Cypres not worked ?

[nathaniel 0]

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Why are you so sure the problem is with barometers, and not with the Neptune?

I'm not sure, I've only got reasoned suspicion right now. To start off with, the raw data from another person's neptune looks like mine. That doesn't prove much either...there could be systemic issues with the some or all neptunes... I do have another barometer now, and I'll be using it for testing in a few months.

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Pressure is the best means for determining altitude.

It is a satisfactory means in the cypres, sure...but I'm not convinced it's best.
I know that barometric pressure fluctuates significantly with the weather and I've read extensively on this website's forums (as well as others, such as the speed skydiving website) that the location of the device and changes in body position can have significant consequences on the accuracy of the device.
But most of all it's not so much barometrics as the parameterization of altitude as the basis for firing. Even though the data can be smoothed with some loss of precision & timeliness, altitude as a single variable over time is just not expressive enough to know whether I really need my reserve closing loop cut. The same thing that Lawndart and Ron et al have pointed out. That to me is something that could be overcome with an alternate design.
GPS is definitely poor, agreed. But a poor source of information can sometimes still be used.... Radio beacons on the ground or in the sky actually sounds attractive to me. Perhaps even live communication between transponders & ground stations. Not necessarily to the exclusion of barometrics either...perhaps like Garmin products, as you point out, redundant with the air pressure.
One of the biggest issues I think with the cypres Bill has pointed out, & it's the state of the rest of the rig. I've personally witnessed two-out situations a result of cypres fires, I suspect they are not uncommon. An optical system on the ground, combined with a radio, could potentially provide this information. You are right, it would be a lot more complex than today's devices. To me it's like medical equipment. Things like pacemakers today are drastically more complex than they were in 1990, both due to advances in medicine and in technology. An AAD that cost as much as Guidant or Medtronic's latest would not sell...but at least it doesn't have to be implanted under the skin

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[billvon 3,111]

>make me realize how unreliable barometric data can be.

Aircraft altimeters can be accurate to within +/- 20 feet, so it's not a problem inherent to pressure-based altitude measurement. There are some unique challenges on skydiver altimeters though, primarily due to static port location (to use aircraft terminology.)

[piisfish 140]

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There's not even an explicit need for an on or off at all, since this concept is redundant with whether it ought to fire.

An AAD sometimes HAS to be turned OFF. Or limits in setting to a different altitude increased... did you ever land at a place 10k ft lower than your take off point ??

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[nathaniel 0]

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An AAD sometimes HAS to be turned OFF. Or limits in setting to a different altitude increased... did you ever land at a place 10k ft lower than your take off point ??

Sorry to beat this old horse again...but you are referring to existing brands of AAD. I believe that an AAD could be designed, unlike any current model, that doesn't suffer this limitation. It would be more than just a simple barometer, and might require additional support infrastructure, like a base station, or gps, or who knows what.

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[nathaniel 0]

20 ft... hmm... What's critical is how the 20ft error is distributed across successive measurements aka jitter. Are 2 measurements taken 0.25 seconds apart going to have similar error or could they differ by 40 ft?
How many measurements does a cypres take per second? I don't actually know.
If the data is jittery, then taking short measurements is dangerous because the jitter could dominate...but taking longer measurements is dangerous because at 120 mph / 1500 ft you've got around 9 seconds to live, no? And your reserve takes 3-5 seconds to deploy, right? That leaves around 4 seconds to act...
It seems like 20ft of error does not give us all that much tolerance after all...depending on the jitter & our ability to model it. This type of EE stuff is not my forte...what kind of algorithms can you use here?

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[flypunk 0]

just a couple of observations and simple questions

I have seen a birdman cypres fire, on a low pull after he deployed; It worked then.

If you are looking for a cypres that will fire for sure when using a birdman suit, get the student one, I highly doubt that you fall slower than that. If somebody does not know the parameters, its in the manual.

