faulknerwn

Exactly. I remember all of those incidents and this thread has more. They sent out a whole batch of AAD's without cutters WTF? And most of their recalls they always seemed to expect you to pay for their recalls. And as a rigger, Vigil AAD's are double the pack volume of a Cypres or Mars. And with everyone nowadays wanting the super tiny rig its a nightmare to pack a gigantic Vigil in them. Especially if you plan on maxing out the limits on your container size - pick a smaller AAD. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2n0hJD01WCqaG1ob3BtT0lSOG1uUWlDZVgzWDFyQQ/view?usp=drivesdk

Texas weather is a bit sketchy that time of year. I would bet Eloy first then Perris would be your better bets.

This reminds me of something recently - we are a small Cessna dropzone with a whole of students - everyone is super friendly and chats and has a great time. I had a level 3 I think a couple of weeks ago when we were discussing the staged flare and such, tell me that that was not what he had heard was the best way to do it. He explained to me that some other person there - who had 14! jumps but apparently jumped the same student gear :-) told him that flaring at 10-12 feet with a staged flare did not work well and he should wait till way lower and then just slam the toggles down. Laugh. I am completely sure that the 14 jump kid meant well but I did explain to my student that I have closer to 14,000 jumps than 14 and I might be a better source of advice :-)

I am an AFF instructor who has taught several deaf skydivers. It was not a big deal - between hand communication and written communication on the ground that was easy and hand signals. I used paddles to help them with the landing pattern..

The weight vest might help some but your canopy will still probably outfly yours because it is larger. I would stop doing the drills by your decision altitude for emergencies. 2200 is not crazy as long as you are paying attention to where you are and not obliviously flying off the airport or into traffic. I can't quite picture your turn thing however.

I ditto the firebolt. They have amazing openings..

I remember this from the old forum but can’t find anything using our current search. Trying to find a way to reach a hundred jump wonder and there was this kid in Eastern Europe - kept swooping and downsizing against all advice and ended up quadriplegic but was ballsey enough to come back on here and admit his mistakes. But searching I can’t find any of it. Does anyone remember that and can search better than i to find it?

That looks really interesting. I would like pictures of how his setup works - couldn’t quite tell in the video.

https://www.facebook.com/ParachuteLabs/

Definitely do this - I am 5'1 and wear the same size harness as a 6' tall guy at my dropzone. He is all legs and I have a tall torso for my size...

I know that on many of my parachutes - the standard "small" rubber band commonly found in skydiving is not small enough to hold the lines post-cascade tight. They are loose in it. Thus I normally double stow.

Have you watched an experienced packer pack the rig you are struggling with? I have taught probably a thousand students to pack and they all find it very difficult until they get practiced. I could probably do every line stow on a rig in 60 seconds or so? Possibly less. The description of you doing it sounds like a crazy difficult way to do it. Proper technique will help you a lot. And I watched two packing students who were learning today and they struggled to close a container - I just reached over (my little 5' tall 48 year old female self) and just gave it a yank and it easily came through. Pulling at the proper angles and such makes a huge difference. Were you great at soccer the first 5 times you played? Or did you have to play for 10 years to get half way decent? Packing is like skydiving or anything else - it takes practice. I would bet you could watch an experienced packer pack that rig in 5 minutes. Learn the techniques. I am torn about the stowless bags. I know they work well for a lot of people but I notice softer openings when I double stow my bands instead of single. And I have known people who were killed by hard openings and it seems like those kinds of bags would be more prone to it. And having lots of slack lines that could easily fall out or snag on flaps killed multiple people back in the 80's when it was more popular. Packing is simple once you learn the technique - but it just takes practice. I can easily pack 3 of my rigs in the time it takes a rookie to pack one and still have beautiful openings.

So sorry to hear about Jack

Not necessarily recommending this but I will tell a tale :-) I had probably 5000 jumps at the time and was open about 4500. On a Sabre 120 I believe loaded at 1.3ish. Opened and started to turn with a line over on the outermost left cell I believe. Immediately the first thing I do is stop by yanking opposite riser. I pull on the riser and stop the spin so that gives me time to contemplate - if you can't stop the spin chop immediately. But by pulling heavy on a riser I could get the canopy flying straight and it gave me time to evaluate the situation. I tried rear riser stalls and toggle stalls a bunch of times to no avail. I then decided to cut away around 3kish. I let go of my risers and grabbed my handles but started to spin really fast because I was no longer stopping the spin. I had a brand new rig with really good velcro on my cutaway handle. I yanked it and couldn't pull it at first, but having taught a thousand FJC's by now I knew I just needed o peel the velcro. But I was spinning really hard so I let go of my reserve handle and yanked down my rear riser and stopped my spin while I peeled the velcro. I peeled the velcro and looked down to verify that it was off because I knew that when I let go of the opposite riser I would start spiraling again and needed to grab my reserve handle quickly. But when I looked up after holding just the opposite left rear while peeling my cutaway handle my lineover was clear and I had a good canopy. I was like huh. look at that, as I calmly placed my cutaway handle right back on the velcro. So in my case somehow just holding down the one side cleared mine when dual-sided stalls did nothing. Can't explain it but can definitely say if I had had a rig with less strong velcro I would have had one more cutaway than I do.

