RiggerLee

Flat sliders are easier to build. You try to design some thing that you can build. You try to design the canopy so that you don't have to resort to things like domed sliders. There are some tandem canopies with slightly domed sliders. But you try not to have to go their. You'll see most of these things after market where people are trying to deal with a bad canopy that is prone to aberrant hard openings. Lee

I never had a manual. What I remember is mainly about the crown lines. As I recall it splits into three sub bridles. You had to make sure that each of them was clear. From that point onwards I don't recall it being that diffrent from a PC in terms of flaking. I think their might have been some excess control line to be stowed at the cascade to take up the slack. I might be confusing that with another canopy. It was the coolest thing I ever jumped. Wish I could have hung on to it. As I recall the crow lines were the key thing in packing the canopy. Lee

Thanks, that's exactly the kind of answer that I was hoping for but I don't fully understand it. Some of the terms like API are beyond me. I don't have a good grasp of the mechanics of how this works. I can't even deal with a sewing machine that's less then 20 years old. Are you saying that they do voice recognition or other things when they classify videos beyond the information provided about it? And that these key words or tags are hidden some how? I was under the impression that... spiders? or some kind of program went out and mapped every thing about every web page? Any subject I type in to google will in addition to web sites pop up endless you tube videos on that subject. Looked up how to change a starter motor the other day. I thought all of these key words and links were public in order to maximize their traffic. Some one told me that all web pages have hidden key words embedded in them beyond the visible text to help search engines find them. STARTER, ENGINE, HONDA, 4 WHEELER... etc imprinted into them just for this purpose. If you tube is trying to keep their content secret and propitiatory they seem to be doing a very poor job. Lee

I'm not sure whether I should post this here or in the soap box. Although it might touch on controversial issues what I'd really like to focus on is feasibility of the idea it self. A lot of people are really butt hurt about Youtube for all kinds of reasons. Although there are alternatives out their they are insignificant to youtube with it's vast collection of every cat video ever recorded. No one will ever be able to compete they are just too far ahead. So I came across this video the other night and it got me thinking. So basically it seems that they have come out with yet another addendum to their terms and conditions. Basically they are going to stop their algorithms from recommending "conspiracy videos" and any thing else they deem to be fake news. In the video this guy comments on some thing he put forward that got him flagged that turned out to be totally true. So basically he was flagged for publishing some thing that contradicted CNN or some shit like that. What this basically means is that they are going to start editing out desenting opinion. They are not technically censoring these videos. If you search for them by name they will still pop up. But they will not pop up on your home page recommendations or along side other videos as recommendations. Basically it's just one more thing for people to get their panties in a wad about. So moving on to the actual idea that I'd like to put forward and discus. Let's say you were a web page designer with a good grasp of search algorithms. Youtube doesn't seem to have any problem with any one linking to their videos. Come one, come all, watch our adds. So lets say this bright boy, the next internet billionaire, lets call him Bob Gates, builds a web page that looks just like the home page of youtube, that you sign into just like youtube, with recommended videos for you just like you tube. Lets call it YourTube.com It tracks your viewing and likes and every thing else just like you tube does. Links from it just go to youtube. Their videos, their page, their advertising so you are not depriving them of any of their business. What this home page has going for it is an unbiased set of algorithms recommending to you the videos that you would actually want to see based on your interest, subscriptions, likes, etc. Rather then trying to build competitive content, use you tube as an archive with a new indexing on top of it. It only increases their traffic but you are offering it with out all the political censorship that people are screaming about. It's not a solution for content that has been banned by youtube, that just wouldn't be there. There is a lot of contact that has been demonotised or pushed down on the search results or now removed from the recommendations. Which basically means that you will never see it. Unless you already know the title and search for it you can't find it. This puts those non favored content creators back on equal footing with their more PC counter parts and goes a long way towards equalizing it as a public square for conversation once again. This is totally straight out of my ass. I have no idea how to do this or if it could be done. I am not Bob Gates. I'm just tossing this idea out into the wind to see what happens. Tell me how stupid it is. Begin... Lee

He couldn't descend rapidly or change his glide angle much at all with the passenger hanging from the bar. That locked the bar down and the glider into one trim. They are lucky that it was set up well to fly at that one trim. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

