Periapt

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Typical skydiving round canopies of the late 60's and early 70's had a sleeve, which added a LOT of bulk, and many were of a more complex design then the reserve and were bulkier for that reason.
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I can't resist! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH9kaxWQjfA

Good one........ oh... was there a parachute in that clip?

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I believe it's a Security Crossbow piggyback :)

With a flat circular canopy and a T-U cut in it, or possibly it's a LoPo manufactured with the mod.

Nice demo of packing a round, but I guess they don't make packers like they used to...(Sigh!)

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Ralph,

I believe what you are referring to is a "knob guide". They were in use on AF and Navy back and seat parachute and interestedly enough, are still used today by the AF at least on bailout parachutes.

See attached pics and I hope this helps.

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(from Darkwing)Interesting. I owned a blast handle rig in the old days, and was never aware of the knob guide. By the way, I liked the blast handle at the time and even now don't think they are a bad way to do it.

Thank you for the info and the pics. This, indeed is indeed the componint I was inquiring about.

The rig I had was a crossbow piggyback with a cut-down main container. It had blast handles on both main and reserve, both of which had guide nobs in place. As per the custom of the time, the post was drilled out of the reserve handle, but this, uncustomarily, was not done on the main handle.

It is noteworthy that I NEVER had any difficulty pulling the main (undrilled post and all). It was reported that pulls not in-line with the ripcord housing could cause the handle to hang-up. I also know that the knob-guides were rarely seen on sport rigs.

My suspicion is that the knob-guide effectively added a lever arm that stuck out from the fist when pulling and twisted the handle so it was inline with the end of the ripcord housing, even if the pull was off-axis.

Based on this, I must conclude that a guide nob was necessary for optimal function and should have been used on all blast handle ripcords, main or reserve.

As I posted elsewhere, I really liked the blast handles. They were always where you expected them to be and they were less likely to snag on something. It is a shame that they have been banned.

Which services had emergency parachutes that used the Wind Blast handles?

What was the terminology for the cylindrical sleeve that was attached over the end of the ripcord housing, covering the clips that held the handle in place.. These were, as I recall from a sport rig I owned, about 2" in length and were held in place by a setscrew.

If you have any images, they would be appreciated.

Thanks,
D-3017

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you cannot resuscitate someone who has hit an object with high force. high speed impact+no pulse = death.
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I have a pup named Timothy. He is my son/;I love hm more thaqnk anything.l

How much force is "high force"? How blunt is a "blunt object". What if impact was a glancing blow? What if the object had some "give" to it instead of being rock hard? What if you didn't directly see the impact? What if you're wrong about judging how fast and how hard they hit? What if you're wrong about there being no pulse?

If your pup, which you love, suffered such an accident, would you do nothing to try and save him?

It doesn't hurt to try.

This has been an interesting thread, largely because both sides have made good points. FlyingPortagee is partially correct in saying that that a pulseless vicitm of trauma is dead. Trauma surgeons will tell you,"Dead trauma is Dead!" But what is "Dead"?

Lack of a palpable pulse is not necessarily dead if there is a reversible reason for it, such as loss of blood or mechanical interference that prevents the heart from filling with blood (usually fluid or gas where it does not belong, compressing the heart so it cannot fill with blood).

It is also true that attempting CPR on an uresponsive, pulseless victim of blunt trauma may buy them some time, IF there is a reversible cause. And if they are truely dead, you can't hurt them by trying.

While there are documented cases of people surviving falling from great altitude, they are rare and involve factors that served to increase the distance over which they decelerated from terminal velocity. The simple fact is that a right angle impact with normal solid ground at 120 mph is seriously bad news. If the crater is a foot deep, the AVERAGE deceleration would be about 450G and if it is 6" it would be twice that. Survival in such a case is remote, at best.

On the other hand, the blunt trauma associated with misadventures involving high performance parachutes and low altitude canopy collisions or cutaways may well be survivable and CPR, if the victim is unresponsive and pulseless, is definitely appropriate.

