pchapman

Racer 2000 - It was cheap because Racers aren't popular, and the seller was leaving the sport. I'm my own rigger so I have to deal with the hassle of packing it. And I sewed some mods to protect risers and main pin better. Racer - Because it was my first rig, when Racers weren't out of style and had some of the best pin & bridle protection around. This one is relatively easy to pack since there's no AAD or freebag. (Just a round reserve.) Northern Lite - Because it was essentially free, an old rig for accuracy. Vector II - Because they're cheap. Lots made, but not the latest in freeflyable design. A nice spare / casual CRW / Birdman rig. All in all a lot of hand-me-down stuff, nothing brand new among the lot.

My recollection is the same as Piisfish. Bits and pieces of news came out over the years (scattered among a stack of paragliding magazines) as manufacturers experimented with what might work. There might have been a production model or two in the late 80s or early 90s that had some limited spanwise elements along the leading edge. Bladders tended to be associated with attempts to make very high aspect ratio paragliders. But I don't recall anything having an impact on the market. Bladders had the problem of what to do with pressure changes with altitude. I believe the main issue for both bladders and rigid spanwise elements was that it was harder to uncollapse the wing. A side of the wing would be more resistant to collapsing (tucking under) but if it did, the extra rigidity made it much tougher to get the wing to progressively reinflate from the center and pop back into place. It's as if the canopy were stuck in a cravate. So it is a design challenge! There's at least one bladder and one rigid spanwise element briefly mentioned among the pictures of paragliding history & oddities at: http://www.expandingknowledge.com/Jerome/PG/History/Strange/Album.htm

My reasonably ideal cutaway was when a buddy and I entangled canopies while doing CRW, with him going through my lines. The DZ hadn't seen a lot of CRW so we were planning to show off a downplane. We never got that far but we still put on a show. The entangled canopies didn't spin so it was an easy, low speed cutaway for us both. No handles were dropped, we landed on the DZ, and others brought back our gear before we even had a chance to go looking for it. I landed under a round so there was one less freebag to deal with than usual. Severe haze then stopped any other loads from going up so we weren't missing any jumping. As a rigger, it cost us nothing to pack all 4 canopies back up again that afternoon. The reserve rides were even my first confirmed saves.

I was just talking to someone who got a bigger Katana at the start of this season (not sure what size) and he was also complaining about the mesh giving out. Recently PD sent him a new slider that's slightly different. Where the mesh goes over the wide tape that forms the edges of the slider, the mesh is now sandwiched between two layers of tape. That may avoid mesh wearing at the edges, but can't do anything for the mesh that's on its own, where the slider is supposed to be porous. The jumper is thinking he may just have to live with the mesh wearing out quickly.

While it would be quite unusual, it might not be impossible. For example, at least one Canadian DZ is a USPA not CSPA affiliated school. (Yet there is a CSPA affiliated club on site, so that they can have people get Canadian ratings etc., so as not to isolate their members.) Still, the USPA may not be all that familiar with local regulations in other countries...

I'd like to hear the answer to chaoskitty's question! Another fairly obvious but unanswered issue is why the center puller didn't track off high, before dumping. That would remove the safety issue of pulling in place, and leave only the issue of how the team works together given that one person is wary of off-landings. The center puller might only have noticed the bad spot late in the dive, or was trying to stick to the plan for the working part of the dive, before getting a little extra deployment altitude for himself while others were tracking.

