riggerrob

Save a few coins by going with the slightly used rig. Promptly re-invest your savings in jump tickets because currency will keep you alive longer than shiny new gear.
Secondly, I am so tired of listening to rumors about "Sabre slap." Yes, first generation Sabres will slap you if you pack sloppily. Stilettos will bitch-slap you if you pack sloppily. Any Icarus canopy will tweak your neck if you pack sloppily. A SET 400 will break your neck if you pack sloppily enough. What is your point?

Vector 3 manual is just a Vector 2 manual with a 1-page supplement because the reserve closing sequence is slightly different. ie. compress pilotchute, close bottom flap, side, side, top, etc.

May be we need to add another line to our waivers "If you are dumb enough to breach this waiver by suing us, you (along with all your heirs, successors, executors, drinking buddies, etc.) will be forbidden to jump at the DZ ever again. We will also show copies of your court documents to all the other DZs, ski hills, snow board shops, kayak rental places, etc. we know of. On top of that, we will publically slander you and spit every time your name is mentioned. In short, you (along with your heirs, drinking buddies, etc.) will never have any more fun.
On a practical note, if the woman who launched a certain lawsuit (over a death at Perris a couple of years ago) ever shows up at any DZ I am working at, I will advise my boss not to take her money, because she is a high risk for a law suit.
In conclusion, I left Southern California because I hate working in a state where the laws are cast in clay!

Go rice boy!

Scary!
Glad to hear that your kidnapped friend was released okay.

Several major dealers sell daypacks that look like small parachutes.
Voodoo and Talon 2 day packs are available directly from Rigging Innovations.

Why would Para-Flite engineer a new reserve and call it Swift Plus?

The toughest thing about buying fancy emergency medical equipment is ensuring that you will have trained staff to operate it. Skydiving has a pretty high turn over and DZ staff tend to "migrate."

How much do you weight?
How physically fit are you?
Be honest, because the long term health of your femurs depends upon being true to yourself.

Whether or not to roll the nose depends upon the canopy model. Sabres (Mark !) and earlier designs usually need a bit of nose rolling to open soft.
Most parachutes designed after the Sabre (Stiletto, Sabre 2 and a hundred others) open soft enough that rolling the nose is a waste of time. A few parachutes specifically designed for soft openings (ie. SET 400) open really weird when you roll the nose.
Stuffing anything inside the center cell is just asking for a streamer, off-heading opening, etc.
In the long run, I have found that rolling the tail has a greater affect on openings. Rolling the tail has little affect on how the tail opens, but it does ensure that the slider stays at the top of the lines until line stretch. Slider position makes a huge difference in openings.

Thin people wear skin tight suits for freefall formations.
People with er, "baggy" physiques wear baggy jumpsuits for freefall formations.

1) total 3800
tandem 220
PFF maybe 100
trained & dropped close to 1,000 static line/IAD students
RW less than 1,000
Freefly maybe 50
hundreds of accuracy jumps
enough CRW to enjoy, but not enough to get good
helicopter 15
bridge 2
reserve rides total 17, 14 on first generation tandems
2) first tried PFF Instructor Course when I had 900 jumps
re-did PFF IC a decade later when I had 3500 jumps
Attempted AFFCC 3 times when I had between 1300 and 2000 jumps. Almost passed the first time, but a deteriorating attitude led to deteriorating scores on subsequent attempts.
3) zero VRW
4) haven't a clue
5) yes, freeflying skills will help instructors stay awake/aware when they are tumbling with the student from hell
6) Earn some kind of coach rating (Skydive U or CSPA) then do hundreds of coaching dives with junior jumpers (ie. A License) to refine your teaching, proximity, observation and debriefing skills. For example, CSPA requires a Coach 2 rating before you can attend a PFF IC.

Thanks for sharing your joy!

Happy birthday BB!
How many is it now?

I don't know.
The first thing I would do is ask your local rigger to do a tirm check. the first thing is to compare the length of the A lines. When you get 3 inches difference across the A lines, it usually means they have stretched or shrunk out of trim. If your canopy has any sort of taper, consult the manufacturer's trim chart for differences across the A lines.
A good rigger will measure trim side-to-side and front-to-back. Lower steering lines wear out first, so it is common to find steering lines 3 or 4 inches shorter after a few hundred jumps.

One option is to buy a standard, civilian carry on bag and try to stuff as much of your skydiving gear into it as possible. I doubt if your helmet will fit.
The logic behind using civilian luggage is that it looks like civilian luggage, which means fewer hassles by check in and security staff. And the average baggage thief will ignore it. Why bother trying to steal a bag when it looks like the usual socks and underwear from the outside?

The problem with Precision's retractable pin is that they wear out quickly and few riggers know how to repair them.
If you go to Icarus website, you will see that they recommend a kill line pilotchute when wing loadings exceed about 1.3.

