3mpire

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content

    733

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Feedback

    0%

Posts posted by 3mpire

  1. I see that Mirage says that a SA2 170 is optimal for a G3 sized M4 container with SA2 150 being soft.

    Anyone out there jump a size M4 with a 150 Sabre 2?

    Thoughts on fit?

    I'm looking for someone locally who has a sabre 2 150 that would let me hook it up and pack it myself to see, but in the meantime, anyone else who has jumped this specific combo I would be open to feedback on how you felt about the fit.

  2. Quote

    Another totally separate company Might take this controller and write software for it that allowed it to perform some function, like act as an AAD. They might do this under contract from yet another company who buys cutters from a supplier and markets it as a package to skydivers as an AAD. It's just a shell marketing company with no assets and no profit. The soft ware company is just writing code to the contracted specs set down by the third company.



    It seems to me like the value of the proposed system is the raw data only has value with the right software, so one without the other might not be of much value. Though it is an interesting question: should one go into actual production or look to license out the technology to any manufacturers that wanted it.

    I don't think that would do anything to address liability but there may be more profit in the venture if someone else is having to run the production line you're just providing the specs and the software which you can negotiate on a contract of some kind.

    Not sure if the scale of the potential market would really support something like that. There are only so many of these things that would sell.

    However, selling just the control unit sans cutter for strictly collecting data for the end user's own use (flysight on steroids) might be a cool secondary product that could leverage the same R&D work?

  4. Quote

    If your interested in the software and how these units work you would have enjoyed the lectures at PIA. Does any one know if they were recorded?



    I would love to see something like that if someone has a video or some links to some material that dives deeper in this kind of stuff feel free to send it my way!

  5. Quote

    My personal opinion is that I am pilot in command, and if I start the main deployment sequence on my own, then it is up to me to make the proper decisions regarding emergency procedures. I do not like the idea of an AAD taking action when I have consciously decided to delay action for what ever reason. Now if I do not start the main deployment sequence on my own, then that is where the AAD can take action for me with my blessing, as I have not demonstrated that I am capable of action on my own.

    Any thoughts?



    I think it's fascinating to have a smart AAD that can react to real time data in that fashion.

    One of the benefits of having that is you have additional avenues open to you in terms of the AADs logic tree.

    I think a user defined hard deck that can be overriden by software logic that detects a deployed main is great.

    I wonder though about the last bit. It's one thing to take objective data and plot a course of action that is easy to infer like the sniveling past hard deck example.

    But in the case of the AAD needing to take or not take action based on whether the jumper has "consciously" decided to take some kind of action that deviates from a "plan a" scenario, I wonder how accurately software could divine intention from raw data?

    You have the data so you know what the sensor data would look like for these scenearious far better than I would.

    But from a strictly code point of view, there is a danger in programming your way into a scenario labyrinth where the increasing number of facets in a tree create a logical problem big enough that your code is going to have to account for a LOT of things.

    Perhaps given proper test cases and a large enough data set you could in fact reliably diving "intention" from data, but that seems like it would require very reliable data.

    SO the question to you would be: How confident are you that the program could tell the difference between someone who is intending to do something and someone who is not? That could be a slippery slope....?

    edited to add: thinking about it a little more, perhaps focusing on the data patterns that indicate a certain thing is happening and not caring about the "scenario" that caused it to happen would simplify things quite a bit. but the sticky bit of deciding whether that pattern of sensor data implies intent is still problematic in my mind.

  6. Quote

    During testing, on occasion, we see a situation that we did not expect to see, and could not duplicate again if we wanted to, but, after it occurred, we have to address it, even if odds are that it will never happen again. I am sure the other AAD manufacturers have a similar mind set.

    By recording the data that we do, we have a record of what happened, and we can rerun that data through our simulation program and make changes to address it, and then rerun all the other normal data to be sure that the change we made to address the strange event, did not negatively affect the operation of the device in any way.



    This is very interesting to me as ultimately AADs come down to the software logic that interprets data and then executes functions based on parameters being met to trigger the action. In large part, having a big enough data set to be able to pattern the "possible" scenarios is a pre-req to having software logic that can be written to operate in that environment.

    One of the advantages I could see to a black box that tracks fine grain data points across multiple channels on an SD card is that when a unit comes in for service that data can be collected and added to The Database of all readings recorded by all known units. Even after just a few years the dataset would be absolutely huge and make it much easier for software analysis to identify the one in a million type events that may or may not be accounted for in the software program.

    Is this already common place in the AAD market? Is this something that the new product in question would do? The big data nerd in me is interested in what kind of analysis one could do on that much information.

    You could potentially move towards a type of solution that makes the AAD so smart that you wouldn't have to worry about setting it to different modes for different activities. Given software that is mature enough and real time data that is good enough, the AAD could look at when you're doing and then adjust itself accordingly. IE if you're swooping it should know what sensor data for a swoop looks like and follow AAD swoop logic. or [insert discipline here]. That would be a truly smart device!

    edited to add: i come from a software background but don't have much insight into how the software for current AADs works so if all this stuff that is novel and exciting to me is old news to everyone else my apologies in advance lol

  8. Quote

    I just don't think it's my place to say. I don't want to steal their fire. We'll have to let them make their own announcements.



    That's cool just idle curiosity. I would imagine you could do a lot with the engineering experience it sounds like this team has backing it. It will be cool to see how it develops, I'll def keep an eye out!