Jeb is trying to land a wing suit and by doing so he is pushing the envelope and using his money/research/time and figuring out how to get there. He is not stating that rigs are flawed or need to be improved because they need to include wings that will allow any person who jumps out of an aircraft under any situation to land without deploying a parachute (regardless of skill, knowledge, will to live, physical condition) . Do you really think that landing a wing suit will be for everyone without requiring any skill, learning and knowledge? And by trying to make it for everyone will we end up with hmm lets say a personal plane, which does require skill and learning and understanding of what you are doing, since humanless flight is not an affordable option even for comercial use at this time. And will you still then call it skydiving?

How far will ergonomics go? Do we ask for a self installing ADD, with no rigger interface, since we want to eliminate human error from killing ourselves while skydiving? There is a chance that the rigger may install it improperly and therefore it will not work, or shall we say it will work within the parameters (it'll fire) but not effectively extract your reserve and save you.

Are we still talking about an ADD that has computer like circuits, which never malfunction or crash since they are designed/produced/programmed by humans? And now you are asking it to interact with other computer devices in the ground that will be also turned on and off and maintained by humans, therefore increasing the chance of failure by increasing human interphase and not decreasing it, which was the initial objective?

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[kelpdiver 2]

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[
One of the biggest issues I think with the cypres Bill has pointed out, & it's the state of the rest of the rig. I've personally witnessed two-out situations a result of cypres fires, I suspect they are not uncommon. An optical system on the ground, combined with a radio, could potentially provide this information.

2 outs happen when someone burns past their deploy altitude. If one intends to go below the min BSR height and use a snively canopy, they should not activate their AAD.

I think you're suggest that a more intelligent AAD would realize that the main is in the process of deploying, and therefore the reserve is not needed. At 800-900 ft, I can't see that reasoning being sound. It the main is taking this long, how can the user be sure it will finish in the remaining seconds before he hits the ground? The reserve, otoh, should open in less than 300ft.

BTW, before we implement optical/radio systems at the LZ, we should ask how many dropzones have AEDs for emergency use. Or many other capital investments that would be useful. $$ spent here are $$ not spent on other desireables.

[nathaniel 0]

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how can the user be sure it will finish in the remaining seconds before he hits the ground?

In one of the cypres fires I saw, the jumper had initiated a normal deployment too low--not sure exactly how high--and the main was open already when the reserve started to inflate due to the cypres firing.

Improving the decision sense and logic could potentially allow the system to put the cutoff point lower, thus making any consequential 2 out more justifiable. In the example above, he didn't need the reserve, and if the aad could have waited any longer it might not have fired.

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The reserve, otoh, should open in less than 300ft.

Then the difference between 750ft and that, accounting for error, is included in our potential margin of improvement.

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[billvon 3,111]

>What's critical is how the 20ft error is distributed across successive measurements . . .

Next time you're cruising along on an airplane, check out the altimeter. It's pretty rock-steady in cruise, and most altimeters that you see on panels nowadays are encoding altimeters, so they're supplying an electronic version of that display to the transponder for ATC purposes. They're pretty good.

The problem is not that they are not good at reading pressure, nor is it that pressure is not a good way to measure height. The issue is that the pressures around a skydiver are not that predictable. Cypreses read 200-300 feet 'high' during freefall due to the burble around the jumper. This is a real pressure effect, not a bad sensor or electronic artifact. I almost failed a dive during my AFF JCC because I was using a handmount altimeter that was above the evaluator's back and he was using a chestmount; his read 300 feet lower.

Aircraft deal with this by using a static port that is in a fixed, benign location. Even then, manuevers like sideslips can cause momentary transients in the altimeter and other devices that rely on static pressure (like vertical speed and airspeed.) Changes in attitude can affect pressure, and skydivers like to change attitude.

>what kind of algorithms can you use here?

Digital filtering will reduce any spurious noise. Google FIR and IIR digital filters for more info. Physical range gating will also help. It is not possible to accelerate towards the ground any faster than 20mph per second, so if you see a reading that indicates you are accelerating faster than that it is safe to ignore it (or truncate it.)

[billvon 3,111]

>Improving the decision sense and logic could potentially allow the
>system to put the cutoff point lower . . .