Saw the same thing. Looked to me like the passenger had most of his weight hanging from his left hand on the control bar. It's weight shift. The pilot was all the way to the right. He got it lined up to land in that field, and I was like, "you got this." but you'll see the glider turn slowly to the left even with the pilots body far right. I think the passengers weight hanging from the bar, normally it would be from the top point, turned the glider against the will of the pilot out over the valley. You'll see the pilot reach down and grab his harness. I don't think that was just him trying to save his life. After that he seemed to have better control over the glider. pulling up there shifted some of that weight onto the top point and made it more controllable. My interpretation. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

I saw that one as well but considered it less interesting. I don't know if part of the beaner stayed with the harness or not. It would be interesting to see the fracture line. Looks like it failed on the opposite side from the gate. I'm thinking that it got thrown down on concrete or some thing. Got a small fracture and then grew over time as it was loaded and unloaded flexing as described above. I shared it because I found it interesting even though it's not a peace of hardware we normally use. I just think it's worth remembering that hardware is one of the scetchiest parts of our systems. And we put a great deal of faith in it some times. Any one that's been around long enough has stories. I found a main ring with a fracture in it when we were proof testing a batch of hardware. It broke way below spec. I remember a badly forged 22040. I've also seen them with the bar upside down. There was a bad batch of those going around at one point. I've seen rapid links split and stretch. Lines fell off his canopy after he landed. I've seen slinks break under canopy. Although it's from a different industry it's a good object lessen and shouldn't be ignored. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

https://www.foxnews.com/world/paraglider-pilot-dies-saving-his-passengers-life-after-cord-snaps-midair Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

It does and it did correct for for it. That correction was through the gimbled thrust of the engine not aerodynamic in any way. It just takes time. That was a big jerk on the bottom of the rocket. It caused a big deviation, about 12 deg. That's big it's going to be a big woo-wo-wo of a curve to bring it not just back to vertical but back to center line. Proper damping involves a certain amount of over correction. The rocket has a lot of inertia in that axis. Depending on how much gimbal angle you have to work with it can take a bit of time to correct. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHPeGH7t_QQ&feature=youtu.be Here's an edited release. There was a couple of film crews out there. One from space port America and some other stuff going on. I'm not in the loop on any of this. I don't know if this is the final product or the first of several clips. It's mostly a bunch of B role. No flight footage from the rocket. Not even the rocket flying or landing under canopy although my ballute does make a brief cameo descending with the nose cone. So I have no idea what these people were thinking. It does have shots of all the usual suspects. And it has the launch shot from the trailer. This is actually a very cool, Oh Shit! kind of shot. I'll explane. DO to some plumbing issues we are not getting as high of a pressure to the LOX at the engine as we would like. We have reworked the plumbing to fix that but at the time we decided to short load the LOX. So as a result of that decision the milk stand, big heavy blast deflector that the rocket sits on prior to launch, rather then being bolted down to the pad was sitting on a set of large scales to allow us to weigh the LOX. Well some one apparently forgot their fluid dynamics and did not think to secure the milk stand in any way. Well when 5,500 lb or so of thrust hits the graphite plates and turns 90 deg they forgot that you get 5,500 lb of force sideways on the stand. Well it went scooting along the pad till it hit the launch rail which bowed and flexed. In fact it flexed enough that it pulled very hard in the lower launch lug of the rocket. It was still in that lower section of the rail when the milk stand hit the launch rail. It actually ripped the lug off the rocket where it was welded in to the lower bulk head of the fuel tank. This imparted a big tug to the base of the rocket. Some thing you really do not want to do. That is why you see it take a big curve away from the launch rail. Then the engine cranked all the way to the stop on the gimble brings it back and a little past vertical to bring it back over the pad and then away it goes on it's marry way. But when you see all of our faces that is why we are all saying "Oh, shiiiit!!!" They politely edit that out and play mood music all through the video, but if you can read lips you'll see it. Actually it was a great, absolutely grade A+ test for the control system. You couldn't ask for a better small perturbation test right off the pad. Speaking of which if you want to see how we used to do that test, if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the You tube page you'll see an old Armadillo aero space video that includes them doing rocket tug of war during a hover which is actually how we used to do it when testing the control system. It also includes shots of all the same people minus about 10 years. Flash backs. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