Just remember that there may be spinal injuries and don't move the victim unless ABSOLUTELY necessary for safety reasons. If you MUST move them, immobilize the cervical spine to the best of your ability, perform CPR when you are out of immediate danger, pray, and, when the medics arrive, let them do their job.

For those interested in my credentials, I am a Board-certified Emergency Physician with 30+ years of experience including time in a Level-2 Trauma Center.

Ralph Johnson MD

PS: I wholeheartedly endorse learning CPR and basic Life Support and first aid. I have no doubt that most of you already have done so, but for those that have not, do it ASAP. You never know when your ability may be the only thing standing between another human being and the grave.

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I'm not a whippersnapper, but I was told a "death rig" was one that someone had gone in on. Supposedly, there were some still being used (not sure why anyone would want to) , way back when.

I never knew anyone who admitted to jumping one. It was alway someone who knew someone who.... might be the DZ equivalent to urban myth, though I doubt it.

I'm sure though, that someone somewhere, was jumping pre-bounced gear.

I don't know how common it is, but I do know of one individual who jumped the rig of a friend who had bounced (on April Fool's Day, no less). In fact, it became his primary rig. He is still in the sport, has 20,000+ jumps and runs his own Jump School. I don't know what eventually became of the rig, but I doubt he has it any more (the incident occured nearly 40 years ago).

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All this talk about cape wells, got me thinking....

You young "Whipper Snappers" may not know what a death rig is....

In the early seventies a few brave souls jumped gear that scared your average jumper. Some of it was perfectly legal, but you had to be a "manly" man to jump it.

We had a couple guys in our club who jumped rigs like that. I used to get scared just looking at them. I think both of those guys, are now both deceased. Jeez, I wonder why?

There was no messing around with these guys. I think their motto in life, was "No guts, no glory"!

In my mind's eye, a death rig, might have been a pig rig, with one shot cape wells. Complete with Jesus cord, and blast handle. Inside might have been a para-plane. A 24 foot-round-reserve might have topped off their back pack.

I seem to remember a photo of of Airtwardo wearing a rig just like that.....Like I said, if you were really really good, you could survive jumping a death rig, on a regular basis.

I had a crossbow container with the main container cut down so it could just contain a Mk1 PC. It had Quick-ejector snaps, blast handles on both the main and the reserve and the top cone had a tendancy to hang-up on pulling if I didn't sit up on opening. The only thing that was ever a problem was that damn top cone. The smaller Thunderbow piggyback had the same issue, made worse by the tall, rotating cone that was on the top flap.

Gary Hattenschwiller, the rigger who supervised me in modifying the main container, solved the cone problem by using a very short cone that I remember as being from a Navy chest pack. Once this was done I never had any problems with pack closures.

My capewells were 1-1/2-shots and the blast handle on the main NEVER gave me any problems (I never had the occasion to pull the reserve on that rig). The reserve ripcord handle had the center post drilled out and both had a metal sleeve that the military used attached to the end of the housing. I don't recall seeing those on any other sport rig with blast handles.

I frankly liked the blast handles. They were always where you expected them to be and were less likely to snag on things.

D-3017

"All these were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of their times."

I can't claim Ed Miller as a close friend, but he was part of the world of Skydiving in So. Cal. in the '70s at Elsinore along with so many others who are no longer with us. It was a special time for me and I am greatful to have known them.

The poet, A. E. Houseman, who had never heard of our sport, wrote what could be taken as an epitaph for any of them:

From far, from eve and morning
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I.

Now-- for a breath I tarry
Nor yet disperse apart--
Take my hand quick and tell me,
What have you in your heart.

Speak now, and I will answer;
How shall I help you, say;
Ere to the wind's twelve quarters
I take my endless way.

