pchapman

Brand, loading, etc? Which incident? The database of major reserve failures is relatively small.

As for comparing helmets, I just checked the chin strap on my camera helmet -- It happens to look reasonably good, for the spring is recessed into a groove on the ratchet. The chin cup assembly is from Sky Systems. It is starting to look like the spring design is similar on various ratchet mechanisms, but there are differences in how exposed they are. It is still a ridiculously small snag hazard compared to other things...

I didn't get a photo of the actual helmet involved. But online I found the attached Rawa pic. This is of a more recent version with a tab to quick release the chin cup. But one can still see the metal hook at the bottom of the adjuster. Seems that it might have been slightly longer on the one in the incident. P.S. - yet the metal is very small, and hard to see even on the closeup of the chin cup area

Someone at the DZ had an odd little snag issue yesterday. It's not about a big snag point, but is an example of how little things (including design issues) can cause problems in unexpected ways -- Murphy's Law type stuff. So Kyle was climbing out 2nd from the 182 for an RW jump. He presumably tilted his head to the left as he ducked out the door. He gets out on the step, and finds that he can't straighten his head up; his head is somehow stuck to his rig at the shoulder. Shannon behind him sees what's happening and decides to pull Kyle back inside to sort things out, while the outside hang jumper decides to drop off. Shannon and Kyle get back inside OK, sort things out, and jump after a go around. I didn't look closely at the helmet but at the Rawa's left side chin strap ratcheting attachment buckle, there's a bit of stiff steel wire that sticks out just a few millimetres on the bottom of the ratchet mechanism, forming a small hook facing I think towards the jumper's chin. There's nothing to protect the end of the wire. I think it is strong spring steel, part of the spring loaded function of the ratchet mechanism. (I don't know the age of the helmet, or if anything is different on older or newer ones.) As the jumper climbed out, that wire at the bottom of the ratchet hooked right into the fabric of the riser cover. The steel wire being quite stiff wasn't about to let go easily if the jumper tried to pull his head away from his shoulder straps, which would be anyone's natural inclination. The incident could also have happened at some other time, in freefall or under canopy. Granted, some head shaking in different directions, despite not knowing what the hell was going on, would likely have found the right direction to unhook the wire. Still, the RW group could well have jumped, with one guy not too happy about having his head pinned sideways to his rig! It's a small snag point on the helmet but it's still a snag point.

So, are the Vigil II's popping when people drive down hills or slam car doors? Vigil I's seemed to be superior to other brands in such "features". Not knocking the Vigil II; I honestly don't happen to know the answer.

Do you have stats on private pilot or small general aviation fatality rates? In skydiving it often comes out to 1 in 1000 active participants per year. (This excludes students who do one jump etc.) I found about the same numbers when going through stats for amateur built aircraft, but imagine that other parts of general aviation do a little better. There are some other threads out there on how to convince others that skydiving isn't crazy -- although the consensus is that it can't be called truly safe. Certainly there's an aspect of skydiving that is less disciplined than in general aviation. Printing out the rather large USPA SIM and dropping it on a friend's desk may help in convincing them that there are rules and established procedures in the sport. Having a background in aviation and risk analysis should also help you make less than rash decisions in the sport. In skydiving you'll probably re-set your minimums once you learn more appropriate limits and gain experience.

Interesting to hear the different perspectives on Niagara parachutes. crustySCSA6: Sounds like that bad canopy in Nova Scotia had something seriously wrong with it only on that particular jump. If it was always that bad I would hope your buddy wouldn't have lent it to you. mccurley: I think I also saw a 4 line relase Baby Cobra. But most I saw were with the meshed panels. And I got hold of a very late one (built after Eddie died I think) which was more like a Phantom than a LoPo. I'd guess that they would copy whatever style was popular at the time.

