pchapman

Statement #1 Statement #2 In most of skydiving, statement #2 is the correct idea. But I'll have to agree with statement #1 instead, for very particular applications. I have adjusted the brakes on a Parafoil so that it flies in a bit of brakes, under the supervision of very experienced accuracy jumpers. Forward speed (useful for big slow canopies!) was hardly affected, as tested by an anemometer. I don't care about having airspeed to trade for flare! I need full and complete control throughout the sink & stall regime to drop it onto the tuffet. I just couldn't get that without moving the toggles up the steering lines a little. And I did this adjustment despite being tall & long armed. [Edit: Looks like John Rich said much the same thing before I could get this typed up coherently!]

There was a case where a woman had her reserve deploy over the tail and get shredded before sliding off. She did manage to hook knife the whole thing away before deploying her main. Pretty good work considering she only had about 40 jumps. (This was reported in the USPA mag 5-10 years back and did get mentioned in another dz.com thread once.)

With old rounds there's a wide range of opinions, whether to refuse to pack them all, or keep on packing even 1960's military stuff, if one just can't seem to get lucky enough to pull test the damn things to destruction. Anyway, below is an opinion from GQ, or more specifically IrvinGQ, part of Airborne Systems. GQ doesn't categorically state that one can't pack an old Security chute. This conveniently provides the rigger with some legal protection! Still, despite the statement in the email, it isn't entirely clear whether the original GQ products are really considered orphaned or are somehow covered by blanket statements regarding 15(?) year lives, that are in manuals for products from a later version of the company. Note that they are very strict with their modern gear. Even where they sell to civilians, they act like it is a military sale. (One reserve ride, throw it out!) (Permission received from author to publish) ================================ Subject: FW: GQ Security parachutes Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 13:01:56-0000 Hello Peter Sorry for the delay. GQ Security was closed in the 1980's after it was purchased by GQ Parachutes and shipped to the UK very little data exists within our archive relating to products produced by them or any policies they operated. In the days of GQ Security and in common with many US manufacturers the parachute life is 3 months from new and the lifing is then based on a qualified rigger inspecting / packing it and certifying it as fit for use. This info required to inspect / pack is normally found in the packing manual. At Irvin-GQ we give a in-service life based on the stressing of the parachute and subsequently destructive testing. In which case we recommend on average a total finite life of 10 years with repacks of 180 days. If the parachute is designed for bail out we restrict the life to one deployment. You may wish to contact the PIA (Parachute Industries Association www.pia.com) as they have a riggers forum where similar questions are asked. It may be they can offer you more exact advise based on the Parachute you operate. ========================== While I'm at it, here are more opinions. From an April 2004 post by "meatbomb": ======================== I phoned up GQ, as I was concerned that there are several X210Rs and X175Rs still in circulation at my DZ (13-18 years old). The response I got was that the 15 year life is a liability issue, much as most American manufacturers life their reserves at 120 days, and then it's up to the rigger...so GQ have said, after 15 years, they will no longer be liable...They then suggested that if the canopy was in good condition, it could still be packed, but that I may want to go to Paragear.com, who sell more up to date designs! Wink So it seems like, as usual, the whole thing is a fudge. ======================== That also suggests GQ doesn't prohibit old reserves from being packed. In Mar 2006 the following was posted in the similar thread http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2146742; ======================== My pdf packing instructions for EB80, Security 350, 650, 750, 850, 950, and 1050 all specify a life of 10 years for the system. For all but the 1050, the instructions say a factory inspection may result in an extension to 15 years. There were some previous versions of the instructions that did not specify a life limit, and it is not clear to me that new packing instructions necessarily supersede the instructions that originally accompanied a TSO'd product, even though best practices would be to use the most current. Mark ========================

Sew on an extra star. Nobody will notice. :)

I'm packing a ParaFlite MT-1XX rig and wanted to know what the length should be, for the 2-pin closing loop. Also, do people simply pro-pack the reserve? I'm following a military video manual that shows flat packing. The loop in the rig seems almost impossibly tight. I'm just wondering if the closing loop is a shorter replacement, that might be appropriate if the rig had been propacked the last time.

