release your toggles, and you want to cut away, you can do it with a tight chest strap that makes your handles more accessible. Seth It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I made my cover, took a few hours on a Sunday afternoon. Didn't turn out too bad for a first attempt at hand sewing. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Scott, When you "walk the bag back controlling the lines" how exactly are you controlling the lines? Just watching them to make sure you don't step on them? Or doing something active with your hands? Seth It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I just got a UPT stowless bag, and the recommended way to store the lines involves pulling the rig toward the bag as the lines are figure-8'ed in place. I don't want to drag the rig, is there anyone who uses a stowless bag and does not drag? The way I see to do it would be to grab the bag, set it down 18" from the risers and then just figure 8 the resulting pile of lines. Any confirmation/comments/alternative non-drag methods would be appreciated. tx It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I think Bill is saying to rhys: "Rhys, you don't trust the PIA, you see a conspiracy and collusion. If you refuse to trust them, why do you trust Aviacom's "inhouse" anaylsis?" It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

docx converted to PDF It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Daniel, slide 19 of the Board Meeting shows new licenses granted, not total currently active. Even though about 4x as many new As were issued as Ds, this still does not mean that there are 4x as many active As as Ds. Skydivers stop skydiving at all license levels. What slide 19 says to me is many quit before they get Ds or even Cs. Slide 19 does not rule out the possibility that most active skydivers are Ds. I tend to break skydivers into 3 categories: 1. Casual Tourist. Quits before 50-100 jumps. 2. Dedicated Tourist/Casual Instructor. Quits before 400 jumps. 3. Dedicated Instructors. Long time worker builds 1000+ jumps. Also includes video flyers/competitors. At my DZs, a rough guess would put the number of active jumpers in each category at roughly equal numbers, but that would be pretty rough guessing at two Cessna DZs. The majority of jumps done will be work jumps, and they will be done by the people in group 3. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

The only way to increase pay for instructors is to limit instructor supply, which would be by making the course harder or increase the requirements to take the course. This would force DZOs to increase instructor pay to stop existing instructors from leaving, b/c they could not replace them as easily with new candidates. So instructor pay goes up, student/tandem prices go up, and total number of students/tandems goes down. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Kelly, That is interesting, you are saying the Argus cutter is NOT a shear cutter. The susceptibility to jamming of a shear cutter on a non-tensioned material is a MAJOR point in the APF report. Anyone know if the Vigil a shear cutter? Did Argus change from shear to anvil? [Edit] After thinking about the geometry of a circular cutter passing by a round hole, there would have to be some shearing action at the hole, even if the anvil surface was moved up to be in line with the bottom of the hole. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I must have missed that pdf the 1st time around, thanks for posting it. The pictures on page 3 are great for showing the cutter differences and the possible/probable failure mode of the Argus cutter. The report author makes the case for the superiority of the cypres cutter design. I am going to print it and bring it to our Safety Day on Sat. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Reminded me of the Larry Niven classic essay Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex. http://www.rawbw.com/~svw/superman.html. Super sperm are bad, Mmmmkay? It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

that doesn't make sense... Switching between different canopies (different types of gear). It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Well add the fact that people use there mobiles these days for a lot more than voice chats. SMS, email, online apps like FB, web browsing, streaming videos, etc. Lots can be done even if it is noisy, so you have a captive audience of largely solitary people with time to kill. Sounds like a good plan. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I disagree, I think it would be a good idea. IMHO, it would build what could be called "awareness memory" instead of "muscle memory". Spiralling with only one hand in a toggle will feel different than a spiral with two hands in toggles. May give someone a mental kick in the head when spiralling after opening, that this might be a brake fire. Here is my brake fire story, from a few years ago. I had a normal opening, IIRC, but followed by a spiral turn. I quickly grabbed a rear and straightened it out, then looked up at the canopy. Could not see anything wrong, let the rear go, started spiralling again. WTF, I think, look at the canopy again, no broken lines, no ripped cells, no line overs...I think I am going to have to chop it, let up on the rear again, and spiral, pull the rear back down. Now I am getting a bit low, and I didn't want to put my hands in toggles if I was going to chop it, but fuck it all, I am going to try to pop the toggles. So I do and hey problem solved, flying normally. Now of course I feel like a bit of an idiot, but brake fire did not occur to me at the time. I think some drills like Jan described could have saved me some grief. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

