riggerpaul

Got it. Thanks!

So the added 5 cm on the chord is not to allow for sewing shrinkage. You just want the chord to be a bit bigger than the factory slider? Is that right?

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate it. It isn't necessarily about the instruction or the instructor. It is about the student. The student will focus on what he perceives to be what he wants to learn. The canopy-ride-only jumps might help to get the student focused on the canopy work. If they cannot get to the "real fun" until they have demonstrated some better canopy control, there may be a greater chance that they will try harder to do good canopy work. If an instructor can always say "you need a few more canopy-ride-only jumps before you can do freefall", how can the student help but not want to do it better? But, since the freefall is likely what brought them in in the first place, they will emphasize that if allowed to. We need stepwise goals that lead to good learning. If we don't provide that sort of structured learning experience, it is the rare student who will provide it on his own. You say that the ISP already has arrangements built in. But the real canopy work is at the end of it, not the beginning. I'd prefer that it is at the beginning, before the fun stuff distracts them. Call it whatever you like. I just want a shift in the order and priorities of things. Again, thanks for your reply. -paul

Maybe it is fun to bicker with Robin. God knows I enjoy the arguments he and I have in email. But I would like some feedback on the idea of using each teaching method at the appropriate time. I don't want to replace anything with anything. I want to use each program to our best advantage. Start with SL or IAD (probably IAD, for its practical considerations) as a way to get a student under an open canopy, and learning to use that canopy, jumping that way until acceptable canopy skills have been learned. And then moving on to AFF, replacing the solo short delays that were part of the SL program. Apply each method to the problems that it is best suited to address.

That's correct. I do add about 4-5 cm to the chord if building a new one though. Cheers, MEL Why do you not add the same 5 cm to the span as well? The span, being greater than the chord, will have more shrink due to the sewing, won't it? So shouldn't it have some extra so that it too ends up at the correct measurement?

And you've missed Robin's point as well. Why did AFF replace Static Line? It didn't need to. It should have been added to Static Line by replacing the short freefall progression of solo skydives. Some will say that they don't have the gear for Static Line. Fair enough. But any student freefall rig can be used for IAD. Every (successful) skydive ends with a canopy ride. We should be teaching canopy skills before we teach freefall skills. What we have now, where AFF is the predominant route to skydiving, ends up putting most of the effort into the freefall, and only poor lipservice is paid to canopy skills. Teach the canopy stuff first, utilizing either SL or IAD as the way to get the canopy open in the air. When sufficient canopy skills are demonstrated, graduate and move on to AFF. If this means that some students will leave because they aren't getting the instant gratification they want, so be it. Maybe filtering in this way will help select for a group of novice skydivers who understand that the best way to do this is one step at a time. Maybe it will help select against the people who think that they should be jumping a wingsuit and a camera on jump 26. Robin did offer a path. Teach canopy skills first.

+1 Not much sense having downwash just hitting the fuselage, causing additional turbulence and wasting energy. You cannot avoid some of this, of course, some downwash will be hitting the tail boom. But moving it a bit out from the hub will keep it away from a lot of the fuselage.

Are they happier when you turn them away because they weigh 231? Wouldn't some of them be happier to pay a bit more, and not be left out?

Of course. Doh!

I think it is really interesting that there is a blip centered on each 1000 milestone. No, not a very big blip, but a noticeable one nonetheless.

Please post a photo of the tab on the reserve cover. You say that Sunpath made this change? Also, you mentioned that the rig has a BOC pocket now. Did it originally?

Even though you can use no-sew techniques with some types of line, there was still a noticeable lump even in the 725 micro I just tried. I fear a slider would still cause wear on a cascade built that way. I've tried making no-sew loops in Dacron line, and it was, at best, really difficult. And it was quite bulky too. If he has even a home zigzag machine, I think that's the far better route.

Are you thinking about sport jumping into Camp Parks? I think you might get some resistance on that. Camp Parks is under the Class B airspace of San Francisco Int'l (SFO). In that vicinity, the Class B space is from 6000 to 10,000 feet. Camp Parks is very close to the Livermore Airport area as well, and that's one of the busiest GA areas in the country. If you want to make sport jumps, Bay Area Skydiving, Byron, CA, is only a short drive away.

+1 to what John said about knots that the slider will cross. And even if you have only a common household zigzag machine that has nothing approaching a bartack, you can still use it to sew the fingertraps. Looking at the Precision lineset I mentioned earlier, they don't use a bartack. They had a wide open zigzag stitch that went the entire length of the fingertrapped line. By "wide open" I mean that the stitch was about as long as it was wide - it wasn't the tight little bundle you see from a bartack. So with most any home zigzag machine, you can secure the fingertraps with sewing.

