billbooth

The Collins' Lanyard, available on all Skyhook equipped rigs, was designed to prevent an RSL reserve activation until BOTH risers release. There are a couple of other solutions to the one-sided RSL problem, but none work as well.

It most likely soon will be.

That's why I put normally in italics...it's a crap shoot. Two outs always are. That's the dirty little secret about AAD's. Since their widespread acceptance, the number of two-outs has skyrocketed. However, two-outs rarely result in death or serious injury, and no pulls always do (without an AAD). Knowing that, I jump with an AAD. But I also realize that I had better be ready to handle all those extra little problems an AAD might present me with. However, The one AAD problem I'm not prepared to handle, is a half cut through loop that makes it impossible to open my reserve by pulling the ripcord.

This was not a "malfunction". In a real life situation, the deploying reserve pilot chute should not release the left riser. Depending on your velocity at release, the reserve pilot chute would either "tow"' or deploy the reserve. If your forward velocity at release is over 20 miles per hour, the red thread should break, and your reserve will probably deploy "normally". If your velocity is below 20 mph, you may tow the pilot chute, either because the red thread does not break or because there is not enough force to pull the reserve bag out of the container. The latter can occur on most containers, and has nothing to do with the Skyhook or Collins' Lanyard. If it tows, you have three choices: 1. Cutaway, and let your reserve deploy. 2. Pull the pilot chute back in, being very careful not to disturb the Collins' Lanyard, or 3. Keep your mains velocity as slow as possible, by either not releasing your brakes, or if already released, pull them half way down and make slow turns to landing. I had to do this once when a tandem student reached back and pulled the reserve ripcord after the main was open. Most sport mains under 200 square feet will be going over 20, so you only have to worry about towing a pilot chute on large student or tandem mains.

For some unknown reason, the Army refused to use a single point release, such as the three-ring, on the T-11 system, and opted for Capewell releases, even though the T-11 has a slider. This means that releasing a single side (a problem common on single side releases such as Capewells) will not stop a soldier from being dragged. However, for the reports I read, this had nothing to do with this accident.

I didn’t say or even imply they were. NAS 804 4.3.3, issued in 1949, is the first reference to “3 seconds” that I know of. Sparky NAS 804 is the first reference I can find also. One other thing to remember...TSO testing is done with new canopies, recently packed correctly by factory riggers. It is not entirely reasonable to assume that a reserve packed by God knows who, by God knows which method, six months to a year ago, will open as quickly as a fresh factory pack. I have observed that a reserve packed the day of the drop test often opens noticeably faster than one packed even ONE DAY before. When you add up all the "margins of error" in AAD firing altitudes, age and method of packing, body position, and pilot chute hesitations, giving up a single second of freefall, to gain an extra couple of hundred feet for your reserve to open, seems like a reasonable trade-off to me.

I am shocked herein to learn that there is (apparently) no established drop-testing STANDARD. Am I alone now in being dismayed, if not maybe even maddened somewhat, that mfr's can CIRCUMVENT the 300' "rule" with such "trickery"? I personally find that actually, the more I am now typing and thinking of it, actually - REPREHENSIBLE. I mean really, ...using the "throw" (and doing this seemingly INTENTIONALLY) of the airplane to SKEW (or at the very least obfuscate) the results so as only to say "they complied" - when "they" know very clearly and well, how it is otherwise considered by the jumpers who may RELY upon that equipment (and the "300 ft covenant") - on at least some level here now, just doesn't seem to set right with me. Am I alone in my thinking/now reaction to this? If you are going to have testing, and performance covenants, and then testing so as to certify pieces of equipment to those specific certain performance covenants - one would have already assumed that at the very least, also TESTING STANDARDS would have been (and quite clearly) established too! Wow Bill... you have now floored me, if this is so - and that mfr's are actually able to 'get away with this' ...and skew/obfuscate their "testing results", with this little tidbit. That is why most manufactures will test to the 3 second requirement not the 300 feet. 3 seconds will always be 3 seconds but 300 feet can vary greatly depending on speed. Attached is the standard use in testing to TSO-C23d. Sparky Sparky; No one is "geting away with" anything. For the last 50 years, this is the way the "3 second test" has been done. It was written that way long before there was "modern freefall skydiving". This standard was decided on for emergency round parachutes used for escaping from airplanes in the distant past. We inherited this number. No one I know of remembers why 3 seconds was chosen in the first place. I've been on every "TSO reform" committee, and I don't remember anyone proposing extending the "300 foot standard" to terminal freefall. We did write it in for cutaways, but never for terminal.

