brettski74

I disagree. This feels like a knee-jerk reaction to the recent fatality in Perris. Given how much we don't know about why it happened, there would seem to be more argument in favour of an RSL than for higher deployment altitudes. While I personally do jump with a skyhook RSL, I wouldn't be in favour of making them mandatory and I don't think there would be that many bigway skydivers who would. In my experience, most dirty low deployments on bigways happen due to traffic issues during break off. Extra altitude may help with that, but it also may not. To the comment about going to higher altitude - aside from regulatory issues that may preclude the use of higher airspace, that also brings with it different risks. For 100-ways being done from 16.5k, it's probably not too big of a deal to go up to 17k in terms of hypoxia risk. For larger formations done from higher altitudes, such as 18/19/20k, the hypoxia risks start becoming more important. A mildly hypoxic skydiver who's off their game as a result and funnels the formation can put lives at risk.

While it is a very well designed helmet, I think it being the "official helmet for Dubai 500" has more to do with the fact that Tony Domenico is one of the organizers of the Dubai 500 event, an owner of Square 1 (who makes them), and the primary designer of the helmet and visor mechanisms.

I was planning to try it at the dropzone. I don't live there.

You will probably get a more intelligent answer if you fill in some profile information or at least mention where you live and/or plan to travel for skydiving. Medibank Private is a large and well-known Australian health insurer. Your post seems to suggest that you've never heard of them, so I'm guessing that you're neither Australian nor living in Australia. I doubt that their policy offerings will be applicable to anyone outside of Australia, but I could be wrong. In any case, where are you? The usefulness of anyone else's experiences will depend on whether they're buying insurance in a similar market to you or not. I would also add, if you are actually in Australia, you'll probably get a better response at the skysurfer.com.au forums.

I have given packing lessons, and I make sure that I cover all the major types of entanglement and how to identify and correct them. It's a requirement to be able to untangle and pack a canopy with several different types of entanglement in order to get your main packing endorsement. As a coach, I won't sign off on those requirements unless I've seen them untangle such a canopy without help. I agree with on the step-through/flip-through point. It is just semantics. They're just the terms we use. We usually give students a packing walk-through in their first lesson. I've seen that a few times. I usually give them a few tries to see if they can figure it out for themselves, but if they seem really confused or if they continue packing like there's nothing wrong, that's usually the point I wander over and ask if they could use some help.

I've only seen the revolve in pictures. I've not ever tried one on, but what I have seen didn't impress me. Still, I haven't seen it in person, so take that for what it's worth. I have seen and tried on the Cookie G2, but not jumped it, but I think it's the best designed full-face helmet on the market at the moment. My friend who owned it absolutely loved it. The only drawback is the rather high price. Another option you may not have considered is the new Phantom X helmet from Square 1. I've seen and tried on one of the later prototypes, which should be almost identical to the production version. I've not actually jumped one, however, the people I know who were jumping them seemed very happy with them. It's very similar to the G2 in most practical respects. Both have a quick release mechanism for the visor. Both have a 2mm polycarbonate lens. Both have a very wide field of vision. Both are very comfortable to wear. I think that the quick-release mechanism on the G2 looks a little more rugged, but that is based on cursory observations, only and the fact that the internal mechanisms on the Phantom X are more visible. It's quite possible that under the covers, the G2 has similarly small components responsible for securing the visor in place. When asked about possible wear on the moving parts in the quick release mechanism on the Phantom X, Tony's comment was that the quick release assembly is an easily replaceable part, but they haven't noticed any wear patterns of concern so far, so it's probably plenty rugged enough for everyday skydiving and tunnel use. The biggest advantage that the Phantom X has over the G2 is the price. If money was no option, I'd be buying a G2, but in the real world, most of us have limited financial resources. In such a world, the Phantom X does provide a fairly compelling alternative to the G2. For the record, I currently jump an Oxygn. While there's nothing especially wrong with the Oxygn, if either the G2 or the Phantom X had been around when I made my purchase, I strongly doubt that I would currently own an Oxygn.

This is not what I would call a step-through, although I have heard people referring to it as that. This sounds more like what we call a flip-through in our packing lessons. A step through usually results from someone stepping through the line groups while picking up their canopy after landing - hence the name. It generally results in something more like the photo posted above, with one or more lines wrapped around the line groups from the opposite side. This is generally not flyable ever. A flip through is most often caused by a packing error such as from flipping the canopy through the lines when you take the rig off, or from rotation of the bag before you put it in the container. A flip-through *may* be flyable. I personally have landed one and in that instance, I believe the chances of it becoming problematic were negligible, since the tension on the lines and risers forced the twist all the way down to where the front and rear risers were stitched together. In your case, you described the twists as remaining above the toggles. I'm not sure what would cause that, because you would expect the tension on the lines and risers plus the tendency of the canopy to want to inflate to force the twists down as low as possible. In any case, if the twists remained above the toggles, like your friend already told you, I would be concerned as to whether this could cause a problem later by preventing proper operation of the brakes. I believe it would also have complicated use of the rear risers as an alternative to toggle input. This has me a little confused. Is this how you were taught to perform a line check? The purpose of a line check, is to ensure that the lines are free and clear from the harness to the canopy. If you're doing your line check properly, a flip through at this point should be obvious. If you're not sure of this, I would suggest talking to a local instructor to walk you through some practice pack jobs where you have to clear a flip through and possibly a few other common entanglements. It sounds to me like perhaps a light refresher may be in order.

