councilman24

See the manual for Performance Designs for their criteria and limits. No other manufacturer in the U.S.A. that I know put opening or flight time limits. Some manufacturers of pilot emergency rigs have suggested calendar life time limits, usually 20 years. But few if any of these are legally enforceable limits. There is no regulatory limit applied industry wide in the U.S.A. Around the world many countries impose a calendar life limit on personel parachutes. 10,15, or 20 years. As a practical matter a reserve is used so little the repeated packing of the reserve often results in more damage in the form of increased porosity than openings or flight time. Flight time isn't a factor in any country or by any manufacturer that I know of. Parachuting reserves are not like hot air balloons or paragliders. They are flown usually somewhere less that 5 minutes when used. That period of sun damage is insignificant. We are now in an era where some reserve designs have not changed in many years and older reserves are starting to become a matter of rigger comfort. We rarely can prove in the field that a reserve should be retired but I have suggested it several times for reserves 20-25 years old. Or older designs that I believed should be retired.

Be aware that if you want a U.S. FAA rigger certificate you will have to come to the US. There are no Designated Parachute Rigger Examiners outside the US and that's the only way to get a FAA certificate. Training can be anywhere from N FAA rigger.

Jim, I think he's just using a curved thin piano wire similar to a wire finger trap tool. The temp pin looks like one of the welded wire main pins we used before the stainless pins came out. They were welded so the pin came off the ring as a tangent rather than a radius. (like a vector pin 9 shaped except welded wire) In my opinion a much better geometry that eliminates the leveraged pull a stainless pin can have similar to a straight pin on a throwout. I may have to dig out some to use as temp pins. Too lazy to go find one now for a photo.

What is a jelly fish pc? In 42 years I've never heard that reference. My guess is its an MA1. They're actually not a bad PC IF the spring isn't wore out AND you don't care about it getting snagged. The replacement in mains was the hot dog with a 36" spring. The idea that all it had to do was stand up. When in a stable burble the MA 1 was wimpy. When in the air stream lots of drag. No I wouldn't pack one now. But we used to have (still have) some pretty good Israeli made one in the early 80s. In fact my first rig, a Crossbow piggy back still packed in the basement and as airworthy as when I was jumping it, very likely has an Israeli version in the reserve.

I've got a 28' C9 chest that was one of the old clubs belly warts. Figure it's been packed since the mid 90's. Going to through it out at low altitude using a boxing heavy bag as my test dummy. Might have been Saturday but wind direction was wrong. Pretty sure I have at least one other new 28' container, and five or six airworthy C-9s if you ever need another one.

Surprised the the reserve was so hard. I have several belly warts including sport ones. Also two Strong Pop Top chest reserves, and best of all a new chest container, identical to the lap container, built by Jerry. Single pin, through the PC loop. About the size of a pop top. Holds any 26' lopo.

AFAIK doesn't exist.

I just want to know where you got the jumbo. Been.looking.for one.

Have to agree sound like a lot of work for an iffy repair on a $100 canopy.

Which is why they were called lo pos. Less porosity than 80 to 120 cfm military fabric.

Years ago PIA talked about it. As a organization with many manufacturers as members they didn't want a third party (that they helped control) providing their gear manuals. Keeping revisions up to date one big concern. Also PIA ethics would require adhering to copyright laws. And as a volunteer organization it would end up being one.person. Wasn't going to work. Hope you keep the information available somehow. Don't know if mechanism/technology base available to sell full data base exists but would be interested.

As Mark said Butler's custom.for the around the world flight is likely smallest new one. The was a one pin miniature belly wart that only a tri con fit in. Stylemaster, Mini system variation, don't remember. Have one down stairs. Ot much bigger than a football. I have a one pin chest made by Aerosport USA when owned by Jerry about the size of a large phone book that fits Strong lopo, Preserve 1 and such. A pop top isn't much bigger. New ones available from Sonic as BaseR or The Ranch Pro Shop. Have two original pop tops. New and known to be available, PopTop from Sonic.

Derek runs Elite Parachute Rigging Academy with Mark Kruse.

Wink passed away last year. Hmm maybe two years already.

You can get a used true industrial walking foot for less money. If the walking foot zig zag is important to you then this is an option. If portable walking foot is.important to you then this is an option. You can get the same machine with less company support and perhaps needing a couple of upgrades for $300 to $400. Consew sells a portable walking foot as do many other brands. Some that were the original portable walking foot.

I made small red LED lights in small project boxes 1x2.5x.5 that I attached to the sides of altimaster III's with the mushroom head velcro like tape or on small aluminum brackets on atimaster II's. There are enough back lit altimeters around you can probably borrow one. Red or green chem lites taped to where ever provide enough light. Don't use white lights and don't look at strobe. Need to preserve night vision. BTW double check that your DZ doesn't have strobes to borrow or rent.

Canopies are generally designed and sold either with or without cascades. As far back as some of the earliest ram air canopies. The only option was non cascaded center A/B lines so non CRW specific canopies could be used more easily for CRW. In the 80's I added 900lb red dacron non-cascaded center lines to many canopies.

Sent it to Alexey. Anybody else want it?

I have a 3.6 MB pdf copy. PM me emails and I'll send it out. Have two that I've serviced since new and now own. Including paper manual. But Strong used to have pdf on their website.

Contact masterrigger1 above in this thread

Why do you think the manual says to pack the bridle at the bottom? Page 5-5 says lines at the bottom, as every manual since they were made by Mike Fury. The ONLY version that should be packed bridle down is the wing suit specific Aurora. Packing bridle down is doesn't surprise me it's not coming out. What are the specs? There are none except it shouldn't take more force than the weight of the bag. As a indication of why your having trouble most reserve PC'S at terminal speed steady state provide less than 50 lbs of pull. Follow manual', pack lines to bottom and rotate bag in to have bridle to reserve.

No, fading of the dye and degradation of the nylon are two different things. But we can't pull test webbing so fading is the only indication of sun (uv) exposure. No I don't agree.with Rob. It might be true for black. For neon pink no. And.to OP an unused harness stored properly does NOT lose half of its strength in 20 years. But remember I can think of only two.properly constructed harnesses that have failed in my 40 year career.

SOFTERMAN!!! In the 2000's there was a guy who's real name I never knew. He had ad's in Parachutist for a year or more. He gave a seminar at a PIA symposium that was a sales pitch for an after market domed slider that he promoted as a new lifesaving device. He jumped into the seminar wearing a super hero tights out fit as 'SOFTERMAN'. He thought a domed slider on everything was his idea for the next big skydiving thing. Really had no real testing info or other supporting information. He was so silly nobody that I know took him seriously let alone bought one of the things. By the way I don't believe he ever called it a slider but some other sort of 'device'. BTW we never let him give another seminar because it wasn't educational, just a sales pitch which are not allowed as a Symposium seminar. IF a domed slider provided more consistent opening I guarantee the major canopy manufacturers would be installing them. Clearly cost of construction is no longer an issue in the market. I agree (sometimes, like now) with Mark that the everything is in line with the relative wind. I believe a slider made to try to ease a hard opening would only make every other opening much too slow. But keep thinking.

No, but it can fire, hold the loop and then let go at anytime. Like on climb out at altitude and take down a whole airplane.

Ask Allen Silver at Silver Parachute Sales. I don't think he did ejection seats but he was an Air Crew Survival Tech I think in the air national guard. He is in CA and may know of a resource. I know someone in MI that was working on getting training but I don't think he has yet.