riggerrob

This question was posed on another thread.
How does a new jumper choose a rigger?
Start by asking around.
Who packs reserves for the school?
How neat are the school rigs?
How neat is his/her personal gear?
A rigger's best advertisement is his last pack job.
Who packs for the videographers?
Who packs for the skygods?
How many years has this rigger been rigging?
How many reserves has he repacked?
How many square reserves has he repacked?
Has he worked in a parachute factory?
Does he have enough sewing machines and ratings to do major repairs?
Has he attended a recent PIA Symposium?
Has he taught any new riggers recently?
Has he packed for any retired presidents?
Is he biased against any brand of gear?
Is his loft close enough to the DZ that you can drop off your rig Sunday evening?
Does he consistently turn gear around in one week?
The last question you should ask is price.
In skydiving - as in most other aspects of life - you get what you pay for.

Skydive University's "Basic Canopy Flight 101 and 150" videos and textbooks are better at teaching canopy skills. These are the skills you should be mastering about the time you write your A License exam.

Welcome to SoCal turbulence.
That sort of thing happen to me hundreds of times over California City and Hemet.
The high point was when the top skin went slack! Ha! Ha!

The high point of the week was when the Canadian women won gold in the hockey rink.
It was nice when the Canadian guys won too.
How do we convince the whining Russians to SHUT UP? Putin seems to be the only Russian with any maturity!
We would much rather hear about the sacrifices that various athletes made on their way to the 'Games.

Most DZs will not let anyone under 18 jump because of a long and bloody series of legal preceidents.
Back when static-lines were fashionable. Too many 16 year olds did too many stupid things (ie. landing in trees) and suffered too many injuries (ie. paralysis) and too many juries decided in favor of stupid plaintifs.
Granted, the risk of stupidity is less on tandem, but the legal precedent has been set.
Since tandem manufacturers want nothing to do with those multi-million dollar legal decisions, they have - wisely - chosen to ban under-age students.

Simple decision, if an AAD is installed, turn it on.
If you don't want to turn on the AAD, stay on the ground.

Every new generation of jumpers has to learn the same lessons.
That is why magazines reprise the same articles every 2 or 3 years.

He can leagally jump a Decelerator reserve in the USA provided the Decelerator is approved in his homeland. This means that South Africans, Canadians and most Europeans can legally jump Decelerators in the USA.
However, an American citizen cannot legally jump a Decelerator in the USA. He has to go overseas - or at least to Canada - to jump a Decelerator.
Talk about silly laws!

Pack boys reduce wear and tear on fingers.

Bellytive Workers.
Good term.
Remember to use the new term next time I am spouting off at the DZ.

Check your bridle routing.
You may be inadvertently stuffing it past the corner of the stiffener in the bottom flap. When the bridle catches on the corner of the stiffener, it hesitates.
Not to worry, it usually clears about the time you peel the Velcro on your cutaway handle! Ha! Ha!
The short term solution is to stuff less bridle under the right side flap.
The long term solution is to sew on an extra bridle-hiding-flap similar to the latest Javelins. This flap will prevent you from stuffing the bridle too deep.

To quote George Gallowy (Precision Aerodynamics), a larger slider means that the canopy starts spreading earlier, but it takes longer for the slider to come down the lines.
The end result is a softer opening.
Videographers have been known to install tandem sliders on their Sabres to soften openings!

Got my last save yesterday.
Guy had a funky opening on his Sabre, so he cut it away and dumped his reserve.
He landed beside the bowl.
His free-bag landed on a young tree near the VOR, but his Sabre landed nearby in a puddle. Lots of puddles in Pitt Meadows this time of year.
Timing was good for two reasons. First, his Javelin main top flap was starting to fray and secondly, he was planning to trade his Sabre for a Diablo.

I didn't really want to get into too much detail about main pilotchutes, but. ...
Reserve pilotchutes are "over-sized" to begin with, typically 36" to 44". They would produce hard openings if used as main pilotchutes.
For example, if you look at last year's fashion in AFF student rigs, with main ripcords and and spring-loaded main pilotchutes, you will see that most use massive springs to launch their main pilotchutes clear of the huge, 3-way burble. Most manufacturers equate massive pilotchute springs with massive pilotchute canopies. This is great for initially snatching the d-bag out of the container, but massive main pilotchutes become a liability by the time you get to line stretch. By line stretch, the pilotchute and d-bag are going slowly, even if the jumper is still falling at the same rate.
The key point is that main pilotchutes remain tied to the canopy. So when you reach line stretch, the main piltochute exerts an extra "spike" in the deceleration curve. This spike is transmitted directly down the lines to the harness. This spike often results in tears near the bridle attachment point.
Hint, I just overhauled 6 Mantas and 2 Raiders that were used for AFF.
I am so current on canopy patches and repairing bridle attachment points!

