SkymonkeyONE

Sorry about that "retractable release". It was a third party design which wasn't properly vetted. It turned out to be not manufacturable. We took it off the market. This was during a time when I was inactive. Some times seemingly good ideas just don't work out. I'll bet that rig is still providing good service. Yep, That rig is providing VERY good service to the people I sold it to. I think it's the best looking 2K3 tandem system you ever built, but Scott Campos would probably argue his looks best...LOL!

I think if a person is big enough to be safely fitted into the harness then they should be able to go...period. I can think of exactly ZERO instances where a child has been injured on a tandem and even though people don't want to talk about it TONS of us have taken people under 18 on tandems. The most ridiculous thing I ever had to do was teach a huge group of Military School 16-year-olds SL progression one weekend because we were not allowed to take them on tandems. How stupid is that? It was "legal" to teach them to skydive with parental consent, but not "legal" to take them on a tandem. FWIW: I'm not afraid to say that I took my niece when she was 12 and my nephew when he was 14. Both my sister and her husband were jumpers and begged me to do it. It was out of my dad's 182 with his tandem rig. Christian Shoemig took his kid around age two. Roger Nelson took his kids when they were very young. Bill Booth took his daughter to the NORTH POLE when she was very young. We ALL with we could do it openly. At least that's what we all say in private. How many "kids" get killed every year on ski slopes? A LOT of them. Chuck

Yeah. With your hands still in your toggles you should be able to pull down both front risers to your chest without deflecting your tail if you ever intend to use your fronts at all. It's very easy to let out your lower control lines. Chuck

Agreed. Actually something everyone should do. On busy days I have caught myself with incredibly twisted control lines. Not a good idea to have on an 80 square foot canopy.

Good post, Ian. Yep, it's happened to ALL of us at some point or another. Just be thankful that it didn't happen under a tandem main with a paying customer up front. Seriously. 25 mph winds are no joke under the best of conditions, but what's worse is when they are accompanied by gusts and shear. Chuck

I think in my perfect world I would be be running a tandem progression/Tunnel/ AFF program. Two training tandems followed by ten minutes of tunnel, followed by one-JM AFF starting at Cat C2. Students are on radio until passing E3, then passed onto Coaches for F, G, and H using the flow on the "real" four-page ISP A-license proficiency card. This, assuming your DZ has a tunnel or is within close proximity to a tunnel. All AFF students at Eloy go to the tunnel. All AFF students at Raeford get six minutes in the tunnel. The tandem jumps follow the same dive flow as Cat A and Cat B AFF jumps. I offer nearly every single tandem student the opportunity to do those dive flows as it is right now. Challenging students is how we grow the sport. I'm not a fan of "thrill ride" tandems. Growing your own coaches is an integral part of any dropzone school student program. You have to make them feel needed and stress the importance of their role in keeping the train rolling along. Full-time AFF/tandem/video staff simply don't have time to carry students farther than Cat E. Anyway, that's my idea of a great program. Chuck Blue, D-12501 AFF/SL/TM-I, PRO, S&TA, PFC/E, MMPCI-18

A canopy will always have more range, require less training and allow people to carry 50 times more stuff than any wingsuit. Aside from a full on transformer deceptacon invasion, not many military scenarios where they would be useful +1

There are at least TWO qualified wingsuit instructors at Raeford: Gimpy and Jon from the Golden Knights. While it's true that I'm no longer there with my school, there are definitely qualified guys there. Chuck

Apparently I was too busy jumping out of airplanes to remember that Jan 21'st was my 32nd skybirthday. BOOM!

Are you kidding me? Is there REALLY a bar called Sir Vesas?

There's definitely a couple of Batwings still in the air around Georgia!

That's what I would suspect.

I'd like to add that I HAVE been knocked unconscious of a skydive before. I was videoing a 16-way and was hit from the rear/ behind by a guy who didn't put the brakes on soon enough. I tumbled unconscious until 3500 feet (from 14,000) when I woke up and deployed. I have a seven-stitch scar in my bottom lip from it and my left shoulder was dislocated in the collision I did NOT have an AAD in my rig back then and I could have very, very-easily died on that jump. It broke my camera helmet in half. That incident is a perfect example of why my life is worth the cost of an AAD. I don't "rely" on anything, but you NEVER know what others might do to you. . Chuck Blue, D-12501