  9. Quote

    We need a new unit. It's time to build some thing better.



    Having dabbled with microcontrollers and doing simple circuits, I'm aware of the types of sensors consumers can get for relatively cheap. GPS, barometers, accelerometers, etc.

    Can you generally talk about what type of step forward this new type of AAD would take either in terms of components or perhaps software + processing power that improves the performance and reduces the failure modes?

    I'm assuming a big step forward in this space would require a paradigm shift in technology beyond the legacy AADs.

  11. I was talking with a team mate today about the opening characteristics of the sabre 2 170. I load it at just over 1.1 and I have end cell closures and off heading openings on most jumps. Very minor. I'm so accustomed to it I automatically have my hands on rears to pump and steer the opening while looking for traffic.

    My team mate jumps a SA2 190 and he doesn't have those issues. Where my slider needs rear riser or a pump of the brakes to get it to come down the last few inches, his never does.

    However when he jumped my 170, even though he loads it at 1.4, he had my normal experience.

    Does the 170 commonly open a little differently than the 190 and 150 or might this be a bit of an aberration?

    Just curious

    edited to add: yes I know sabre 2's commonly have end cell closures and that they tend to seek and pick a heading anywhere from 45-90 degrees off heading.

    i'm specifically wondering if these characteristics change uniformly as the wing shrinks in size. my thinking is the 170 may exaggerate some of these characteristiics more than the 150 or 190, but i'm not an expert in how the changing size of a canopy affects a design's flight characteristics to speak intelligently about it

  15. The risers come out when/while your lines are unstowing from the debag. the force of the process will pop your riser covers pretty quick.

    Here is a screen shot of a deployment that is less than a second after pitching:

    [inline a.png]

    And a few milliseconds later:

    [inline b.png]

    And here is the full thing (fast forward to 32 seconds):

    https://vimeo.com/108197614#t=0m32s

    When you're doing it on the ground you are not exerting nearly as much force. In the air it happens very quickly.

  16. normiss

    Well there goes the late night rolls in the jet.
    hmpf.


    FYI - Yes, I know and understand the foolishness and legalities involved as well as the risk.
    However comma - it does happen, simply for fun.
    I have seen a handful of pilots fired for flying any damn way they felt like.
    I support that action.



    you support which action: the flyin' or the firin'??

    :ph34r::ph34r::ph34r:

  18. Quote

    Doesn't need to be as bright and I certainly want to know my altitude to higher precision than 1000'.



    You could, using RGB LEDs, have the 1000 foot LED fade from green to yellow to red to off as the 1000 foot distance is covered.

    I agree on the brightness, it is far too bright. Maybe at high noon you need it that bright, but it seems a photocell could be incorporated into the design to modulate brightness based on ambient light around the unit.

    This to me isn't a serious product, though. It's a kinda cool thing that at best would be a tertiary alti on a mudflap mount or something that would be useful for a quick glimpse but wouldn't really replace a real visual alti or audible.

    It's got the "hey look at me i'm like iron man watch me fly through the sky" factor which is cool for impressing tandems I guess :D

    Cool project though! I hope he gets funded merely for the experience of taking a prototype into production. Maybe with that experience and some lessons learned a more useful/practical product might be created, which is what the whole thing is about

  19. Quote

    I did start to help him with his clothing, but then as I was reaching he got it himself. But anyone who can't unfold a turned-inward collar, um, that's a fairly basic task. You feel with your fingers, and pull it out.



    [inline thatguy.png]

    :ph34r:

  22. I like the lower tech approach (relatively speaking). While it sounds like some serious engineering went into the suit, eliminating the capsule from the equation entirely is interesting.

    It requires more out of the suit, but it also seems (at first blush) to eliminate some layers of complexity from the jump. Fewer moving parts prone to murphy's law, so to speak.

    Makes you wonder what would happen if you put a fixed wing on the jumpers back--how far horizontally could they go from that alt?

    World record for longest cross country distance covered by a human in freefall sounds like the next mountain to climb to me :)

  23. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/25/science/alan-eustace-jumps-from-stratosphere-breaking-felix-baumgartners-world-record.html?_r=0

    Quote

    ROSWELL, N.M. — A well-known computer scientist parachuted from a balloon near the top of the stratosphere on Friday, falling faster than the speed of sound and breaking the world altitude record set just two years ago.

    The jump was made by Alan Eustace, 57, a senior vice president at Google. At dawn he was lifted by a balloon filled with 35,000 cubic feet of helium, from an abandoned runway at the airport here.

    For a little over two hours, the balloon ascended at speeds up to 1,600 feet per minute to an altitude of 135,908 feet, more than 25 miles. Mr. Eustace dangled underneath in a specially designed spacesuit with an elaborate life-support system. He returned to earth just 15 minutes after starting his fall. .

    “It was amazing,” he said. “It was beautiful. You could see the darkness of space and you could see the layers of atmosphere, which I had never seen before.”

    Mr. Eustace cut himself loose from the balloon with the aid of a small explosive device and plummeted toward the earth at a speeds that peaked at more than 800 miles per hour, setting off a small sonic boom heard by observers on the ground.



    Discuss.

  24. Quote

    The term "belly flying" has become more accepted generally too, and isn't just an insult from head-downers.



    If head-down really flyers want to insult you, they'll call it "the student position" :ph34r::ph34r: