pchapman

It's hard to provide a quick answer to what the season is. It depends a lot on the jumper. Some people like to come out on winter days and swoop the snow; others don't even think about a reserve repack until the first warm May weekend. It depends on whether one is in the mood to hang out with friends and stick around even if it is just for a couple Cessna hop and pops while all bundled up, or whether one doesn't want to waste time at the DZ unless one can easily bang off a bunch of training jumps from a turbine at 13.5... Some places in Ontario stay open over the winter, but the turbine aircraft are usually only around early May through late October. I remember great days of skydiving in any month, but there is a lot of variation from year to year in the off-season months.

I'm envious! What's the chance of having decent weather for old canopies at Teuge in October -- especially winds? You've got a great event but I'm curious how the weather is likely to be over the years. Perhaps like some DZ's it is easier to schedule an event slightly outside the main season so that experienced jumpers and airplanes aren't all busy with tandems and other instruction?

It is an option to grab the risers and twist oneself 1 1/2 times and land it. But that's still a gutsy move, a theoretical possibility, not "recommended" in any way, "use at own risk". The standard advice is still to chop the canopy!! Putting in just a half twist (180 degrees) in the risers is wrong because as soon as it untwists a tiny bit, it'll apply a strong untwisting torque and one will too easily snap back to untwisted. One and a half twists is enough that it is easy to hold twisted. The twists should end up low in the risers so you just reach up above the twists to grab the toggles. It is easy enough to practice up high in flight on a regular jump - eg, put in 360 degree twist and fly that around - and see if it is easily controllable. (But it can be harder to twist oneself under small sensitive canopies without sending oneself into a diving spiral while yanking on the risers.) (I've flown around with a deliberate full twist this past weekend but I haven't yet gotten around to landing that way... so I haven't yet provided proof of the technique's usefulness.) (P.S. - The 180 twist technique is still OK for the specialized situation of landing a round canopy, that is assembled correctly, while blowing backwards in high wind.)

I liked the minutes of club having its second meeting -- Looks like nobody owned a rig and they were trying to organize the funding to buy one rig for the club as a whole.

As for sewing canopies together, one example of it being done: http://crwdog.servebeer.com/CRWdog/Tandems.html (Pics on CRW dog Wendy Faulkner's site, of Aussies who sewed two 7 cells together to make a 14 cell tandem canopy as a stunt.)

I don't know enough about the airspace system and the Hollister area to answer the questions, but I can ask some of the questions necessary to sorting this all out: Aviation chart for Hollister: http://skyvector.com/#40-16-2-4072-4362 So it looks like Class E airspace. Hollister airport is non-towered (magenta on map). So there's no control zone at the airport or drop site. There's a parachute symbol at Hollister, as well as one by the nearby town of Tres Pinos - perhaps that's the actual drop location? If so, it is marked on the map and pilots would be advised to exercise caution. Are jump planes in contact with any air traffic facility providing traffic advisories? E.g., Oakland center for this area I think. Centers deal with IFR traffic but when they have time can provide VFR advisories. A light plane zipping along at near 11k probably has a transponder. Some centers might have primary radar to pick up non-transponder aircraft too, although the area looks hilly so a far away radar won't have the best low altitude coverage. One source of confusion with a drop location away from the airport, is what frequency would pilots be on -- an enroute FSS frequency, a terminal frequency, or the Hollister frequency? Pilots aren't always on the particular local frequency a DZ might want. Having the drop site away from an airport does complicate things for pilots, despite the parachute symbol on the chart.

Another thing I've seen done: Even if you leave the reserve packed over the winter, and the main packed, at least pull the pilot chute out to lessen the long term stress on the spandex. (I can't vouch for how effective it is but it seems reasonable.)

Either with a MARD or plain RSL, the reserve is being fired into a main canopy that hasn't yet departed. Roll the dice. (The above report might imply that the main cleared completely, coming off his foot, but it isn't absolutely clear.) But I see a point: A MARD generally gets a reserve out quicker after risers release, than during a chop with an RSL, and a fair bit quicker than many a chop without an RSL. Most of the time that's a good thing. It might be a bad thing if one is still attached to a main for some other reason (eg, CRW, horseshoe). A delay between cutaway and reserve activation might not help in some cases, but might in others (such as if cutting away does clear that main off one's foot). One solution is to release the RSL (plain or MARD) before cutting away, but doing that in an emergency situation may be tricky. The 'too quick a reserve' issue is one of the reasons people may choose to have no RSL... and unless I'm mistaken, one potential risk of a MARD. [MARD: A parachuting device named by Bill Booth. Ironically, also pretty much what Eric Fradet mutters under his breath in French whenever he thinks about Skyhooks...]

