riggerrob

As long as you operate your Raven within placarded weight and airspeed limits, there is little risk of it tearing on opening. Last winter I saw a Raven 282-Ma that tore on opening, but the guy was considerably heavier, faster (than placarded limits) and marginally stable while waiting for his Cypres to fire. Raven ... - Maa and -Mb have stronger line attachment tapes (Type 1 herring bone weave tape) and the Raven Max series now have spanwise reinforcement tapes on the bottom skin. Spanwise reinforcement tapes are now standard on Amigo, Performance Designs and Tempo reserves.

rmcvey did not specify his/her weight. The first step in learning to fall faster is to ask a coach to critique your body position in freefall, to confirm that you are really in a fast fall position. Ideally the de-brief will include video. The second step is to borrow a sexy, skin tight Spandex jumpsuit with shiny fabric on the front. Weight vests are the last resort. A good coach will deliberately "under weight" initially, forcing you to refine your body position even more. In the long run this you will have a wider range of fall rates than the fat boys you are jumping with.

If the Lodi "poser" really wants to see his picture in Parachutist, he should do it the same way the rest of us got our pictures in Parachutist: MAKE A FEW THOUSAND JUMPS!

Perris Valley, California does regular water training sessions in their swimming pool.

I have done that bridle cover update on several Javelins, Vectors and a 1985 vintage Mirage. It takes about an hour to sew. As for adding tuck tabs to early Mirages .... I tried it on my 1985 vintage Mirage and the damn things keep slapping my ears. Next repack I am going to re-install the Velcro. Tuck tab design is a complex process and even the best designers rarely get it right on the first try. For example, when I was working for Rigging Innovation, we started building Genera prototypes in 1986. At that time Rigging Innovations had more experience building tuck tabs than any other manufacturer. It took us 40 prototypes to perfect the Genera pattern set. We knew the basic dimensions of the main and reserve containers after the first half-dozen prototypes, but it took another 34 prototypes to perfect the main riser covers!

The debate is really between "hooking" versus "carving." If you hook, it is essentially a one shot deal. You pull such a radical control input that you are level with your canopy. All the extra energy for turf surfing is momentum gained as you fall back under your canopy. There are two disadvantages to hooking. First of all, hooking is a one shot deal and there is a limit to the amount of energy you can gain. This limit to the amount of energy is why toggle hooks have fallen out of fashion on the pro blade-running tour. Secondly, while hooking, you have limited the amount of control you have while you are close to the planet. When you mis-judge a hook, it takes several seconds to get a canopy overhead. You are out of control for a few seconds while you wait for your canopy to re-appear overhead. Stabbing toggles may get a canopy overhead, but that desperate move leaves little energy for flaring. If you are really deep in the corner, even stabbing won't save you, If a planet smacks you before you have a canopy overhead, there is little you can do except smile at the ambulance driver. Carving (with toggles or front risers or rear risers) is a whole other game. Since carving is not a one shot deal, you can carve for as long as your arm muscles last and gradually increase your velocity. The safety advantage to carving is that if you get scared, you can release a front riser at any time and will have a canopy overhead almost instantaneously. As for your original question about why some of the POPS toggle hook. It is the same answer as to why some POPS still jump pull-outs: it is too hard to teach old dogs new tricks.

Visit Interigo (did I spell that correctly?). Marta and the boys have access to a bunch of legal cliffs in Utah.

If there is any doubt about the winds, walk back down.

Kelly, You are starting to sound like a bureaucrat. Any licensed jumper should be able to witness the fact that you handled a cutaway and reserve deployment correctly. I had a couple of reserve rides before I got my tandem rating and neither of them was signed by an S&TA.

It should automatically log: jump number, date, and accumulated freefall time. There should be room to log: place, type of airplane, altitude, length of delay, distance from target, type pf jump, lots of room for logging what really happened, witnesses/ a place to sign, etc.

If you look in the classified ads in either Skydiving or Parachutist Magazines, you will see a series of ads for rigging schools run by Dave DeWolf, Cathy Schlater, Tom Dolphin, et al. These rigging schools typically run 9 or 10 days in January or February. While the perfect candidate can do all the required practice in 9 days, the rest of us mere mortals prefer to apprentice under a local rigger for a few months ahead of time. Hint, if you want your local rigger to take you seriously, show up with an armload of Dan Poynter's books and completed answer sheets for the first 2 or 3 chapters in the Rigger's Study guide. There are two other options: Rigging Innovations and the military. R.I. will invite you to the American School of Parachute Rigging in Eloy for about 3 weeks. They will reach you everything you need to know to pass the FAA test and then some. This is way more information than a Senior Rigger needs to practice his trade. For example: who gives a fleep about the closing sequence on a military surplus B 4 container? I laugh B 4s out of my loft! The final option for learning rigging is to sign your life away to the military for three or more years. In the military you will learn all the intimate details of one parachute system (it might be 64 foot cargo chutes) and will learnt he prerequisites for the writing the FAA exam. However, military experience won't prepare you to be a civilian rigger unless you are fortunate enough to be posted to the Golden Knights or a Military Freefall School.

Parachutes de France and they said that my S.O.S. reserve has an inflated size of 185 square feet.

Two points: First, many CReW dogs and instructors still wear hook knives. Secondly, will someone please explain why we still use that so hopelessly out of date expression?

