riggerpaul

I would be all for it if they supplied an accurate barometer to the riggers. Who is "they"? I have a lot of money invested in my tools. Nobody supplied them to me. I am sure you are no different. So, if that is part of our craft, if that's what it takes to do the best we can on behalf of our customers, won't you get the tool you need? Depends how much they cost. I don't pack many rigs, and yes, my tools were expensive, but they can be used on all the rigs I pack. Don't most rigs you pack have an AAD? I am not limiting my wish that AADs gave us more information to any particular brand. I think it would be great for all AADs to let us be proactive in determining their health. Just because there is only one that lets us do that now doesn't mean it will always be that way. A quick check says there are digital barometers available in a wide range of prices, from about $30 up. I don't in any way think of this as a replacement for periodic maintenance and evaluation by folks with more specialized tools than I have. So I don't presume I'd need a lab-quality instrument. Personally, there is a barometer in my home weather station already. So I'd just use it.

I would be all for it if they supplied an accurate barometer to the riggers. Who is "they"? I have a lot of money invested in my tools. Nobody supplied them to me. I am sure you are no different. So, if that is part of our craft, if that's what it takes to do the best we can on behalf of our customers, won't you get the tool you need?

Cost? What cost? I have a barometer. Lots of airports have a barometer handy. Every airplane has an altimeter that can be used for a rough check. IIRC if you set an aircraft altimeter to zero, the little window reads the local barometric pressure - the "station pressure". One thing that would be important to understand is that aviation commonly speaks the barometer setting corrected to sea level. Things like ATIS and AWOS do not tell the "station pressure", but they tell the local sea level setting. To do a proper test of an AAD, you would need the "station pressure", that is, an uncorrected barometer value. But, as I said, you can easily get the "station pressure" from an aircraft altimeter if you have no other source.

Testing before the fact is all well and good, but once the device is in service, how does anyone verify the sensor without some sort of reference? If they put 2 sensors in, at least they could check for a certain max variance between them. But with only a single sensor, and no way to relate it to a verifiable value, you "just have to trust". I believe this is what Nelyubin is trying to talk about. And, as he said before, if your sensor gets replaced during your maintenance, you'll never know either. This is why I think it would be a good thing to display something about the sensor during the power on tests. Having a barometer available would be all that's needed to get a good idea that the device has reasonable data. Why rely on trust when we could easily verify?

The necessity for a Collins Lanyard function is disputed. Most existing RSLs do not have a that functionality. In addition, the Collins functionality is patented and has not yet been licensed except in conjunction with the Skyhook. ETA - I have resized Jerry's photo. It is bigger, but the resolution is about the same, so the quality is a bit lower. But I hope it is still easier to look at. In this photo, the green disk on the left represents the pilot chute. The reserve bridle is black, not the traditional white. What used to be the tab pocket is now a channel, and it is canted towards the closing loop grommet to allow the closing loop to go through the ring.

Looking at Jerry's picture, notice that there is ample slack in the red webbing that if the pilot chute is pulling, the pin will slip from the loop, regardless of the direction of the pull. To be clear, the pilot chute, missing in this photo, would be attached to the end of the white bridle that goes off to the left. Pull to the left, and the tab will clearly stay in the pocket (on the flap), pull to the right, and the pin will release before the red webbing "unfolds" to put tension on the tab in the pocket. This photo is not the latest version of the design. In the design that I recently saw in mock up, the tab has a ring at the end, I believe a steering line guide ring, that is pushed though the pocket. The bottom of the pocket is open. This ring will lay over the grommet of the flap with the tab pocket, and the closing loop will go though the ring as a matter of course. This mechanism will ensure that the tab cannot be pulled from the pocket until the reserve container has opened, eliminating the possibility that rough handling of the rig would do that. But the ring also makes the pocket even more secure as well, meaning that more force will be needed to extract the tab from the pocket. It still slips out readily when it should, but it takes far less force to slip the pin than to extract the tab. Let me know if this description is clear or not. I'm happy to try again if needed. -paul

Sure, if all they intend to do is SL jumps. If they want to do freefall jumps, then they need a freefall instructor. Per Nigel's quote from the SIM, a recurrency jump does not require an Instructor of any sort in the first place. "Instruction rating holder" includes USPA Coach. I guess USPA presumes that license holders, even though non-current, should be able to fall out of the airplane without messing up too badly in the first place. It would appear that such an assumption is not as valid as it once may have been.

