riggerrob

Nasty!

Re: stolen Cypri.No self-respecting rigger will repack a Cypres that is overdue for a factory inspection. And the Cypres factory does keep an eye out for stolen Cypri. For example, a few years back, a stack of Cypri were stolen from the Golden Knights. When those Cypris arrived at the factory for 4-year checks, SSK seized them and returned them to the "Knights. I will bet that half of stolen parachutes land in dumpsters. Few thieves are bright enough to fence stolen parachutes. For example, last May, someone broke into our main hangar and stole 7 sport rigs. They ignored the expensive tandems and sport rigs in lockers. Three of the stolen rigs had round reserves and were so old you could not give them away! Ten days later he thieves tried selling the rigs to a retired skydiver. Since the retired skydiver was a prospect for a group of motorcycle enthusiasts who prefer to remain nameless -and that group does not want to be bothered with petty crime - he convinced the thieves to give him the rigs, which he quietly returned to the DZ. A couple of months later, a drunken idiot approached one of our senior licensed jumpers on the street offering to sell him the last stolen rig. The licensed jumper phoned the police, who replied, "Oh, do you mean the guys we just cited for public drunkeness?" So, half the parachute thieves are not bright enough to fence stolen parachutes and those parachutes land in dumpsters.

Keep your day job until you own a trailer, two rigs, two cameras, two ratings, two jumpsuits, a trailer and two or more ratings. It will take three years and 500 jumps to earn a tandem instructor rating and that is the best-paying rating. But avoid limiting yourself to being a one-trick-pony. Earn as many ratings as you can. For example, rigging may sound boring, but remember that I am earning a salary for rigging while all of the other skydivers in BC are starving through the rainy season. Your carpentry experience will endear you to DZOs, but ideally you can clean the toilets, repair the toilets, mow the lawn, repair the lawn mower, sew patches on parachutes, pack those parachutes, do all different types of instructional dives and video those dives. Oh and the DZO will want you to switch hats fast enough to hot load. It also helps if you can migrate when the seasons change. Some of the happiest professional skydivers I know jump 3 or 4 days out of the week, but do construction in the off season.

Grabbing one riser with both hands is a habit that will get you in trouble later. First, grabbing risers can lead to torn fingers. The other problem will rear its ugly head a few hundred jumps down the road. Any assymetry during deployment (i.e. both hands on one riser) can produce un-recoverable line twists. Now that I have scared you ... here are a couple of tips to improve your performance. First of all, recognize that many people find DRP to be the most difficult stage of learning how to skydive. You are asked to perform a complex task while experiencing massive sensory overload. Some days, I believe that my primary job as a PFF instructor is to hold the student stable until he wakes up from sensory overload. It took me a dozen DRPs before I convinced my instructors that I was going to pull and pull stable. My main problem was fixating my eyes on the (chest-mounted) ripcord handle and pulling too soon. Recognize that the handle will shift as soon as you leave the plane. Do plenty of ground practice - under the supervision of an instructor in a variety of positions (standing, laying on a hammock, suspended harness, etc.). The suspended harness will increase your confidence in leg straps. Once you understand harnesses, you will understand how rarely people fall out of their harnesses and how silly grabbing risers is. No matter how strong your arms are, you will not be able to hand onto risers through opening shock!

Some adhesive on some brands of ripstop tape will rot nylon fabric. The other problem is adhesive holding sand/salt/grit against the fabric. The sand slowly grinds a larger hole in the fabric. If you intend to keep the canopy for a few more years, then invest in some decent sewn patches. Hint, before you mail it off, ask the rigger if he has a stock of Gelvenor ZP fabric from South Africa.

Secondary riser covers are a luxury. They make no difference on most rigs. Bill Booth explained to me that the only reason he incorporated secondary riser covers on the Vector 3 is that the primary riser covers were too shallow, they did not consistently cover the toggles. Mirage and Voodoo copied the secondary riser covers without fully understanding their purpose. You may have noticed that Sigmas do not have secondary riser covers and they have been deleted from the latest Voodoos. One of our local jumpers said that the secondary riser covers are only important when he packs sloppily. Learn from his mistakes, don't pack sloppily.

18 reserve rides in total. 2 rides on reserves that I owned and packed (#2 and #18). Incidentally, my second reserve ride was also my first "save" with a shiny new rigger rating. #1 - 24 flat, non-steerable military surplus reserve, 1979. #2 - 26 conical F-111 Defender round reserve, 1984. #3 - 24 foot conical German-made round reserve, 1987. #4 through #17 Stong 425 tandem reserves, 1993 through 1998. #18 - Amigo 172 square reserve, 2002.