I was annoyed by a lot of the same things. It seams like they played into a lot of the stories about those events. Like the X-15 landing. He did in fact make a straight in approach over the hills on that landing. That was not normal. The normal flight path was a long steep spiral to landing that pretty much kept him over the lake bed. Allowing him to hit a window and follow a preplaned banking approach to final. Kind of like a carrier landing. The fact that he made a straight in approach evolved into a story about him scraping the trees as he came in, which was just not true. In fact the book that the movie is based on covered this. So I was rather disipointed that they didn't do better. But I was pleased that they made an effort to try and touch on so many things beyond the Apollo flight. If you know much about him you can see hints about his work as an engineer. And he was more of an engineer then he was a pilot. People considered him to be a bit of an egg head. There was actually a lot more that he did with very low L/D flight and approaches. He was a part of the Dynasore program which was an early space plane concept. There was a lot of work going on with lifting bodies and other low L/D designs that might be capable of reentry. Eventually some of that turned into the space shuttle. He did a lot of work with control systems and in particular simulators. And trying to make them actually fly like the vehicle which at the time was not necessarily the case. After he left nasa he did a lot of work on early fly by wire systems. You should thank him every time you get on an airliner because it is a decedent of one of his computers that is flying that plane. A human can't fly a 787. It wouldn't exist with out the kinds of flight control that he developed. A person can not maintain the AOA and side slip that is necessary to achieve the fuel efficiency necessary to make that plane viable. Want to see what the difference is? Ride in the back of an old DC-3 on a bumpy day with the tail washing around in a dutch roll. That's the best that a human being can do. And I think they did a pretty good job of capturing a picture of one of the most quiet, kind, and reserved personalities to ever be part of the space program. That was probable one of the nicest people to ever live. If he ever said one cross word to another human being no one ever wrote it down. And Iron Sky is awesome. I think I fell in love with the blond. It made me wont to be a Nazi. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

Currency on emergency procedures. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

On police behavior in relation to investigations. The truth is it runs the whole gambit from one end of the spectrum to the other. I'll give you two examples. At Quincy there were more then a few fatalities. They actually had a very good relationship with the police. Nothing was moved. Nothing was disturbed. Every thing was fully investigated with a group of riggers manufactures and the police together. By far the best most comprehensive investigations I've ever seen. Literally defines the far end of the spectrum. I'll give you an opposite example. Drop zone I used to work at. Several fatalities over the years, I was around there for over ten years. Police ceased every thing. Rolled it into a ball. We might be able to send some one over a week or two later to look at it, if they chose to allow it. Later we might get the gear back in a ball wrapped in a sheet and have the chance to try to peace it together. And that's the way the drop zone liked it. The management of the drop drop zone took the position that the less information, found, preserved, and recorded the better their position in a court case. It's just a mystery. Any thing learned is some thing that could be twisted against them in court. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

There is nothing wrong with innovation. There was in fact some work done to develop a better curved pin to address actual problems. There is a guy in Europe making them now if you're interested. By the way that work resulted in some thing that looks nothing like this abortion. The exact opposite in fact. So for me the real question is how well does this thing work. If he's been selling them all this time, that is if people are actually using them, we should have some numbers by now. How many reserve rides have there been? I know what I would expect the answer to be, but I've been known to be wrong...it happened once, a long time ago, I don't like to talk about it. So who is this guy? Any body know him? Could you sneek a peak at his packing data card? Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

How does the pack volume compare to a C-9? Nice smooth opening in the vid by the way. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

Those are the 360 Fly cameras. It's a fish eye lens over 180 deg. https://www.360fly.com/shop/cameras Sorry I forgot. I should have listed them as well. They have been working with us as well. We have two of their cameras on board. They just barely stick out on each side of the airframe in the payload section. It's like two wide eyes on the vehicle. We can turn them on remotely just by powering the cameras. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