It is a little hard to see what is happening unless one plays the video in something where one can go frame by frame. For that apparently mock student at the end of the video, his feet seem to leave the door sill within a frame of the pilot chute actually being let go. His hands, out of frame, were probably already off the plane so he could no longer psych out the instructor. As for the comment about the 1st vs. 2nd jumper: It's hard to tell what the 1st jumper is doing because the camera view is from his helmet. Perhaps the 2nd jumper is angled outward more, which puts his rig and PC more inside. He does have to start from inside in any case, so a jumper can always dive or fall out early and the instructor would have to deal with getting the PC out. So I'm still trying to learn exactly what level and type of errors are shown in the video. There are subtleties to doing IAD well, getting the PC placement and timing right. (And I'm not sure about the original title, whether I should infer that any errors are typical for Poland or just happen to exist at the drop zone depicted.)

Ok, so what was the point? Nothing went wrong in the movie on first glance. Or do you not like IAD from a Caravan, using a position crouched in the door? An exit sitting in the doorway would get the PC lower relative to the tail. If one goes frame by frame for the last exit, one can see the instructor brought the PC down low and away from the jumper as he released it. Still, from the little I know of IAD, the PC tends to quickly line up straight aft of the pin it is pulling on, no matter where one drops the PC. So the PC still ends up pretty high since the jumper hasn't dropped down much at all by the time the bridle is taut. What's the standard for Caravan IADs? Just asking; I don't know. The tail on a C-182 looks pretty high too for dispatching IAD students off the step.

Hey TK, I don't have any good ideas but can just say what I've seen, especially back when fun accuracy meets were more common. At the meets I was at, a category break might be at 100 jumps for the real juniors. (Won my first meet that way with 27 jumps, jumping rental student gear). Or 300 jumps for the upper limit of juniors in any sense. But break points were varied depending on the local jumpers, putting people in natural groups. CSPA uses 200 as the Junior upper limit. Since it wasn't pro accuracy onto a pad, distances were measured out to a max of 5m or whatever was convenient (eg, no further than the edge of the bowl). CSPA uses 10m for Juniors. Jump runs: From little Cessnas at least, I've seen either single passes at 2500'-2800' or two jumpers per pass at 2800-3500'. Big accuracy stacks get too confusing. You'd know better what to do with big planes. One would have rules that judges could sanction or disqualify someone for a dangerous approach. A couple times the meet for the under 100 jump jumpers was scored based on time rather than distance -- like for hit and rock -- timed from touchdown until stomping the target. Fun although it measures more than just skydiving skills. If landing on grass rather than in a pea gravel bowl, setting up a circle or circles to measure distance was done by spray painting the grass orange. Then if one didn't want to get into exact distance measurements, one could draw circles at intervals to create zones. That would fit with the little used CSPA Sport Accuracy rules (the competition manual is on the web) that uses zones for points, and a penalty for not making a fully stand up landing, and one for running out the landing past the outer 15m ring. (One can debate that rule - it tends to penalize landing long more than penalizing landing short. That may or may not be a goal.)

No respect at ICAS? Well I can see that a team with $6000 parachutes looks pretty cheap compared to guys with $300,000 aerobatic aircraft or $30,000,000 jet fighters. Skydivers don't tend to get a lot of respect from pilots. I would have hoped that it would be better for some of the really professional skydiving teams -- they can go beyond just dropping a bunch of people over a field. Just doing a few turns under a parachute and landing such a simple aerial vehicle isn't going to impress pilots any more than doing turns in and landing a Cessna 150.

Great history here! Last time I packed a Swift into a Centaurus, just a couple years back, I certainly propacked it and didn't use the now-odd folding technique (that followed flat packing) shown in the ParaFlite manual. I'm guessing most riggers would do the same. A couple more minor data points in the progression to propack: The propack video I saw when learning to rig in early '91 showed a Raven going into a Racer. My notes say that a '95 Precision manual only mentioned flat packing reserves. Yet the fine details of the video (as I wrote them down) don't match precisely with the propack in a '90 Racer manual I have either. So I'm not sure who produced the video. Perhaps it was considered 'supplemental' in some way. An '88 Glide Path manual showed propacking the reserve, so they had it fairly early. BUT, my notes suggest it was the very simple system that has continued to be used by Flight Concepts -- basically propack on the shoulder, wrap the tail, lay it down, narrow it and fold it. There's none of that standard stuff about re-flaking each section on the ground. (All this also gets into the old issue of FAA mandating riggers to follow manufacturers' instructions, and what happens when those instructions are outdated compared with industry practice. Also, there's the uncertainty over how or whether newer instructions supersede the instructions that came with TSO'd equipment.)