I give all my students footage of their jumps. I find it helps them improve and learn from the video. Of course sometimes there is a camera problem, but 99% of my students get their footage if they want it.

I know 10-12ish years ago we sold a whole bunch of expired Cypres for cheap to Russians who I assume probably put them in rigs. I know that I have had rigs come in for repack that sat in closets for a long time with Cypres' that were 10 years out of date but turned on and passed all their checks just fine. Would I pack an expired one in the US? Nope. If I lived in Russia or somewhere the rules are a bit more lax would I put one in my rig? Absolutely. I have no AADs in my rigs right now so if I could put cheap ones in - I would not fear that they would harm me - it might not fire if the battery is low or something if I needed it - but I have none now so I figure something is better than nothing. A lot of poorer jumpers in this country and others cannot afford AADs at all so most likely something is better than nothing.

I do not know about the part of the world you are in, but I have taught several deaf skydivers without issues, and I know there are a lot out there. Contact dropzones near you and talk to them.

I intend to at least show up and visit the symposium

So I was considering heading up to the PIA symposium for a day but was not sure what day. Looking at their website, they have a list of seminar topics, but nowhere (that I can find) does it talk about what seminars are done on what days/times. This information would be quite handy for deciding about attending! Anyone have a schedule?

I got one of those as well.

Definitely, if you have a skyhook it is something to consider. Vectors have staging loops to help fix this issue, but I don't think (without looking it up) Javelin's with Skyhooks do. And the Javelin closing sequence is quite different than the Vector. I think Aerodyne rigs do have that staging loop. Also if my memory serves me correctly, although I don't recall seeing a sport vector without the staging loop, that they only became mandatory on tandems after that incident. Certainly, all modern Vectors are set up for it, but there might be some of the early years of the rig with early versions of the skyhook which are not.

Here is a link to the two threads I mentioned as well as a third I had forgotten about: Tandem Fatality: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=3331658;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25; Student Cutaway http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=4114143;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25; Incident in Poland: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4637601;search_string=Collins%20Lanyard%20cutaway;#4637601

As to why to not have a Collins Lanyard - there were two incidents about 10 years back which show issues with them. One was a tandem which pulled low - had a good main but the AAD fired. The reserve freebag fell out and down (instead of up like it would on a normal cutaway) and it pulled the Collin's Lanyard which released one main riser only. The instructor cutaway but by this point the reserve had bag-locked and the tandem died. UPT added a staging system on the reserve system after this to ensure that the pilot chute was pulling before the bag would come out. A second case had a Skydive Chicago student if I remember correctly have an incident. He opened normally at 5500, but some stitching broke causing the rig to stretch on the RSL side. It popped the reserve pilot chute which trailed behind the student for the canopy ride. As the student turned to final (this part was on video) the bag came out and the Collins Lanyard cutaway one riser. The student (low as @(*^@&#) cutaway and that let the skyhook open the reserve in time. It was sketchy! So manufacturers might have to add staging devices on their reserve containers or design their rigs to make it harder for the reserve to come out accidentally (which also makes it harder to come out when it is on purpose.) Some may not want to do that. I personally am not a fan of a device which can cutaway one riser of my perfectly good main. Like most inventions - they have good and bad points. Whether the good points outweigh the bad is an individual call. The Collins Lanyard was originally designed for tandem risers that broke, but the only time I have heard of risers breaking in the past 15-20 years was a guy who knew his risers were so junky that he had a brand new pair in his gear bag that he had just been too lazy to put on..

2 random things - they changed the closing sequence to match most rigs years ago. And instructions are printed on the main container to tell you what order to close it in for anyone who is confused. They have been offering one-sided RSLs on new Racers for a few years now as well. I agree the double-sided RSL sucks.

There is a link to the Paraplane manual in this thread. Plus some good advice :-) I also started a thread on the old school skydiving facebook forum about the canopy which had good advice. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=4823339#4823339