From the SIM it does not have to be AFF rated instructor. So I was asking how a Static Line Rated instructor would supervise recurrency. I realise this is fairly hyperthetical as SL is a dying training method. If I understand the language USPA uses, it does not require an Instructor either. "Instructional rating holder" includes USPA Coach.

Did you pull the cord(s) past the locking tab(s)? There are tabs sewn into the cords that form sort of barbs such that when you pull the barb all the way out of the slider channel, it won't go back in without some effort.

None. Sometimes this period may be 4-6 months. All through a dealer network Airtek. At Artek only two units for maintenance. One in Germany, second in the U.S.. Regulations required. ;) So, send an email to Airtec. Tell them the serial number of your AAD. Ask them when they received it, and when they shipped it back. Then we will know for sure if Airtec was the source of the delay. You might also ask them that if the service time was unusually long, what the cause was. Is there a chance that the extreme conditions in Russia make more work during the service?

91.119 does not contain the definition that sparky mentioned. There is no definition for "congested area" in FAR Section 1.1 "Definitions". I have not found the source for, "1.Congested area. A city town or settlement, or open air assembly of people." I am not saying it does not exist. But it is not part of 91.119, and not part of 1.1, and I have not found that text. For that statement to be considered evidence, we will need a proper verifiable reference for it.

It is just a little bit better, but also can create trouble. Does the vigil manual give guidance on how far off of the actual pressure it should read for it to be OK? It really isn't important that the sensor be accurately 'zeroed' so that it can give the correct pressure, but if a user is going to look at that number and make some conclusion (the unit is good or possibly bad), then you must have the allowable tolerance - even though that absolute pressure reading doesn't really matter...and on it goes in a circular argument type of fashion. I strongly suspect that any of the AADs on the market already confirm that the sensor is showing a reasonable value. Perhaps someone with insider knowledge can confirm that. Anyway, self tests can't do nearly as much as some would like for them to do, which is the reason that periodically a really thorough functional fire/no fire test right next to the limits of speed/altitude, and confirming that temp/vibration doesn't kill it is a really good idea. From the Vigil II Manual - AAD NV/SA recommends that the local atmospheric pressure be checked and compared to the pressure indicated by the Vigil® once a year, if more than 10 mbar difference is noticed, then a new calibration should be performed by a Vigil® qualified expert. Again, I am not in any way fond of the Vigil family of devices. I am only saying that they have this thing, and they have given quidance on how to know if it is somewhere close to right. We agree that self-tests are not enough, and we agree that periodic maintenance/evaluation is beneficial for any critically important device to operate properly. Unless you are saying that the readout is somehow bogus, I can only believe that having the information available is better than not.

