PIA TS135 (submitted for new TSO standard) on line

[councilman24 37]

at http://www.pia.com/piapubs/TSDocuments/ts-135.pdf Free for the downloading.

This document has been years in the making. The Parachute Certification Standards Committe of PIA has worked long and hard on this. Opposing viewpoints caused the committee to make minimal progress for several years. But, Pat Wilson of the U.S. Forest Service (now chair) and myself (Co-chair and Chair of the Rigging Committee) were appointed to the committee as end users at the request of the FAA. By actually making motions and taking votes we finished this document in Reno a year ago. It was submitted to the FAA toward the end of last year.

This has been submitted to the FAA as a testing standard to be incorporated into a new revision of TSO C23. The process will take 2 years plus IF the FAA decides to adopt it. We hope the EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency) will also adopt it for EU certification. The previous standard was SAE AS 8015(x). SAE has indicated they no longer wanted to produce updated versions of the standard. PIA was charged with the responsibility.

With PIA writing the certification standard and writing and maintaining what used to be MIL SPECs for parachute materials and components we have moved into a whole new realm of interaction and responsibility with the military and the FAA.

The next business meeting is in Chicago in August. While not the most interesting of meetings I encourage anyone interested to attend. 95% of the meetings are open to the public. Only the Executive committee and Committee chair meeting each morning and the membership consideration part of the Plenary sessions have limited attendance. This is the REAL PIA. The International Parachute Sympsoium, which is often referred to as "PIA", is an event we sponser every two years. For 3 days prior to the symposium PIA held our regular business meeting.

Any riggers who would like to join are welcome. See the website for a membership application. I am working very hard to change the membership dues and voting structure to encourage single person shops to join. We took the first enabling step to change the bylaws at the meeting in Jacksonville.

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[mjosparky 4]

Terry,

Thanks for posting this information. A couple of things, pages 14 and 15, tables 2 and 3 did not show up completely. Is this a problem on my end or are they to wide for the format?

SAE was charging $50.00 for a copy of AS8015-B.
Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[councilman24 37]

I'll contact the webmaster and have it fixed.

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[mjosparky 4]

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[darkwing 5]

There is a typo in paragraph 4.3.2, which says "The ripcord, including all joints, shall not fail under a straight tension test load of 300 lbf (1337.7
N) applied for not less than 3 seconds. The reserve static line, if used, must not fail under a straight tension test load of 300 lbf (2667.3 N) for not less than 3 seconds."

300 lbf can't be both 1337 and 2667 N.

-- Jeff
My Skydiving History

[councilman24 37]

The tables are fixed. But not the typo above. I'll pass that on to the Chair. Thanks.

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[councilman24 37]

see above

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[mjosparky 4]

Quote

The tables are fixed. But not the typo above. I'll pass that on to the Chair. Thanks.

Thanks,


Just checked and table 2 and 3 are still incomplete.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[councilman24 37]

Got her working on it again.

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[masterrig 1]

Thanks, Terry! Appreciate your in-put!
I've been an Associate Member for several years and the part about reducing membership dues sounds good. Sometimes, the dues are hard to come up with but, from what I have seen of PIA, it's more than worthwhile to be a member. They helped a rigger friend of mine a couple years ago (saved his ticket) and he wasn't a member at the time. He is now! I can't say enough good about PIA. Keep-up the good work!

Chuck

[billbooth 10]

In a previous draft, the ripcord/static line test was 600 lbs. That was changed to 300 lbs., but apparently the conversion to metric was not done in both cases. This document went through so many changes in the 5 years I was associated with it, that I'm amazed it makes any sense at all. By the way, the qualification test sequence it contains has never actually been run, so we don't know yet if the gear we now use could actually pass. TSO C-23D had tests that made it nearly impossible to build gear that anyone would actually buy. That's why we had to do it all over again. Apparently, we will never learn that we should actually test the tests BEFORE we submit the document to the FAA. It's so hard to fix problems afterwards.

[alexey 6]

I read that document, and found some not clear for me places:

1. Is it OK, that manufacturer can be certified for any weight, or I miss something?
2. There are no procedure for calculation or measuring peak opening force
3. What does it mean - non-positive locking device? There are no such term in previous document
4. What does that mean in - Test condiotion four in 4.3.5.3?
5. In 4.3.7 - if manufcturer trying to recieve certificate for some rig with such MOS and MPOS -
240 and 200.
if we calculate:
MAOT=5,3 s and MAL=533 ft. Is't it a little too big?


Sorry for bad English :(

Lexa