riggerpaul

When teaching EPs, for example, how do we NOT say that inaction results in death? Notwithstanding, I am amazed at how quickly some people shrug this off. It goes in one ear and out the other. All we can do is present the facts. Taking them to heart is the responsibility of the student/listener.

Just wondering... The video that our tandems watch has Bill Booth telling the tandem jumpers that a full refund is available at least until they suit up. Does Spaceland use UPT rigs? Do they use the Bill Booth video? Are users of UPT gear required to use the UPT video?

Let me understand, you are worried about a used container, but not about a used parachutes? Failures of the harness/container are extremely rare. Now, failures of reserve parachutes are pretty rare too. But why would you worry less about one than the other? As others have said, the problem with buying anything new now is that you will likely want to replace it relatively soon, and you will be the one eating the greatest depreciation on the value. I understand you are excited and all enthused about the possibilities of skydiving. Best to direct all that energy into being a good student skydiver now. Anything container or parachutes you buy now you will not be allowed to jump for some time. By then, it will be anybody's guess what you need or want. Really, don't worry about gear now. Get into skydiving and see how it all suits you. There's plenty of time to worry about gear.

First off, JP, I basically agree with you. This is not the fault of the RSL. At least, not directly. But we must also admit that things like wing suits and camera wings can complicate matters. They can exert forces IMMEDIATELY AFTER the chop that will indeed come into play. This is why I want to distinguish between situations that are dangerous because the jumper was just plain too low, and situations where the claim is that the reserve would not have straightened itself out regardless of available altitude.

To me, "dangerous" would mean that without help, the twists would either continue, or get worse. While "inconvenient" would mean that that they were not getting worse, and were likely getting better themselves. This leads right back to my earlier comments that altitudes must be commensurate with the gear in use. In your case, was it dangerous because you were too low? Or because they got worse except for your intervention? I just want to understand why you poll one way, and then tell the story that contradicts your vote.

Yes, I have that document now. How did you come to have it, and when? That document says the distribution should have included email addresses on file. I had not heard of it before this morning when I sent an email to Aviacom requesting status.

Am I the last to learn that the compliance date for Argus cutter replacement has been extended to "the first repack after 31 March 2011"?

Inconvenient, with the further huge caveat that some consideration must be given to the reserve deployment altitude. Since these spinning mains seem to descend at substantially high rates, it is very possible that even a savvy heads up jumper will burn through a lot of the available altitude just getting to his cutaway. Having to land a reserve that still has twisted lines cannot be a good thing, though it is likely to be much better than landing the spinner. But the problem is easily addressed by raising ones altitude milestones appropriately when jumping a canopy that will spin and descend wildly. Thanks very much, Kelly, for starting this thread.

I understand that sealing the reserve pins on rigs is not universally required. But are you saying that non-US riggers commonly omit the manufacturer's instruction to tie a single loop of seal thread around the Skyhook device? To be clear, this is not the same as sealing the rig.

A bit much don't you think? Not really. You are already suggesting that a solution to your being unable to do a proper PLF is to get armored underwear. More armor has got to be better, right?

Thanks, Kelly, for the explanation/correction. I see now why RAX is different from other systems I have seen, and I agree that this fixes the unintended release mode of the Skyhook. But still, this system has the negative aspect that should the jumper manage to pull on the RSL enough to get the tab out of the pocket on the flap, the device will not release in a situation where the jumper pulls the reserve ripcord. Maybe that won't happen very easily. But the failure mode, where the MARD failed to release even though the main was not chopped, is why I don't like the idea of a Skyhook with a latching gate for the red lanyard. It just isn't ready if the jumper can make it malfunction. One solution might be to somehow route the closing loop right through the tab in the flap pocket. Then you could not pull the tab out of the pocket while the reserve pin is still in place.

So then, what it is that a MARD does for you? If you cannot count on it to get your reserve open quicker, then it is really not much better than any traditional RSL. Oh yes, except that it cost a significant amount, and required significant modifications to rigs to install it. We have at least one case now where the introduction of the Skyhook was the basis for another SB to fix riser cover tabs. So, it costs more, introduces the need for other fixes, and it doesn't necessarily work in the scenario where we would like it to work best - under something spinning the shit out of you down low, like after a canopy collision. Please remind me why I am supposed to want one. If it worked BETTER than a traditional RSL, then at least there would be some room for discussion. But why, when it doesn't really do anything that much better, and might not work when you need it most, do so many people think this is the hot ticket?

can you just post the photo? Believe it or not, not everybody does Facebook.

Tested or not, we know that Skyhooks can release when we didn't expect they would. We have been told that only way for that to happen is "if the reserve PC overpowered" the departing main. It would seem that "overpowered" is not the correct term, since nobody really believes that the reserve pilot chute can generate more force than a partly deployed main(please, possibly excluding bag-locks). But, if you insist on saying "overpowered", then you've got to admit that some reserve pilot chutes apparently overpowered some mains when there was no expectation of such. If you cannot count on the device speeding up your reserve opening, what's the point of having it at all? To me, if we cannot come up with a system that will absolutely use the main in the event of a main cutaway, we've really gotten nowhere at all.