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OK Skydivers . I need a little help here. I am an old jumper my D number is very low 3 numbers. Yes I am getting up there in age but still young at heart.
I want real bad to get back in the sky, the kids are grown, the grand kids too.
But here my problem. I have always been a big guy 6foot 6 inches, in my prime I weighed in at 245-250 pounds and I was jumping PC's ,trash packs, anything I could jump I would do it. Taft was my DZ back in the days when Art Armstrong owned it and the Arvin good guys went against the Taft Team. GREAT Times.
Now I am still 6-6 but weigh around 270-280, just bought some new gear rated up to 375, my question is who will help me get back in the sky and teach me how to fly these new ram air chutes. Any advise is welcome. I going to do it some way or the other ,I was never a "sky god' just a fun jumper with some great people. Thank you all

I returned to jumping in May 2007 after a near-26 year hiatus. I did a refresher course at Jim Wallace's school at Perris, made a single AFF jump with one jumpmaster and was cleared to go. One great advantage at Perris is an on-site Tunnel and I did 10 minutes in the tunnel before the refresher course. If you have access to one, you will probably find that, just like a bicycle, the conditioned reflexes are still there; just a bit rusty. It is reassuring to know you can still control yourself in freefall and that the rust blows off once you're back in the air. Of course, you should pay close attention to the gear. It will be different and you'll feel pretty silly if you're groping your main lift web for a ripcord instead of reaching for the pilot chute in the BOC.

As far as canopies are concerned, start with big, docile and forgiving (which is what they use for students) and don't be in too big a hurry to downsize. Good instructors should be able to help you with canopy control and adivse you on what size to jump.

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The tunnel can be a valuable training tool. The freefall training time it provides you can be cheaper on a per-minute basis than the freefall training you receive on a skydive.

If you're going to go to a tunnel, make sure you have a coach, someone who knows that you're a skydiving student/new skydiver who wants to work on skydiving skills. Otherwise you'll just get a fun ride.

All that said, tunnel is absolutely not a necessity, nor is it required to progress in the sport. Even with the proliferation of tunnels today, most skydivers still learn without any tunnel time at all. Many long-time jumpers have never set foot in the tunnel and fly just fine. The tunnel teaches you nothing about aircraft safety, exiting an aircraft, approaching formations safely, breakoff, tracking, deployment, safe canopy flight, pattern setup, or landing.

But for focused freefall skill-building and training, it's great.

See article: Belly Fly 101 - Tue Jun 13 2006 by Steven Blincoe.

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As an active Instructor, and one who has always learned from the experiences of others, I still find the opportunity, once in a while to remind people of the lesson from this tragedy, I'm fortunate enough to skydive in environments that let us punch complete cloud cover from time to time, and in coastal areas, I have never lost site of the lesson from this tragedy, even today in the age of GPS. I have found myself in situations many times in my Skydiving career when this tragedy has come to mind. Thanks to all who have led the way, RIP.

I have punched clouds on only two jumps, once in April, '73 at Elsinore and the other in southern Ilinois in April,'75. Neither episode was intentional (being back from the door in a twin beech, I had to rely upon the spotter!?). Both resulted in landings far from the DZ (No GPS back then). Elsinore also had sailplanes in operation and where do you think they are? Answer: Under the clouds where the lift is. So, the first thing I saw on opening was a Sailplane at 12 o'clock level doing a near-wingover to avoid flying into our opened mains. This could have had tragic results, and it would have been entirely our fault.

The other was a night jump over farm country. No one was hurt, but one jumper landed in power lines and blacked out a farm. I think we got lucky. Night landings beneath an overcast are interesting enough without wondering if that dark patch is a field or a pond.

Skydiving is a VFR activity and, even with GPS, there may be something down there that can kill you if you can't see it.

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And a whole selection of capewell and other canopy releases

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vintageparachutegear/sets/72157622676844920/

Quite a display of various ways to release canopies. All employ the concept of leverage or other mechanical advantage to decrease the tension on the actual release point beginning with modifications of the capewll system, then to webbing arangements. This can be viewed as the evolutionary path to the 3-ring releases that are seen on virtually all modern sport rigs.

Fascinating and educational.