Currently the cypres opens reserves at altitudes that are _barely_ enough to get an open canopy at belly and sit speeds. Head down speeds are an issue. In addition, there have been several fatalities where jumpers cut away as high as 1000 feet and did not deploy their reserves; their cypreses did not fire, or did not fire high enough to save them. So we're at the point where delaying a reserve firing will kill people (or more accurately not save people) even now.

Now, one could argue that they should not be saved, that the cypres is not an RSL etc. But there are arguments on both sides.

[nathaniel 0]

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How far will ergonomics go? Do we ask for a self installing ADD, with no rigger interface, since we want to eliminate human error from killing ourselves while skydiving?

There is a limit somewhere...I'm no expert in the subject (enthusiast, yes :) but the types of themes include
* eliminating decisions that don't truly require a human's attention (or can be closely approximated by a machine). Having to switching off a sentinel after your canopy opens is an example of an unnecessary decision in an aad. Personally I think that the on switch belongs here too. Tho that might require big changes to how such a device operates.
* reducing the number of important decisions to a certain frequency, so they become neither routine/tedious nor foreign, so that the human brain is better able to process them without making mistakes, and to allow for redundancy. People have an uncanny ability to make small mistakes...even when they have big consequences. IMO the cypres could stand an improvement here, since I think a lot of people have a hard time remembering how to program an offset. Although like everybody has said it would probably require extensive changes to how the thing operates
* making the behavior & state of the system obvious in the situations where that information is needed. On this mark the cypres (and the vigil, from what I can tell) interface is a little clumsy. Although that's partly the function of containers where the aad window faces your back. You have to partially take your rig off to have someone check if it's on... It would be nice if it gave a happy beep to indicate that it was ok, or an unhappy beep to indicate that it was not ok. Kinda like how a smoke detector gives a special beep when it needs a new battery. The on/off switch gets a half point here, since the sequence of presses method is so foreign. But only a half point because it's a lot like riding a bike, and the frequency at which you do it compensates to a degree imo.

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[nathaniel 0]

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Currently the cypres opens reserves at altitudes that are _barely_ enough to get an open canopy at belly and sit speeds. Head down speeds are an issue.

I've never flown at 60 mph and 200 mph simultaneously...this can be modeled and taken as a parameter to the logic. It's not wise of course to assume that freefall rate will be constant...but I rarely (never?) accelerate faster than gravity when I'm in freefall.

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In addition, there have been several fatalities where jumpers cut away as high as 1000 feet and did not deploy their reserves; their cypreses did not fire, or did not fire high enough to save them.

That's where your ideas about knowing the state of the rig come in...

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So we're at the point where delaying a reserve firing will kill people (or more accurately not save people) even now.

Unless we can find tools to discriminate between these situations. Clearly what's needed is for the device to have more realistic model(s) of a skydive.

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[flypunk 0]

no response for the other questions? well lets see your comments and maybe you'll address my other simple questions and maybe these.

"reducing the number of important decisions to a certain frequency, so they become neither routine/tedious nor foreign, so that the human brain is better able to process them without making mistakes,"

you mean like practicing your EP's, keeping current, knowing how your gear works, and pulling on each skydive and withing certain altitude?

Yes I have a hard time remembering how to program an offset since I dont use it, if I jumped at a dz where it would be needed, I would be dumb if I couldnt remember, kinda like remembering all the extra components on a tandem rig. Or do you also intend to make a rig that serves for all occasions?

Then again I have jumped at dz's where the LZ was at a different altitude, but at the same time I didnt know the exact altitude airport, and didn't trust the locals so I chose to jump without turning it on. I have it, I dont rely on it. I keep jumping while it is in service. I do rely on my training.

The information is obvious if you familiarize your self with your gear, read the manual and/or keep current. If you are not that current and forget, reread it, just like you re-train EP's when you go uncurrent. right?

Both my containers have the display in my back, next to my reserve pin, I see it every time I check my reserve pin, reason why its located there. If I see the display in error I will know its not ok, no need for a beep. An audible signal would limit the hearing impaired, and I believe we do have more hearing impaired than blind jumping, wouldnt you agree?

I wouldnt want for the sequence of turning it on to be easier and for it to turn itself on when riding the plane down, or do you want it to recognize a steep plane dive as well, and are you willing to pay for that?

