pchapman

I dunno. Maybe I'm just being contrarian tonight, but it isn't that rare to see rigs with reserve pins that have gotten that little set to them, where they still stay flat against the flap. Nobody changes them and they stay that way for years. Maybe more so for the terminal style pins, like on Javelins. Someone else will remember better.

Hi Hackish: You mean the wrong way being an extra fold back of the free end, so that the excess stows not on the main part of the chest strap, but across the other side of the buckle? If that's correct: I'm not yet convinced that that's bad. I see the point that if the free end gets pulled away from the buckle, it will eventually rotate the buckle so that it loosens off, just like when one pulls up on the edge of the buckle to loosen it. But that takes a lot of rotation to accomplish, and if the free end is stowed in an elastic as usual, it stays in place. Also, one might argue that the extra fold is one extra change of direction that could add friction to the system. That's a bit theoretical though. Your idea did get me to go and play around with my chest strap. I played with repeatedly pushing the main lift webs closer and yanking them apart, giving them a bunch of 'cycles' to try to loosen the chest strap. This is on a rig with a single layer strap, which would make it loosen more easily. I found the 'extra fold back' way actually better than the 'normal' way. In the normal way, when the MLW's are pushed together and pulled apart, both parts of the chest strap loosen and tighten -- that's both the main part of the strap and the free end that is snugged up against it with a keeper. When it all loosens there's a big loop of loose strap going around the parts of the buckle. But with the extra fold back method, only the main part of the chest strap loosens and tightens. The free end, with a keeper keeping it in place on the other side of the buckle, never loosens. So there is less that gets loose every time the MLWs come closer. After many repeated cycles, the chest strap stayed tight while with the normal way of stowing the strap, the chest strap got looser and looser. With the normal way, the free end was still stowed in its keeper, but the whole thing kept sliding closer to the buckle. The way with the extra fold, back over the buckle, seems to actually be superior in my test in reducing the chance of loosening off after being unloaded. I don't know what the answer is here. Is folding the chest strap back over the buckle considered by some others wrong too? I fold it that way; I find it convenient to set up and makes it easier to pop the excess out to loosen the chest strap after opening. Interesting topic in any case as I don't recall anyone ever discussing which way is better or acceptable.

Just noticed this in the original post. While body type will be a significant factor, I would add that it certainly isn't the only factor and shouldn't hold people back from believing they can do a good track. Just my opinion from one isolated example I saw: One time I watched from the ground as a 20 way round (or something similar) broke and tracked. The jumpers tracked away simultaneously, spreading out in an expanding circle. But one dot shot out from the expanding circle, steadily gaining significant extra distance compared to all the rest. Who was this guy who was blowing everyone else away?! I watched the jumper closely until landing. It did turn out to be an experienced jumper -- at least a couple thousand jumps -- but more surprisingly, he was a short, stout, tubby f*cker.

Johan: AS8015 might be out on the web somewhere but is rare. Normally the SAE that controls it will sell it for $50+. TSO-C23d basically says 'follow 8015', and 8015 lists all the different strength tests & drop tests that manufacturers do. But Jerome has a point. That one paragraph is one of those things that seems to be totally ignored, on the face of it. Customers wouldn't stand for parachuting companies forcing them to use only a particular brand of reserve. But the interpretation could be disputed; one of those things that give riggers hours of fun on this site arguing about what things mean and what rules apply. That paragraph 5.1 talks about qualifying stuff either as components (canopy, harness/container) separately, or together as a system. If it is as a system, "The airworthiness of a parachute assembly, including other separately approved nonoriginal components, is the responsibility of the manufacturer who performs the certificating tests for the parachute assembly. The manufacturer shall publish and make available a list of interchangeable components which have passed the following tests [...]". One might argue that that doesn't actually say all components MUST be certified as a system, just that it says who is responsible IF everything is certified together. So unless there's other wording elsewhere, nothing says one can't assemble a system from multiple certified components -- a certified harness from one place, a certified reserve from another. That's where, at least in the US, FAA rigger rules on rigger discretion come into play. But that's a bit of rules lawyering and there may be plenty of counterarguments. Still in the end: IF nobody cares about what reserve goes into a PdF rig, then it is OK because nobody will stop you. Or does one hear of PdF grounding rigs of theirs they find with others' reserves?

