riggerrob

Similarly too much caffeine can cause heart palpitations, insomnia and paranoia. Too much nicoteine can cause a wide variety of lip, throat and lung cancers.

Will someone please explain to me the obsession with down-sizing? Back when I was working full-time as a skydiving instructor (350 jumps per year), I weighed about 190 pounds and jumped 135 and 150 and 400 square foot canopies. After I quit working full-time in the skydiving industry, I put on bit of weight (up to 230 pounds) and got un-current during COVID, so up-sized my main canopy to a Pilot 169. 169 is a challenge to land softly at my current weight of 190 pounds. Oh! And I am 66 years old now. As it is now, I am in no rush to reach the ground and just enjoy hanging under canopy, doing gentle turns and enjoying the scenery.

Why California is paying reparations to Afro-Americans is a mystery to me. The last time there were any slaves in California was under Spanish rule. Most of those slaves were of Native American descent. Many of those slaves were held by Catholic missions. How the Catholic Church reconciled enslavement with saving souls and bringing native Americans to Christ is a mystery to me???????? Those reparations will cost California tax-payers even more. California is already a ridiculously expensive place to operate a factory. Back in 1994, Manley Butler laid me off as he announced that he was moving his factory from California to Virginia. In 1997 Sandy Reid laid me off as he announced that he was moving Rigging Innovations factory from California to Arizona.

Classic schoolyard bully behaviour.

I bet that the majority - of migrants to Florida - are baby-boomers retiring to a warm climate.

If you have to explain the joke ....... Boring explanation follows: Back when I started jumping in 1977, we used military-surplus round parachutes that were not half as reliable as modern square parachutes. It did not help that they had been modified a logn way from their original military configuration or that they were being used for vastly different purposes than they were originally designed for .. nor being used hundreds of times more than their original military service life. Back then I jumped from a 20-year-old Cessna. That same Cessna might still be hauling skydivers making it more like 70 years old. The few large skydiving meccas flew World War 2 surplus airplane like Beech 182, DC-3s and Lodestars. All those old parachutes and old airplanes eventually wore out. Meanwhile, sexual promiscuity spread: gonerrea, syphillus, herpes, crotch lice, heapatitus, AIDS, etc.

Guys "open-carrying" guns scare me. If their neighborhood is so dangerous that they feel the need to "open-carry" I just avoid that neighborhood. For example, while working at Perris Valley, Elsinore, Hemet, etc. DZs, I visited Los Angeles and Orange County a dozen times, but never got off the highway near Compton. Professional police and soldiers "open-carrying" do not phase me ... considering that I was a soldier for 13 years. BUT half of the Americans who "open-carry" are the sort of bungling amateurs who scare me. I would be afraid to visit the same indoor shooting range as most of them.

Paying to release hostages is a bad practice because the bulk of hostage-taking foot-soldiers are just desperately poor Somali or Afghan or ... farmers or fishermen who were displaced from honest employment by the latest civil war. Few of them hold fanatical religious views or even understand national politics. Forget about trying to explain international politics to them. These days, the majority of hostages are taken purely as commodities in "kidnap for profit" schemes. As for Moscow holding westerners hostage ... Moscow is just proving that they do not obey international diplomatic customs/traditions/treaties.

Will some one please explain dual-citizenship to me? Back when I was a child, a person needed to surrender their first passport and renounce citizenship in their country of birth before they could become a full citizen in a second country. This process annoys me because the bulk of "Canadian citizens" that we have had to rescue or ransom from some chaotic, war-torn shit-hole in African or Asian held two passports. At first glance, they looked and sounded like native-born citizens of that chaotic shit-hole.

I lost my original Javelin manual many decades ago, but I remember stowing all the suspension lines on the diaper (Phantom or 26' LoPo) and packing it into a lower corner. Then I S-folded the rest of the canopy into the container in a U shape .. similar to the way that I packed rounds into Racer Pop-Tops. The key is keeping the canopy bulk as close as possible to zero near the closing loop.

Pan-sexual is just a new name for "slut." It amazes me how much time we waste worrying about other peoples' sexuality. You might call me a boring old straight white guy, but I have little need-to-know about anyone else's sexuality until they invite me into their bed. When people insist on rubbing their sexuality in my face, I find it annoying. For example, if a woman wears a dress with deep, revealing cleavage, but won't let me play with her bosoms, I get annoyed. By the same token, decades ago I was tired of listening to "toros" bragging about the dozen women they shagged last weekend when we all knew that the true number was somewhere between one and zero.

