brettski74

You already knew that, but are you buying used gear? An older Icon without a skyhook cannot be retrofitted to take a skyhook. The word from Sunpath when they first implemented the skyhook was that older rigs could not be retrofitted to have a skyhook. That was a few years ago, but don't know that anything's changed. Vector 3 - the 3 is important. A Vector 2 will not take a skyhook and never will. A vector 3 (Micron or M-Series) without a skyhook will cost you about $400 for the retrofit, plus shipping back to UPT and back. Basically, you're looking at a relatively new rig or one that may need several hundred dollars of rigging work to add a skyhook. The extra money you'll spend on a skyhook would be better spent on additional jumps, coaching and tunnel time figuring out what you want to do in this sport and how much you want to stick with it. Of all the people who went through the student program at my home DZ with me, there are only a couple left who are jumping regularly. A skyhook is a good piece of kit, but for a first rig, I wouldn't limit yourself to only skyhook equipped rigs. That's my opinion - for what it's worth.

Asking him what? I'm also curious about why you're so adamant about a skyhook. I have one and I've used it, too. I think it's great, but I wouldn't put it in the list of things that I absolutely, positively must have on a rig. Buying a rig with a skyhook will likely mean buying something relatively new, brand new, or requiring several hundred dollars worth of rigging work to realize. There are plenty of great rigs out there at reasonable prices. Limiting yourself to skyhook equipped and/or capable rigs may restrict your options more than you need.

At the 2008 Equinox Olympics, the gold medal in the packing race went to a guy named Wade with a time of 3 minutes 49 seconds. This was with a specially selected canopy he had selected for the event - basically, old LoPo fabric. It was jumped. One of the rules of the race was that you had to jump the pack job and land it or be disqualified. The silver medal time was around 4 minutes 30 seconds. There may well be faster packers around than this, but these were the quickest packing times among the people at the 2008 Equinox Boogie.

Go back to your local DZ. Take your log book and any other paperwork you have from your previous training and jumps. Talk to the instructors. My guess is that they will at least want to do some recurrency jumps with you. Depending on your knowledge, they may want you to do a refresher course on the ground first. Depending on how you are in the sky, they may be willing to let you pick up where you left off, or you may need some level of retraining, which could be anything from a couple of extra coach jumps to repeating the entire AFF course. 15 jumps is not a lot, and 5 years ago is a fairly long time. That might suck, but this isn't golf. It's quite possible that you may have to spend money to regain that training from 5 years ago in order to be safe, but the only person who will be able to give you a definitive answer on that is an instructor who has had the chance to evaluate the skills and knowledge you've managed to retain.

There will be a learning curve. While your skydiving experience does give you skills that are transferable, the tunnel is still new to you and like virtually all skydivers, you will probably find the tunnel humbling when you first try it. The tunnel can be much less forgiving of mistakes than the sky. The sky doesn't have solid walls to slam into. You will need to prove your abilities before you will get the higher airspeeds required for sit or head down flight. This will include back flying and walking the net at a minimum. It's highly unlikely that you would progress far enough to work on head down flight within your first hour of tunnel time. Whatever you do get to work on, however, you will likely develop some skills that are transferable to the sky. This isn't a new topic. If you do a search, you should be able to find plenty of discussion about tunnel progression on here and other sites.

You can do a title search, but that will probably cost you a fee - perhaps $100-200 or so. That will show you the registered owner along with all encumbrances registered against the property such as mortgages, liens, clouds, etc. As far as I'm aware, any new encumbrances registered against the property would either require your signature, or cause a notice to be sent to you and any other party listed on title, such as a mortgagee, lien holder or cloud holder. Transfer of ownership would also require holders of such encumbrances to give you a discharge, first. Of course, there have been instances of title being transferred fraudulently which could bypass some or all of these obstacles. This is one of the reasons for title insurance now.

Are you asking about this as an engineering problem, or a regulatory one? Wouldn't the manufacturer be a good place to ask? You're in New Zealand. Isn't that where the Fletcher is made? Or maybe you've already asked them...

I don't recall anyone suggesting that testing isn't a good indicator or skill progression or knowledge. I agree that practical and written testing are much better indicators of skill and knowledge than jump numbers. My concern however, is that many of these things being discussed such as increased wing loading, high performance landings and camera flying also depend on good judgement and awareness which develop with experience. I can accept that wingsuit flying may also be in this category, but since I don't fly wingsuit, I'm not really qualified to comment on that at all. I'm not convinced that testing is a good indicator of judgement or awareness. Tests are usually built around a set of common test scenarios that everyone does, but anyone can practise a maneauvre series or study a book and then perform accordingly. What's less clear is how you will handle the situations that we didn't foresee, how you will handle high pressure situations and how you will act when you don't think others are watching and/or evaluating you. I will agree that measures such as jump numbers are only loosely correlated with good judgement and awareness, but nobody has suggested a better alternative, yet. I would have difficulty agreeing with jump number minimums on the terms you've suggested. You seem to be suggesting that they are just arbitrary limits with little reason behind them except to hold people back while they have what we've determined should be "fun". At least, that's how this sounded to me and if that's all they were, I would have trouble agreeing with them too, but I agree with them because I don't think that's all they are.