I'll answer your other two questions. 1. Used gear is very reliable. Skydiving gear is professionally inspected once or twice a year when the reserve is repacked. Also, if you bought used gear, it would be wise to have it inspected by a professional before purchase, they would tell you whether or not there were problems with it. 2. Skyhooks can be added to newer UPT rigs. Other manufacturer's rigs, no. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

According to the BLS CPI, Stewart did great with a $121 in 2011 dollars. Twardo got screwed with a $290 in 2011 dollars. Locally to me in MI, FJC and 1 SL Jump are $185 to $220 these days, depending on DZ. I checked Skydive Wissota, b/c I remembered they had good student prices, and it was FJC + 1 SL for $140, but they also had a FJC + 5 SL package at $240, which is a real steal. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

PiLFy, Just a clarification, the amount of wind noise you will hear under canopy only depends on the airspeed of the canopy, not the winds aloft. The wind noise would be the same flying in light winds as strong winds, because the canopy is carried along by the wind. In either case, slowing the canopy down by going to 1/2 brakes would bring the airspeed down and make it less noisy. From your last comment about the garbled static, it sounds more like the issue was a radio range issue than a not loud enough issue. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

Awesome, Muffie. Well researched, well written, well formatted! My personal favs: 1. "Nothing new to learn" 8. “I know how to break the chain of events – never skydive in the first place" 10. Bringing personal gripes, innuendo, old hatreds into the discussion. The sad thing is that all this sort of shit keeps people from posting about injuries, and posting details about all incidents, and the community is poorer for it. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

In the APF report on Argus was a mention of an event in Portugal on 3 Sept 2010 where a rig was discovered with a blank AAD display during a gear check. It was later determined that the AAD had fired, the cutter failed, and the reserve was totaled. This is the scariest situation, IMHO. Your AAD fires without your knowledge (low opening, pressure fluctuation in the plane, etc), the cutter jams, and then you jump the rest of the day with a totaled reserve. (Or until you check the display) It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

The container dimensions are a bit different. The smaller M-Series and larger Microns do overlap in canopy fits, and the Microns are narrower, fatter and shorter than the equivalent M-Series. seth It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

A double attachment is for tube handles. There is much less for the bridle to get hooked under. My tube handle in the pic is attached by a piece of tape that runs through it and that is sewn down at both ends. A (freefly) pud handle can be attached via a sewn strip, making it also difficult for the bridle to hook it. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

If I did write auto-land code, it would be for my personal amusement. For example, if it really worked, you could do a blind-folded jump, and not get to see until you were on the ground. But for students, it would be a bad idea. In accuracy it may eventually work better than most radio operators, but in dealing with obstacle avoidance or the unexpected, it would fail miserably. I do like the idea of an audio based guidance, because it prevents the pilot from watching or glancing at a display and instead they can focus on clearing airspace. It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

If Michael release the source for the firmware, I had a few ideas that I want to put in, and your idea of stereo phones gave me one more. 1. Like Costyn said, adding tones for under canopy glide. 2. Adding a waypoint would allow an old idea of mine, a "you are not going to make it back" alarm. I add a height to the DZ location configuration, and if the calculated glide gets you over the DZ at a lower altitude than the target, you get an alarm. 3. With stereo phones, you can implement a true auto-land system. Input the wind dir and speed in advance or try to calculate them based on known canopy airspeed. Then use the phones to give the canopy pilot steering commands. Fly him/her around to the pattern entry and then fly the pattern to the ground. This would be fun as an exercise in programming for me, just to see how close to the peas the software I wrote would allow me to get. Acutally, even without stereo phones, you could still implement directional control, by using a different tones or sequence of beeps for left turn and right turn (instead of using tones for glide). So hopefully Michael releases the software someday and I get a chance to screw up his device... Seth It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

My PC has the orange plastic tube handle. I ordered the rig with it b/c I liked the low snag potential of the double attachment. But I don't like worrying about getting a finger stuck in it, so I want to make it "finger safe". I considered doing what others have suggested and plugging the tube with a piece of foam, but yesterday I had the thought of sewing a cover out of the leftover cordura tie-die that came with the rig. Anyone done this or seen it done? Anyone see any down side to this? Seth It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".