How rare was it for conventional rigs to have no chest strap, so that they relied on the reserve clipped to both sides to hold things together? Was it a well accepted variation or did people quickly decide it was going a little too far? Andrewhilton recently posted a thread showing an old Super Swooper that is that way. ("Name another harness/container") But I first saw a rig like that when I got a Canadian Niagara Parachutes rig back into service last year. It has no load-bearing chest strap. There is webbing that looks like a chest strap, which simply loops around the opposite riser and velcros to itself, I suppose to make the rig stay on one's shoulders better until the reserve is hooked on. I wonder about staying in the harness during a main or especially reserve opening with a reserve connector unclipped. So much for the cross connector if things go wrong. The reserve side connectors might restrain a jumper enough to save the day. They may be a little low on the body and not very structural, but if snug might keep the jumper in the harness. I'll keep a close eye on the belly mount connectors when jumping it, but would like to know what was thought of such systems back in the day.

Ok, so you're saying the original poster lied, it is all a falsification, no such thing occurred?

Those deep deep flares.... seems almost like a Sailwing. Haven't compared any pics though.

Why do it? Like a lot of things in skydiving, because it is a challenge, and there are new skills to learn. It's neat to come in contact with some of the history of the sport. (And, just between us, there's the cool factor too. Rounds are rare, the gear knowledge is rare, and there's a mystique about them... so you look really badass to be jumping them.) That being said, it isn't as practical on a tight DZ surrounded by trees or buildings. As Jimmy Tavino said, there's a big difference too between regular rounds and high performance, Para Commander style rounds. (Nice to see his comparison of different types.) One advantage over the old days is you probably won't be jumping a round all day every day in all conditions... you can pick and choose.

So for the car in Oz, they did skydive with it, right? Jump from inside the car? If it's just a big piece of trash in freefall with nobody skydiving, then it doesn't really concern us in this forum.

Got a commercial message today by vadimuskoro, selling skydiving tunnel related services. Don't know him so many people are likely being spammed by private message?

Another story of a jump with no parachute: 23,000' - He got some nice altitude... http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2009/04/16/nunavut-flight.html The comments section of the original news report is plenty full, with all the expected joking, moderator deleted comments, etc. =============== Man leaps to death from airplane flying to Nunavut Last Updated: Thursday, April 16, 2009 | 12:08 PM CT CBC News The man jumped out of the charter flight Wednesday, about 180 kilometres from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, according to police.The man jumped out of the charter flight Wednesday, about 180 kilometres from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, according to police. (CBC) An apparently distressed passenger aboard a small charter flight Wednesday night to Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, forced open the aircraft's door and leapt to his death, police said. The incident took place during a flight from Yellowknife northeast to Cambridge Bay, a community in western Nunavut, RCMP said Thursday. At the time, the aircraft was about 180 kilometres from the Cambridge Bay airport, flying at an altitude of about 23,000 feet. Staff Sgt. Harold Trupish told CBC News Thursday morning that an air search has begun for the man's remains. Searchers are relying on GPS co-ordinates, he added. Pilots declared in-flight emergency Police say the crew of the King Air 200 aircraft called in an emergency during the flight, reporting that one of the two passengers on board was being unruly. When RCMP officers met the plane as it landed in Cambridge Bay, they learned that a 20-year-old man, who police described as distressed, had opened the exit door and jumped out, despite efforts by the two pilots to defuse the situation. With the cabin breached in mid-air, the pilots steered the plane to a safe landing in Cambridge Bay, police said. 'Huge force' needed to open doors: pilot Iqaluit pilot Wes Alldridge, who was not on board the charter but has logged thousands of hours in King Air 200 aircraft, said the plane's exit doors are not supposed to open at altitudes as high as 23,000 feet. "This door has four big steel pins that lock the main cabin door to the fuselage. So while the aircraft is pressurized, it's not possible to open the door," Alldridge said. "It would take huge force and you'd have to have a failure of that safety feature." RCMP say they hope to release further details about the incident later Thursday

There is a British BPA one out there on the web.