Here's the website Looks a little small. Probably great for smaller freeflying and belly groups. 4-way would be insanely tight in there, although you may be able to go higher where the tunnel is wider, and if my calculations are correct, it may still have enough power to sustain belly flight up there, but it'll still be kinda tight. Still, it's certainly a huge improvement over no tunnel at all and they've put it in a decent spot to capitalize on tourist traffic and the movie industry as well as a relative large local population in SE Queensland, so it's got a good chance of being a viable business.

I should add, for the benefit of anyone reading this thread in the future, I managed to answer this question for myself by looking at the Aerodyne's Triathlon order form. It lists the 3 model options as "Standard RW", "Hybrid RW/CRW", "Competition CRW". Based on that, I think it seems pretty clear that a "Competition Tri" and a "Triathlon CRW" are pretty much the same thing.

I agree with you, but since the USPA has no real regulatory authority, no matter how hard and fast the USPA decides a rule should be, there's not a whole lot they can do if someone breaks the rule. If they hear about it, they can suspend or remove ratings, but that doesn't mean as much as some people think.

That's a GREAT idea. Let's set safety standards by popular opinion without regard to whether those opinions have any basis in knowledge or experience. Coming back to reality, do you think the BPA, CSPA, APF, etc came up with their training and licencing requirements by polling the general membership? Do you really think that's a good way to set safety standards? Like it or not, in virtually every human endeavour where safety standards are deemed necessary, those standards are set by a relatively small group of experts, not by popular vote, and for good reason. The current small form factor camera debate is happening mostly because of inexperienced skydivers who don't understand the issues with flying camera and somehow think that they no longer apply. I am not a guru on camera flying, but I have flown camera on occasion for a couple of years and I'm now starting to experiment with a small form factor HD camera. I can tell you from experience that the issues are no different than they were with the larger camera. That said, this particular thread is not simply about small form factor cameras. It's about newer jumpers in general and how to manage introducing them to new and/or higher risk activities and disciplines.

Inevitably they will be because the USPA as with most other national organisations have no real regulatory authority.

What about experience? How do you propose to measure that? Adding more distractions, complexity or new flight modes and equipment creates the possibility of new challenges to be resolved. Greater experience levels generally provide people with a better ability to deal with new challenges. I agree with you that there should be measurable skill and knowledge benchmarks to acquire a rating, but I also think that most will have a minimum experience requirement as well. How do you measure that if not through jumps numbers, freefall time and/or time in sport. There may be people with Mad Skillz, but I'm not too sure that there is anyone with Mad Eksperience.

Yes they can. They can do 25 more jumps. If they're really smart, they could do 25 more jumps focussed on gaining skills that may be transferable to what they want to do. For example, prospective wingsuiters might focus on tracking dives. How will you define what is bending the rules "too much". Somehow you need to have some consistent way of determining what is bending the rules "too much". No matter how you think of a BSR, given that the USPA and many other national organisations have no real regulatory power, they really are only recommendations, but having a recommended minimum limit on the books makes it less likely to continually drift down. If you say it's a 200 jump minimum to fly qingsuit or camera, maybe there will be instructors, DZOs and others who may allow it at 175 jumps, but the chance of it drifting down to 100 jumps or 50 jumps is reduced.

I think most agree that an evaluation against a set of relevant skill and knowledge criteria is better than a minimum experience level. Someone previously mentioned pilot licences and ratings. For example, you can't get a commercial pilot's licence if you only have 50 hours of flying time, regardless of how good your skills are. I can't speak for those who set those rules, but I believe that part of the reason revolves around the idea that to take on the additional responsibilities expected of a commercial pilot, you need a certain level of experience. By the same token, if you have 10000 hours of flight time but fail the practical or written exams required, you also cannot be a commercial pilot. I think a similar situation exists in many skydiving disciplines. Yes - a rating system based on demonstrated skills and knowledge is definitely a much better yardstick than a preset minimum number of jumps, freefal time or time in sport, but I also think it's reasonable that there should be some minimum recommended limit below which it's highly unlikely that someone will have the necessary experience.