For a little fun on the weekend I tried out the combination of my ParaCommander with my Birdman GTi. The PC was in an early 80's piggyback sport rig. Anyone else tried out a wingsuit with a round canopy? Pros: Little worry about line twists; the long accuracy rig put the BOC handle down low for an easy pull; and one can fly oneself to the desired opening point. Cons: It's a round! The opening was good, with no more force than a regular terminal PC jump. One old timer had been worried that opening shock might be higher than normal but I figured the total velocity would be OK. The swing after opening was not an issue and felt a lot more damped & slower than on a square. The round & wingsuit combination has been done before, but the only dz.com reference I could find was by Skyflyer on Oct 29, 2002: Attached: A photo of final approach, and vidcaps from an unfortunately out-of-focus ground video of the opening. Having mis-estimated how much the evening winds had died down, I just made it back to the DZ, putting it down in the parking lot. And being under a "slow" canopy I hadn't bothered to unzip my legs after popping the booties off, so I ended up tripping and falling on my face on landing.

I'm posting an example of one relatively simple way to get a ParaCommander into use. Other suggestions from more experienced PC riggers in this thread may be more complex but also better technically! I wasn't able to get a Paracommander, without a sleeve, into a rig that was a tight fit for a modern 282 Parafoil. Older 'Foils would be bulkier. I therefore built a very simple new main container that velcroes overtop of the existing main container. Basically one big piece of Cordura, plus grommets, stiffeners, velcro, BOC, etc. Side and bottom flaps are new; the original top flap is used. Having discarded the sleeve, I found a large enough d-bag, and simply added elastics to stow the crown lines, on the inside top of the bag. The lines aren't as out of the way as with external stowage, but at least they are kept neat. The canopy is folded into the bag side to side. The pilot chute is just an old 36" one that was lying about.

I also don't like the concept of "flaring the same in different conditions" idea UNLESS it is presented as applying only to a certain set of conditions. If I'm flying a big student or accuracy canopy in strong winds and coming straight down, I certainly don't flare 'like normal'! Only a sharp, short flare is needed to remove most of the vertical speed , without reducing forward speed through the air much, which would throw me backwards on the ground. The "flaring the same" concept only has a hope of working if the wind speed is significantly less than canopy speed. I'm guessing that the concept is meant for jumpers who get spooked by ground rush when they are coming in faster either due to low winds or a recent canopy downsize. One still has to remove one's vertical speed and reduce the horizontal ground speed as much as possible before touching down. Use the full flare capability of the parachute right down to touchdown. Just because the ground is whizzing by faster than one is used to, one shouldn't start braking higher than normal, or yanking the brakes down faster than normal. Heck, it even applies if one is on a small crossbraced canopy and does a downwind swoop when one isn't used to it. Any scary extra ground speed has to be ignored while one concentrates on a good flare. (Although the way one chooses to touch down, like a sliding weight transfer, may vary from a normal landing.)

Dyneema and Spectra are basically the same thing chemically, developed and produced by different companies. They're both in the category of Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylenes (UHMWPE) or High Density Polyethylenes (HDPE). While the basic molecules may be the same, the fibres and woven or unwoven lines that are created from them will vary in characteristics.

NewClearSports: Last year Burnaby had five CPC meets scheduled, which were being run over land. How did things work out with injuries then? (There were no major issues that I heard of.) Just wondering if you perceived a different style of flying or anything compared to this year, land vs. water. (Of course there's been just the one meet this year to which to compare last year.) I competed in the meet you are discussing, and one of the meets last year.

Rob: Do you recall where that came out? I was trying to find the exact wording but can't find the info (in PIMs or Tech Bulletins).

Andrewwhyte: What brand of rig & reserve was it? I bet I can guess -- a friend was seriously injured in a similar incident -- but I want to keep an open mind here... [Edited to add after Andrewwhyte quickly replied to my post: Yes, same brand as the incident I knew of, in upper NY state 5-8 years back.]

Although SSK may be unenthusiastic about installing a Cypres in an ancient rig, that's not in keeping with the spirit of the Cypres rigging manual (Councilman24's post), which does show Cypres instructions for a variety of old 2 pin rigs such as the Swift, Warp III, and Wonderhog. Here we get into the issue of having to follow the AAD company's directions (in the USA), yet what does one do if the company "arbitrarily" says no? The Cypres rigging manual does also allow for the rigger to independently seek approval using the procedures in AC105 (the details of which I don't know offhand).

