riggerrob

I have hundreds of jumps on Sabre 1 135, 150 and 170. I have sewn slider extenders (e.g. front lips) on dozens on Sabre 1s to soften the openings a bit. I especially liked the lip made of slider tape (invented by Weird Wayne out of Arizona). Remember that Sabre 1 was the first zero P fabric canopy on the North American market and it opened exactly the way 1990 jumpers wanted it to open. This was back when piston engines were still fashionable and it seemed to take all afternoon to climb to 12,500 feet. Yes, openings were firm, but you wanted that when you tossed your pilot-chute at 2,000' (USPA minimum for D licensed jumpers). I also have a half dozen jumps on Sabre 2 170. Softer openings were the biggest difference. The only time they opened hard was when I packed sloppily. Slider firmly up against the stops is the most important part of packing a Sabre.

That container looks like it was jumped hard in the desert and put away wet. Start by paying a Master Rigger to inspect it. If he/she determines that it needs more than the (rusted) RSL rings replaced, it is probably not worth the cost of repairs. Those rusty rings scare me and compel any rigger to minutely inspect all the hardware, especially where that hardware is hidden by webbing. Any rust in the webbing usually requires replacing the webbing ... an expensive job. Then it needs a bath. The Cypres is old enough to retire. That Raven 181 can only safely be jumped by people who weigh in the 160 pound range ... for a total suspended weight of 181 pounds. Anyone foolish enough to load a Raven at more than 1 pound per square foot should ... invest heavily in medical insurance.

What language is the background song?

Looks like Russia is going to lose control of their most important 2014 objective. They need access to the Dnipro River (Ukrainian spelling) and Kherson to divert water to Crimea. The Crimean peninsula is in a "dry" part of the Ukraine and needs irrigation for farms to be successful. As to whether Ukraine will ever regain control of the Crimean Peninsula ... consider how many different groups have fought over that peninsula: Sythians, Greeks, Romans, Ottoman Turks, Poles, Crimean Tatars, Czechs, German Nazis, Lithuanians, Swedes, Soviets, White Russians, Tzarist Russians, Ukrainian nationalists, Ukrainian anarchists, etc.

My how times have changed. It used to be that professional journalists and other media professionals self-censored. If a topic was too riscque, they avoided mentioning it in public. In other countries, a dirty look from the Queen could get them banned from covering major events. Talk about a professional dead-end!

Yes. Most of the DZs I have enjoyed were a 90 minute drive from the center of a major city: Montreal, Halifax, Chicago, New York, etc. Only Moncton and Kamloops were a mere 10 minute drive from downtown. One disadvantage of Pitt Meadows being only a 60 minute drive from downtown was that skydivers did all their errants on a Saturday morning, did a few skydives, then drove home for the evening. Few stuck around to drink beer and socialize after sunset. Part of the reason is the need to jump outside of Class B airspace (read "B" as "big airport serving a big city") because air traffic controllers don't like bungling amateur skydivers clogging up their smooth flow of dozens of airliners per hour. One skydiver opening high can mess up their traffic flow for ... well it seems like forever ... for ATC. Yes, we had a few ATC who were also regular recreational skydivers at Pitt Meadows.

Hardly a "private meeting" about abortions. Our conversion happened at the end of a town-hall meeting - still in the hall - with a witness at arms' length. My opinion is the same as the majority of Canadians and even our current prime minister. It was his father: the late Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau who announced "gov't has no role in the bedrooms of the nation." Imagine that, a Liberal advocating small-gov't. Hah! Hah!

Last time I checked, all major religions encouraged their members to give charity to widows, orphans and the poor. That sounds like a limited form of socialism.

wow! When did the definition of "radicals" get changed? I was under the impression that conservatives wanted to ban abortions, but liberals/radicals didn't. The last conversation I had with a sitting politician - on the subject of abortions - was the sitting Member of the House of Commons (Canada) representing Maple Ridge. He was a long-standing member of the Canadian (federal) Progressive Conservative Party and was rewarded with a seat in the House of commons, albeit, a back bench. When he suggested re-opening the debate on abortion, I reminded him that Dr. Henry Morgentaler had forced the issue more than 50 years ago and that the Supreme Court of Canada had decriminalized abortion more than 40 years ago. I told him that re-opening the debate was worse than a waste of time, and if he did, I would not vote for him a second time. That was the last time I heard him mention abortions.