I had a really nice 2k3 Racer tandem system for a long time. I had the Firebolt 350 main in it and the entire thing weighed 38 pounds. I loved the size of the rig, loved the main canopy, and loved the fact that it was delivered to me (fully custom, embroidery, etc, etc.) in 16 days. I loved the way it fit, I loved the way the passenger was "sucked into you" when you threw the drogue, and I loved that it was so easy to undo the side straps under canopy. That's the good stuff. Here's the bad stuff: I had the "retractable" drogue releases on my rig; possibly the second set they ever sent out. While they were more convenient than the "old style" free-floating handles, mine were WAY too short and I had three premature container openings on front-flip exits. The problem was that the springs inside the handles were too short to allow for a long-enough cable excess. I also had three instances where I had to fire my reserve past my fully-inflated drogue. the first one came when my three-ring drogue release "locked up" on itself because the loop on the small ring was manufactured too long. This allowed the ring to bind backwards, pull the loop through the zero grommet on the drogue bridle, and make it impossible to release the drogue at pull time by either of the three means available to me (left drogue release, right drogue release, cutaway handle). There are pics of that here on dropzone.com somewhere. The other two times I had the closing pin (cable) pull ouf of the swage on the bridle when I pulled the drogue release leaving me with a container lock with uninflated drogue in tow. There was no way to inspect this in it's original configuration because the nicopress swage was covered in heat shrink. I created my own fix for this by making double-ended flexy-pins (like on a strong) at a competitors rigging loft. Easy fix. I had a real love/ hate relationship with this rig. I REALLY love John and Nancy, but in the end, when I decided I didn't need a "personal" tandem rig anymore I sold it. The DZ that has it now got a fantastic deal, I can promise you that. Chuck

I think they made the Adama character a little too young and a little too gung-ho, but I liked it

I was too damn lazy to scroll through this whole thread and see if I had already answered, but here's my response: If I worked at a DZ that allowed staff to jump without one (I do not), then I"d go jump. I've been jumping 32 years now and I did not wear an AAD (other than on my student jumps) for the first 18 of them. It didn't bug me at all in those thousands of jumps. I didn't get my first AAD (an original CYPRES) until my dad got so old and worn out that he thought he might pass out on a skydive. He bought himself one, me one, and my sister one. I was a young SGT in the army back then and didn't have the $1000 laying around to "waste" on one at the time. Hell, that was beer money! After a time, I got enough money to buy another one for my second rig and now I wouldn't consider NOT having one in my rig; my life is worth the money it costs to have an AAD and plus, since I'm a full-time instructor I just write the cost off on my taxes. in the past decade I've worked at a number of dropzones that require AAD's on all staff "work" rigs. Simply stated: you can't do AFF, video, or coaching for the dropzone without one. I think that's a fair policy and I can definitely see how it could potentially save the life of an AFF instructor chasing a tumbling student down past the hard-deck even though we ought to know better. Tony Thacker (and his wife Kate) at Raeford Parachute Center were the first people I know who made instructor AAD's mandatory at their dropzone. They were even so kind as to provide CYPRES units from their on-DZ gear store (SkyKat) and let instructors pay them back in work jumps. I thought that was remarkable. You could do whatever you wanted in your off-time with your other rig(s). I now work full-time at a dropzone that has a 100% mandatory AAD policy for ALL it's jumpers: Skydive San Marcos. Again: it does not affect me because all of my rigs have AAD's. It does come as a surprise, though, to some jumpers just passing through or just moving into the area. Get caught on the plane with your AAD off and you are landing with the plane.....Period. No exceptions. We had it happen just last week with a visiting jumper. In the context of this thread, though, let's examine that for a second. Say you are an experienced jumper with an AAD who simply forgot to turn the unit on or even if it truly failed while on the plane. Personally, I wouldn't have any problem getting out of the plane nor would pretty much any full-time jumper I know. BUT, that's only if I was at a place that allowed me to do it. I'm not going to break the DZ rules just to save a few bucks. Chuck

Your office staff spends quite a lot of time on Facebook, T.K. Might as well have them managing a DZ page while they are at it. Seriously. I miss you guys! Chuck

I'm pretty sure Aaron Winkelstein is living there. Not sure what his screen name is on here.

+1 funny It is incredibly likely I'll be doing the same thing on my 50th birthday (September 14th)

On three...One, THREE!

Chromeboy strikes again!

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

Absolutely correct.

@ Ken Saylor: I misspoke: it was an AR2 mounted on the reserve of an MC4 system. I worked at USAJFKSWC though every mode that that POS was configured for. This incident was a combination of a low pull and a high AR2 fire (which were VERY common early on). Does that clear it up for you? The point of the story was that we were fascinated to see this guy get up and walk away from it. Chuck

He'll be a part of me forever.