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[nathaniel 0]

20 questions eh?

ok. It's Saturday, it's cold & I'm bored...

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An audible signal would limit the hearing impaired,

An audible signal would not make the device invisible. The deaf could still look at it. Deafness is a sensory deficit, that can be a separate consideration... Give the deaf bright LEDs instead of beepers. Hm...what about people who are deaf AND blind?

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you mean like practicing your EP's, keeping current, knowing how your gear works, and pulling on each skydive and withing certain altitude?

There are real incidents of people forgetting all of them...that's part of why we have AADs to begin with. Although part of the joy of skydiving is in saving your own ass...so not all of those deserve adjustment.

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Or do you also intend to make a rig that serves for all occasions?

That deserves its own thread...I've put no thought to it...yet... The usage case & human factors of a tandem are so much different from a fun jump that it might be hard to find things that could be optimized effectively in a combined rig.

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The information is obvious if you familiarize your self with your gear, read the manual and/or keep current. If you are not that current and forget, reread it, just like you re-train EP's when you go uncurrent. right?

Being uncurrent is a problem that an AAD can't solve completely. We can take some of the pain out by making AADs better, by removing the gotchas and surprises. You don't need "retraining" in airbags to drive a car after 6 months ...bad analogy I know, but it's food for thought.

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I wouldnt want for the sequence of turning it on to be easier and for it to turn itself on when riding the plane down, or do you want it to recognize a steep plane dive as well, and are you willing to pay for that?

Depends on the cost...but I think I'd easily pay 25% more, maybe 50% more, if I could use an AAD with the confidence (not including wingsuit jumps) I use my cypres and not have to ever turn it on on off. It's hard to talk about costs comparatively right now tho, since the market is not all that competitive.

your previous stuff

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I have seen a birdman cypres fire, on a low pull after he deployed; It worked then.

Birds can fall faster than 80 mph on an ordinary jump, easily. Especially big boys in beginner suits, but also skinny people if we close in our wings. I'm thin, and already I can average 50 mph on a jump, if I max my suit out. Which is nothing really to brag about, but it's a problem when we talk about cypres activation speed.

Birdmen often deliberately speed up for deployment...It's showed up in my neptune logs, actually. That could have been a factor too. Hard for me to say...

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If you are looking for a cypres that will fire for sure when using a birdman suit, get the student one, I highly doubt that you fall slower than that. If somebody does not know the parameters, its in the manual.

That would expose me to inappropriate firings, like we've already beaten to death on this thread. My neptune says in my last 10 jumps I pushed 30 mph under my new canopy, and I wasn't trying to go all that fast or anything since I'm still learning it. I'm confident that I can exceed the student cypres activation speed...it's around 40mph or 45 mph, right?

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Do you really think that landing a wing suit will be for everyone without requiring any skill, learning and knowledge?

Skydiving is not for people without skill, learning and knowledge...but that's not always enough to stop them from dying when they least expect it. I think nobody is going to be landing a suit any time soon, but I don't know enough to say whether it will ever become commonplace. The FAA might have something to say about it...they seemed to be upset when someone landed in the WFFC without deploying his parachute...I bet they'd weigh in on birdman landings too if it became practical...

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Are we still talking about an ADD that has computer like circuits, which never malfunction or crash since they are designed/produced/programmed by humans?

That's getting into details of successive stages of design. Quality control is not all that apparent at this level of discussion...and it's rather premature since we're not proposing a complete product, just discussing aspects of the design... There's all kinds of stuff like marketing and taxes involved in selling a product...we've been ignoring all of it.

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[flypunk 0]

Im at working overtime so its a nice break as well
So you are proposing not taking the visual away but combining it with an audible. Dont need if if you just arent lazy enought to read. Dont believe you would be skydiving if you are deaf and blind. Do you know of anybody.

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There are real incidents of people forgetting all of them...that's part of why we have AADs to begin with. Although part of the joy of skydiving is in saving your own ass...so not all of those deserve adjustment.

By that statement then if you modify the ones you think need it then the AAD becomes what it is a back up device not a necesity.