I had long wondered what the story was with his accident. After some digging through the NTSB reports I found # LAX86FA183, copied below. It can't be easy to do solo test drops out of a 150... Still a sad end for a pioneer. ======== Accident occurred Monday, April 21, 1986 in BERMUDA DUNES, CA Probable Cause Approval Date: 3/25/1988 Aircraft: CESSNA 150B, registration: N1118Y Injuries: 1 Fatal. THE PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT FLIGHT WAS TO DOCUMENT THROUGH THE USE OF VIDEOTAPE THE DEPLOYMENT & TRAJECTORY OF A SPECIALITY PARACHUTE WHICH WAS CONNECTED TO A BALLAST BAG. THE PLT, WHO WAS THE DESIGNER OF THE DEVICE, UTILIZED HIS EXPERIMENTAL CATEGORY ACFT FOR THE LAUNCH. AT THE PREARRANGED ALTITUDE OF 3000 FT AGL, THE DEVICE EXITED OUT OF THE LEFT SIDE OF THE ACFT. THE ACFT'S DOOR HAD BEEN PREVIOUSLY REMOVED, & WHEN THE DEVICE LEFT THE ACFT THE BALLAST BAG'S ATTACHMENT CORD BECAME ENTANGLED WITH THE LEFT LANDING GEAR WHEEL RIM ASSEMBLY. THE PARACHUTE, WHICH REMAINED ATTACHED TO THE BAG, STREAMERED BEHIND THE ACFT. THE ACFT STALLED, PITCHED DOWNWARD & DESCENDED INTO TERRAIN WHILE IN A VERTICAL ATTITUDE. THE PLT BAILED OUT OF THE ACFT AT ABOUT 400 FT AGL. HIS PERSONAL PARACHUTE DID NOT DEPLOY. THE PLT WAS FOUND TO HAVE A 0.10 LEVEL OF ETHYL ALCOHOL IN HIS BLOOD. The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows: PLANNING/DECISION..IMPROPER..PILOT IN COMMAND IMPAIRMENT(ALCOHOL)..PILOT IN COMMAND PROCEDURE INADEQUATE..PILOT IN COMMAND LOAD JETTISON..NOT ATTAINED..PILOT IN COMMAND LANDING GEAR..FOREIGN OBJECT

There was a thread on that, maybe a couple years back. Technically it sounded like markers of various types could cause damage, and only specialty milspec (or something) markers were guaranteed safe. On the other hand, in practice plenty of bridles get marked, nobody has heard of failures, and few worry about the type of ink. Probably pick a permanent marker to avoid running ink if the rig gets wet or even just damp. One sees the occasional old 'starter rig' that's been kicking around the DZ forever and has 3 or 4 names on the bridle...

The standard idea is that the top jumper will chop only once he's clear of lines & canopy. Nobody normally chops if they're still caught up on something, which would tend to lead to having even less 'canopy overhead'. I'm not that experienced with CRW so I won't get into more detail, but there are ideas in CRW basics articles here: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/safety/detail_page.cgi?ID=39 and here: http://crwdog.servebeer.com/CRWdog/CRW%20Emergency%20Procedures.html

Regarding "inadequate coaching" -- Not that many jumpers learn CRW these days, so they don't get used to the finer points of maneuvering canopies near each other. Yet then people like to do things like bumping end cells, which is a reasonable thing to do, but are left to learn the lessons on their own... Large rates of closure when two jumpers aren't flying perfectly parallel, I found that's something that can surprise someone new to CRW style flight. When both jumpers are perfectly parallel, the lack of relative motion may make one feel one is just floating along. But as soon as a component of one's fast forward speed is converted to sideways motion, things can happen quickly. It was nice that the other jumper went right through the lines (technically an 'entanglement') instead of getting his body wrapped up in lines & canopy (a 'wrap'). The standard entanglement procedure is for the top person to chop first, as when you chop at the bottom, your risers could recoil up and entangle the top jumper. (I've also been in an double chop, but with dacron lined CRW canopies.) I'm not sure how jumper B's conversation with you saved your lives, but in any case it is normal to communicate so both jumpers are OK with whatever the plan is. As for the other jumpers continuing to the DZ instead of following gear, that can be questioned, but they were there and know better about the terrain (eg, the suburbia), skills, what gear they had in sight, etc.

Tdog, your ideas sound fine. The pull/pull altitude/pull stable concept is still OK for discussion on the ground, but students should walk away with something clearer in their minds to use in the air -- something about pulling in any case if pull altitude is reached. Then the next rule can be about stability -- only if one is sure one has extra altitude (and still checks one's alti), should one try to fix a stability problem. The consequences of pulling low vs. pulling unstable would be compared. I don't myself have any perfect phrasing worked out, and haven't had to teach that stuff specifically.

A good part of the problem, in my opinion, that as experienced jumpers we may know things fairly 'instinctively' (through experience) but haven't thought through how to teach it. So the student gets told a bunch of rules but not how they interrelate, and which take priority over others. All bad in terms of Hick's Law. So students end up with just a list of rules, to land into wind, land in the direction others are landing, don't land in a turn, and don't hit obstacles. Sometimes they're told to "always" do something, or to "try to" do something, or "you should" do something, without really understanding why or how important these things are. Occasionally students do something that's a bit hazardous because they were more frightened of their instructor than the ground -- "But I was told to always..." Another example of muddled instruction is the bit about "pull, pull at the right altitude, pull stable". That may be fine for discussions on the ground but the logic can be a bit confusing to work through, and it doesn't provide a clear decision tree for someone to work with (at least in my mind!).