Sorry man, but I do not believe in intelligent Design. Just look at all the failed experiments in the fossil record. Granted, some of those "failures" were stepping stones on the way to creating modern flora and fauna. Rather, I see Intelligent Design as a simplified re-telling of the process of evolution ... including all of its dead-ends. By the same token, I see the Big Bang Theory as a simplified re-tellling of a multi-trillion year old story that is simply too big for the human mind to grasp. My theory holds that the universe expands and collapses in cycles that are trillions of years long and the Big Bang Theory merely explains the most recent expansion cycle/wave. Along that same thought process, the Book of Genesis is not inaccurate. Rather the Book of Genesis is just a best-guess based upon the limited knowledge available to ancient Hebrews/Jews. Similarly, modern science is a best-guess based upon currently available knowledge. Scientists are constantly testing each others' theories to prove - or deny - their viability. Some of what we hold as scientific fact today will be laughed at 50 years in the future. Hah! Hah!

The good news is that hard openings are getting rarer with each new generation of parachute. These days, most hard openings are caused by sloppy packers. This should motivate you to learn how to pack your own parachute. Learning how to pack is best done at your local drop zone during a rainy day. May I suggest that you ask a local instructor to show you how to slide your leg straps high in your crotch a minute or two before exit? Most thigh bruises are caused by poorly-adjusted harnesses sliding around during opening shock. A properly adjusted harness will eliminate most of the bruising. Hip rings make a big difference - in comfort - when stuffing large jumpers into smaller airplanes. Chest rings are less important. The down-side is that ringed harnesses need to be fitted more precisely. I used to work at Rigging Innovations back when we were the only factory building ringed harnesses (early 1990s). Most of the complaints about poor fit came from second owners who were a different size than the original owner. To measure a harness precisely, you will need the assistance of your friendly neighborhood rigger. Did you notice that I wrote the word "local" three times? That is because you will get the best advice from local professional skydivers who have an interest in you continuing to jump through next year ... and the year after ... and the year after that ...

General background knowledge .... Back when I worked for Rigging Innovations, we never quoted delivery time less than 6 weeks. While it was possible to rush a rig through production in a day or two, it disrupted production to have sewers waiting idle until a rush order reached their station. This was to cover our butts in case an outside supplier was slow in delivering a particular color of fabric, specific hardware, etc. Also consider that factories try to smooth production by not changing colors too often. Changing thread color takes 5 minutes at best. Changing binding tape color takes another minute or two. So we would typically sew black rigs on Mondays and Tuesdays, blue rigs on Wednesdays, red on Thursdays and every other color on Fridays. Even on Fridays, we tried to sew all of the white rigs sequentially, then all of the orange rigs in one batch, etc. Also, if we got a large military order (e.g. 250 rigs all the same size and color) we lumped them together as one batch and nudged everything else aside until that large order was complete.

Trivial point. When they started their AFF program (early 1980s), Perris Valley used double-keel 'Dactyls as student canopies. Those canopies were left over from a competitive 4-way team. That was back in the day when students were issued parachutes that had been fashionable among licensed jumpers last year. IOW the best "transition gear" was whatever your local skygod was trying to unload. Hah! Hah! That humor aside, I don not remember hearing about any significant injury rate among Perris' students during the early 1980s, probably because those Double-Keel 'Dactyls descended so slowly that twisted ankles were rare.

yes. Just pack it the same way you would a Strong Tandem. Both types of canopies have separate steering and flare lines. Start by setting the brakes, then pull all the slack in the steering lines towards the top/trailing edge. A minor point is whether you even out the trailing edge by stowing extra-long steering lines in rubber bands attached to the trailing edge.

Once I tried a skydive after smoking a joint with another jumper. We stepped out of the Skyvan and flopped around the sky, What a waste of a jump ticket!

The RAF and RCAF did use a few Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses during World War 2. They were acquired through the Lend -Lease program. The RAF tended to shuffle long-range B-17s and B-25 to the Battle of the Atlantic where their longer-range helped close the Mid-Atlantic Gap to U-boats. Early in the war, U-boats had learned to fear any ship convoy escorted by aircraft ... even US Navy blimps. The American-made parachutes that came with those American-made airplanes were probably packed in accordance with American (e.g USAAF) manuals. They MIGHT have added a few RAF tricks when packing, but remember that during the war, parachute packers barely had enough time to learn one method of packing one type of parachute. Cross-training was a rare luxury during the hustle of combat patrols.

Possible. Since they did not issue bail-out bottles during World War 2, it is quite probable that the victim lost consciousness for a while on the way down. He probably only regained his senses when the trees got big (e.g. below 3,000 feet above ground level). While opening at 30,000 feet would be painfully hard, that is mainly due to the high airspeed when you pull the ripcord. As you descend into "oxygen levels" (below 15,000') the thicker air slows your freefall rate. Early pilot emergency parachutes used Type 1 deployment which had all of the suspension lines stowed in the pack tray. This meant random canopy deployment, then a sever jolt when you fell to the end of the suspension lines. The first innovation was the French sleeve that hid the canopy fabric from the wind until you fell to line stretch. Sleeves became popular among skydivers during the 1950s.