Since all reserve are rectangular, they are easy to measure. Unfortunately every manufacturer uses a different measuring method. Just ask for the PIA numbers when comparing reserves form different manufacturers.

Old jump plane airframes often get pushed back in the weed when the cost of overhaul exceeds the cost of a decent used plane. For example, you can buy a "beater" Cessna 182 airframe for about CAN$40,000 while a new engine costs about CAN$40,000. The price split is even more dramatic on turbine engined airplanes. When you buy a used King Air, you are basically buying the instrument panel and the time remaining on the engines. The airframe is often tossed in for free. When your current pair of engines wear out, it is often cheaper to buy another used King Air, steal the engines and push the second airframe into the weeds. The only reason for overhauling old airplanes is if there is nothing else available to do the job. For example, last winter, Abbotsford, BC spent an obscene amount of money repairing their Fairchild Porter after it taxied into a ditch. They had to spend the money because a Porter is the biggest airplane that can operate out of their short runway and the overhaul was still cheaper than importing another used Porter. It is only economical to overhaul old planes if spare parts are cheap and you have an experienced mechanic who knows all the quirks of that model of old airplane.

Historically, CRW flaps pre-date both Chris and Canuck's comments. When Canopy Relative Work became popular in the early 1980s, a few jumpers had pre-mature reserve deployments when their buddies knocked their reserve pins loose, usually while "planing" a formation. The short-term solution was to sew an extra CRW flap on the reserve lower flap. Initially CRW flaps were sewn along the bottom edge and the top edge just flopped in the breeze. Good CRW flaps had zero impact on reserve deployment. This quickly became the standard on the student Telesis rig and eventually led to the tuck-in reserve flap introduced on the (1991) Flexon. The advantage to the Flexon tuck in flap was that it was snag proof in both directions. Other manufacturers soon plagarized tuck in reserve pin cover flaps.

I made more than 1,000 without AADs before Cypri were introduced in 1991. As a poor professional skydiver, I have a Cypres in one rig and no AAD in my backup rig. My backup rig is a 1985 vintage Mirage and I have never been able to find written instructions for Cypres retro-fit, plus it would require a 2-pin Cypres and I am too cheap to buy a 2-pin Cypres. So now I have to decide whether to update the Vector I gathering dust in the the corner or design myself a new rig that is compatible with a 1-pin Cypres. Last year my boss loaned me a Cypres because he believes that instructors should lead by example. About 90% of the rigs on our DZ have AADs.

Another option is to ask a respected American rigger to inspect it before it crosses the border. I can recommend several FAA Master Riggers in SoCal.

Here is a really sick and twisted thought: "What if warfare were reduced to the question of who could deliver damage in the most economical fashion?" Fedex and UPS would be all over that contract like flies on s***t! Can you imagine Sadam Husein and President Bush having to personally sign for all their packages? Can you imagine FEDEX drivers asking for a two minute lead before people opentheir packages? Can you imagine UPS drivers demanding better running shoes as part of their union contract?

It is one thing have licenses that give you bragging rights, but many people will only earn new licenses if they allow them to do new things. For example: back in 1979 I wrote the CSPA A License exam so I could jump without an instructor. In 1981 I wrote the CSPA B License exam so I could do bellytive work. That same year I wrote the CSPA C License exam so I could do demo jumps (subsequently changed). Then I waited 9 years to write the USPA D License exam so I could attend a USPA ICC. I have never applied for a CSPA D, because one of the few privileges a Canadian D offers is the right to jump without a helmet and I do not care to jump without a helmet. I also have never applied for a USPA PRO rating or CSPA EJR because I lost interest in demo jumps a long time ago. New licenses should be linked to new privileges. Incidentally, CSPA adopted the new international licensing standards last year. CSPA also has a Solo Certificate that allows PFF grads with more than 10 jumps to jump at their home DZ without an instructor. The solo certificate gives them an easy, short-term goal and gets them over that initial fear of exams. The Solo exam is a list of oral questions.

I voted "Other". other meaning a camera. I would like to buy one of those eeny, weeny, teeny, tiny Mini DV video cameras so I could mount it on my left hand and capture electronic memories of tandem student's faces right after opening.