QuoteHi Andre', I do not understand what you are saying here. Could you explain furtherQuote On this Green Star side topic: Andre had mentioned providing Beatnik with a Green Star, but it was a fore and aft one, not the piggyback Green Star Express that had the failures. So there's no risk of Beatnik jumping a Green Star Express. Though I'm sure he'd love to get his hands on a Green Star Express if only for ground display. Anyone out there not burn theirs?

Jerry and then airtwardo added a level of detail not generally mentioned in the Green Star Express debate. I'm also interested in whether any unmodified ones failed. Was it the lack of confluence wrap that made the Green Star Express reserve riser attachment particularly weak? (Plus angles that could lead to peeling?) Was there a precedent for the kind of construction that they used or were they just trying to minimize weight and cost? Generally we are now used to reserve risers being at least partially integrated into the harness, but was it ever different? E.g., belly mount reserve rings being sewn on to the harness, with a confluence wrap? I don't know old harnesses well enough.

Is this all the FAA says on the matter?: For a first stab at this: Under US rules, a) you still need to have a seal press b) you still have to seal the reserve (...the standard seal thread is probably a good idea) (There is the argument that you could seal it and rip it off right afterwards and be legal.) c) sealing probably involves one's seal press (due to "with his seal") So it looks like one could use seal thread, and use one's seal press on a paper adhesive label attached to the seal thread. If the manufacturer allows it. My regular press, despite having inset (not raised) characters on it, will create something of an impression on paper, maybe enough to be practical. But the jaws don't close fully so one has to either add something behind a die to close the gap, or use a temporary spacer to be squished along with the paper. As for "in accordance with the manufacturer's recommendation", the PIA might best get manufacturers to agree on some alternative new standard. For the short term, one can get into the business of parsing exactly what is in each company's manual -- some don't even mention the sealing, and many say "seal the reserve" but don't mention lead seals. In such cases, things seem good to go -- there's nothing stopping an FAA rigger, right now, from using a paper seal on a variety of popular rigs! Naturally it might concern jumpers if there's no high level statement about it from the USPA or PIA. Or did I miss something?

I should note that the manual doesn't actually give suggested loop lengths for the Wings. I have however seen an unofficial list of lengths from the factory.

It just doesn't seem to be as simple as the manual says to pack a Wings. (This somewhat applies to all the semi external pilot chute rigs, in their smaller sizes.) The Wings manual says to close the side flaps, compress the pilot chute with the fabric inside it, and that's it. No fiddling, no tricks. There are of course other instructions on the bridle and last 2 flaps. And there's an html packing guide online that adds the obvious suggestion to kneel in the center of the bag early on to form a nest for the PC. Can anyone out there actually close a small Wings by just following the manual, with the recommended short loop length? Just close the flaps and pull the loop up? (And in low humidity conditions too.) I've got 700-odd reserve packs (all types) and I still don't see how it can be done. Even with the tips and tricks I've seen, it is still hard to get everything looking neat, with the loop often longer than recommended to get it closed. -- I start with a low bulk reserve pack job, nicely microreefed in one of the many variations, rather than the traditional PD style pack job with all of AB, BC, CD wrapped downwards together. -- I always end up working a lot at creating a well in the middle of the bag, often using a packing paddle after the side flaps are closed, to work the molar ears away from the loop. -- It's also good to really seat the bag in towards the main tray, to line its grommet up with the loop. Otherwise the loop tends to angle towards the yoke to get through the bag grommet, wasting length, before proceeding upwards. -- The pilot chute tends to pack up really tall if one fully distributs the fabric throughout the coils. I've see a little cheating done, to keep more of the fabric near the top of the coils, and also to have a little sticking out from the top and bottom of the cap, areas which will get covered by the top and bottom flaps anyway. -- After the rig is packed, like on any rig one can shape the rig. For the Wings, it really helps to push the sides inward, to bulk the rig up around the edges of the pilot chute to close any minor gap. Any better Wings tips out there? I'm willing to learn! Even with what seems to be good technique, some tricks, going beyond the simple steps listed in the manual, and having a torque device, I'm just not seeing how one would keep the closing loop right down to spec.