It is all well and good that the manufacturer says we must follow the published operating limitations, but if PD cannot state the FAR that requires it, it means nothing as far as federal law is concerned. So please ask Rusty to tell us which FAR requires compliance (on the part of the jumper) with the operating limitations published in the manual.

But (and do please correct me if I am wrong), it still suffers from the same deficiency as the Skyhook - that being, if the reserve pilot chute gets enough air from the side, it would release the pin when you would still like it to remain attached to the main. The system that I'd like to see would not allow the main to release if there was tension on the RSL. But at long as the release is controlled by the reserve pilot chute getting some inflation, we will still have to live with the possibility that the main releases when we'd prefer to keep it as the reserve pilot chute. I've considered making a skyhook-type hook with a latch gate that would not allow the red loop to come off. During setup, you don't put the red loop past the gate. If the deployment begins from the RSL, then the red loop would snap past the gate, and the main would be unable to release. The problem with this type of system is that rough handling on the ground on the part of a jumper could possibly snap the loop over the gate. This would be a BAD THING if there was then a total where only the reserve pilot chute is deployed, as the red loop would tie the whole thing to the main that is not being chopped. But, as I see it, if we have to worry that a side force from the reserve pilot chute can disconnect the MARD, then we cannot really rely on the MARD performing in the worst down-low canopy collision situation. And if you aren't down and dirty in the first place, you didn't need a MARD to begin with.

I didn't say it was the whole story. But lighter wingloading often correlates with quirky openings and possible end-cell-closure.

Novice?? What are you trying to say?? When i was a student my Cypres had a yellow button saying STUDENT. When i bought my own gear i got a red button saying EXPERT. I dont know why canopymanufactors still persist on having Novice, Intermediate and Advanced on their wing load charts. Why not use that space on the canopys label to something useful, like a smiley

I can see both sides of this. To me, it depends on what is available to learn from the incident. This particular thread seems to boil down to "get the proper training and coaching" sort of thing. If every similar event got posted here, there could be a vast number of less pivotal threads to wade through. Maybe we could have a forum just for these such learning events, and/or the type of question that started this thread. If there was an important incident, it could be moved to Incidents for the rest of the discussion. But if there is a non-injury incident that has an important, possibly new, learning opportunity, sure, I can see posting it here.

(AggieDave beat me to it, but since I wrote this, I'll post it anyway.) It depends on the particular parachutes, sort of. The old Precision Raven family of parachutes were used as either main or reserve. You were even allowed to jump your reserve Raven once as a main, and then use it as a reserve. (That was a manufacturer's restriction.) But I doubt very much that you'd want to be jumping a Raven these days, and downsizing to another one is even less likely. In today's gear, reserves are pretty much purpose built to be reserves. They don't usually have the D-bag attachment on the top skin, for instance. Sure, that could be added, but that's not the only important difference. Reserves are pretty much all lopo (0-3cfm) fabrics, not ZP. Most are 7 cells, not 9. PD reserves use uncoated lines that would not last as long as the sorts of lines used on mains. There have been instances where coated lines packet for a long time have been found sticking together. So PD chose to use uncoated lines on their reserves. The logic here is to maximize the probability of the reserve working, while not necessarily maximizing the durability of the reserve as you must in a main. Since reserve see far less abuse than mains do, this approach makes sense. So, for all practical purposes, the simple answer is that, yes, there are fundamental difference between mains and reserves that make interchanging them a problem.

Okay, I have horrible satellite internet - metered, and relatively slow. so I rarely view the videos. But I have found that wingloading really needs to be known. I've heard a lot of jumpers who got a Sabre2 as their first owned main parachute complain about the openings - hunting, off heading, end-cell-closure. So I jumped a few, from 230 down to 170. I am a big fellow, and the resultant wing loadings ranged from about 1.2 to 1.65. At the low end, I saw all the stuff these folks complained about. At about 1.4, things started changing, and by the 1.65, all of the bad habits were gone, with firm, on-heading openings with no end-cell-closure being the normal behavior. So, in my experience, we really need to know the wing loading to make sensible comments about what this fellow is experiencing.

The OP was asked what size Saphire2, and also what his wing loading is. I just looked through the thread, and I didn't see an answer. Did I miss it? If not, OP, please tell us what size canopy, and your exit weight. Thanks.

That's better, and clearer than what is there now. From the point of view of the list of instructions, I might say, "Pull cutaway but only if still above 1000 feet", because in the list of instruction, "Pull cutaway" is the next thing to do. But I'm being very picky, likely overly so. I looked back through all the earlier SIM versions I have downloaded, and the language has been the way it is now for quite some time. So it doesn't seem as though there have been many objections. I am, in fact, amazed that the SIM is as concise as it is. It cannot be an easy tasks to maintain that document. My hat is off to those who do.

Is this the language you mention? (2011 SIM, Section 4, Category A, General Section I, Subsection H, Sub Sub "Partial Malfunctions", item 6) The intent is pretty clear, isn't it? Don't cutaway below 1000 feet? Sure, the wording could be better. But I would not expect this is high on the list of things to fix. So, how is your comment NOT a criticism?

Just wondering... Did someone tell you that you could add grippers and booties to an existing VRW suit? Or did he say that you could buy an RW (belly, flat) suit later?