The average American voter is overwhelmed by political propaganda, commercial advertising, Kandy Krush, cute kitten videos, the war in Ukraine, thier @$$hole neighbor, The National Inquirer, kids soccer games, dinner with the in-laws, puppy teething, etc. and simply does not have the time or energy to devote to seriously researching political issues. Traditonally, most voters did not consider minor issues because they voted the same way their fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers voted. I grew up in a confused household where my father always voted conservative and my mother always voted liberal and they never discussed politics in front of the children.

Why was Hillary Clinton hated? I never heard the explanation why.

I watched Pitt Meadows shut down a few years ago. Troubles started with a jump-plane crash, followed by a feud with airport management, urban sprawl and NIMBY. Troubles started with a King Air crash in 2008. Since the King Air was the first (circa 2002) turbine airplane based at Pitt Meadows, the DZ had to buy its own Jet A fuel truck. A few years later (circa 2010) the airport bought its own Jet A fuel truck and tried to convince the DZO to buy fuel from them at their rates. The DZO refused. Stop to consider for a moment that small airports' only sources of revenue are fuel sales and tie-down rental. When Pacific Independent Group of skydivers first started jumping near Pitt Meadows (circa 1980), they could not even get permission on land on the airport and instead had to land on farms just to the North of Pitt Meadows Class C airspace. Pitt Meadows is overlaid with Class B airspace as part of standard airliner arrivals at Vancouver International Airport ... the second or third busiest airport in Canada. Eventually, a pushy DZO convinced Transport Canada air traffic controllers that they were safer to land on the airport, near the VOR beacon. Urban sprawl and NIMBY started by limiting skydivers from loud partying in the evenings. We have seen this problem at many other small airports where people bought farms and retired to the quiet countryside, then got annoyed at skydivers partying loud, or loud airplanes, etc. Urban sprawl also saw hundreds of houses built down on the river bottoms near Pitt Meadows Airport. This never made sense from the perspective of climate change or annual spring flooding, but real estate agents eventually convinced Pitt Meadows city council to grant building permits on a flood plain. I have seen spring flood waters rise to within a few feet of the tops of the dykes surroudning Pitt Meadows Airport. Incidentally, PMA is almost at sea level adjacent to the Fraser River. The Agricultural Land Reserve designated PMA as agricultural or aviation ONLY. This did not stop real estate developers from filing innumerable applications for building permits or land-exchanges. Finally, the nature of PMA changed over the years. When I arrived in 1999, PMA was a sleepy gentlemens' flying club sponsored by the city. New PMA management decided to convert the airport into an industrial park similar to Arlington, Washington. Over the years, they buit suburbs and an industrial park closer and closer to PMA. The impending pilot shortage also saw the construction of more flyign schools .. primarily to provide airline pilots for the asian market. After the first DZO left in a snit over fuel prices, a couple of other consortiums kept the DZ going for a few more years, but the last straw was an ATC decision to ban parachuting anytime runway 18/36. Since winds rarely blew from the north this was not an issue in earlier days, but the year that the ban was introduced, winds blew from the north for an unusually large number of days and skydivers often sat on the ground for 3 weeks straight. I have seen similar politics shut down another half-dozen small airports in other provinces and other countries.

Skydive Kamloops originally landed at Scadam (sp?) Flats (circa 1980s) a few miles from Kamloops Municipal Airport. Then they rented a house on the airport and landed on the airport for many years (since 2000 and probably earlier). However, in recent years, urban sprawl has closed many alternate landing areas around the airport. There was also a problem with a junior jumper getting lost and landign too close to a Boeing 737 that was taxiing for take-off. Any delay to a scheduled flight costs hundreds of dollars in jet fuel. All those factors combined to force the Kamloops Airport to ban skydivers from landing on the airport. Lacking a convenient LZ near the city, Kamloops skydivers shut down.