I'd say sell it -- given that I'm sure you'll be upfront and honest about the canopy, you'll inform the buyer about the caveats, and you won't sell it to someone who doesn't know any better. (Hey, I think I could go for a micro raven 120 just to play with if I found one cheap. Landing it can't be any scarier than the Paradactyl I was jumping this season. It could go in my intentional cutaway system so I wouldn't be forced to land it!)

Yeah, not a highly useful Racer post. But as for things that were new & exciting in January 2005, three and a half years later, whatever happened to the Spectra ripcord? Haven't seen any around on the few new Vectors I've seen. Did it get shelved or is it available but people are being conservative and buying steel cable ripcords?

Odd. Don't know the answer. The slider grommets do appear to be the stainless steel type, therefore appropriate to HMA. While there are slinks on the risers now, to get those strong dings in the slider grommets, they must have been once used with metal links without covers? I'm not that experienced with such stuff, but the riser damage (and wide spread location) suggests high speed rubbing, not just a dinged slider grommet being pulled down. Are the fronts of the risers packed up against any rougher seams of the riser covers/side flaps or anything like that?? But what about the red flecks around some of the riser burns? From the rig, or from the slider? One couldn't possibly pull ones' slider down (and back up when packing) violently enough to burn the risers?? Or could it all be from some one time incident on the ground, something getting dragged across the risers? And no line twist incident on some opening that might have burned risers against themselves (maybe with a bit of slider fabric thrown into the mix)?

Brettski74 quoted Skyblu3: I'd be concerned about that routing. I had a similar routing of the RSL slack on my Vector 3. Hi Brett, I don't have any easy answer for what must be a rare type of failure, that the RSL would actually be able to snag on the free end of the cutaway housing to the extent of ripping the housing off the container. Whether good or bad, I think the RSL slack is normally routed how Skyblu3 showed it: "around the outside" of the cutaway housing. This is in contrast to going "up between the housing and riser". Usually I see the former, and I think the latter only rarely, such as when the cutaway housing bulges outward a lot from the yoke. In that case, instead of routing the RSL way out far around the housing, the RSL can go straight up "inside". I was curious so skimmed a few manuals (not necessarily the latest but generally up to date). Wings, Infinity*, and UPT show photos that suggest the RSL goes around the outside. R.I.'s pic is hard to see but likely outside. Aerodyne didn't seem to show anything. Mirage shows the cutaway housing routed up from the other side of the shoulder strap, so it is clear of the RSL. * (KellyF of Velocity Sports wrote earlier for the Infinity that he likes the inside routing for for a different snag related reason.) As for RSL slack, keeping it from dangling has long been an issue for rigs.

Not in the original Bell X-1 which made him famous.

In any case, whatever the law is, some skydivers will want to make a copy of any video because (a) there's no cop around yet to tell them that they can't do it, (b) maybe they don't want to screw over their other tandem customers who have unedited video on the tape, (c) they aren't planning to do anything fraudulent (notwithstanding chain of evidence issues), and (d) they just don't trust the cops. When it comes to skydiving investigations, I bet a lot of us don't trust cops. Time after time one hears of cases where the cops dump all the gear in their car, take the video, disappear, and nobody hears anything for months. There's no feedback to the skydiving community about things that might be learned from the video. And the cops totally destroy the accident scene and take forever to get outside riggers to check the equipment. Yet at other times cops do try to preserve evidence, such as shutting a busy city intersection for hours after motor vehicle accident. I don't trust them to treat skydiving with the respect we want. So, in search of the truth, I'd certainly try to get to an accident before the cops and secure information before they mess it up -- even if they think they're trying to prevent me from doing the same.