It all depends. One can learn to pack with no weight on a rig, but it is more awkward or takes special techniques. Or if the floor is slippery one may want an lot of weight, but it the rig is on 'sticky' carpet one won't need as much. Or if flat packing some big F-111 canopy it can be nice to have a hook in the wall to be able to put lots of tension on it when flaking. But basically a weight belt or the aforementioned plastic bottles with sand or gravel work well. People place weights all over too - on the rig in general, across the main risers, in the main tray, within the leg straps, whatever. Not saying that some ways aren't better than others, but generally there are a lot of ways to get the job done.

That would be great because I've seen a few discussions here where everyone is chipping in about PC color scheme names and whether or not a canopy is exactly that scheme or not...

True, but let's say that he doesn't go into a ton of detail organizing the different groups of staff on the DZ. I don't know exactly how it works as I haven't been there a whole lot. As for organizing the video flyers, a big thing is to have policies clearly stated. It may be that someone who is full time for the summer is designated as having priority. When people know the policy ahead of time, at least they won't think the DZO is playing favorites or that the jumper is a pushy jerk. It has been mentioned that some places tend to have a core set of video flyers who are the regulars and so get some priority. One can also do things the other way, where everyone gets into rotation as long as they are an approved part of the team. You show up, you get in rotation. That allows up and comers to get involved in working at the DZ. It also allows those who aren't able to be around all the time to contribute, to get away from the issue of "I quit my job and am a DZ bum so I deserve to do more videos." That may or may not be true depending on circumstances. It can be a fine line trying to satisfy everyone. The regulars want to be rewarded for being there reliably most weekends, while the more part time don't want to have their big investment in camera and editing equipment (if they had to buy it themselves) go to waste if they are supposedly 'on the team'. I'm just mentioning the second way as a possibility, not that it is 'better'. It depends somewhat on the DZ. Is the place swarming with people wanting to fly video, so standards can go up more, or is it more important to have a way for more people to progress into part time staff work and thus be encouraged to be out at the DZ and provide replacement video staff down the road?

Old thread but a search didn't show any better place to post. Just a newbie point of view: While a VOB on a DVD is an mpg, it is a very specific one and can sometimes be finicky to run on different players. E.g., Media Player Classic might have a problem while VLC works. Or the VOB will play from the start but random access won't work. Sony Vegas often chokes on VOBs (eg, seeing only 9 seconds of a 1 minute video). Also, if a DVD is long enough, one ends up with multiple 1 GB VOBs and apparently the cut points don't start at convenient spots (for interpreting the video frames) when not playing through a DVD player, making it harder to play VOB's past the very first on the DVD. I found the freeware program "MPEG Streamclip" works very well at fixing all that, resaving the VOBs as "more normal" MPGs WITHOUT a full re-encoding that would degrade quality. Windows & Mac versions available. (Streamclip was mentioned at least once before in this forum, but complaints about VOBs seem common in general.)

... or possibly deliberately somewhere short thereof. I hope Mr Booth and friends will have a less controversial trip!

Hop n pops have always been fun. It used to be that just exiting from an airplane and opening your parachute was about the simplest, newbie thing you could do in skydiving. But now you can look all fearless and badass just by doing that! You can nonchalantly step out of a Cessna at two thousand or twenty-five hundred while others are whimpering about the low altitude, their snivelly canopies, or how they really want 4000' so they can deal with their removable deployment systems... (I'd never have gotten a reputation for "taking it low" if I had been skydiving in the 70s. Too much serious competition in that field back then. Now all you gotta do is pull at a legal altitude.)