Just to be clear, do you mean creating the lineset from a spool of line without using a sewing machine? Or do you mean a lineset that can be installed without a sewing machine? I have seen some Precision products have linesets that can be installed without any sewing at all, but a sewing machine was used while building the lineset.

i am no rigger but my initial thought is if all your lines are in trim, then the steepness should be in trim aswell. I don't think that's what he's asking. I believe he wants to understand how you would measure the trim angle of canopies so as to determine which has a shallower glide or which has a steeper one. To me, that would mean comparing the line lengths at the nose and tail, factoring in the distance between the two, and coming up with a number that tells us how much "nose down" any particular canopy has.

Sometimes a person will simply tie a knot above the previous knot to shorten the closing loop also. We are coming up on cooler weather which means that the closing loops will need to be made a little longer. (low humidity) Untrying two knots is double the effort to lengthen or shorten the loops IMHO. BS, MEL First off, and I am not alone in saying, a single knot will do just fine. The two knot suggestion is for the person who thinks the fraying up to the single knot is a problem. If the closing loop is long is long enough to be either your short or your long loop, you don't need to untie the knot that stops the fraying. Only the knot that takes the load needs to be moved. As far as effort is concerned, how difficult is it to have a second closing loop in the first place? Then you don't need to untie knots at all. I always suggest to people that having spare loops is more convenient than having to make them when you are short on time trying to get your rig closed for a short call.

I have received an email from Aviacom that says they are working to arrange for the service centers to have cutters. The email says there are service centers in the USA, Australia, and New Zealand. Those of us who can utilize the service centers won't have to send cutters to Belguim. I'll post when/if I hear anything more.

Before we start a run on $10 tools at Walmart - If the fraying worries you, you can put 2 knots in the closing loop. The one closest to the cut end will control the fraying, and the knot that actually takes the load will never be in question. That being said, I have never seen a tight knot come open even when the fraying is right up to it. A drop of Dritz "Fray Check" from the sewing store will stop the fraying as well. I used to do that, but I have stopped. Though I have never seen any negative effect from using the stuff, since I don't really know what it is for sure, maybe it isn't great to put it in a rig.

Earlier you mentioned a PD Spectre 170. Talking ZPX and 7 cells implies Triathlon. Be sure to demo one before purchase. Spectre and Triathlon fly significantly differently. I have owned both and much prefer the Spectre. (But I'll also say that I got my Tri after about 1.5 years of production. A number of changes have been made to the canopy since then, so my impressions of that canopy might not apply to a more modern version.) Should you stick with a Spectre, you will not the option of ZPX, and the whole question could be moot.

Why choose ZPX if you don't need it to make the canopy fit in the first place?

We're trying to get the logistics of this as you are. We only had several cutters that could be pulled from new units on the shelf, and those have already been claimed. So ChutingStar as well as Para-Concepts is hoping to have a stock of cutters in the U.S. to minimize down times for Argus owners. But as of now, we don't. Right now, we recommend contacting Aviacom directly for the exchange. Mike Thanks Mike. I'd really like avoid sending anything to Belgium if at all possible. Having to send a cutter before getting one is a big pain, but it would be a lot less so if the cutters were available in the US. Forcing downtime on the owner is bad enough. Forcing him to be down for weeks, as would be necessary if we have to go all the way to Belgium, is just adding insult to injury. Please let us know if/when better arrangements become available.

I have an email from Karel Goorts telling me I must return a cutter to them to get a new one. The message did not say where cutters here in the USA must be sent. If they must go to Belgium, that's going to take some time, and the rig will be down in the meantime. I hope very much that they'll give this some additional thought. I also sent an email to Mike Gruwell at Chuting Star. Maybe since they are a service center, they'll be able to help make this less inconvenient. I'll post if/when I learn more.

Give it a break, will ya? Nobody is lumping all young jumpers into any category. Still, you cannot ignore the fact that most of the landing incidents do not involve "old timers". Some do, but most don't. Swoop if you must. But if you choose to swoop... Be current. Be current on your canopy. Be as conservative as you can. Follow a sensible progression. Be sure that your swooping does not put others in jeopardy. I'll be sad if you get hurt. But I won't say "I told you so" if you have followed a reasonable course. Because sometimes, shit happens.

Not if the student is still in freefall. It will only trigger at the 1000 foot altitude if the student is going slower than freefall speed. From the CYPRES2 manual (I added the underline):