jerm

i still have issues with this... isn't a hop&pop the final requirement of AFF? Or is that just brushed-over at big turbine DZs? *sigh* i have a huge pet-peeve about people who are afraid to exit at 3k but will deploy at 3 or 3.5 at terminal -- especially when it's a product of the training they were dealt. Landing without injury is not necessarily evidence that you didn't fuck up... it just means you got away with it this time

funny, i thought we were only a 10way :) many thanks to the guy who caught it.... the woman invoved is usually anal about gear checks, however the plane was particularly crowded, and you kjnow.. rush rush rush.... good save. Landing without injury is not necessarily evidence that you didn't fuck up... it just means you got away with it this time

I'm not an aerospace engineer, but your definition sounds like a symptom of a collapse. I would tend to define a collapse as the canopy deforming to a point where it is no longer a wing capable of flight. I believe was using the term 'catastrophic collapse', which i would further refine to mean a rapid deformation/deflation of the wing, causing loss of flight. Brian has a great little demo 1 cell airlocked parafoil, and one non-airlocked... inflate both, and clap them between your hands one at a time..... The non-airlocked one deflates rapidly and your hands hit as though there were nothing between them. The airlocked one will stop your hands dead in their tracks and slowly leak air as you continue to squeeze, all the while maintaining it's shape. Airlocks can not keep a rotor from spinning you into the ground, or a downdraft dropping you to the ground.... they CAN HELP keep air in your canopy when the turbulence would have rapidly squeezed it out of another canopy -- which gives you BETTER chance of keeping a viable wing above your head. Landing without injury is not necessarily evidence that you didn't fuck up... it just means you got away with it this time

heh... i had a disclaimer to that effect originally, but took it out.. oops. Nevermind how you got to needing to cut away at 500ft (hey, shit happens)... if you DID have to chop at 500ft, if the rsl could beat your reserve pull by a a second, wouldn't you like to have that second on your side? real world: 2 weekends ago a pair was going to land a 2stack and somewhere low -- really low, they entangled... the jumper that chopped was under a full reserve at treetop level... i dunno if she had an RSL or not, but shit can certainly happen low. Landing without injury is not necessarily evidence that you didn't fuck up... it just means you got away with it this time

those REALLY sound like older Infinitys or something not being done right. The newer ones that i've jumped keep everything wonderfully secure. And yes, they DO have main-flap coverage system similar to the javelin, but, and i'm NOT exaggerating here, i can squeeze 2 fingers under the main flap and LIFT my rig w/o it coming open -- it's that secure I love my infinity.... great riser protection, pin protection, bridal protection, and comfortable... just wish i'd gotten rings instead of b12s... oops! thanks kelly! -jerm Landing without injury is not necessarily evidence that you didn't fuck up... it just means you got away with it this time

i know that's what he meant, but why would it be so hard to deflate on the ground, yet still be just as prone to collapse in the air as non-airlocked canopies? last summer i watched half of someone's canopy disappear at 80'.... half the wing just deflated and collapsed.... sure, an airlocked canopy would have been affected by the turbulence, but i highly doubt (given even dan's admission of how hard it can be to get the air out of one), that half the air could have been evacuated form the wing in an instant. THAT(unless i'm misunderstanding brian), catastrophic collapse, is the kind of thing airlocks are primarily designed to try to prevent.... sure enough turbulence will get the better of any canopy, but airlock are MORE likely to stay inflated and keep a wing above your head. YMMV.. BSBD -jerm Landing without injury is not necessarily evidence that you didn't fuck up... it just means you got away with it this time

no, but it'll certainly resist against it better than a non-airlocked canopy. and you backed that up with so, which is it? will airlocks help prevent collapsing or not? I know that they can not keep a canopy from ever collapsing, but they can make it harder, and that sounds like a good thing to me. Landing without injury is not necessarily evidence that you didn't fuck up... it just means you got away with it this time

Also.... who don't you care that so-and-so can out-swoop you on a bigger, more lightly loaded canopy? THAT is proof-positive that you don't know all that there is to know about your canopy, and that you don't NEED a smaller canopy to get longer swoops (which you say is what you want). It sounds like you're just being lazy. You don't want to take the care to learn the nuances of your current canopy to make it so what you want. Furthermore if you believe that you need to start hooking low to get better swoops("doing carvers on a smaller canopy is much better than hooking a larger on"), then you REALLY don't know as much as you think you do. /rant what the hell is CN, anyway? Landing without injury is not necessarily evidence that you didn't fuck up... it just means you got away with it this time

Yoshi, I urge you to think about all of this stuff, but know that it's umtimately your choice. I sincerely hope you prove us all wrong and die of old age. Just remeber, plenty of very good canopy pilots have gotten hurt, and the knew a lot more about handling shitty situations than you. And that's what this is all about. We know you can handle the canopy on a day-to-day basis.. but shit DOES eventually happen. How will you handle that? Hopefully you live through it -- more fabric above your head can often help. Landing without injury is not necessarily evidence that you didn't fuck up... it just means you got away with it this time

hey guys, maybe we should just let him go.. After all, it doesn't matter what everyone else has done... he's smart, he knows what he's doing, "That'll never happen to me", right yoshi? We do our best learning through mistakes, right? In skydiving it's very important to learn from OTHER people's mistakes, so that you don't have to pay the price that they did for that knowlege. Remember, those of us who forget the past are destined to repeat it. Landing without injury is not necessarily evidence that you didn't fuck up... it just means you got away with it this time