If you are facing downwind and you pull down on toggles or the rear risers, you will travel farther because your canopy will be exposed to the winds aloft for more minutes. By the same logic, if you face into the wind and apply brakes, your canopy will cover less ground because the upper winds are trying to push it backwards. Think of your canopy as flying in a giant block of air. The canopy has no clue that it's block of air is sliding across the surface of a planet.

I disagree. Fabric may wear very slowly, but Spectra lines shrink out of trim far faster. By 500 jumps, the steering lines will be 4 to 6 inches shorter than when they were new. This is like flying final approach with 1/4 brakes. When you start the flare with less energy, you have less energy at the end of the turf surf. Also, outboard lines shrink far quicker than inboard lines, so the outer A lines will be 3 or 4 inches shorter than the center lines. This changes the anhedral angle of the canopy, forcing it to devote more energy to spreading the end cells, so there is less energy available for lifting straight up. When you re-line a canopy after 500 jumps, you notice improvements in both performance and handling.

Pulling down on a toggle creates far more drag than lift. Pulling down on one toggle creates far more drag on one side of the canopy, the resultant yaw forces the canopy to turn. Banking is just a by product of the process. Or think of it as a glider with spoilers that can be deployed asymetrically.

Not to steal Bill Booth's thunder, but a guy who still jumps at Pitt Meadows did a static-line jump onto the North Pole back in the 1960s. JP was a Combat Engineer serving in the Canadian Armed Forces when they were asked to support a geological expedition to assert Canada's claim on the high Arctic. JP spent a few weeks at the North Pole bulldozing runways, setting up tents, refueling tent heaters, that sort of thing.

New Year's Resolutions: Earn a Commercial Pilot's License so I can return to flying jumpers. Up date my First Aid and CPR certificates. Build a rig that is easier to pack than anything else on the market. Learn AutoCAD. Finish 2002 with more money in the bank than I have now. Sleep more Follow up on the suggestion that I become an aerobics instructor. Convert my double kayak to a single. Kayak more. Mountain bike more. Hike in forests more. Wait a minute! All those activities would mean spending less time chatting on the computer with you woderful people.

Yes there is a down side to Psycho packing. The name is not nearly as cool as PRO packing! Getting serious, psycho packing includes a step where you roll the canopy just before stuffing it in to the d-bag. The roll pre-compresses the canopy, making it stuffing it in to the d-bag easier, because the canopy cannot squirt sideways. This rolling technique can also be incorporated into other packing methods. There are two additional disadvantages to Psycho Packing. First, you have to remember whether you flopped it left or right. Hint, flop it to the same side every time. Finally, pyscho packing can lead to ridiculously slow openings on canopies that open significantly slower than Triathlons.

Hello John Brasher, It is good to hear from you again. If you remember, I referred a few tandem progression students to you back when we both worked at Hemet, California. Blue skies and Merry Christmas Rob Warner

Oops! Perhaps my vocabulary was a bit too strong in my last post.

lummy, Many instructors agree with you and prefer to have two instructors on a first freefall, no matter what previous jumping experience the student has. The decision to go with one instructor is usually an economic decision at a DZ that is short of freefall instructors.

Back in 1987 I herniated a disc in my lower back and it took me several years to return to skydiving. The key was a physical fitness program that strenghtned all the muscles in my torso so they held my spine in correct alignment and prevented further injury. The first winter I just lay on the floor and moaned. When I tried resuming skydiving that spring, I re-injured my back. The second winter, I attended aerobics classes three times a week. The most important part of any aerobics classes is all the different types of sit ups. That got me into good enough shape to pass a Progressive Freefall Instructors' Course. The third winter I swam three or four times a week. That provided a gentle workout for injured back muscles and helped keep my weight within reason. Now I kayak or bicycle when it is sunny and attend aerobics classes two or three times a week. I am getting good enough that my instructor has recommended that I become an aerobics instructor. Oh! Perish the thought of having to spend more hours in a gym full of sweaty, hard breathing athletic young women!

How many dropzones are still offering a pure AFF Program? The whole concept of a freefall from 10,000' on the first jump was never very popular with Canadian instructors and I hear that more and more American DZs are offering some form of tandem progression. Also, for DZs that offer both pure AFF and tandem progression, what percentage of students do pure AFF? How well do pure AFF students perform compared with tandem progression students, or static-line progression students? The big question is how many students graduate pure AFF vs. tandem progression?

Sounds like you are a overwhelmed by AFF. Try breaking it down into smaller bits. First of all, learn how to steer your parachute, secondly get some tunnel time and finally resume AFF. First of all, find a dropzone that still has a static-line or IAD program. Do a few jumps from 3,000 so you can concentrate on steering your parachute. Once you get comfortable steering your parachute and can consistently land it softly near the target, then start working on other skills. The big advantage of a few canopy rides is that when you resume AFF, you will re-enter familiar territory when you open your main parachute. I refuse to give you a jump number for this canopy control phase of training. We all learn at different rates. You don't learn as quickly as the AFF textbook. So what! Find a learning pace that you are comfortable with and stick with it. If any "AFF all the way" Nazis try to fling you out of an airplane at 10,000' before you are ready, tell them to f@#$%! off because it is your money, your time and your life. Rob Warner Static line instructor since 1982 Rigger since 1984 Tandem instructor since 1986 Progressive Freefall Instructor since 1990