Urban sprawl, DZOs retiring, NIMBY, COVID-19 all conspire to force DZZs to close. Skydive Kamloops originally landed at Scheidam Flats (circa 1980s) a few miles from Kamloops Municipal Airport. For a good 50 years, every May long weekend (aka. Victoria Day, the last weekend in the month) Kamloops Skydivers hosted thier annual May Meet which was the traditional season opener. KS often flew in big-name coaches, load-organizers and big airplanes (Cessna 208 Caravan, DHC-6 Twin Otter, Fokker F-27 Friendship, etc.). Then they rented a house on the airport and landed on the airport for many years (since 2000 and probably earlier). However, in recent years, urban sprawl has closed many alternate landing areas around the airport. There was also a problem with a junior jumper getting lost and landign too close to a Boeing 737 that was taxiing for take-off. Any delay to a scheduled flight costs hundreds of dollars in jet fuel. All those factors combined to force the Kamloops Airport to ban skydivers from landing on the airport. Lacking a convenient LZ near the city, Kamloops skydivers shut down.

How many of his (priest's) sons serve on the front line with the Russian Army?

Have you ever noticed how many hours birds devote to cleaning and oiling their feathers?

Is it wise to substitute the next larger sized d-bag? This really a Master Rigger question about "substituting similar TSOed components."

When Trump was in power, Canadians were busy stacking snow blocks along the border.

Also consider that we grow a new generation of young skydivers every 2 or 3 years and every new generation needs to hear the same bloody lessons anew. It is also important to include a bit of history or theory to help the lecture sink in. Young jumpers need to hear that they are standing on the bloody shoulders of older skydivers who learned bloody lessons the hard way. The old military, authoritarian approach no longer works with younger skydivers as they need to be motivated and they expect to have some of the "whys" explained.

One British, movie stuntman landed his wingsuit - once - in a huge pile of cardboard boxes. Those cardboard boxes were the same as used for high-falls in movie stunts. Conventional wisdom says that standing/stagnant water becomes as soft as concrete when speeds exceed 40 miles per hour. Go talk to Olympic high-divers/swimmers to learn how big and how fancy a bubbler you need to soften landings.

Once you get past the cutting table, it makes little difference for production sewers whether the D-bag is a J-1 or J-10 size. The sewing processes are all the same. So you can easily slip a J-1 sized D-bag into a batch of J-10s. However, switching machines from sewing leg-pads to D-bags may take a half-hour or so. Changing thread colors and tape colors takes longer, so many factories only sew black on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday may be all-blue. Thursday may be red. Friday is spent catching up on all the odd-colored orders. If they have a big, military order, they may sew camouflage colors for three weeks straight.

Dear Bluhdow, "In stock" used to mean "we have those parts sitting on the shelf and our shipping department can send them on this afternoon's UPS truck." However, I suspect that Amazon, UPS, DHL, etc. have re-written the definition while we were distracted by .........

In a perfect world, manufacturers would sew up spare handles, d-bags, etc. during the slow season. However, if you are quoting 30 week delivery times, you are running a tight ship and have no slack to sew spare parts on speculation.

Did you look at the Reflex manual?

While it would be ideal to stock one of every size of D-bag, it is just not economically feasible. Consider that some of those rare sizes will sit on the shelf - for years - until they are sold. No company can afford to have a huge stock sit on the shelf with slow turn-over. Chances are the factory was waiting for a shipment of ripcord pins. Another possible explanation is that they were busy with a large order and wanted to complete it before building any one-offs in an odd size. Another possible explanation is that the factory sub-contracts ripcord manufacture to an outside manufacturer (Capewell or Parachute Labs) and their next order is not due for delivery for a couple of weeks. They MIGHT be able to squeeze an odd-sized ripcord into their next batch of ripcords.