riggerrob

Hee! Hee! This reminds me of the local jumper who assembled his canopy with two sliders! Hee! Hee! Or how about the senior skydiver whose canopy returned from the factory with new lines and his old risers. While he was attaching his old risers to his harness, the rigger stepped in and forbade him to jump his badly frayed risers! A look at his harness revealed a serious nick in one of his harness rings. Not so funny.

Sounds like the old CSPA "Know your gear" seminar. Unfortunately that seminar was dropped for lack of interest.

CSPA rigger ratings have multiple categories: round reserves, square reserves. one-pin sport containers, two-pin sport containers, Pop-Top containers and pilot emergency paprachutes. To earn a CSPS Rigger A rating, you need to convince the examiner that you are competent to pack one type of reserve canopy into one type of container. The last Rigger A Course I helped with only covered packing square reserves into one-pin containers. I did demonstrate how to pack a two-pin Bullet, but I don't think any candidates completed that part of the course. Oh, and you can only earn a CSPA Rigger rating by attending a CSPA sponsored course. If you are keen, tell Barry MacCaully (sp?) that you want to attend his next course starting in November 2003. It normally runs three weekends ..... the deadline for riggers' courses in BC is usually sometime in October. Also ask the Alberta Sport Parachute Council about any riggers' courses they are planning for next winter.

The Cruiselite was introduced by Para-Flite in 1981. It was a 220 square foot, F-111, seven cell, general purpose canopy. Cruiselites competed directly with Django's Pegasus and Glide Path's Fury. I bought a custom-colored Cruislite back in 1984 and jumped it for three years, doing RW, accuracy, CReW and BASE jumps with it. In its day, the Cruislite was the best canopy on the market. As for the earlier poster who suffered hard landings while over-loading his Cruislite, tough! What else did you expect when you chose to over-load a canopy?

Good point about external inspections every 4 months.

Yeah! That attitude is really bad, but it is also really common. Big DZs promote that attitude because it means quicker turn-arounds and more money remaining on the DZ. I may be a Master Rigger, but rest assured that after I win the lottery I am never going to pack another main! Maybe our sport becoming like scuba diving, stratifying into three different classes: professionals, capable amateurs and wealthy amateurs. I have to laugh at the people who call themselves scuba divers, but only dive one week out of the year in the Carribbean! How can they call themselves scuba divers if they cannot handle frigid water, cold winds, dry suits, etc. in their home waters? As for the wealthy amateur skydivers, I do not care if they only want to jump a few weeks out of the year, PROVIDED they do it under the supervision of professional packers, spotters, load organizers, bone-setters, etc. And I expect those professionals to be paid for their time.

Frijole Rodriguez checking in from Vancouver, Canada.

I packed George Bush's reserve for his second jump, the one when the Japanese were not shooting at him. And it was most amusing watching all the manufacturers triping over each other to donate gear. Since I happened to be working for the company (Rigging Innovations) that sewed his harness/container, all the parts landed in my lap a week or two before Mr. Bush did his famous jump. I wonder what all those American patriots think about a "foreigner" packing reserves for retired American presidents? Stirring the pot! Hee! Hee! Last spring I did a tandem jump with Prevail from the Swollen Members. The embarrassing thing was that I did not have a clue what was going on with the Canadian hip hop scene before meeting him. Hah! Hah! Chuck Norris did a tandem jump back in the early 1990s at Hemet, California. My boss, Don Balch said that Chuck was breathing like a locomotive by the time he got near the door!

No my co-workers don't hassle me about jumping. Oh! Wait! I work at a DZ. The part that I never understood was my former Air Force co-workers hassling me because I sewed two sets of jump wings on my uniform. All my life people have been telling how weak and stupid and cowardly I am and all my Air Force co-workers seemed to think they were better than me, but only a couple of them ever jumped. Will someone please explain?

" end quote. It depends upon wingloading. For example, the last time I mis=packed a brake line on my Sabre 170. I just pulled down on a rear riser to stop the turn and give me time to analyze the problem. I soon saw my error, released both brakes and flew the canopy back to the bowl. The same packing error on a heavier-loaded canopy might produce unrecoverable line twists.

Yes I sat in on that discussion during the PIA SYmposium. The conclusion was that the FAA does not want to be bothered with changing the repack cycle. The USNavy proved decades ago that changes in repack cycles make insignificant changes in opening time. The only change is in the amount of wear and tear between inspections. It is only going to make a difference for people who make hundreds of jumps per year. These people are going to find that the loose grommet that their rigger used to whack with a hammer for free, now requires a sewn patch or even replacing the entire flap.