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Being uncurrent is a problem that an AAD can't solve completely. We can take some of the pain out by making AADs better, by removing the gotchas and surprises. You don't need "retraining" in airbags to drive a car after 6 months ...bad analogy I know, but it's food for thought.

Exactly an AAD is not supposed to solve uncurrency training is, training on how it works and its parameters is your responsiblitiy. To your bad analogy-You also dont see the same airbag being used on one car for demolishion derby, formula 1, motorcross, city driving and for all users, people who are short and sit 6" from the steering column. Airbags can hurt people, and they dont save all persons under all circumstances (like you want the AAD to do), if not we wouldn't see deaths in car accidents.

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but I think I'd easily pay 25% more, maybe 50% more, if I could use an AAD with the confidence

why are you planning on using it? your trainig should give u the confidence. Remember you are just touching the tip of it here, its just an activation device, reserves can fail or not come out.

Yes having a student cypres might fire under your canopy, since you choose to exceed those parameters. The new spped cypres requires a higer fall rate under freefall to fire as well. Choose the adeaquate one for what you are doing. The firing speed for the student is even lower than that.

The speed cypres ceases operation higher and it requires more speed to activate. These are drawbacks, the same kind of drawbacks that you will have if you want to use one canopy for , birdsuits, accuracy, swooping, crew and tandems.

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Skydiving is not for people without skill, learning and knowledge...but that's not always enough to stop them from dying when they least expect it.

Neither is life. If you want to have the thrill witouth skill knowlege any physical ability and risk. Stay home play videogames. So now you do agree that skydiving requires skill to save your own ass, therefore an AAD is secondary and does not need to know what i had for breakfast and compensate for the added weight type scenario? Would be nice if its for free and

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That's getting into details of successive stages of design. Quality control is not all that apparent at this level of discussion...and it's rather premature since we're not proposing a complete product, just discussing aspects of the design... There's all kinds of stuff like marketing and taxes involved in selling a product...we've been ignoring all of it.

What I see here is a thread that started as someone asking for specific instances of cypres not working, and then you turned into how a cypres is defective because it doesnt cover all the scenarios and extras that you want (without adding any real date on when it hast performed to do what it was designed).

Now that your mindframe (based on your last statement) is different, and you want to talk about the improving a good (not perfect) existing desing and thinking about details on how to do it and get there, instead of bashing the existing, then maybe we'll be seing a new one soon than can be accredited to you.
ok break is over. Have fun.

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[nathaniel 0]

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So you are proposing not taking the visual away but combining it with an audible

No, not an "audible" like a dytter or a protrack. An audible like a smoke detector has an unmistakable audible status indication. You press the button, it beeps if it's OK. Depending on the model, it beeps differently or not at all if it's not OK. So that the next person who asks me to check if their cypres is on in the plane doesn't have to take their rig off for me to check.

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Yes having a student cypres might fire under your canopy, since you choose to exceed those parameters.

Taking cover under the parameters of the device's manufacture is a dead end, and sidesteps this whole discussion about design. Like your point about quality control...it's just not relevant to the design. A well manufactured device operates according to its design. A well designed device operates according to when it's needed.

My cypres is built just fine...its the design of the thing that I think could stand improvement.

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therefore an AAD is secondary

A glance at the list of saves shows to me that in many cases an AAD is primary. Certainly not all the time, and usually not by training or intent. Training or intent can't cure human fallability. An AAD can make up for some of the cases that slip through.

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how a cypres is defective because it doesnt cover all the scenarios and extras that you want (without adding any real date on when it hast performed to do what it was designed)

The deficiency is in the design. Not the construction. As for dates...1990 till the present. The design hasn't changed at all. For me personally the dates would be all the years that I've used one. What this has to do with design is beyond me...

The deficiency is in the design.
/bangs drum

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[niu 0]

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***
So that the next person who asks me to check if their cypres is on in the plane doesn't have to take their rig off for me to check.

Tell that person to find another hobby.

[flypunk 0]

The audible singla like a smoke detector means you now have 23 rigs beeping in the plane and you need to distinguish between all of them and tell which one ran out of battery, which one is ok and which one is malfunctioning, which one is on wingsuit mode etc.