I've jumped with a couple 280 or 285 lbs guys, out of the DZ's C-182 - thankfully it is a widebody version. Yes the novelty does wear off! Definitely not the thing to do until one gets some experience as a tandem instructor. At least IF they don't fight you, big students are easy in freefall -- "they know which way gravity is". (As opposed to the light girls who tend slide around under you.) Biggest girl was 265 lbs, and quite tall so she wasn't totally round. All these jumps were still within the gear limits for lighter instructors like myself, 6'1" and 150 lbs, using the Sigma rig certified to 500 lbs & 180 kts EAS. The landings under Sigma 370's or 395's were normal enough but one does want to have good cooperation from the passenger. One scare on a jump with one of those big guys was finding a 3-ring flipped-through after opening. And no, I'm sure it wasn't flipped through before hooking up. The cutaway cable was jammed slightly into the grommet by the force on the white loop. I nervously figured if things had held during opening, it would be OK to land it. The riser rings were dented from the opening so the riser was retired after that. My best guess is that at the start of opening shock, which tends to be less smooth at high weights, one riser 'whipped' and unloaded momentarily, flipping the ring. Surely a very rare event, but having a large passenger makes any problem worse.

You're right that the ad is a good analogy for the economy of Denver. But what screwed it up was the caption "Actually John H...". Technically true but implying that he is something he isn't. Not that being a skydiver is that exclusive an achievement. Is that where where I'm being too serious? -- "How dare a mere (maybe) 1-tandem near-whuffo compare himself to our exhalted ranks?" If the video wasn't about puffing himself up -- and if people truly don't care about skydivers' picky distinctions between different types of jumps -- then the video could have shown him doing a tandem without the expense of editing. Or, the whole video could have shown a solo skydiver while he did a voice over about political issues. As it was, he still carefully & deliberately took the time & spent the money to misrepresent himself in a manner that might imply he's daring, decisive, and not just a boring guy in an office. It's the type of deception that counts, not the magnitude. Perhaps I still look at this with too much of an engineer's viewpoint, not that of a marketer. I don't expect that his lack of good aerodynamic body control skills should have an effect on his ability in office. Yeah, one has to be able to take a joke, even if one gnashes one's teeth at some factual error. Interestingly, this video is still unlike most representations of skydiving that skydivers argue about, for it is one of the most realistic adverts I've seen that used a skydiving scene. Also, the video did not in any way make fun of skydiving or the people who participate in it!

One reply: In other words, deception is OK if most people don't notice it? Another reply: That was a nice defence of entertainment. But the video is still massively untruthful -- a fabrication, a lie, deliberately hoodwinking and deceiving people. It wasn't done in a style where it was obvious it was all a humour piece and a studio job -- like showing a video of him hanging in a harness from a crane, while a fan blows in his face. The video is of those things where a politician can try to weasel out and say that it was truthful simply because they didn't specifically claim anything untruthful in writing. Words overlaid on the video stated something like "Actually John H..., Actually 13000 feet" during the tandem freefall with everything but John edited out. Technically correct. Other scenes show a full sequence of events, John by the aircraft with a rig on his shoulder, John starting out the door of the airplane, the freefall, a solo jumper with the same solo rig and clothing deploying, and so on. Technically, they never specifically claimed that the other jumpers were John, or that he was actually going to jump with the rig he was wearing, nor that they had altered the video content. They would claim innocence -- if people happen to believe his carefully crafted deception, to make it look like John was doing a solo skydive, so be it. (All this assumes John only actually did a tandem jump.) It's still fraud. I'm saying that in the general dictionary sense of intentional deception; I have no idea if it qualifies in a more legal sense, "intentional deception to cause a person to give up property or some lawful right" as one dictionary put it. Who knows if trying to take someone's vote through deception counts...

Hi, I'm trying to get a contact phone # for Bernie Williams. (Older fellow, Welsh in origin, had lived in Michigan & Ontario, not easy to forget if you've met him...) PM me if you have info. Lost track of him after he recently moved.