Yesterday I did four sets of chin-ups, four sets of knuckle push-ups, a few sit ups and tried some new exercises my doctor recommended for my weak knee. Today I stretch and if it ever quits raining will go for a bike ride.

May I throw some gasoline on this fire? I never looked at my altimeter during my last 18 malfunctions. The first time was after a short freefall. Since it was s short freefall, I was not wearing an altimeter. After pulling (near 3,000 feet), I looked up at a streamered main overhead, listened to the wind rushing past me, then looked at the ground rushing up, decided that I would not walk away from the landing and pulled my reserve ripcord. My last malfunction was under a spinning Diablo. Since I had only jumped from 3,000 feet and only freefallen for a couple of seconds, I had a rough idea of altitude. As I tried - unsuccessfully - to kick out of the line twists, I could see the planet spinning rapidly in my peripheral vision. The spinning planet looked like it does when I am below 2,000 feet.I contemplated looking at my altimeter, but concluded that would be a waste of time, so I shifted my focus to looking at handle san grabbing them. In conclusion, I consider looking at altimeters a waste of time when you are hanging under a malfunctioned main parachute. That being said, I always jump with wrist and ear-mounted altimeters.

Hi rDutch, Some Parachutes de France reserves are TSOed and can be legally jumped by American citizens in the USA. Just read the orange warning label, P.deF. build all of their reserves to similar specifications, but not all satisfy the FAA's paperwork requirements. Most of the confusion was caused by a P.deF. corporate decision to avoid American lawyers by not selling directly to the North American market. Pity! P.deF. builds some good gear. As for the debate over reserve suspension line attachment tapes .... Yes, the new Aerodyne is using the same Type 3 line attachment tapes as failed on some Precision Raven-M reserves. And yes, I remember the explanation given by the Aerodyne designer. These are the same Type 3 tapes we used on the Aviator P-124A heavy weight, high speed drop tests. Despite exceeding TSO C23D weight and airspeed requirements by wide margins, we never tore a tape. I suspect that the problem is that drop tests are normally done with stable dummies, while few skydivers are perfectly stable at pull time. Tumbling during deployment momentarily places all the load on one riser, which can overstress any single component. For a more detailed description of tumbling drop tests, ask Tony Frost in Marana, Arizona.

Many material specifications are available on-line at the Parachute Industry Association's website. A few years back the American military-industrial complex tired of maintaining MIL specifications, so they handed the responsibility to PIA. A military specification that used to read: " MIL-1234" now reads: "PIA-1234." http://www.pia.com/ecommerce/ Just because a parachute material does not have a MIL/PIA spec does not automatically exclude it from TSOed parachutes. You should be able to include Communist-Spec materials in TSOed parachutes as long as you can prove tracability. TSO manufacturers do not have to test-drop every single size of a container, different sizes are included in the same TSO as "minor changes." Mind you the definition of "minor change" and "major change" vary widely depending upon who you ask. He! He! Wiser manufacturers repeat tests on their largest and smallest models because opening characteristics change near the edges of the envelope. Main canopies are not covered by TSO. However all manufacturers exceed FAA requirements by doing exhaustive test jumps before they let the public jump new main parachute designs.

Also ask the doctor to look over your lower vertebrae. In my case, it took a month for a herniated disc to present itself as sciatia so bad that my left leg cramped up solid!

I disagree with giving only small students to new tandem instructors. My experience (2000 plus tandems) is that tiny students are the most dangerous. The problem is that small women believe that their instructors can solve any problem. So they go fetal on exit, hang onto instructors' thumbs at pull-time, etc. They have far more confidence in their instructors abilities than I do. So far (2,000 tandem jumps) I have been able to solve all the problems students have thrown at me, but I do not expect my luck to last forever. On the other hand, big guys know instinctively that they can kill tandem masters, so they listen and cooperate much better. I have jumped with tandem students 7 inches taller than me and 70 pounds heavier and they were some of my better students. Granted it takes a while for new tandem instructors to gain the experience to handle students significantly bigger than them, but it is all part of the learning process. I believe in leading by example, so I never ask other instructors to take students that I cannot handle. I also do not believe in assigning large students to small instructors when there is a larger instructor available. And let's be realistic, small tandem instructors should never have to jump with huge students. In conclusion, as long as I head the tandem program at Pitt Meadows, junior tandem instructors will start out with medium-sized students.