Please note that the United Church of Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada have been hit with massive lawsuits over child-abuse that occurred at residential schools administered by those churches. Some of the lawsuits have forced Canadian churches to sell properties to pay off debts.

Wow! A second time that Slim King and I agree! Because males - who have grown beyond puberty - have advantages in terms of bone density and muscle-mass - they are doomed to exceed intact females. By "intact" I mean women who were born with female genitalia and have never experienced gender-altering surgery, hormone blockers, etc. The whole reason that we have gender-specific leagues, masters, POPs, etc. is to allow amateur athletes to continue to compete so that they still have a chance at winning medals on level playing fields. We can agree that a Masters tennis player will never win at the World Meet against first-seed 20-somethings. The goal of most segregated sports is to encourage everyone to practice a sport because practicing any sport improves your health, improves your morale and extends your life-expectancy.

When you consider that the owner of any small business needs skills in: writing a business plan, obtaining financing, purchasing, maintaining airplanes, maintaining buildings and grounds, janitorial, taking out the trash, interior decorating, hiring staff, training staff, firing staff, monitoring weather, marketing, public relations, sweet-talking the local city council, sweet-talking airport managers, sweet-talking the FAA, etc. ...... the list of required skill is long and complex with skydiving skills being late in the process .... I have done every job on a DZ (pilot, airplane mechanic, janitor, laying sod, rigger, instructor, coach, load-organizer, manifest, etc.) except management. management requires far more headaches then I am willing to attempt.

Yes, the Javelin sizing chart lists canopy square footage/area. However, canopy pack volume can vary widely depending upon the materials. Dacron suspension lines pack bulkier than Spectra and Spectra is bulkier than the latest HMA/Vectran, etc. Also different canopy fabrics have different pack volumes. For example, a speed-wing/pond-swooping canopy made of heavily-coated sail-cloth will pack much bigger than a similar canopy made of ZPX (low pack volume) 1.1 once fabric. The extra ribs in cross-braced canopies also increase pack volume. The good news is that the Javelin sizing manual tries to accommodate all those variables by being biased towards the most popular canopies in are square foot range. For example, since the most popular 47 square foot canopies have extra ribs, sail cloth and skinny suspension lines, all those factors were considered before they were listed on the Javelin canopy compatibility chart. Oh! And if the chart says that a particular combination will be "stupid tight", be nice to your packer and buy the next larger size container.

Judging by your mention of Mount Ararat, you live in Turkey (sp?). Also difficult to tell whether you are simply asking about flying a speed-wing all the way down a tall mountain, or something more complex. If you are merely asking about flying a speed-wing all the way down a tall mountain, it is possible qonce you have mastered the basics of launching and landing on the "bunny-hill." The term "bunny hill" comes from the sport of downhill/snow skiing where beginners learn the basics on a short, shallow slope before tackling the entire mountain. Mind you, tall mountains have complex weather patterns. Some of those weather patterns can be learned form books (e.g Dennis Piggot), but still require a lifetime of observation. You will notice that the best speed-wing/para-glider/hang-glider/sail-plane pilots are the weather observers. OTOH it would be unwise for you to try freefall without some training by an experienced skydiving instructor. You do not know what you do not know. Even a few minutes in a vertical wind tunnel will teach you the basics of falling stable. Falling stable helps a lot at opening time as it vastly increases the chances that your parachute will open correctly.

Wow! The Javelin factory (aka. Sunpath) deleted those line stows so long ago that I forgot about them. I have only packed a few rounds into Javelins and they all had full-stow diapers (Type 3 or Type 4). On a practical level, Type 1 deployment (with all line stows in the pack tray) may have worked at the low airspeeds that were fashionable when we skydived from pterodactyls (humor) or AN-2 biplanes that fly backwards in a gentle breeze (more humor). But ever since freefall speeds exceeded 100 knots, we really needed diapers that would hold the skirt closed until we reached line stretch. While Strong's Type 1 diaper (2 or 3 stows of the left line group on the diaper with the rest in the pack tray) provides a huge improvement in reliability, it is difficult to teach to young riggers. I only pack Type 2 diapers into Strong Para-Cushions. Strong Para-Cushions need those line stows to serve as kicker-plates/launching pads for their pilot-chutes. For almost every other container, I just stow all the lines on the diaper. On a practical level, Type 1 deployment fell out of fashion during the 1970s. For all practical purposes, Type 1 deployment is obsolete. While working for Butler, I manufactured hundreds of Type 4 diapers and sewed them onto the full range of older round canopies.