As i was posting in the slider-bumpers thread, a question occurred to me. With the advent of modern re-usable soft-links, why use hard links? Other than student/tandem gear, where you may not want them fscking with the slider, and Mr.bill gear where you may want someone sitting in it, why use hard links? True they're cheaper than slinks, and they won't fray, but they may nick(bad for lines and risers), rust, or come undone over time. I'm not condescending or pushing agendas here, i'm just genuinely curious. Landing without injury is not necessarily evidence that you didn't fuck up... it just means you got away with it this time

Possibly a valid suggestion, but why? If you really expect someone to take your advice, some sort of information to support your position is generally warranted, polite, and (should be, anyway) customary. That being said, i jump slinks, but i'd like to hear your reasoning. Blue skies -jerm Landing without injury is not necessarily evidence that you didn't fuck up... it just means you got away with it this time

I think he meant that the reserve would open too soon after cutting away into a possibly very unstable/spinning/etc body position -- the idea being that you should give yourelf a chance to get more stable before deploying the reserve. Do i agree with that? Dunno, if i'm at 500 ft cutting away from a spinning mal i'd rather deploy unstable than spend the rest of my life trying to get stable.. OTOH, I'd like to have the choice, and messing with/deciding about an RSL is not what i want occupying my attention when the fit hits the shan, Also, i fly a topmounted camera, which is something awfully big to interfere with an unstable reserve deployment. I don't currently jump an RSL. Blue skies -jerm Landing without injury is not necessarily evidence that you didn't fuck up... it just means you got away with it this time

jumped a viper 172 (loaded about 1.3) for about 300 jumps... had line twists a few times... the thing would dive for a second and then level out and wait for me to kick out..... hell of a lot better than the spinning crap under my sabre170 and that was 8" out of trim... have yet to get it back form a reline :)

a bigger bag should be ok as long as the container can handle the volume well. if your current bag is a tight fit then you may just be moving the problem of getting the canopy in the bag to closing the container.

heh.... the difference is that i park sideways, go in, get what i need and leave, where so many others like to go in and window shop for an hour. All these other people seem to have this "rest for a while... then pack" mentality, but will stretch their gear out and take up space for quite some time. between my packing speed and general habbit of packing a soonn as i get the rest of my gear off, bet i win the space/time argument. besides, it's only laid out sideways for 60 sec or so..... i'll make sure it's all neatly put away inside the dbag by the time you have to worry about it (read: clearing your lines ). blue ones.... -jerm

i had some great openings flatpacking safires..... no big deal... on the up side, now you're more informed jumpers in that you can flat AND pro... Amusing story about flat vs pro... when the stiletto first came out, my DZO and his wife got a couple, and John leblanc called them up to tell them how to flake it so, and roll the nose this way , and push nose into center jus so much, etc.., etc...... when he was done they told him "john, we flat pack"... he replied "oh!, then ignore all that and keep packing normally"

>How is it possible to flat-pack faster than a psycho or pro-pack? (this is my not-in-a-rush version) grab rear lines in right hand, front lines in left hand... walk up lines... shake, lay canopy out on side, flake tail, flake nose, roll nose, accordian fold (or pro-stack, whatever suits yer fancy, i alternate), bring up slider, cocoon. i think the biggest time savers are not having to search for a weight, and when you lay the canopy out, everything's clear.. you just stack & wrap.. no mucking about in the middle. the tail generally isn't rolled as tight, if at all, so getting the air out of the cocoon is a lot faster. YMMV

(much to brian's dismay) i flatpack samurai 150s and 136s.. I get with no ill-effects.... eveyone at my DZ fat packs their elipticals.... even FXs.. fine... my DZO & wife have over 15,000 flatpacked stiletto jumps between them with nary a problem. and yes.... harry(above the poconos) is amazing....a 6min (rig dropped to sitting on the rack) packjob is taking his time. flatpacking an eliptical isn't a problem if you do it right.

> I only learned Flat packing in training. That kind of sucked >because I didn't know how to pack when we got our rigs didn't know how? but you know how to flat pack.. how is that not knowing how to pack? i have over 700 jumps on flatpacks.. help me understand

i have a viper172 with ~1000 jumps that i'm getting relined. canopy itself is in good shape and is made of the nifty easy-pack southafrican ZP. Once it's back from the shop i'd sell for ~$450. opened VERY soft and flew well when it was horribly out of trim... let me know if yer intersted

I love my infinity, it's comfortable, has a powerful reserve PC, great pin protection (i can lift the rig up by my main flap), spectacular riser protection, and 0 or near-0 bridle exposure (depending on how much canopy you stuff into the main bag)... it's extremely freefly friendly. They tend to be a bit longer than Mirages but have a lower profile (doesn't stick as far out from your back). I've never jumped a javelin or wings, but i know some javelin owners who are converting to wings... plus Wing's marketing girl is a babe ;) -jerm The moon is covered with the results of astronomical odds.