Skydive Toronto (Cookstown, ON) has 6 widebody C-182's, up-engined and with wing extensions. Usually in summer they are running 4, +1 for spare/maintenance, +1 rented out. In '08 there weren't more than 2 plane RW formations done, but in '07 we had someone keen to organize so we made a bunch of 3 or 4 plane 'big way' attempts. The best we got was 15 of 16 with the local jumpers available. But with the daily grind of tandems it wasn't possible to set aside a particular weekend for that sort of thing; it was still eked out on those occasional first loads or last loads. Getting enough pilots trained up for larger formations took a lot of DZO effort. It wasn't like having a turbine, but it was fun.

The psychology of the feedback also has application to skydiving. Winsor may have been particularly defensive at that early point in his aviating, but it could also be that the criticism he got made the others feel better while just making Winsor angry and defensive, without really helping him understand the situation. Sometimes criticism is hard to take when one's efforts to do things right aren't recognized, even if the efforts were amateurish or insufficient. Winsor could say at the time that he flight planned properly, had a legal night VFR forecast, and as soon as he encountered poor weather, used his panel training to 180 and divert. He might wonder why all the fuss because even in professional airline service, aircraft sometimes have to divert for weather reasons to their alternate destination. The point should have been impressed on him at the time that while he was careful to be legal and not just out busting regs, his decision making took him into a nighttime weather situation that is particularly dangerous for pilots. Winsor should still have been praised at the time for some of his decision making -- a check of weather reports, a decision to 180 immediately, and an early decision to divert. Criticism will help more if it is specific about what was good or less than good, even if we still want to retain the right to be able to call someone a dumbass from time to time.

One should note that some of the historical ripcord deposit prices are way out of line with the current cost of handles. If one is using a D-ring metal handle, the handle itself is $39.50 at ParaGear! That's just for the handle, not a whole ripcord. The DZ can save some money if it has a press to swage together the pin, ball, handle, and cable. (My DZ has a press built out of angle iron bolted and welded together, plus a cheap automotive hydraulic jack. The dies are then the part of the system that has to be the most carefully engineered. And my DZ is lucky to have a pile of old handles left over from old scrapped rigs.) Obviously prices come down with quantity purchase ($31.50 for 20+), and one can surely find a cheaper supplier. Still, it isn't sufficient these days to tell someone in a less rich country outside the US to "charge the students 20 bucks deposit".

It is useful to see that definition. You emphasized "certificated parachute rigger" and then I emphasized "can involve". So it is just saying that riggers are part of parachuting operations in general. I don't see that it says that riggers are responsible for all actions involving the rigs they packed (including pouring battery acid on them) during the 120 or 180 days. I'd only believe that if one could find some language that stated that everyone involved in the operation were responsible for everything being correct at all times -- sort of like the pilots being responsible for jumpers' rigs being legal when conducting parachute ops from their plane. (Which we know is silly but that's the way it is written. Then it is another matter whether in practical terms the pilot would face any sanction -- probably not for an expired reserve on a jumper that they didn't know about, maybe yes if letting people do chuteless or non-TSO BASE rig jumps from their plane.)

I don't know that that would meet the letter of the law. It's an approved single harness dual parachute system that is required in the FAR's Now I thought the "single harness" thing was just to distinguish it from a "double harness", i.e. a tandem rig to take 2 people. If that's right, then the FARs don't say anything about wearing two harnesses (or more). Just that if you are jumping, you need a minimum of one harness with 2 parachutes (plus all the appropriate certification.) (I'm not arguing that I'm right; just discussing the issue.) All of us know that that makes sense. But do the FAA rules require that? Just wondering what rule or combination might require it. FAA rules say something about what you have to exit the aircraft with. Would it perhaps be covered by statements about conducting parachute operations, which would presumably last until the landing? Then one could jettison part of ones single harness dual canopy system only in case of emergency, which is what people do when they have a mal. But then, could one ever do an intentional cutaway on one's normal main to one's normal reserve, in one's normal rig? Even if one had an approved military harness with belly mount reserve on, legal for an emergency jump from a plane, one would still not land with a complete 'single harness dual parachute' system, as would be required for a non-emergency jump. Still trying to understand what is technically legal.