I was pulling your leg about jumping at Leadville, Colorado. At 9,000 feet above sea level, it is the highest airport in the USA. Some flying schol slike to take pilots to Leadville as part of mountain flying training. Most pilots are amazed at how much of Leadville's runway they nedd for takeoff! Given that most piston-engined jump planes could not take off from Leadville with a full load, it would be almost impossible to turn a profit. You would have to start with a lightly-loaded turbo-prop - like a Porter - and charge much more than normal to cover the longer climb time and on-board oxygen. For serious freefall time, everyone would need to wear oxygen masks in freefall.

If you really want, I have an Eclipse packing manual, but it differs so little from the Vector 2 packing manual that it is hardly worth the postage to try sending you a copy.

Call me tall, call me arrogant, but I have always been able to get a knee up on the table to compress pilotchutes, etc. I have probably packed a thousand round PEPs on tables using a combination of hands, knees and hooks. Ironically, when closing one-pin sport rigs, I have to shift them to a carpeted surface to prevent them from sliding a way from me. Maybe the answer is to drag that square yard of carpet across the loft and lay it on the table.

Two suggestions: First, learn the rolling phase of psycho-packing. It makes it way easier to bag any canopy. Secondly, if you don't like rolling, then try Philipp Ludwig's method. Philipp starts by pro-packing the canopy, laying it on the floor and folding the edges under so it about the same width as the d-bag. Then he kneels on the top edge of the orange warning label. This prevents the slider and lines from wandering during the next 5 steps. It also slows air trying to re-enter the canopy. He reaches underneath to grab the leading edge and presses most of the canopy against his belly. With his other hand, he slides the d-bag between the canopy and the floor, locking it in place with his knees. Now that the canopy, d-bag and floor are clamped together by his knees, he has both hands free to steer the top 3/4 of the canopy. He grabs the canopy half way up and shoves it into the top corners of the d-bag. Then he straightens out the bridle and shoves the top 1/4 of the canopy into the d-bag. Now is a good time to cock the kill-line. Now and only now does he move his knees. Finally, he up-ends the d-bag on the bridle and shoves the remaining lower 1/4 of the canopy into the center of the d-bag. After stowing the first rubber band, he catches his breath. The beauty of Philipp's method is that the important parts are clamped throughout most of the bagging process and you are only trying to bag 1/4 of the canopy at a time.

I have packed all three and they blur together in my mind. 1. Javelin 2. Voodoo 3. Vector Re: 1. Wings are easier to pack than Javelins. Re: 2. I wrote the Talon 2 packing manual while working at R.I., so can pack that series in my sleep. Re: 3. Vectors have 6 flaps (vs. 4 on the others) and it is a nuisance to straighten out the corners on the inner top flap. They finally got the inner top flap design right on the Vector 3.

Good DZOs inspect tandem instructors' licenses, logbooks, medicals, tandem rating cards and reserve data cards. The only requirement for a landing area is BIG.

I have been whacked by Strong tandem risers so many times that I traded my leather hat for a ProTec. I drove one colleague to the hospital after a riser knocked him silly and another colleague had to get his ear sewn back on. Holding the student's head was common practice in BC before I moved here. Since I never saw the logic to holding the student's head, I never did it. The only logic I can see is that F-111 canopies tend to open hard, but since we retired F-111 mains I cannot see the point to continuing the tradition. Good point about keeping your hands so far back that the student never sees them. Your time would be far wiser spent ensuring that your slider is all the way up and your line stows are tight.

I have often thought that it would be fun to take people considering downsizing to other DZs so they could feel the affects of density altitude with their own canopy. For example, take someone from a sea level DZ to a Perris at 1500', then California City at 2500', then Denver at 5000' then Leadville at 9000', etc.

With 4,000 jumps and a long list of instructor ratings, I voted to ground the offender. But I want to point out that groundings are a grey area. The decision to ground people depends largely upon how they respond to counselling. Two examples, 22 years apart. The second guy was clinically diagnosed with mental problems. His hook turns scared us so badly the DZO finally said: "If you do that again, you're fired!" He hook turned again and injured a spectator. That guy should have been grounded much earlier. The first incident occurred at The 1980 Easter Boogie in Z-Hills. I hook-turned my Strato Star and a load organizer threatened to ground me. The up shot was me paying far more attention to windsocks and approaches. In conclusion, if a mis-behaving jumper admits the error of his ways and listens to advice, re-educate him and get him back in the air. If another dangerous jumper repeatedly ignores advice, ground his sorry ass!

Kelly was building Infinities when I visited Kapowsin in 1999. Kelly's Infinities have dozens of minor changes that make them head and shoulders better than the early Infinities. Kelly's Infinities compete head-on with Vector 3s.