ficus

Before my first jump with wings, a couple of the camera fliers on the DZ briefed me on EPs with wings thusly: 1) Put your hands flat on your chest so that your middle fingers are touching the center of your collarbone. 2) "Wipe" down the front of your suit toward your handles. Even if you miss, this will at least get you to the lift webs and you can find the handles from there by touch. If you can find a way to guarantee you won't spin on your back in line twists, please let us know :)

Debt?

I've found that the loop specified in the manual is a little too long for the smaller Wings. My own personal rigs (W-5 with OP-143s) have loops about 3.25", maybe a hair longer. Instead of my knee, I like to use a softball in the crotch of the freebag. I find that this makes more of a valley for the PC without mushing the big ears that make a Wings packjob look good. Also, the packing tips document from Sunrise that was posted above is useful. Ficus

Was that TI a particularly strong guy? (Just curious.) I wouldn't say so. Not weak, but not a bodybuilder or anything.

I have watched a tandem instructor land on rear risers before (with a locked-up toggle). It was an uneventful landing.

I can pretty easily see the back side of the hole in the cutter, and more hole behind the closing loop for that matter. I don't think you would see the closing loop wrap the cutter at all unless it was in fact going through the hole. I'm pretty sure tension on the loop is what rotated the cutter 180 degrees such that the loop is entering it from the top.

Just FYI, "flash" isn't an acronym. Like I said, it shouldn't actually be running from flash, for a variety of reasons.

I don't know enough about how capacitor testing works to comment on that, so I will defer to you there. But presumably this is something done by the self-test when it powers on? This is not a big deal. Flash doesn't fail all at once, and it is completely standard for modern flash parts (or software) to do wear leveling and bad block removal. Even without that, if the checksum fails, it can just refuse to turn on. There is really no reason for something like the Cypres to execute out of flash (and many good reasons for it not to). Here I agree with you. But the concept of companies doing something out of "greed" is sort of a naive thought anyway.

The day the reserve was packed, the pack job is 0 days old. For the sake of illustration, say the law reads "must have been packed within 1 day of use". Surely you agree that a pack job done yesterday would be legal to jump? Does counting from zero now make sense to you?

Can you come up with on thing that is "inherently" right with them? Their design goes against a basic principle of rigging and gear design. If it will not improve function or safety it is a bad idea. This post would have been a miss even without the two genuinely informative ones that preceded it.

I had a picture of a horseshoe on a Racer published in Skydiving #321. Maybe you hadn't started subscribing yet? ;)

Here's a reasonable argument: I am 29 years old. This is the 30th year of my life. Ficus

I don't think integrity risers should be used on ANY rig that you might actually NEED to cutaway with. Even if the rings are placed higher on the wearer's shoulders, there are situations like a bag lock or a two out where the rings can (most likely will) be pressed against the shoulder or reserve risers, not allowing them to flip through and release. Not to mention the issues raised in the previous post. Good points.

There's nothing inherently wrong with reverse risers. The problem you are most likely referring to (linked elsewhere in this thread) was due to someone using reverse risers on a rig that was not designed for them. Rigs that are designed to be used with integrity risers would place the rings more up on top of the shoulder.

nice... schooling complete. It didn't work for me though so I deleted all my attempts. Look in the trash, you'll see the posts. You need to use square braces like [] instead of the {} PhreeZone put in his post. I can't see the trash so I'm not sure if that's what you're doing.

BASEjumper. BASE jumping. BASE jump.

One of them probably posts here in SH&T!

I was digging around in the KPIX "classic stories" archive tonight and found this: http://cbs5.com/video/[email protected]

Ferraris are not known for being comfortable to sit in :)

I wouldn't place too much faith in the fall rate numbers, especially if your instructor's altimeter is a Neptune. I love my Neptune, but the freefall speeds it records are often total BS. That said, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the wind tunnel slowed you down a lot.

Well, like I said, you can predict anything. You can predict that the moon is going to collide with the Earth tomorrow. That doesn't mean it's predictable. Is this just a language pedantry issue? I guess in the most technical sense, "predictable" means you can hazard a guess, but isn't the general connotation that it also means you are likely to be right? This analogy doesn't work. The correct analogy would be: A random guy drives home from the bar, having had X beers. What are the chances he gets into an accident? It seems like either one of us would agree with the other, given some value of X. Now all we need is a formula to convert jump numbers and wingloading into number of beers and we are set. Lest anyone think I'm trying to defend the guy in the video, he obviously wasn't ready. He should have realized he was low at 50 feet, yet he doesn't seem to realize it even as he calmly flares into half brakes all the way into the ground. I guess all I'm trying to say here is that I think it discredits (well-intentioned) downsizing warnings to say that this loading at this experience level is a probable hospital event. The people who you are trying to reach see plenty of other people at this mix pulling it off weekend after weekend. It just turns their ears off. The goal here is to equip people with the tools to make a sensible risk/reward decision in their canopy choice, right? This video is a lot more productive as "Are you sure you're ready to push it like this?" than as "This is what will happen".

All we saw in the OP was that the guy has "less than 400 jumps" (which I read to be high 300s), was loading an elliptical 150 at 1.36, and was very new to the canopy. Of course if you knew the guy in person or had watched his landings before you could make a more educated guess that he was going to break himself. But considering only the facts in the OP, this is just plain not an uncommon configuration of jump numbers and wingloading. I agree with you that injuries like this happen with depressing frequency, but there is a wide gap between that and "1.36 at 380 jumps, he's gonna pound in". I mean, you can predict whatever you want, but we're talking about if you are significantly likely to be correct here in your prediction.

Let's not devolve into semantics here, but I'll clarify. Not predictable; neither surprising.

Oh, how I hate to post in these downsizing threads. But predictable? Not with only the information you provided. Loading at 1.36 is aggressive but not insane for 350-400 jumps.

At least in theory, to participate in the GM program, a DZ agrees to abide by certain standards: follow the BSRs, instructors hold USPA ratings, etc. So there is some value, for instance, in an individual jumper knowing that the instructional staff is at least up to USPA's presumably high standards. This line of conversation usually ends up down the rabbit hole of USPA anonymously auditing DZs and publishing the results.