Sparky, I am interested in the 3 seconds regardless of reserve type. At stable freefall speeds it is approximately 200 feet per second so 3 seconds = 600 feet. I would expect an exponential deceleration as the drag of the inflating reserve increases so achieving anything like 300feet in 3 seconds would seem to be a very tall order. As a result I guess that if a reserve is tested using the 3 second test method it is not likely to be opening in 300feet. Does all that make sense? Nigel This test is done static line from an aircraft in level (horizontal) flight, at three different airspeeds, or from a cutaway main. So there is very little VERTICAL velocity at pack opening. That is how the 300 feet test can be passed. When a reserve is opened at terminal velocity, 600 feet is a more realistic number. Add 200 feet for a one second pilot chute hesitation, a common occurrence, and you have 800 feet. Not a good situation is your AAD fired at 750 feet is it? This is why I would like to see AAD's set a little higher.

Back a few years ago Bill Booth was the man in the U.S., when it came to Vigil U.S. center. The U.S. Vigil address even pointed to the RWS office. I don't know if that still continues. Bill - feel free to add or correct any of this. And, the PIA President is Cliff Schmucker, the top U.S. guy from Airtec company (Cypres), and probably the second most important Airtec person in the world (after the inventor Helmut Cloth from Germany). I own a portion of Vigil USA, which distributes Vigils only in North and South America. I have no stake in the manufacturing company in Belgium. I also sell Cypres and, until recently, Argus.

Help. I'm trying to locate photos of "old " canopy releases such as the Strong Wrap, the R-2 and R-3, the "Telesis", and any other "paddle type" main canopy releases. I'm sure they're here somewhere, but apparently I lack the search skills necessary to find them. I have come up with plenty of references, but no pictures. Thanks

If I remember correctly, I put 320 jumps on my Delta II without any malfunctions. Although watching that 6' long OSI slowly unwrap was a bit un-nerving. I was a fun parachute, but when you pulled a toggle down too fast, it would sometimes turn the OTHER direction. This was especially bad when you were trying to do a "hook turn".

What is the coldest weather you have been in???? How about 6 jumps over the North Pole at 10,000 feet. The coldest I saw was -54C. It was much warmer on the ice cap...only -40C.

All I know is Spain and France. Portugal...maybe. The Yellow Ribbon on the bottle is the key. Thanks

If anyone is traveling from France or Spain to DeLand this winter, I would greatly appreciate a bottle or two of Cordon Jaune Grand Marnier (yellow ribbon). It is not available in the US. You will be rewarded. Thanks

Recently, several people have stated that the all–fabric Vector II reserve pilot chute doesn’t work as well as mesh-bottomed pilot chutes. This is simply not true. I made mesh-bottomed reserve pilot chutes for 15 years, and it is not reasonable to assume that I would put out a new product that was inferior to something I was already producing. There had to be a reason to make the change, and the reason is this: Spring loaded, mesh-bottomed pilot chutes have a nasty habit of hesitating, and bouncing around on your back, when you deploy in a stable body position. (And who doesn’t want to deploy his reserve in a stable body position?) We learned to deal with this problem on main deployments by “sitting up” or performing other gymnastics at pull time. Problem is, because of my invention of the hand deployed pilot chute, many jumpers today have never had to deal with a spring loaded pilot chute, and don’t have a clue about how to “break the burble”. So I set out to reduce hesitations on spring loaded reserve pilot chutes, and the all-fabric Vector II pilot chute does just that. Of course, I wouldn’t make that statement without proof, so I offer this video, made in 1986. As you will see, it actually inflates faster and hesitates a lot less than its mesh-bottomed cousin. I would have responded to this nonsense sooner, but I was in the process of getting married, and had other things on my mind. Watch the Video ** This is a large file, please allow the video to download before playing ** http://www.unitedparachutetechnologies.com/images/stories/videos/RPC.mp4

Thanks for posting the old ad. I had forgotten about it. I know it was the early 70's, but what year exactly? Thanks, Bill Booth

Whoa there, big fella. Who ever told you two guys that the SkyHook had any TSO approval? Booth himself has told me that he never submitted anything about the SkyHook to the FAA. As, to the best of my knowledge ( in a conversation with Derek Thomas ), Sunpath never did either. JerryBaumchen Actually, Sunpath did submit the results of my Skyhook qualification program to the FAA, who "approved" the installation. Trouble is, there is no mention of the Skyhook (or any other MARD system) in the current TSO. This, of course, means that there is no FAA approved series of tests to qualify any MARD system. To make things even more interesting, the Vector and Sigma series of rigs is TSOed under TSO C-23b...And there is not even a mention of RSL's in that document. So it's questionable as to whether even RSL's are "legal" of TSO C-23b rigs. There is mention of RSL's and MARD systems in TSO C-23e, but that document is in limbo because FAA meddling with the draft that PIA submitted last year has made it unworkable. In other words, it's hard to pass the "official" tests when they don't yet exist. I ran into the same problem with tandem jumping. I knew the FAA would take forever to grant "approval", so I just did it, and then begged for forgiveness. They actually tried to fine me $100,000 for the first 100 tandem jumps I did to see if the concept was workable. Luckily, I somehow talked them out of it, with a lot of help from USPA and PIA. Somehow, they haven't tried to fine me for the Skyhook...at least not yet. As far as I am concerned, the FAA knows little or nothing about skydiving equipment, and therefore should simply get out of the business of trying to certify and regulate it. This should be left to the industry itself via PIA. While this might not be a perfect solution, at least it wouldn't take 17 years to get tandem approved, or God knows how many years to get the reserve repack cycle changed.