" end quote. Yes, PD reserves have a very good reputation. Tempos are also very popular. I have packed hundreds of Tempos and have always been impressed by their quality. Unfortunately Tempos just went out of production because PISA was absorbed by the New Aerodyne Corporation. I have only repacked a few Parachutes de France Techno reserves, but was also impressed by their quality. Sorry, I have never repacked a Speed reserve and cannot comment. "Opening security" should be the same on all reserves. As for landings, try interviewing people who have jumped each model.

That is easier said than done. Grounding all the non-TSOed gear would ground most of the instructors at many Eastern European DZs. Also consider exchange rates and how not many Eastern Europeans can afford shiny new gear - regardless of certification. Far wiser to use a three-step program. First, ground the worst old-school gear today. Secondly, publiclly inform all jumpers that no new non-TSOed gear will be allowed on the DZ. Finally, announce that after such-and-such a date (two or three years in the future), non-TSOed gear will be banned from the DZ. Since a new generation of fun jumpers pass through the DZ every two or three years, this should be easy. After four years, the only hold-outs will be a handful of POPS. Wise DZOs will sell new gear to POPS "at cost" to encourage them to lead by example.

Quote 4) I believe a new AFFI should not be signed off to do solo AFF until after being signed off by an AFF Mentor, and only after a minimum of 25, 2 Instructor dives with that AFF Mentor.Quote I agree. Recently certified instructors - in any genre - should be eased into instruction. This means that new s/l instructors should start with students doing their second or third jumps. They should gain some experience before dealing with the high-stress scenario of first-timers. This means that recently certified AFF Instructors should do a couple dozen "cling on dives" before any one-on-one dives with students. By the same logic, new tandem instructors should start with medium-sized students. Oh, and I believe that recently certified instructors should be paid for all the dives they do with students.

Listo, I disagree with you. Tandem students instinctively do two things with altimeters: ignore them and drop them on concrete. Altimeters are also a bad idea for first-timers because altimeters tend to overwhelm students with too much information. I have seen far too many static line/IAD students fixate on altimeters when they should be flaring. Also telling a S/L student to look at his malfunctioned main, then look at his altimeter is a waste of time. If he does not like the shape of his main, he should pull more handles NOW! I also believe that altimeters are an annoying distraction during short freefalls. Students don't need altimeters until they start doing delays 10 seconds or longer. Rob Warner pompous instructor since 1982 S/L, IAD, Tandem & PFF

Big gear bag bungee-corded on to the back seat of my Yamaha Vision.

Any pilot who flies through the middle of an active DZ is STUPID! Video his STUPID flying tricks and give it to the FAA. At Snohomish - when someone blundered through the DZ - I got on the local unicom frequency and announced "Some idiot in a blue and white Citabria is flying through an active drop zone." They usually high-tailed it out of the area. I want to emphasis that Snohomish's problem was "blundering", unlike the malicious actions of a certain Kapowsinite. The most dangerous week of the year at Snohimish was the same week as the Arlington Fly-In, when hundreds of visiting pilots passed through. As for the yellow journalists at KIRO, I change chanels whenever the news comes on. Life is too short to ruin my karma listening to their scandal-mongering!

Sorry to hear about your buddy's death. Please tell us the details of his accident so we can avoid repeating his mistakes. Fortunately there is huge body of knowledge available in the western world. Capitalists are so busy copying each other that few secrets remain. The thing I found most amusing about the 2003 Parachute Industry Symposium was that all the manufacturers - even the Russian manufacturers - are converging. Eventually we will have only two or three designs with minor variations built by a dozen different factories! Your first step should be to get a copy of (American) Federal Aviation Administration Type Standardization Order C23D (FAA TSO C23D). http://av-info.faa.gov/tso/Tsocur/C23d.doc FF TSO C23E will be introduced in a few months, with minor changes. Like most government documents, it can be difficult to understand, so feel free to ask me or any other FAA Master Parachute Rigger to explain the details. For example, how did Australian, Canadian, French and South African companies obtain TSO certification from the FAA? European JTSO and French (EQ 530-03 and QAC 121) parachute certification standards are close to FAA standards. For example, Dan Poynter has published several excellent books on parachute rigging. http://www.parapublishing.com/parachute/resources.html The Australian Parachute Federation has published the most complete list of Service Bulletins. Reading through this list will give you an idea of what works and what does not. Some of Service Bulletins cover quality control issues while others correct design flaws. http://www.apf.asn.au/apf_services/sb_rac.asp

It was funny the first time my three cats saw snow. They begged to go out on the porch, so I opened the porch door. They all ran out and started sniffing. As soon as they realized that their feet were cold and wet, they ran back inside! Ha! Ha!