camgon

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  • License Number
    29793
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    Formation Skydiving

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  1. This is a good article. The only thing I would strongly caution against is the following: "..it would be beneficial for DZO's who compete in the same markets to have an annual meeting to discuss promotions as to prevent under-cutting." In anti-trust law, this falls under the realm of Price Fixing, which is illegal and can get a lot of folks in trouble. NEVER discuss prices with competitors.
  2. Me too, I've never heard of this happening before, so if the lines through the grommet is really what occurred, it'd be great for everyone to know. My rigger is Jim Crouch, so I'm sure it would make its way into Parachutist
  3. I won't be out for the next few weeks, but when I'm back we'll take a look at it.
  4. Was your pilot-chute collapsed or not when you recovered your cut-away main in this condition? Locking-stows (rubber-bands) in-tact or broken? Honestly, I don't know, I was very busy with students. Even when I landed under my reserve, the radio was immediately handed to me so I could talk down my AFF student. I then collected my gear, threw it in my rigger's van, and grabbed a rig from a friend. Just a side note, there were no winds under 3000' that day, and my main and freebag (Skyhook) landed 15ft from me! Thanks Mark (the reserve side AFF-I) for the spot
  5. If this was the cause, what's the theory to account for what you experienced? Is it that you had a slowly clearing bag lock (due to the stows) which delayed things a lot, and then by the time you decided to look, the stows had just cleared (so it just about to open), but you chopped anyway thinking that what you saw was what it had been stuck doing all that time? No, I'm still not sure why the 2nd time around the bag appeared to be open with just the tail coming out. It could still have been an after-effect from an issue with the last stow, but I'm not sure. As soon as I threw the PC, I was transitioned to an angle just a few degrees shy of vertical from the drag of the d-bag. I watched this configuration for about 2 seconds before I went for my handle.
  6. Someone PM'd me and said the following: "Grommets on the first two stows are too big. All or some of your HMA lines get sucked through." I followed with this response: "That's actually a REALLY good point. My D-bag has the large grommets. Also, with the HMA lines on the Nitro, they are more flexible and would get "sucked" through the grommets more easily than microline. What's more, my tighter container from the tighter closing loop could have caused the flaps to push onto the lines more than usual once the container was closed. And it also makes sense since both jumps with the problem were the first jump on my rig for the day, meaning the lines had all night to get pushed into the grommets in my extra tight container." What are people's thoughts on this? I've never heard of this happening, but it seems VERY plausible.
  7. Then I would then suspect that the canopy is too large for the bag and has a hard time getting extracted from it or your bag stop is improperly placed that would inhibit the canopy from being extracted. . You would think based off what happened that the canopy is too big, but I've had both of my previous canopies in the same D-bag (SabreII 190 and 170, respectively) without any problems. Now, the Nitro 150 DOES pack a size big, but that would still put it in the 170 range. I'm not quite sure what the bag stop is.
  8. Well, it sounds like I'll be lengthening my closing loop. I didn't realize the grommets weren't supposed to line up for Vectors. Now, my original intention wasn't to line them up, and they're still not perfectly in line, but my closing loop was just a bit long and in the process of shortening it I figured I might as well go all the way.
  9. It's actually a V-3 Micron, though I don't know if that will make a difference.
  10. I would suspect the line stows - type of stow and length of the line bite past the stow band. I see a lot of pack jobs that would allow the closing stows to fall over another stow or visa versa. The bite length needs to be uniform and not long enough to hang up on an adjacent stow. If you have changed stow bands are you using ones that will break at the same force as before? . At first, I suspected line stows were the issue, as did the people I asked at my DZ, especially since line stows are usually the culprit when it comes to bag locks. However, the 2nd "bag lock", which I had to cutaway, really wasn't a bag lock at all in the typical sense. The bag was open all the way, and I could see the tail of my canopy (the first S-fold) had come out, but the rest of the canopy wouldn't come out of the bag. Just for reference, I use the larger rubber bands for all my stows. I single stow the first 2 locking stows, and double stow the outer locking stows and the excess line stows. All my stows have a 1.5 to 2" bight. I know there are differing opinions between small/large rubber bands, and singe/double stowing, but I'm not really looking to get into that in this thread.
  11. The PC is new, just got it last fall. I after cocking the PC, not only do I check the window, I also always do a manual check to see if and how well it's catching air. I don't usually visually check to see if the tape is fully extended though, but I'll try that (when I get my rig back from my rigger).
  12. I agree, the closing loop probably has nothing to do with it. But I'm still at a loss. It's a kill line.
  13. Just so everyone is clear, this was not a PC in tow. I'm also very skeptical that the tight(er) closing loop is responsible, HOWEVER, considering that it happened twice in one weekend, AND the closing loop is the only thing I changed, it leads me to the conclusion, no matter how improbable it seems. There of course is likely some other issue that occurred that I'm not aware of, and that the closing loop is coincidental, which is why I'm looking for answers here. In regards to looking up too soon, as someone suggested, that is not the case. I can assure you that when my body is angled not quite vertically from the snatch, and I look up to see nothing but my D-bag at line-stretch for 2 seconds, it's some sort of bag lock. What's strange is both times it happened, I started to fall into the saddle just a split second early--it almost felt like the trap door effect when you pull the drogue release on a tandem. We all know what if feels like when the timing of a deployment is off, even if it's microseconds...that feeling occured both times.
  14. This past weekend was an unusal weekend for me in regards to my openings. I had TWO bag locks--the first cleared itself in about a second, the 2nd one I had to cutaway. The Friday night prior, I tightened my closing loop. Very tight, albeit per manufacturer specifications (lined up grommets). That is the only "modifcation" I made to my gear prior to the weekend; there was no change in my packing style. While it seems highly unlikely, my only guess is that somehow the extra tight closing loop is either causing some sort of deceleration of the pilotchute, or causing the kill line in the pilotchute to partially collapse, reducing in decreased drag. Here's the real kicker: on the one I had to chop, the bag was completely open. I could see that the tail and warning label on my canopy (i.e. the first S-fold) had come out of the bag, but the canopy was not coming out the rest of the way. This is what leads me to believe it's an issue with the PC, and NOT my stows (and yes, the PC was cocked). The PC is relatively new. I bought it in the fall, probably about 150 jumps, so I don't think it's worn. Also I doubt the kill line is too short..in fact, it's a little long as usually the PC won't completely collapse and I have to get a lot of twists out of the bridle when I pack. My canopy is a Nitro 150, which I've put about 50 jumps on without prior incident. Prior to that, I had a SabreII 170. Same D-bag as before, but Nitros tend to pack a size bigger, so it fits about the same. Unfortunately, as I was cutting away the 2nd bag lock, it started to clear itself, so when I recovered the main, it was already out of the bag (i.e. I couldn't inspect the bag to see why it locked up). Any thoughts from the collective minds out there?