I was curious about some of those comments, also. I have cut away from spinning line twists. I have a skyhook. The reserve came out ridiculously fast with virtually no freefall of any kind and all spinning was stopped virtually immediately. I had no line twists on the reserve. I'm not sure whether a traditional RSL would be as fast or effective as a skyhook or other MARD deployment in arresting possible malfunctions on the reserve, nor am I sure whether my experience was only one of a range of possibilities that could have also included reserve line twists, but my understanding of the skyhook was, among other things, to pull the reserve out in line with the relative wind and minimize the risk of reserve malfunction. I guess it's also worth noting that at the time I believe I was loading at about 1.4 or so.

Is it possible to have the member's photo on the card as well, or would that increase the costs too much? I only ask because the old member id cards had a color photo on them. In any case, photo or not, this is probably a big step up in quality over the existing cards.

This is a grey area. Technically you can learn to skydive anywhere. In reality, where you plan to do most of your jumping may make a difference. For example, licence requirements vary from country to country, as do the privileges granted by each licence level. Figure out where you think you want to jump, talk to them and go from there. Training is cheaper in the US, but what will your travel and accommodation cost you, when will you have the time to do such a trip/s and if you ever wish to compete, you'll probably have to go through Canadian licensing anyway. That last one is probably the last thing on your mind but on the other hand, I'd hazard a gues that could have been said about many national representatives when they first started out.

What? Get a life! If you think that the colours of your canopy, jumpsuit, car or even your clothes define anything at all about your sexuality or other lifestyle choices, then you have some growing up to do! The rainbow may have been co-opted to signify gay and lesbian events in more recent years, but it's also been used throughout history for a wide range of things. The bottom line is that you are not defined by the colours of your canopy, so get over it and jump!

The solution to that is don't take jumpers on larger formations than their skills allow. 2/3/4 way jumps don't require huge separation, so a poor track may be enough to get away. As the formation gets larger, you need to get further away and tracking skills become more important. Work on improving their track before they scale up.

What she said. Cheapest is probably Lodi. As for best, you'll get a lot of different opinions on that one. I've only jumped at Perris and Eloy out west, and they are both great dropzones, but I've no experience of the student program at either place. I'm sure there are many good options. For this time of year, I'd probably look at Southern California. It's starting to cool down in the north. You'll probably enjoy the conditions and find more people around at dropzones further south.

Agreed. I think I get what you're saying and if so, I agree, but since it is possible to track too far and meet the neighbouring group at deployment, should it not be said here that you need only track outwards along your radial as far as is necessary to adequately clear your team mates for safe deployment.

Don't get me wrong. Those are great sentiments and I don't think anybody wants to see someone else get hurt, but the question wasn't about whether you would rescue someone else or whether you would guess about the existence or lack of an AAD. The question is about *you* being unconscious in freefall and what you would want someone else to do for you. I don't want someone to try to rescue me. There's a fairly small percentage of us who have the knowledge and skills required to pull off such a rescue with any reasonable degree of certainty. How would you feel if you woke up in hospital after being saved by your AAD only to find out that "Bill" lost altitude in his mad dive to save you and is no longer with us.

Based on the responses so far, I'm guessing that it's people like me who realize that if they're unconscious, they're probably tumbling and flailing all over the place and to attempt such a rescue can be a particularly dangerous thing to do. The vast majority of people I jump with are not AFF instructors and have no training in recovering an out-of-control skydiver or deploying another person's canopy (either one). If you have the appropriate training and skill and you are sure you can rescue me safely, then maybe, but since the vast majority of people won't then I rather you not kill yourself trying to save me and end up with two fatalities rather than just one. If the purpose of the poll was simply to find out which canopy I'd be more comfortable under if I was unconscious, then the answer would be reserve, but that's not how the question was written, so...

If by "cypress activation" you mean landing with nothing but a large coniferous tree to soften your impact then yes, that would be among the worst case scenarios. If instead, you were referring to a CYPRES activation, that's hardly the worst case. AADs can fail or maybe you'll be borrowing a rig that doesn't have an AAD. It's in your best interest to do whatever you can to get a canopy over your head. I always pull my reserve handle.