You can verify that it seems to reading a valid static pressure, but that says nothing for the sensor's ability to measure the change (or rate of change) of the pressure during a skydive. The simple fact is that between Cypres and Vigil, the Vigil is the one with the reputation for firing when you don't really want it to fire. The parameters may have been met according to the sensor, but without filters to refine the info, you get things like Vigils firing when you open the door or the plane, or close the trunk of your car. No AAD is perfect, they all have incidents where they did not work as designed, or the design turned out to be faulty. The Cypres has had the fewest of the these instances despite the fact that it has been on the market 3 or 4 times as long as the Vigil, and probably has 10, 20, or 30 times the jumps. Like most things in skidiving, there are no guarantees, it's all an odds game. At this point, the odds are with Cypres. Please don't think I am defending the Vigils. In point of fact, I don't like them and don't trust them. I was only confirming that what Nelyubin said about seeing something from the sensor was true. Sundevil seemed to be denying that. I made no claim as to the validity of what is presented in that menu. But you cannot even see anything about the sensor reading with other AADs, and seeing something just might be better than seeing nothing. I very much doubt that many people look in the first place. But if you look, and the value is nuts, you have a pretty good idea that the device is not working correctly. With other AADs, all you have is your trust in the self-tests. I don't think it would be a bad thing if all the AADs presented, as part of the start up display, their idea of what the ambient pressure is. At least you could verify that if you wanted to. I don't claim that it tells you everything you need to know about the sensor of the device, but it is better than not saying anything at all, isn't it?

You speak about that that isn't known to you. Gage Vigil always can be checked up independently. Independently to check up gage Cypres it is impossible. Read instructions. In one you are right. Cypres the obligatory regulations are required. You are wrong. A Cypres can be checked independently. It can be subjected to a simulated skydive in a chamber just like any other AAD. It can be done very close, on both sides of the firing parameters. But that requires a chamber, something most people do not have. The Vigil allows any user to see what the pressure sensor reads and verify it against reality. The pressure reading is one of the values presented in the INFO section of the Vigil menus. (Not saying I like the Vigil. Just saying that you can verify that the sensor seems to be reading a valid pressure.)

Could you perhaps rephrase that a bit? It didn't make much sense. It made sense to me, even though it took several reads. Clearly, english is not his first language. I believe that what he said is that if you send a CYPRES for service, and they replace something, perhaps the sensor, you'll never be told, and you'll never know that your sensor had been out of whack for who knows how long. If you own a Vigil, you can always look at the raw data coming off the sensor, because it is available in the menus. Now, I don't agree with his liking the Vigil, but it wasn't that difficult to figure out what he said.

I don't believe that PD is still doing demos on the PD-R. PDR is on their list of available canopies for demo in Europe http://www.performancedesigns.com/demo_sport_europe.asp PD Reserve is also on the form for "Sport Demo USA". Ski, why do you say they don't demo PDRs anymore? (Not saying they do or do not. I see it on the form, but maybe you have more recent info.)

How much drag does a pilot chute generate in a normal deployment and in a subterminal deployment? Mark Don't know... figured the MFGR would. And that's really the whole point. It has been quite some time since the USPA and PIA published the warning about tight reserve containers. The manufacturers should have responded by doing all the testing and measuring and publishing the result for all to see. If we build rigs that rely on the tightness of the container to stage the deployment, this information should be in the manuals for all to see. To date, as someone else has mentioned, only Parachute Labs (Jump Shack) seems to have published anything.

Reality, or myth? http://parachutistonline.com/content/performance-designs-inc-locking-stow-myth "Myth" might not be the best term. Perhaps "legend" might be better. Myths require no basis in fact, but legends often have some, even though it might have been lost along the way. There have been deployment bags with grommets that are larger than the ones we typically see on a modern bag today. There was also a time when most canopies used Dacron lines. The two worked well together until the more modern, thinner, lines started to appear. Those big grommets with those skinny little lines have been known to trap lines and create bag locks. I just had some emails with PD and the fellow there recalls two cases that he personally knew of. I suppose it is really quite unlikely that equipment from that era will show up now. But if something from that era were to surface, it might be a good thing to realize that the legend may have some basis in fact, and getting those locking stows right could be very important. According to the fellow at PD, he's never heard of anybody dying from a bag lock, whereas an out-of-sequence deployment is known for its deadly possibilities. So PD's message now is to double-stow even locking stows if that what it takes to prevent an out-of-sequence deployment. But it is also probably good to understand that it might not always have been that way, even though it is true today.