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The Piglets did not have “stabilizers”, they were canopy extensions. Each panel was wider than the gore and would catch air on deployment and slow the opening down.
I have around 500/600 jumps on Piglets, most on the 23 foot “Big man” version. I also did the live jumps when Hank TSO’d his 26 foot R-4 reserve.

Sparky

http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp55/mjosparky/Skydiving/PigletCRW-2.jpg

I worked for Hank at Para Innovators in the summer of '75. I may be mis-remembering this, but I think he called the extensions as stabilizer panels. They certainly looked similar to those on Paracommanders but, yes, their function was to slow down deployment. A similar system was used on the Piglet-2 reserve, but the panels were separated rather than being contiguous. This was also found on a military emergency parachute, but I don't know the details.

Some of you may recall the James Bond movie where Bond skied off a cliff and opened a parachute. It was a Piglet-2 done up with a Union Jack pattern.

The very same summer I worked for Hank, I took possesion of a Piglet-2. I jumped it until I got a 5-cell Parafoil. It never failed me nor bit me. It was a great canopy in its day. Were I ever to be on a zillion-way formation attempt (lol), I'd be willing to use it again, provided the landing area was big enough.

Ralph Johnson

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After the first couple of jumps with "ropes and rings" I converted mine to a system that I designed. Started off with a plain slider and found that it was still pretty stout on opening, which is NOT fun with a camera on your helmet. I installed a long bridle line that went through the canopy and attached to the slider. When the ripcord (pre-throw out days) was pulled, the pilot chute took off and deployed the long bridle, which pulled the bagged canopy off and let out the suspension lines. Once the canopy was in the air the pilot chute slowed the slider down enough for a nice opening. No sharp snatches, just a gentle sitting up position and slow opening. After opening I would pump the braked a couple of times to bring the slider down and I was good to go. Never a malfunction with the Strat. I still have it and at times get the urge to drag it out, re-pack the reserve and go make one. The only thing holding me back is the cost of the "re-training" I'd have to go through in order to do a freefall. Oh well, maybe one of these days.

What you are describing sounds like pilot chute controlled reefing or “spider slider” first used on the Jalbert Para Foils made by North American.

Sparky

Interesting and nostalgic thread.
My first square jump was on a Strato Star with rings and ropes. If I hadn't been told about the openings before hand I would have thought I had a streamer.

When I finally got my own square it was a 5-Cell parafoil with a spider slider. It worked well, but occasionaly would hang up for a second or so. All in all, the standard sliders were more consistent. Once open, however, I felt the canopies were comparable in performance.

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I was a Piglet jumper. They are as reliable a canopy a canopy as you will ever get.

I would not recommend jumping one if you weigh more than 150#. Especially, as you can assume the canopy is much more porous now. Even when the canopy was new, it had a reputation as a hard lander. It was possible to "flare" it, if you had perfect timing and wind conditions.

It also opened very quickly (read hard). I liked the hard openings, but not everyone does.

If a 23' Piglet was available, it would be a better choice unless you are a lightweight. All the good of a Piglet 2, but bigger, so the landings weren't as brutal. My husband jump one and never really had any problems with it.

A PLF is your friend under this canopy.

When Hank Asciutto was developing the Piglet system, I jumped his Piglet-1 rig one time. The Piglet-1 did not have the stabilizer panels found on the 2 and the opening was VERY quick, prompting an immediate expletive that rhymed with "DUCK!". I went on to make about 200 jumps a Piglet-2 which was much more comfortable on opening.

At 140 lb. I didn't have much trouble landing. I did witness a lean, but very tall jumper have an oscillation on landing that smacked him into the ground and knocked him out cold.

Larry,
I'm in Saint Louis, MO since 1974. Your post got me looking at my logbooks. My notes on the jump you mentioned indicate it was a 19-way organized by Fielding that built to 16, which tied the existing record at the time, with 17th on wrists when a grip was lost.

I have been out of the sport since 1981 except for a brief return in 2007 that ended with hip problems which required bilateral hip replacements, but I remember those good times with good friends.

Regards,
Ralph G. Johnson D-3017