It's an OK bit of humour poking fun at skydiving from an outsider's perspective. I'm just sorry it is still based on misconceptions -- they still seem to be thinking of '60s belly mount reserves and early round canopy landings. There should at least be an element of truth behind what's being joked about. The H2G2 site seems to mix humour and seriousness; it all depends on what individual contributors choose to write. What bugs me is when serious publications get it all wrong. Consider the entry in the 1600 page Webster's New World dictionary of 1988 that I happen to have kicking around: "Skydiving: The sport of jumping from an airplane and executing free-fall maneuvers before opening the parachute, often at the last possible moment".

Interesting opinions! Aironscott found many a Swift Plus needed rework, while Riggerrob inspected a few dozen with none needing rework. The original bulletin was a bit vague: I've only dealt with a few Swift Plus's over the years, but recall that ParaFlite bartacks generally looked wider than I'd like. But it was so consistent, one sort of got used to it as 'normal for ParaFlite'. The way the issue was presented to me (through the CSPA rigger bulletins), I had learned to look for bartacks that didn't capture the finger trapped line, and never found one where the stitches seemed to miss. Is that really quite the same as having "ample material" as in the bulletin?? What's just ugly and not ideal, vs. actually significantly understrength? I'm not passing judgement here. It's just an example of where experienced riggers have different interpretations. (While I focused on the bartack width, Aironscott also noted the issue of the bartack needing to be centered. I can't recall enough to comment on that.)

The same booklet also had suggested shortlining limits: For a Mk 1 PC, minimum 18'. And descent rate won't increase noticeably if shortened to 20' (if over 190 lbs "jumper weight") 19' (if under 180 lbs) 18' (if under 150 lbs) (Sounds like they were perhaps thinking of the actual jumper's weight, not weight with gear.) All I have are a booklet and 3 PC jumps...

Gary Lewis' Para-Commander handbook only says 21' to 22.5' for a Mk 1 PC that hasn't been shortlined. Being a PC newbie, that seems to be a rather inexact spread. PS - a more descriptive subject line would help, not many people curious about line length issues in general are going to be ParaCommander jumpers...

One does hear the jokes about the 'boots and helmet meeting behind one's back' on terminal belly mount openings! At least it was a S/L jump, and I think with the center pull reserve, Skypuppy wanted to keep the reserve lower. It's a novelty to jump the old stuff, or to jump it again for some folks. But I don't think it'll become my regular canopy...