Other posts already pointed out some of the big caveats about parents protecting their kids, that there are real risks, and that if you aren't financially independent, you may not get what you want. (You'll also be able to find previous dz.com threads about convincing parents or partners or employers, that one isn't crazy or suicidal.) Nevertheless, if trying to convince parents, one can focus on things like these: -- Show high quality videos of the sport - Skydiving can be very photogenic and video can help explain why anyone would want to jump. -- Show that there are rules. The USPA's Skydiver's Information Manual available online is over 200 pages long... -- A big part of the sport is the concept of a mature and disciplined approach to risks and decision making. (This of course can be contradicted by some of the things we do in practice, whether in the sky or especially around the camp fire, but the point is still valid.) -- Further down the road, if you are skydiving, you may get to know some people at the dz to use as examples. While level of education doesn't determine ability to skydive, it may help for parents to understand that the sport isn't full of devil may care yahoos drifting through life. It is also a sport picked by well educated professionals. (Mind you, so is Himalayan mountaineering, and that doesn't always work out so well.)

One comment was that it is incredible that someone is downsizing after an injury on a high performance canopy. There can be a legitimate worry about the risk of re-injury and whether someone is 100% healed up or not. But other than that, there wasn't a big incentive to upsize. The accident wasn't of the type where someone bounces off the ground coming out of a dive or has repeated problems controlling the flare. I think a lot of people who have flown small canopies have had some minor incident here or there where they scared themselves, and then re-evaluated their flying technique. But there was little to scare the original poster here. There is the possibility that his swoop-slide technique needs refinement, or that the flare was subtly mishandled, both of which could be related to low jump numbers. Whether good or bad, one can easily compartmentalize this sort of accident and think that it doesn't reflect on one's flying in general, but on a specific type of landing where one made a little mistake or perhaps just got unlucky. Therefore the original poster might take the accident as a cautionary tale in general, but not be dissuaded from jumping the smaller canopy he had already ordered at the time of the accident.

Some posts by others got cut by the moderators, but they were fun while they lasted. (They got more into the philosophy of risk taking, personal responsibility, and the desire to protect others.) Anyway, Zeppo, since you're out on the spot here anyway, what can you say about the type of approaches you do, how you plan to do them in the future, and whether you think you are disciplined in the way you do them? Whatever the arguments about wing loading may be, beyond that, the style of landing approach is another issue affecting the risk involved.

I'll disagree in general, but agree under certain circumstances. The big point is, it all depends on what people expect. Some seem to expect that if doing hop and pops, you land in the same order. Others just consider it a bunch of solo jumps, and everyone sorts out their landings as necessary. I wouldn't expect landing in the same order. That's why from my viewpoint, anyone saying they should land in the same order is an arrogant swooper who wants to own the sky and thinks their way is the only way. In general there's no expectation in skydiving about who should land in what order. Now it is different if I'm with some others in the Otter, going out low, over a DZ with a swoop pond, and we talk to each other and find we're all planning to go for the pond. In that case, we can choose to agree that we're going to follow a certain order and space our opening altitudes to facilitate that. And in that case, yes you've got a right to have a serious chat with someone who doesn't "dive the plan". Maybe some people at a particular DZ are so used to doing these 'swoop stacks' (like 'accuracy stacks') all the time that they forget that it isn't considered normal in general to land in the order of exits. They have to be careful to talk things over and make sure everyone is on the same page -- before the jump.

I dunno either. But the Titan (a 265) had stabs that joined right up to the canopy at the line attachments - the photo shows a gap. So unless something changed, it can't be a Titan. Brake line config is similar though, with the inner brake line being shorter than the rest. Next guess??

If I'm being really casual with quick toggle motions, it is easier for me to start to unweight the lines (and get close to spinning myself up) with my Sabre 135 than with an FX 88. After jumping the FX a lot, I've had to make sure I toned down my approaches on the Sabre after snapping too quickly around a 180 turn and getting into that situation of feeling nearly weightless in the harness. So a smaller canopy isn't necessarily more sensitive to self induced twists. Without figuring out the actual physics, it seems like the small ground-hungry crossbraced canopy more easily immediately puts some G's on when starting into a turn, putting tension on the lines.

There's an idea, doing demos on spec. Land and pass the hat...

Eric's recollections are close but I can refine what he wrote. He must be thinking of the 1956 NPJR newsletter that is copied at: http://indra.net/~bdaniels/ftw/fr_ref1_NPJR.html. In it, Joe Crane's the opinion of the baton pass was actually guardedly optimistic, but the opinion of a 9-way chunk exit in France was that it was seen as a risky stunt. Eric, do you have any other information about how that first baton pass happened?