I'm looking at buying a second CRW canopy since CRW gear is in short supply where I jump and this way I'll always have a pair of canopies to fly with others. My current CRW rig has a Triathlon hybrid 135 in it. I'm looking at buying a Triathlon CRW 135 as the second canopy, but perhaps someone with more experience with Triathlons can comment on the following questions: 1. There is lots of talk of Competition Triathlons. Is this the same as Triathlon CRW, or is there a Competition version with different line trims and/or other changes different from both a "standard" Triathlon CRW and the Triathlon Hybrid? 2. While Aerodyne only seems to have the one line trim chart for the Triathlon, is the Triathlon CRW typically trimmed differently than the Triathlon hybrid? If so, how differently do they fly? Are we likely to have compatibility problems flying a Triathlon hybrid with a Triathlon CRW canopy? If so, what configuration is likely to work best? Most experienced pilot on one or other canopy? Heaviest person on one or other canopy? It varies so just use trial and error? 3. If the flight characteristics will be markedly different between the Triathlon CRW and Triathlon Hybrid, is it worth the purchase or would I be better off just looking for two Traithlons of the same type? Thanks.

Yes, but from which direction? I'd explain it, but Bill Booth does a much better job. In particular, read the second paragraph of his post. Sure he has a vested interest in the skyhook, but the physics as described do make some sense.

Right there. Check every box.

Don't get me wrong - I'm aware of some of your achievements with vintage gear and I respect your opinion, but I believe you have misinterpreted my post. Take a look at the last line of my post again. I'm saying *I* don't know. There are only 3 riggers who have posted in this thread. They don't all agree. There is also lack of consensus among skydivers of varying experience levels. With no clear consensus and no experimental data for me to review, I don't know what the correct answer is, but I also don't believe it's as simple as big shock == incident, small shock == all clear. Components *have* failed on final approach and landing, so while most malfunctions do occur during or near deployment, it's not the only possibility and the recoverability of a malfunction at 400' vs 4000' makes it a more complicated risk equation. I don't know, so I'll take the recommendation of the people who designed the canopy and the manufacturing processes that built it, because I'm fairly sure that they will have at least done some testing and may have a better experimental basis for their position.

Give that the intention here appears to be establishing a link between jump numbers, aggressive downsizing and incidents, at a minimum you would also need to know not only the breakdown of jumpers with varying numbers of jumps, but you'd also need to know the canopy flown by each jumper and their wing loading.

Is there any data or manufacturers recommendations to back that up? I went looking through the manual from my Sabre2 but I couldn't find anything that suggested I should do any number of sub-terminal jumps before taking it terminal, although it's possible that it was somewhere else that I didn't look. I'm also not convinced by this idea that a sub-terminal opening will have fewer or better consequences should something on the canopy be sub-standard. The way I'm looking at it is that if something is going to fail on the canopy, I'd like it to do so as high as possible. If a terminal opening is more likely to make the canopy fail due to faults in it's construction, then I'd rather that happen at opening. Maybe a sub-terminal opening won't break that line attachment completely, but maybe it might tear out enough of the stitching or pull the finger trap through enough of the way that it slowly deteriorates throughout the stresses of turns, and stalls in flight, finally failing as you turn onto final. Of course, maybe a terminal opening could do that, too. I'm merely trying to point out that at least the possibility exists that a sub-terminal opening could produce more dangerous consequences as a result of lowered stresses at opening time. As for me, next time I buy a new canopy, I'll ask the manufacturer for their recommendations regarding breaking in a new canopy and then I'll do what they suggest. I'd suggest that the OP do the same.

Please! My girlfriend's MacBook Pro drops wireless connection all the time while my Windows and Linux machines continue working perfectly fine. If Apply made parachutes, I believe that the toggles would fall off at times, but be relatively simple to re-attach in flight with no more than a minute or so of effort. If Apple made parachutes, they would: be pretty and easy to fly safely, but also be square, with gentle turns, a flat glide and high front riser pressure to prevent you from doing silly/dangerous things like high performance landings. be locked so that they could only accept upgrades and modifications, such as sliders, RDS, etc that were approved by Apple. Of course, there would be kits you could buy online from certain anonymous riggers that would circumvent these restrictions but Apple would suggest that this adversely affected their ability to provide you with a safe skydiving experience. use welds for all seams and line attachments. Stitching is unsightly and besides, by the time you need a new lineset, you'll be more interested in upgrading to the iChute 7Q.

Whenever I jump gear that is new to me, I try to open a little higher if at all possible so I have some extra time and altitude to play with the different inputs, figure out the stall point, how it turns, dives, etc. You would do well to do the same. As for the terminal vs sub-terminal opening, I'm no rigger, but it sounds like bullshit to me. Have you asked a rigger for his/her opinion, or is this just from the peanut gallery around the bonfire?

Why? Were you looking for that job?