Soft loops, center pull handle, anti inversion netting... all sound good to me. But using spring loaded pilot chutes on belly mount reserves, without cutting away? I though in the civvy world one wouldn't install a reserve pilot chute if one didn't plan to cut away. Or had thinking changed at some point? For airborne troops at low altitude did the saving in time outweigh added risk?

So what are the rules in the US if one wants to do an intentional cutaway on one's regular main and use one's regular reserve? (As opposed to playing with a 3rd canopy and chopping that, which has been well discussed here.) Have people been able to easily do an intentional to try out their reserve? (Where I am, in Canada, people used to just attach a military belly round to the front of the harness with separable rings, even if that didn't quite fit the official CSPA rules. Government rules don't cover the issue at all.)

Common understanding is that no certification is needed for whatever you want to wear, as long as you are already wearing one proper TSO'd rig. (This all only applies for a 3rd canopy to play with, as opposed to a 3rd canopy as a backup reserve when intentionally chopping one's main. There I'm not sure of the US rules.) For the 3rd canopy one can do all sorts of things, such as these in increasing order of complexity: - direct bag it. - hold the bag & PC while exiting back to wind (But a safer way is:) - add a pilot chute pouch and handle to the bag - build a front container that includes some parts from the main container that was chopped off the old rig that one used to create the second harness - custom build a front container

You mean because he didn't stow his brake lines after landing after a mal? I've seen that happen -- soft PD brake lines all fuzzed up after just one jump and then carelessly dumped in the gear bag without replacing the toggles. Or did the line catch the velcro some other way? At least one major company got rid of the velcro. The Wings rig, right? Other companies just don't seem to have bothered when the old way is simple and usually works, even if velcroless has advantages.

I'm a little concerned about the lack of risers on the harness rings of some of the rigs... especially when a lot seem to be BASE rigs. And the low chest strap placement for some of the more endowed ladies, while better visually, may not be appropriate for their comfort on opening. But I think I can forgive them a few technical inaccuracies.

...When you start saying how you "deserve" to do that tandem or video jump, more than does one of the part time staff members, as you are trying to survive on skydiving alone. ... Or when you don't want to let others aboard the tandem or video staff, instead of encouraging other jumpers to contribute to the DZ (and learn skills and make money for their own fun jumps), because you are a full time skydiver! You don't wish to dilute your income by allowing part timers with real jobs to ruin things by making money off jumping too. To which the part timers start wondering just who is ruining things. At least, all that is associated with a few who start considering themselves professional skydivers. (You said this would be fun, markovwgti. ) [I realize a DZ may need to make promises about who gets priority in order to attract someone full time. But depending on personalities and DZ practices there can be friction between the part timers and the full timers. I've been on both sides of this argument.]

Correction to my post: I rechecked my notes: Jimmy Hall is claimed to be the only person to freefall a production paraglider, not to freefall it terminal. In the little I've seen written by him, he claimed no more. He once wrote he had 13 jumps with no cutaways, before getting into other projects. Still, photos of his jump show that he was taking a good solid freefall, NOT deploying on the hill out the door with the pilot flying extra slow. So they were still high speed deployments!

Actually from what I've read, Jimmy Hall was supposed to be the only person to have taken a paraglider to terminal, as opposed to all the slow speed direct bagging from helicopters, ultralights, etc that has been done. He did use a slider and wrote that he was blowing lines regularly, as the canopy hadn't been relined. Photos show him backflying with the huge canopy bagged in his lap before deployment. The high glide canopy idea keeps on coming up but never seems to go anywhere. PD experimented with the idea a decade back, and there was that French Nervures canopy but one never heard more about it later. As for shooting down cool ideas, well, people tend to do that when you have 48 jumps. An interesting project but a lot of issues to deal with too.

You're right. Yet while it is part of a discussion about Dec 19 changes specifically , the question & answer paragraph reads as if it could apply at any time in the future. The debate continues.

That document says that it is OK for riggers to pack up a reserve where the AAD or battery will expire before the 180 days, although it strongly suggests the rigger write down those limits. While the USPA is not guaranteed to be correct about everything FAA related, this still goes against the theory that masterrigger1 had been proposing.