MakeItHappen wrote: That is a more 'inclusive' way of doing things. Present the facts as best you see them to the student, then let them make the decision. That sounds like an ideal way, although there will be times an instructor has to "say no" due to safety. Sometimes it goes the other way: an instructor will push a student to do something the student hesitates to do. This is a trickier moral issue but realistically it happens -- where the student apparently has the technical knowledge and skills, despite some self doubt and fear, and may benefit from a bit of a push, figuratively. This thread reminds us that there are ways around many problems, other than believing that the student is simply an idiot. It's nice to see some concrete ideas on how to deal with particular situations. I'll try to summarize some ideas off the top of my head, many of which repeat ideas in this thread: When faced with a "slow learner": - Try a different instructor who might 'click' better with the student. - Try different instructional techniques. (Different learning styles for different people.) - Go back to basics to see if something didn't get enough emphasis earlier in the training. - Accept that some people take more time to learn certain things, and could still end up being good skydivers. - Also look for causes beyond simple technical knowledge. ("Maybe she screwed up not because she's too stupid to follow instructions, but because she has some fear & stress issues that need dealing with first.") Some things are tougher to deal with: - Weight and strength: There are gear limits, and poor fitness can increase injury risk. Still, there are ways to deal with such issues (Eg, the small-girl-lousy-flare syndrome - may be improved by more precise flare technique and not too low a wing loading to learn on). - Language issues: Not always something we as individuals can solve. - Time: There's a limit on how long an instructor will teach given what he's being paid. That's not to say a DZ wouldn't set up some extra instruction to help a student with problems. It's not that the student can't learn; it's just that they aren't keeping up with what is "normal". - Underlying fear & stress issues: (Which at their worst can lead to panic.) While instructors do get some training on how to deal with it, I think it is harder for some of us to grasp the problem and to deal with it, compared to dealing with more technical issues. - Awareness issues: This is also tougher to deal with than simple knowledge and skills. It's one thing if a student screws up and realizes it, but it's a bigger issue if they can't seem to be made to be aware that they were in danger. - Attitude issues: At some point a student will have been given plenty of opportunity to learn but the student's unwillingness to learn hinders the process. (Even those saying in this thread 'anyone can be taught', usually also are saying '...if they are motivated')

Note also that because many canopies have slack in the brake lines, one can pull the brakes down a small amount without taking the canopy out of full flight. If meant in that way, putting on "a little brakes" doesn't oppose the concept of "full flight in turbulence". By pulling enough to start feeling a little pressure on the toggles (beyond what's needed to remove the slack) one might get a better feel for what the canopy is doing ("is it well pressurized or not?"), by force feedback through the toggles. Steering inputs would be more direct too, without having to move through several inches of slack. This is analoguous to having a better 'road feel' in a car with a very direct steering system, or 'active flying' in paragliding. (One downside might be that if bounced around in turbulence, one might have unintended arm movements and thus brake inputs too. Pilot Induced Oscillations so to speak.)

Static line from C-182 - no issue with pilot chutes as for IAD - so at the DZ I'm at, we leave the door open. It is noisier while doing a final verbal run-though with each student, but it still works. Exception: for the last student to jump, who sits in the co-pilot slot, back to the instrument panel. To make it less scary for him to turn around, we close the door before he moves into position.

Regarding making the cutaway from something other than a sedately flying canopy: Yep, that should do it. Or pull just one of the cutaway cables out, and ride that mal for a bit. I'd suggest it only for those who are already comfortable with doing a plain intentional cutaway. I recently tried this release of one set of risers, and found the spin to be quite non-boring. Even starting with a large canopy, the 360 degree per second spin did seem to provide a good taste of a real malfunction, for those of us who haven't gotten one the natural way. Even if the handles one uses aren't the same as during a real emergency, one still has to deal with finding a cutaway handle to pull, getting stable, and deploying one's next parachute. While there are plenty of real mals on Skydivingmovies.com, intentional cutaways are almost non-existent. This is my intentional spinner: One_sided_cutaway.wmv

There just doesn't seem to be any one ideal site for convenient online shopping of used gear in Canada. Every dropzone has its own corkboard with pieces of paper pinned to it... Jeff Smith at SWOOP (swoop.on.ca) in Ontario has a nice small shop and does some selling of used gear too, but his web site (monkeybrothers.ca) is down at the moment. Joe Chow ("Phone Joe") at Skydive Toronto isn't really into buying & selling gear any more. (I think he didn't have time to stay current so ended up with stuff unsold that people really didn't need any more. Occasionally he has something, but it isn't regular business anymore. But he does have a lot of older unusual stuff, and does make sales & rentals to movie & TV companies from time to time.)