Canada went to a 180 day repack cycle a couple of years ago, but Canadian pilots are still on a 120 day repack cycle.
For all practical purposes, most Canadians are on an annual repack cycle.
There is always a mad rush the week before Oshkosh, Reno or a soaring competition to get all the pilot emergency parachutes in date. From a practical point of view, it is unwise to let PEPs go more than 2 years between repacks. Rubber bands rot out after 2 years in hot climates.
I have no complaint about annual repack cycles in a place like Canada with a 5 or 6 month jumping season.
Time is not the issue.
Repacking a reserve does nothing to affect its airworthiness.
It is the 1 hour long inspection that precedes the repack that is important.
Wear and tear is the main concern.
Scheduled inspections are a crude guess at when a problem will become noticable, but not life-threatening. Sport jumpers can probably safely stick to annual repacks, but tandems, student and rental gear should stay on a 100 or 120 repack cycle.
Professional instructors, videographers orf competitors who make 1,000+ jumps per year would be foolish to only do annual inspections. 180 day inspections would also be unwise in that fast-paced environment.
Wear and tear on reserve canopies is insignificant. I have found damage to 1% of the reserve canopies I have repacked. Most of the damage occurs to containers (as it should) and harnesses. The main reason for scheduled repacks is to catch minor damage to harness/containers before it becomes life-threatening. Repack time is also a good time to get any service bulletins or airworthiness directives or updates done.
Since the lines on modern main canopies can stretch/shrink out of trim in as little as 200 jumps, maybe we should insist on annual or 200 jump inspections (whichever comes first) on mains.
In general, annual or 200 jumps inspections - on the complete system - make more sense.

Thanks for the input Skymonkey,
So you say that a Cobalt maxs out at 2.4
If we knew your exit and Jim Slaton's exit weight and Luigi's exit weight, we could figure out your (collectively) wing loadings.

To summarize:
any F-11 canopy 1.1
Triathlon 1.35
Diablo 1.5
Sabre 1.5
Samuari 1.6
Stiletto 1.7
Velocity 2.45
XAOS 2.7

Three cats: Demi, Angel and Red Bluff.
Demi strode into our apartment one Saturday morning when I was to laden with gearbag, helmet bag, etc. Asked girlfriend to "handle the cat." Next thing I knew, she was feeding canned salmon to this teenaged cat. She has unusual facial coloring, half brown and half black, so we named her "Demi" (french for "half").
After three weeks, Demi was getting bored, tearing sofa, etc., so we adopted a tiny kitten and named her "Angel." Angel was such a fierce kitten, pouncing on Demi's tail. Angel matured into the most gentle, loving cat with grey tiger stripes.
"Red Bluff' adopted us when we were moving from Perris to Snohomish. I was exhausted from driving a rented 28' truck all day. When we stopped at a motel in the town of Red Bluff, California, there were stray cats in the parking lot. I left them a little dry cat food, then closed the door. Next thing we knew, this kitten was meowing loudly at our door for ten minutes straight. When we finally let her in, she was covered in fleas. Somehow I remembered where the cat shampoo was and we washed hundreds of fleas off her! Disgusting! Doubt if she would have survived the week. Red Bluff has been a fierce kitten for three years now, only recently mellowing. Under all that fur, she is still skinny as a rail.

California drivers that don't use turn signals.
Fat guys who wear Spandex RW suits.
People spouting off about subjects that they don't understand.

Teach your kids how to pack.
Let them earn their own jump tickets.

Funny, we have dozens of parachutes stored that way in Pitt Meadows and never had a problem. There is so much air in these hangars and aircraft batteries vent so few fumes, that any acid is extremely diluted by the time it penetrates a locker.
Battery fumes are only an issue if the parachute is sitting right beside the battery.

Thanks guys,
We are now getting some serious input.
quade,
I was trying to ask a technical question that ignored pilot technique.
As for your implication that J.C. would fly better at the same wing loading as Luigi ...
Sorry dude, but I have to disagree. Luigi is short and muscular. J.C. has almost the opposite body type: tall and lanky. J.C.'s longer limbs crate more drag.

quade,
I was trying to ask a technical question that ignored pilot technique.
As for your implication that J.C. would fly better at the same wing loading as Luigi ...
Sorry dude, but I have to disagree. Luigi is short and muscular. J.C. has almost the opposite body type: tall and lanky. J.C.'s longer limbs crate more drag.

Most schools limit student size to about 220 pounds.
Beyond that it becomes a question of instructor skill and courage.
The practical limit on first generation Strongs was 400 pounds of suspended meat. Any heavier than that and you started blowing holes in canopies, breaking lines, etc.
Modern SET 400s are far more forgiving.
I weight 190 pounds naked and am the only TM at Pitt Meadows who routinely carries 220 pound students.
With heavier students, fitness is more important than weight. The flabby 260 pounder was a struggle for all concerned, while the 270 pound rugby player was easier than many students half his size.
In the long run, tandems are a mental game. If students listen, then everyone has fun.

quade,
Theory and fancy formulas are nice, but every canopy has an envelope that it performs well within, and performance suffers when you exceed that envelope. I asked people where the edges of the envelope are for each canopy model.
I am trying to figure out at what wing loading a canopy starts sinking out of the sky.
We all know that under-loaded (say 100 pound student) Mantas just mush around the sky. Mantas don't really fly like wings when they are under-loaded.
By the same token, over-loaded canopies don't really fly like wing seither. We all know that you can overload most ZP canopies and survive. But when you near the edge of the envelope, glide and flare performance suffer.
The original question was: what is the heaviest practical wing-loading for each model?