This looked like the appropriate thread to put it in, so here's my experience from last weekend. It's nothing particularly exciting, just longwinded details of a couple jumpers putting rigs together with Para-Commander style canopies and jumping them. ======= Round canopies came out this past weekend at Skydive Toronto. After years of thinking about it, Rob Price (a.k.a. Skypuppy) and I had put together rigs with Para-Commander style canopies and made a couple jumps. Skypuppy wrote, "One reason I wanted to jump these rigs was because when talking to the regulars at STI, which I figure is a fairly typical dropzone, most of the jumpers had never even seen a round parachute. The ones that had [other than a very few], had seen a round reserve used once. These jumpers believed that round parachutes were old and antiquated and dangerous (sort of like me, maybe?) and to jump one was almost akin to the kiss of death." Skypuppy had sufficient round experience, having started in '79 and made his first 40 jumps or so on a Sierra, a light weight Para-Commander style canopy. I started jumping in '88 and had two previous round jumps. One was as an licenced jumper in '95 when visiting a DZ that had been forced out of the national organization because it still used round mains for students. There I got a belly mount signoff and jumped a Para-Commander style canopy. Then in 2002 a CRW oopsie left me under a Phantom 24 reserve, which I landed backwards in 15-18 mph winds. That was the last time a round had been flown at the DZ. Now Skypuppy had acquired a Niagara Parachutes Cobra, generally like a Para-Commander, but specifically more of a copy of an Eastern European PS-06. The sleeved canopy was in a beaten up fore / aft student rig with R-3 releases, converted from 3-pin ripcord to a static line with pilot chute assist. Rig and main came from a retired DZO. The belly mount reserve was an early 1970's Pioneer 23' TriCon with taffeta fabric. The reserve was borrowed from Bill Cole, a.k.a. Chuteless. I had discovered a black and gold 1975 Mk I Para-Commander in a garbage bag in the former rigging trailer on the DZ. Stamps on the chute showed it had belonged to the US Army Parachute team, and stitch holes showed where "USA" had once been lettered on the canopy. Somehow this ex-Golden Knights canopy had made it to Ontario to become a student canopy in the 1980s! I went with the old Para-Commander but with a more modern rig, an '80s 3-ringed piggyback system. With a Phantom 24 reserve, one would be committed to landing a round canopy in any case. Three ring risers were spread open at the top to accept the L-bars of the canopy, and then tacked to avoid link movement. The steering lines that normally go to the front risers on a Para-Commander, were routed to the modern risers' normal steering toggles, but that's not ideal and is temporary, as the steering lines end up rubbing across other lines. Holders for elastics were put into the top of the d-bag to hold the crown lines, although that's likely more elaborate than necessary. The Para-Commander wasn't going to fit my old accuracy rig, even with the 2 1/4 lb cotton sleeve removed and replaced by a bag. (As a modern jumper, the use a sleeve reminds me of trying to stuff a whole freefly jumpsuit into one's pack job.) So I sewed up an add-on main container, that velcros over top of the original container. The original top flap & pin protector flap are used, while the other three flaps are new. The old main flaps are tucked away underneath the new backpad. Large straps and velcro go around the rig's backpad and laterals to hold the new container in place (with a little supertack to be sure). The rig works although is quite long, with a bit of a reach down to the BOC. I thank the Australian accuracy team at the 2003 Worlds for the idea -- some of them had professionally built removable add-on containers to hold accuracy canopies in their small rigs. Packing ideas came from Skypuppy and another jumper with round experience, Brian diCenzo. Plus I was armed with Gary Lewis' booklet on the Para-Commander, which was purchased for one dollar from Para-Gear in '03, apparently getting rid of the last of their stock. When assembling the gear at home, the canopy was too long to pack anywhere in the house, so it was taken to a local park to tension and pack it. Saturday when the clouds rose enough for a 3500' load in light winds, I static lined Skypuppy out the C-182 door and followed with a hop and pop. The Cobra seemed to descend faster than the Para-Commander, perhaps due to loading it more, it having a built in turn that had to be countered, and the design seemingly having bigger holes in it. So when he put the canopy down in front of the watching jumpers, he really had to roll it out. I ended up further from the audience, but was able to stand it up. (…as I imagined the cool jumpers who owned Para-Commanders used to do. With a split saddle harness, one couldn't just touch down with straps undone and walk away from a sling saddle, as shown in the Gypsy Moths…) I got another Para-Commander jump the next day. The standup landing 20m from the target was softer than before, perhaps because I tried the trick of lifting oneself by the rear risers just before touchdown. On that hop and pop from 4500', another jumper, Marc Downing, videoed while circling me with his JVX canopy. Despite turning, he staying with the Para Commander a long time while in deep, deep brakes. A couple other jumpers flew by or circled later too. It felt like getting buzzed by a swarm of bees. With the Para-Commander's good turn rate, I could spin the canopy much faster than anyone could spiral around the outside.

One of manifest's Halloween pumpkins was liberated last year at the DZ. I took it up for a jump and returned it to nature. The medium sized pumpkin (maybe 8 or 10 inches diameter) fell faster than belly, but slower than sitfly (from my perspective as slower faller.) This pumpkin had already been hollowed out, which didn't change the weight all that much but allowed it to catch air in odd ways if it tumbled. So it tended to float around in one area a bit, then go zinging off in some random direction for a ways. Aggressively going after it seemed like great practice for catching wayward AFF (or Canadian PFF) students!

It has already been mentioned that line twists, while initially disconcerting to the static line jumper, are no big deal. Another minor issue is that the jumper sometimes notices the bagged parachute being dragged across / past their shoulder and arm, as they fall away from the aircraft in an arch. Sometimes disconcerting but not a problem. [This assumes a direct bag system.] Since a static line student gets a lot of canopy flights, try to to make good use of the time. There's always instructional emphasis on the exit from the plane, in order to progress to practice pulls and freefall. Don't neglect the canopy flight part. Make sure the instruction system also provides things to work on under canopy -- wind checks, canopy control, accuracy practice, riser turns, incipient stalls, or whatever might be called for by the DZ or national standards.

As for the sub-thread on different material strengths, it doesn't look like we have a definitive answer. To summarize: Type IIa (normal closing loops) is 225 lbs. Type III Coreless (no actual milspec) is 100 lbs but we don't quite know what it is used for. Type III Cored is the old 550 cord parachute line, but may or may not be related to the Type III Coreles. Gutted 550 cord (550 cord sheathing), which has sometimes been used instead of Type IIa in the past, could be either : (a) 100 lbs (if the Type III Coreless is supposed to be like Type III Cored, minus the core) or (b) 225 lbs (if it is like the Type IIa material that it resembles).