For me, pull altitude is largely affected by what the rest of the group is doing. If I'm doing small way RW with old timers and breaking off at 3500', then I'm probably pulling at no more than 2500'. If I'm in a sitfly or other group wanting to split at 4500', then I've got a little more vertical distance to get good separation. But I don't go tracking off into the sunset, so I'm maybe pulling at 3000'. Might as well pull a little higher if one already has the horizontal separation. Another influence is that I'm at a piston Cessna DZ, so altitude seems more precious. There's going to be variation in opening altitudes from jump to jump. So if one were "OK with" 2500', one might still on average pull at 3000'. As an example of variation, here's a graph from Jumptrack showing a frequency count of my OPENING altitudes by frequency for the last few years. (Protrack of course shows opening alt, not pull alt, which could be 800' higher for my usual fast canopy. Higher openings like tandems are omitted, as are most errors like hop and pops where only the swoop was captured.) I don't think I'm the most consistent person when it comes to opening alts, as after breakoff I'm going more by feel than trying to hit a particular preferred altitude.

Did the news about the electronic spy coins, that didn't really exist, make the news very much in the USA? I'm curious as a Canadian whether it was widely reported or just an oddity that most didn't hear about. I recall the news of the possible electronic surveillance coins being reported up here. I'm not sure it was in the news very long, but it was reported that American contractors in Canada had found coins with embedded electronics that might be used for surveillance purposes. It was reported as serious news. While I didn't think the Canadian goverment was engaged in some massive espionage operation, I figured that it wasn't impossible for there to be electronic coins used for fraud tracking or production process tracking, that went where they shouldn't have. I can't blame anyone unfamiliar with the special coins from looking at them twice, but the whole thing got out of hand. If you get some funny looking currency when travelling, at least ask some locals whether it's real or not. Mind you, even they may find that some new, limited edition currency looks a little odd. Here's a current story on what happened from the Toronto Star (thestar.com): ================ U.S. feared poppy quarter The poppy quarter, billed as the world’s first coloured coin, was introduced in 2004. May 07, 2007 08:56 AM TED BRIDIS Associated Press WASHINGTON – An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower was the culprit behind the U.S. Defence Department's false espionage warning earlier this year, the Associated Press has learned. The odd-looking – but harmless – "poppy coin" was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors traveling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP. The silver-coloured 25-cent piece features the red image of a poppy – Canada's flower of remembrance – inlaid over a maple leaf. The unorthodox quarter is identical to the coins pictured and described as suspicious in the contractors' accounts. The supposed nano-technology actually was a conventional protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to prevent the poppy's red color from rubbing off. The mint produced nearly 30 million such quarters in 2004 commemorating Canada's 117,000 war dead. "It did not appear to be electronic (analog) in nature or have a power source," wrote one U.S. contractor, who discovered the coin in the cup holder of a rental car. "Under high power microscope, it appeared to be complex consisting of several layers of clear, but different material, with a wire like mesh suspended on top." The confidential accounts led to a sensational warning from the Defence Security Service, an agency of the Defence Department, that mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada. One contractor believed someone had placed two of the quarters in an outer coat pocket after the contractor had emptied the pocket hours earlier. "Coat pockets were empty that morning and I was keeping all of my coins in a plastic bag in my inner coat pocket," the contractor wrote. But the Defence Department subsequently acknowledged that it could never substantiate the espionage alarm that it had put out and launched the internal review that turned up the true nature of the mysterious coin. Meanwhile, in Canada, senior intelligence officials expressed annoyance with the American spy-coin warnings as they tried to learn more about the oddball claims. "That story about Canadians planting coins in the pockets of defence contractors will not go away," Luc Portelance, now deputy director for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, wrote in a January e-mail to a subordinate. "Could someone tell me more? Where do we stand and what's the story on this?" Others in Canada's spy service also were searching for answers. "We would be very interested in any more detail you may have on the validity of the comment related to the use of Canadian coins in this manner," another intelligence official wrote in an e-mail. "If it is accurate, are they talking industrial or state espionage? If the latter, who?" The identity of the e-mail's recipient was censored. Intelligence and technology experts were flabbergasted over the warning when it was first publicized earlier this year. The warning suggested that such transmitters could be used surreptitiously to track the movements of people carrying the coins. "I thought the whole thing was preposterous, to think you could tag an individual with a coin and think they wouldn't give it away or spend it," said H. Keith Melton, a leading intelligence historian. But Melton said the Army contractors properly reported their suspicions. "You want contractors or any government personnel to report anything suspicious," he said. "You can't have the potential target evaluating whether this was an organized attack or a fluke." The Defence Security Service disavowed its warning about spy coins after an international furor, but until now it has never disclosed the details behind the embarrassing episode. The U.S. said it never substantiated the contractors' claims and performed an internal review to determine how the false information was included in a 29-page published report about espionage concerns. The Defence Security Service never examined the suspicious coins, spokeswoman Cindy McGovern said. "We know where we made the mistake," she said. "The information wasn't properly vetted. While these coins aroused suspicion, there ultimately was nothing there." A numismatist consulted by the AP, Dennis Pike of Canadian Coin & Currency near Toronto, quickly matched a grainy image and physical descriptions of the suspect coins in the contractors' confidential accounts to the 25-cent poppy piece. "It's not uncommon at all," Pike said. He added that the coin's protective coating glows peculiarly under ultraviolet light. "That may have been a little bit suspicious," he said. Some of the U.S. documents the AP obtained were classified "Secret/Noforn," meaning they were never supposed to be viewed by foreigners, even America's closest allies. The government censored parts of the files, citing national security reasons, before turning over copies under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. Nothing in the documents – except the reference to nanotechnology – explained how the contractors' accounts evolved into a full-blown warning about spy coins with radio frequency transmitters. Many passages were censored, including the names of contractors and details about where they worked and their projects. But there were indications the accounts should have been taken lightly. Next to one blacked-out sentence was this warning: "This has not been confirmed as of yet.'' The Canadian intelligence documents, which also were censored, were turned over to the AP for $5 under that country's Access to Information Act. Canada cited rules for protecting against subversive or hostile activities to explain why it censored the papers. ==============================