We did test with 4 turns of red cotton thread, as well as two turns of nylon "e" thread. Because the slowest you can be traveling after jumping from an airplane is about 60 knots, and the Vector reserve pilot chute pulls well over 50 lbs. at that speed, the break cord, even when grossly overdone did not cause a problem. As a matter of fact, in almost every total malfunction scenario, you would be traveling at least 120 mph, and the pilot chute would be generating 120 lbs. of force, or enough to break even 6 or 7 turns of cotton thread...and that many turns is nearly impossible to get through the holes in the plastic Skyhook cover. The most we have come across in repacks at the shop is two turns of red cotton thread. That said, it could be argued that you could have a problem doing an emergency exit on your reserve, at low altitude, from a balloon, if your rigger tied in 4 turns of thread. However, you should check the force required to remove your reserve freebag from your reserve container in a head high attitude with your main container and tuck tab riser covers both closed (as they would be in a total malfunction or emergency reserve pull). It would probably take about 4 seconds of towing your reserve pilot chute, after doing a hop and pop from a zero velocity (balloon) exit before the bag would leave the container, improperly rigged Skyhook of not. So in other words, the Skyhook system, even when improperly packed with four turns of thread, would not make things any worst, even in the balloon emergency exit situation.

It WAS in business 44 years ago, when I made my first jump there.

30 years ago I thought those rigs were BEAUTIFUL. Now I just look at them and shake my head. The Vector really changed things, didn't it? That red one in the glass from the PIA convention a few years back...am I right about it being Number 1 ? That was #1. I made it for myself and was jumping it at DeLand when a guy came up to me and asked where he could get one. I told him I only made rigs for myself, and already had a full time job as a band director. He said he'd give me $100 for it and I thought, "Why not?" I'll just pocket the hundred, and make another one for myself next week. That was the beginning of the end of my career in music. Thirty years later, the same guy walked into the Relative Workshop and said, "Gimme $100 and it's yours...and I'll throw in the Church Window PC. As I joyfully gave him his money back I asked, "How long has this been packed?" To which he replied, "About 25 years." Everybody in the room smiled..."Mad Dog" grabbed it and stated, as he walked out the door toward the DZ, "I gottta go jump this!" The 25 year old pack job opened great, and the rig has been jumped several times since. You can see a picture of it on the "ape" on the 50,000th Vector ad.

30 years ago I thought those rigs were BEAUTIFUL. Now I just look at them and shake my head. The Vector really changed things, didn't it?

I have hundreds of jumps on 360's as a main, and the "rock and roll" opening can be avoided if you simply release the brakes as soon as the slider comes down. I suspect that the Vector 360 tandem reserve is the longest, continually produced ram air reserve there is (over 25 years now)...and it also has well over 10,000 tandem jumps as a main. So far, it has worked damn well. Although I have brough a lot of change to harness and container design, I basically still believe in the old adage, "If it ain't broke...don't fix it". Any new reserve I put out would be starting over from scratch, and it would take at least a decade before I know if it is anywhere as safe as the 360 has proven to be. I have enough "new" designs out there to worry about. I don't need another one, thank you.

A Spectra ripcord is a direct replacement for a "steel cable" ripcord on any Vector with a LARGE diameter ripcord housing. No change is necessary to add the Spectra ripcord later. If you order with an RSL, you automatically get the large housing. Remember, a Spectra main ripcord, going through the same housing, has been "tested" on thousands of Sigma systems for 8 years now. Because a main ripcord is used on every jump, this 8 years of use is equal to many, many, many times 8 years of use as a reserve ripcord, which is only used every 800 jumps or so. At that rate, it will take 6,400 years (8 x 800) before Spectra, used as a reserve ripcord used on an equal number of rigs, receives an equal number of uses. I hope you can wait that long. Also, your RSL, as well as the loop that holds your reserve container closed, are made of Spectra, as well as, (possibly) your main and reserve connector links and suspension lines. If you don't trust Spectra, you've got a problem.

Thanks.

Hey, I was climbing a mountain...Give me a break. Anyway, the slack in the Spectra ripcord is about 3". This is the same slack we build into our steel cable ripcords. As to whether there is enough recoil to slop a floater in all high speed situations, at every body position, I doubt it. I had to keep the recoil force at about one pound so that the elastic would never pull the pin out by itself. However, this is enough to prevent a floater in MOST situations, which is something a standard steel cable system does in NO situations. I never invent PERFECT solutions to problems. That's impossible. But I do try to invent BETTER solutions, which I believe the Spectra Recoil Ripcord is.