Finally got permission to post some video from the latest flight. It was only moderately successful. Loss of GPS was the reason the flight terminated early. So it was an early abort and only made it to like, 92,000 ft. We still had quite a bit of fuel on board so we were a bit fast on opening. With the new slider it was still under 5 G's. The body was less stable under the drogue then before because with the new cutter arrangement we are not locked into the center of the body as we were before. It's a trade off for redundancy with the two cutters. Interestingly the rocket body tended to oscillate under canopy. My best guess is that it was from the changes to the angle of the risers. For lack of a better term it changed the spring stiffness and I guess the drag on the fins just fit right in with the natural frequency. You can use the hand in the video to move the view around. Up and down to look at the body of the rocket. It's a 20 inches in diameter. 34 ft long. Liquid fuel, Alcohol/LOX. Gimbaled engine. Cold gas ACS thrusters in four quadrants, high rate/low rate at the top and bottom. You will see the launch. It is flying with just the gimbled motor. You will see it pick up some rotation. It reaches a high enough RPM that the computer decides to turn on the ACS and stop the roll. We try not to do that unless necessary to conserve He for tank pressurization. The roll stops. Eventually after 20 sec with out GPS the computer shuts down the engine and aborts the flight. During that 20 sec it was flying on the INU. Now the ACS comes on to maintain the stability of the rocket. Because it was such a low flight with the early abort the nose cone fires at appagy. and the ballute comes out. Then the Main opens. The AGU unstows the breaks by pulling in on the control lines and then lets out to full flight. It makes some turns flying back to the landing area. For some reason the AGU was chasing that oscillation under canopy. You can hear it. There is no gyro in the unit. The only explanation I have is that the GPS must have been far enough off center for it to pick up. Wamore can filter that out. On the down wind leg it burned out it's motors and was not able to turn base and final. It landed down wind with no flare in a skidding slide. Although we had some small payloads on board it was mostly a test of the new control software. It produced some very good data for them to tune the control loops. The ACS worked well but was over active. They need to turn it down, change the setting between high and low rate, expand the dead band, etc. All in all we are calling it a successful test even though it was an early abort and did not make altitude. We got good control data and had an acceptable recovery with no significant damage to the rocket. Thanks to all the usual charterers. The canopy is a Strong Enterprises C-1200. They have been very supportive over the years and have provided us with all of our parachutes. The AGU was built for us by Wamore. Mark has been a big supporter and has gone over and above traveling out to most of our launches to help us on sight. If you don't know them, they are the builder of the control units for all the military precision guided parachutes. Thanks to Aerodyne. We have gone to cutters for the drogue release but their oval shaped rings are still used in the three ring releases for the break lines and have in the past flown to over 300,000 ft. Those are the people you might know. Z+ https://youtu.be/mXiNKGViTt4 Z- https://youtu.be/JHJxgW5uAys Their should be a more polished edited video out soon but I prefer the raw. Enjoy. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

I DIDN'T DO IT! That is not my red white and blue lightening. I can prove it. Mine is white in the center. I hate fucking demos. This is why I hate demos. It's always like that. There is always shit like that trying to kill you. Every demo I have ever been on has been like that. That is just how demos are. And that is why I stear clear of them. Technically did he do any thing wrong? Other then being stupid I mean, but he's doing a demo so that's already a given. If the plane had sufficient cloud clearance on jump run, which is possible, and the winds on the ground had not kicked in yet, they don't seem to have. then where is the faul? Note that the landing is shot from a good distance away in the stand. I can't tell exactly how far away that was. Looks scary but I wasn't there. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

It will be a total failure unless you can get custom Free Fly colors and custom embroidery. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

What else was stolen? You say they didn't take the student harnesses? That implies a Wufo but the fact that they took the time to steal extra heavy looking back pack thingies implies that they had some knowledge of their value. Maybe some one that targeted the drop zone and tried to do a little research on what to steal before hand. Maybe some one that had been out to the dropzone in the last couple of months? Maybe you could pull the wavers from the last month or two and give copies to the police? In your briefing do you happen to mention the value of the rigs, "This is a $10,000 dollar system and the most advanced equipment in the world..." Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

Curved closing pin on a sky hook? Have I missed some thing while I was off playing with rockets? Just checked the on line manual and the pictures still show it straight as an arrow. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

I give. Was Vector the first or was their some one else? The Swift and the briefcase were two pins. I'm trying to think of what else came out right there in that time frame. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

I doubt there is even a copy right much less a patent. Have any of them actually filed any thing? Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

That's a cool project. I may have to revise my opinions of the training in the modern rigging schools. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com

It depends on the complexity of the project. Having some thing to copy certainly helps. Coping peaces... you almost have to make pattern sets from them. Get the markings right. Order of construction. And then on the next one you're almost starting over from scratch. It's doubtful that they actually have any peaces in common. But yah, you could do it. You'd have to source all the materials and get good thread, etc. You could do it. But at that point I think some one could argue that the rigger is actually in business illegally coping other peoples suits. I really prefer the open source idea and the kit plane materials concept. You can buy plans for an ultra light. You can buy the materials kit for an experimental air plane. You can buy the parts kit. You can even buy the "quick build" kit. Lone Star could live again. Being here in the US is one thing. But lets say you lived in some back woods country or one with tariffs. Look at Quag and his canopy project. No canopy manufacturers in the UK and it's kind of pricey to buy one from out side of the country over seas. I'm surprised their are not more home grown builders popping up in some of these countries. Theirs another guy in south america. He's working on a pilot rig. It's hard to get them down their. Lee Lee [email protected] www.velocitysportswear.com