Quote"Papa Victor" came up for it's 49,000 rotation maintenance need, so she got new wings and stuff. So you're talking about new build wings, from Viking Air in British Columbia? Viking's plans for new Twin Otters catch skydivers' attention, but it's interesting to see that they have actually been delivering their wing sets to the skydiving industry, something that isn't as glamourous and talked about by jumpers.

Just recently I saw a set of mini risers with big rings. Pretty rare but they seem to exist.

As others said, descent rate of a chopped main varies a lot. Last weekend when spotting for an intentional cutaway, the chopped main (a big 190 square footer) descended very roughly about 60 % faster than the wind drift indicator did -- but who knows how fast the WDI had really descended. This came from checking the start and landing locations & altitudes for both. That seems maybe a little fast, if compared to what people are saying about staying with a chopped canopy in deep brakes (...depending on one's own canopy too). But when following a main, people may be making wide turns or a tighter spiralling turn, complicating the issue. For intentional cutaways, I'm more concerned with the amount of drift. Based on that one data point, the next time when I determine the regular 'spot' with a WDI from 2500', that spot may be about right for a cutaway with a bigger canopy at about 4000'. I don't have much data yet but that'll be my starting point.

While I don't mind the idea of using a tool checkoff list, as a memory aide, it doesn't stop someone sloppy from making an error. I'd personally rather emphasize controlling the actual number of tools in the rigging area. What I'm saying is that the guy who is too casual and misses seeing that he only has 3 of 4 clamps left (or whatever) is also the guy who, after using the tool list a bunch of times, will end up just skimming over the list too quickly, making a bunch of check marks, hardly seeing what's printed next to each. Pilots can fall into the same trap. One says "Check gear down.", the other out of habit says, "Gear checked down.", while neither actually notices the gear is still up. So I'd rather have a neat and clean rigging area and try to be disciplined enough to look at my tools. If there's one pullup cord at the side of the packing area at the end, I'd better not be trying to remember whether the messy pile of tools that I started with, had two pullup cords in it. The tools tend to be limited enough in number that I'd place more importance on a checklist on steps in the packing process, than one on tools.

Generally, no. There are certain line materials available in very limited colours. (eg, the black & red mentioned before, for dacron line). The advanced fibre types generally can't be dyed easily, so they are their natural colour only. (Exceptions exist, eg the blue coated HMA or something like that.) Paraglider lines are a different case entirely as for regular paragliders the lines consist of an inner unwoven core of whatever material is being used for strength, and a woven sheath that isn't a high performance fiber -- so the sheath can be woven in any colour. I've probably missed some variation or detail but I think this is a reasonable overview.