Since you're coming from the UK, I'm assuming that you are BPA, not USPA. I know of UK jumpers who've come to Ontario and jumped and I don't believe that they had to join CSPA, but it's really going to be up to the DZ. Call them and ask. Local DZ details have already been posted above. Have fun!

In skydiving, a coach teaches recreational skills (eg. levels, proximity, tracking). An instructor teaches lifesaving skills (eg. AFF, deployment, emergency procedures). At least that's how the distinction breaks down here in Canada. A certified coach should be a teacher in their own right.

Not to mention great belly fliers who suck as a coach. Being a great coach requires knowing not just how to fly well, but also how to identify areas for improvement in other's flying and the ability to communicate to them how to improve in a way that they can assimilate and use. Part of that is attitude, personality, etc, but much of that is learned. I do find that most of the great coaches I've worked with in the past already do a lot of coaching, so it doesn't hurt for someone to start getting coaching experience early on, even if they only have a small pool of knowledge to share. As long as they're aware of their limits, the experience should be very useful to both them and their future novices.

As I already said, I don't know the component list of *any* current or previous AAD, so it therefore logically follows that I don't know that answer to that question. Since I've already said that before, why do you keep asking this question? You came into the conversation later, so maybe you missed the point while the conversation was getting sidetracked into the hows and whys of designing highly available and reliable technology. This line of discussion started when Dave stated that he found it hard to believe that a device could be made that could be relied on to work without regularly scheduled testing and maintenance. My initial comment was that there a several ways that this can be accomplished, but I also commented that whether the A.A.D. has done enough to warrant their maintenance claims remains to be seen. To date, as far as I'm aware, there's no evidence to suggest that Airtec's maintenance schedule is "better" or that A.A.D.'s is "worse". This whole line of argument is little more than FUD. No. I'm arguing against FUD. You want me to say that I think CYPRES 2 is better than the Vigil 2? I do think CYPRES 2 is better than the Vigil 2. I've already said twice in this thread here and here that I prefer the CYPRES 2 to the Vigil. I've also commented on numerous occasions such as here and here about design deficiencies in the Vigil and Vigil 2. I think Airtec has a better design philosophy and as a result has produced a better design and a better product. If I was in the market for a new AAD, it would probably be a CYPRES 2, but I can't abide FUD. The only people it helps are the manufacturers. It almost invariably disadvantages the consumer at large, which is us.

I guess you couldn't read past the first sentence, such as perhaps to the second sentence. "Design" has a very specific meaning in technical parlance. Agreed.

Exactly the same way that voting logic works, but it's a simpler problem. It does require being able to make the same measurement in multiple ways and comparing the results for agreement. Two sources of measurement allow detection of a problem, but no way to decide which may be correct. Three or more sources of information can provide enough information to not only detect a problem, but also function correctly in spite of a malfunctioning information source. This is where voting logic comes into play. To detect sensor drift, you would need more than one way to determine altitude. Multiple barometric pressure sensors would be one way to do that. I don't know the component list to build any of the existing AADs on the market. It wouldn't surprise me if they only had one barometric pressure sensor. It also wouldn't surprise me if any of them had more than one. FUD.

You're obviously confused. Why do I need to keep telling myself anything? The design defines the product, so speaking about them as somehow distinct doesn't make a lot of sense. If the design is flawed, then so is the product. I'm thinking that you don't understand the meaning of the word design. A device is a physical assembly of components to perform some function. I can pick up a device and put it in my container. The design is the information in schematics and other technical literature showing how to build a device. The design is not concrete. You don't put the design in your container. You put a device in it. A device can be faulty by having, for example, a bad solder joint which intermittently fails or a faulty pressure sensor which returns inaccurate information. A faulty device can be fixed and/or replaced with another of the same make/model and the problems go away. If the fault is in the design, then it's much worse. If doesn't matter if you replace the device. It's working as designed so any replacement built to the same design will also exhibit the same undesirable behaviour. Design flaws are worse, not better. As above, this doesn't make sense. It seems obvious that you don't understand the word design.

That's an example, yes, although voting logic is probably more complex than is necessary. It really only needs to be able to detect sensor drift, not continue to function in spite of it. It would probably be enough to simply report an error if the difference in the sensor outputs exceeded a threshold value. As for how it's actually built, I don't know. My point is that people jump up and down about the lack of an enforced maintenance schedule, but nobody's actually shown there to be a need, yet, and if you really want to have your device re-tested periodically, you can send it back to Vigil/A.A.D. and have it tested - at least, I seem to recall seeing such a statement somewhere in the past few years. There's plenty of reasons to criticize the Vigil design when comparing it to its competition, but let's stick to actual proven facts.