We usually wait until 4,500 feet before hooking up students. 4,500 feet is the lowest I will do an emergency exit with a student connected.
The only time I hook up on the ground is if I am stuck beside the pilot of a small Cessna. Small Cessnas don't have enough elbow room to hook up when the door is closed. Most of the time I take the larger student so I can sit in the back, where there is some elbow room.

All but one of the tandem students who threw up or passed out on me skipped breakfast.
Over the years, I have heard so much profanity, in some many different languages, that it has gotten boring. Now I wear ear plugs to protect my delicate sensibilities.
The funniest thing is the number of new arms students grow when they get close to the door. Peal their left hand off the door frame. peel their right hand off the pilot's seat, peel their left hand off the wing strut, peel their right hand off the door frame, peel their left hand off your thigh, oh never mind, let's just go!
After 2200+ tandem jumps, I have seen almost everything, even tried a side-spin, once! But the only thing that gives me cold sweats was the 100 pound German girl who had a death grip on my left hand at pull time. We were jumping an early Vector Tandem long before Cypri were invented!

re. rigger currency: FAA requirements are pretty lame. The FAA does not even know which riggers are still alive! The gov't only requires that a rigger have done "something" during the last 90 days. This could be as simple as cleaning his tools.
A more practical measure of currency is to ask how many containers - of your type - he has packed in the last year. Also ask when was the last time he did some refresher training. Did he attend the last PIA Symposium?

Modern lines tend to stretch or shrink out of trim long before they become structurally unsound.
Time ot replace lines varies from 200 to 1,000 jumps. Top blade running competitors replace lines after 200 or 300 jumps because they load their canopies at 2.3 and want to extract every ounce of performance.
Sport jumpers who load their canopies lighter usually go 600 or 800 jumps between re-lines. As long as they land softly, they are happy with their old lines.
And as Skymonkee mentioned: neat packing, soft openings, landing on grass, packing on carpet, etc. all prolong line life.

FAA Senior Rigger is allowed to pack mains, reserves and do minor (read small and simple) repairs by hand or with a simple sewing machine. Senior riggers may be rated to pack: back, chest or seat containers. The air regulations also include a "lap" category, but since no lap type containers have been built in my lifetime, no-one takes that category seriously any more.
FAA Master Rigger may pack as well as do major repairs/alterations with a variety of sewing machines.
Rigger Examiners are appointed by the FAA to administer the oral and practical tests for new riggers. While there are a few RE civil servants, most of them are actually Designated Parachute Rigger Examiners who are active Master Parachute Riggers. For example, Ann Helliwell is an FAA DPRE in Southern California. Ann has thousands of jumps and most of the USPA Instructor ratings. She has made more than 1,000 BASE jumps and is part-owner of Basic Research, a company that specializes in manufacturing equipment fo rpeople who like to jump off of fixed objects. Oh, and Ann is a pleasant person, well-respected by the rest of the riggers in SoCal.
But your first step in becoming a rigger is learning how to pack your own main parachute.

Congratulations on your first save,
Even better that it was yourself.
My first save was also myself.
I had just bought a new Cruislite and I was enjoying how the container closed so much easier - than with my Strato Cloud - that I postponed shortening the main loop. BIG MISTAKE.
On my next jump, another jumper bumped me on exit. When my container went slack right after exit, I knew something was wrong, so I rolled onto my back to stare at a horseshoe malfunction. I promptly tossed my main pilotchute. Unfortunately I was too late, some lines had enough time to wrap around my d-bag, creating a bag lock. I dragged the bag lock down to 3000'. At 3000' I released the main and pulled my reserve ripcord. My 26' Defender opened firm and I steered it back to the regular landing area for a PLF.
We spent the rest of the afternoon searching for my new Cruislite among young trees near the river. Since it was spring time, I realized how silly I was to have an emerald green main d-bag and pilotchute.
The moral of my story was: if the closing loop seems loose, shorten it.
As for Jumperpaula's jitters .... pat yourself on the back, repack your reserve and get back in the air. The knowledge that one of your reserve pack jobs opened should improve your confidence.
These days I log pack jobs an promptly forget about them.
As for the booze, six years ago the hangovers started interferring with the rigging, so I quit drinking. These days, so few skydivers buy booze after reserve rides that I just quit caring. Half of them don't even tell me if they deployed a reserve that I packed.
Part of being a professional skydiver is staying emotionally aloof.

Please clarify: is the blade runner built by PISA or Chute Shop?
By the way, do you know Chute Shop's website address?

Back to the debate on which helmets freefall instructors should wear ....
I have to agree with Bill Von.
An once of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you can convince the student to relax by making funny faces and yelling, then they won't tense up, they won't spin and you won't have to chase them.
I only wear my full face on early release dives. Remember that my full face is an old Hansen camera helmet that protects the point of my jaw (a huge target) but leaves my mouth exposed.
Finally, bill made a good point about using your legs to stop a spinning student. Next time I have to stop aspinning student, I am going to try and stick a knee into the spinning mess. Mind you between now and then, I am going to use every other trick I know to prevent students from tensing up. Every second word in my briefings will be "relaaaaaaaax."