I'm not sure about the whole issue. At the original poster's DZ (mine too), the wind turbines would go up on a small hill that's right under the normal aircraft circuit, and would be close to directly upwind of the DZ for the most common wind direction. The first issue becomes 300+ ft turbines on a 200 ft hill when the aircraft is on the crosswind climbing leg, flying not a whole lot higher than that. So it becomes an obstacle as well as a potential turbulence source during the climb. Taking the circuit in the other direction puts it closer to a small town. Circuits could be changed but it would be awkward. The airfield is a small private airfield. While it is Registered and in the airport directory, it won't have the same legal protection against obstacles as a full Certified airport with IFR traffic might have. Looking at Google Maps, it seems the nearest edge of the turbine field would be on the order of 4000' from the end of the DZ runway -- so it would be another 1500' or so to the main landing area. (Putting it in skydiver terms, a long tandem spot could go right over the planned turbine field, but not a normal jumper spot.) As for turbines in general: One wind turbine study showed velocity deficits (reductions in wind speed) behind large farms extending 5 to 20 km before the wind speed returned to the original level. So the effect of turbines can extend a long way. However, we are talking about reductions in wind speed that might be 15% near the turbines, and 2% 5+ km way. So while the effect of turbines can extend surprisingly far, the question then becomes whether those effects are significant for flight. I wonder how far any significant turbulence will extend behind turbines. There will be vortexes coming off the blade tips for example, drifting downwind. I don't know whether they would last as long as they can behind large aircraft with high speeds and high wing loadings. If vortexes did persist for a couple minutes at strong but jumpable wind speeds, they could go 4000'. Still, I'm guessing the major effects wouldn't go nearly that far. But I have no real evidence either way. I'd really like to know more about turbulence downstream of wind turbines. There was one parachuting fatality related to wind turbines, when a first jump student in Germany was struck and killed by a turbine blade in 2000, jumping in strong upper wind conditions. Sounds like they were a typical lost first jump static line student, for they ended up 3+ km from the DZ. It was on an island where pretty much every farm field has a turbine in it. While this an example of turbine hazards, hazards also exist from plain old buildings, powerlines, and trees.

Chris: a) While that is interesting about the web site, how the heck is that supposed to be official if it isn't in the PIMs? (And where do I find that info? I can't find it.) b) For years the requirement was a C CoP to fly any sort of video. In the latest 2008 PIM 1, they actually changed it to a B CoP. Incredible, they actually made something easier instead of harder to do. This was where I was in error; I hadn't realized they had relaxed the restrictions.

I'm mainly going to review the Canadian rules, without trying to teach video body positions which takes a lot of time to explain in print. (I know Hackish tends to read up on things, but this is for the thread in general.) Some of the US jumpers here are well informed on the Canadian PIMs, the CSPA rules. While some more general parts of the PIMs are quite old and need updating (as Kefran alluded to), the first section with the basic safety rules & recommendations is updated every 2 years. To fly camera under CSPA rules one does indeed need a C licence, which requires a minimum of 200 jumps. The C licence rules are in the "Technical Recommendations", but they are stated to be mandatory. I would bet that DZs typically try to follow this rule, especially for working jumps. The BSRs do say that all recommendations of tandem manufacturers must be followed. But that doesn't always happen -- e.g. a manufacturer might recommend altimeters for tandem but many DZ's don't do it that way. It also technically would mean if one is jumping UPT gear, camera flyers would have to have all those restrictive requirements met: Camera flyer is himself a Tandem Instructor or AFF jumpmaster, has 500 RW jumps, 100 RW jumps in the last year, and 100 camera jumps. Which isn't going to happen; at least I've never seen anyone want to enforce those strict limits. I generally tend to see or like to see a progression of: - no cameras before 200 jumps - plenty of play with the camera on other types of jumps - showing the DZ that one is known for having good safety skills and RW skills (not competitive RW, but any sort of playing-well-with-others-in-the-sky type of RW) - a few jumps jumping with a tandem, to get used to how they behave in exit and in freefall, with no camera to act as a distraction - a few practice videos of a tandem that are reviewed by management ... before doing paid tandem video.