Correct. They give the loops and discs away for free, because they want to make sure that only Cypres loops are used with Cypres AADs. They never tested Cpyres loops with any other AAD, so that they can't take liability for them. If you have a Vigil or Argus, why not using their specific loops and discs? Seems quite logical to me. If the other manufacturer tells me I need a loop of a certain material, a certain thickness, and a certain strength, and the Airtec material meets those specifications, why should I NOT use the material I have on hand? Since Airtec is not the one making the approval, there is no liability passed on to them.

How so? ps http://www.parasale.com/wolmari/wpages/wolmarpack.html This is how I pack as a student and I have to say it really helps with working with the material

The bottom, toggle side was stitched, but the top was not.... Yeah, sounds like they just didn't stitch it, luckily when theres tension fingertraps tend to hold... but when there is not tension on it, it will come right out. Ya lucked out on that one man... could've been bad to have that come off on final. Of course, I don't know what he is really looking at any more than any of us. But I will point out that there are a number of non-sewn methods to make loops that will not have stitching. Now, if/when I do that to brake lines, I would not do one side and not the other. So he certainly should have his rigger take a look to see if there is a problem or not. But there are no-sew techniques that do not need stitching to remain secure. Some manufacturers use such "from the factory". So I can imagine where one side needed a repair, and the rigger, possibly not knowing how to make a no-sew loop, made the repair with a stitched loop. It is tough to diagnose things like this without actually seeing the particular items in question. It is likely that something needs attention, but it is not impossible that his brakes are, in fact, fine.

That still leaves the question of the CYPRES disc to anchor the closing loop. These discs have the CYPRES name stamped on them. But I am hard pressed to understand how Airtec might say they won't work. SSK tells me that both the cord and the discs are "allowed" in systems that have no AAD. I am unable to imagine how the presence of an AAD might affect how well the disc works.

It is not entirely impossible that the laced food did not come from the dz. We've had some rather impressive customer parties that brought all sorts of stuff with them. When they left, the leftovers went to the dz table. Now, I never heard that anybody ever left us any "special" brownies or anything like that. I'm just saying that not everything that ends up at the dz table came from the dz.

it depends on what once considers "fine tuning". If you are in traffic, fine tuning is not about the exact altitude at the turn points. It is about maintaining separation from your traffic maximally. This is why I said I can see this as a helpful training air to develop skills when you are all alone, but far less useful once you are presented with the problems of flying in the flow of traffic. How you get all alone can vary. You can be landing away in a student area when you are a novice, or you maybe engineer your jump to get your traffic down before you and so eliminate the traffic consideration. But trying to fine tune turning points when you have other canopies around you is going to distract you from the essential job of collision avoidance.

When pilots are really flying on instruments, they have air traffic controllers watching the whole thing and taking care of traffic and collision avoidance. Now, if you are all alone in the sky, the audible could be useful to help establish one's familiarity with what things should look like. But, if you are flying in any kind of traffic, the checkpoints are not nearly so important as simply fitting in with the flow of the traffic. Precision entry altitudes are important to swoopers, but that is not at all what the article was talking about. When you are in traffic - a canopy ahead, a canopy behind, and probably some canopies to the sides, what will the beeps mean? If you can't make the turn when the beeps come, you just have to live with that. And you aren't likely to miss one tun point but be back on for the next. Traffic just doesn't do that. If you get the beep, and there is a canopy where you intend to be, you cannot turn, plain and simple. From there on out, the beeps would be little more than a distraction, possibly even a hazard, because people will have a tendency to think that the beep means that they should be doing something when they hear it. That's going to be stressful, and BG is really clear that stress reduction is an important part of canopy flight, isn't he? The sense I got from the article was that this was a possible technique for initial training in pattern work, not that it should become some common way of executing a pattern when you are in traffic and should generally know how to fly a pattern already. If you don't already know how to fly a pattern and avoid collisions by the time you get to mixing it up with traffic, then you are in the wrong place, because you shouldn't be in traffic yet.