Claiming that a desing takes cover under the parameters that it solved or acusing it of being a bad design is just a irresponsible approach.

If you commision an architect to design a house and provide the parameters for the design to solve, and he provides the best solution possible for those parameters, but then a year later you decide that you want to work out of your house and blame the design for being unsuitable for this, you would be laughed at.

The design is not flawed. The user is intending to utilize the design for something that it wasnt intended. The fact that you did not set the parameters right for the design to solve, does not mean that the design is flawed.

The cypres solves the parameter that it was tasked to solve, and the manual states the parameters clearly. If you wish to use it knowing that those parameters are different from the ones you require, then its your decision and your fault. If you choose to use it without knowing the parameters, then its still your fault.

If you wish to improve on the desing because it does not solve the parameters of your problem, then yes come up with a better one by all means, and that one will have to state which parameters it solves, otherwise somebody will show up in a year claiming that its flawed since it didnt fire while riding a motorcycle in a highway as he was about to impact a car.

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A well designed device operates according to when it's needed.

So then a well designed sportscar (design with the parameters of a sportscar) should be able to act as a all terrain vehicle and go on trail roads if you decide to go off roading? Would you blame the design of the sportscar, or would you realize that your parameters have changed and therefore need to find and pay for a better design that solves your new parameters?

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My cypres is built just fine...its the design of the thing that I think could stand improvement.

or

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The deficiency is in the design.

which one is it?

there is a huge difference between being deficient and could stand improvement. One means it does not solve the issues that it was originaly tasked with, the other implies that it could go beyond those.

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A glance at the list of saves shows to me that in many cases an AAD is primary.

no it shows that it works. and it does "make up for some of the cases that slip through"
I believe its not the prmary means of deplyment, since the reserve pulls without a cypress outnumber by far the ones by a cypres.

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[nathaniel 0]

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The audible singla like a smoke detector means you now have 23 rigs beeping in the plane and you need to distinguish between all of them and tell which one ran out of battery, which one is ok and which one is malfunctioning, which one is on wingsuit mode etc.

How many times have all 23 people in an otter checked their cypresses simultaneously? If you asked them all nicely there would be easier ways to arrange a cacophony ...

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So then a well designed sportscar (design with the parameters of a sportscar) should be able to act as a all terrain vehicle and go on trail roads if you decide to go off roading?

Yes, I'd say the sportscar is deficient for off roading. And the more popular that off roading became, the more deficient the car would be in general.

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Would you blame the design of the sportscar, or would you realize that your parameters have changed and therefore need to find and pay for a better design that solves your new parameters?

If I couldn't find a better car, I'd fit the sportscar with a bigger suspension, different tires, etc...

The analogy breaks down (surprise) because track and offroad conditions are so different that a single car could not possibly be competitive at both.

Whereas with an AAD, the only thing holding them back is deficient design. Today's models use a single variable to infer characteristics about a skydive where multiple variables would be superior. The distinction between one type of jumpers and another is predicated on current designs. There's no reason it has to be that way forever.

There were good reasons why some of the design was done the way it was done in 1990, but their continued validity is evaporating as science & technology advance.

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[billvon 3,111]

>The analogy breaks down (surprise) because track and offroad
>conditions are so different that a single car could not possibly be
>competitive at both.

Yet you seem to be of the opinion that a single AAD could be ideal for student, wingsuit, freeflyer, cameraman, 4 way, bigway, swooper and solo jumpers. The design challenges are similar in both cases. Sure, you can make an SUV that's decent both off-road and for highway cruising. But there are going to be compromises.

Do a little googling on the F-111. It was to be the plane that did everything - a fighter/bomber that could be carrier launched and serve as the backbone of US air power. Turns out that a plane that is sorta good at everything really shines at not much. Still a good aircraft, but a purpose-built carrier based fighter (the F-14) proved to be a much better fit.

[kelpdiver 2]

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There were good reasons why some of the design was done the way it was done in 1990, but their continued validity is evaporating as science & technology advance.

Sheesh, you keep parroting out these vague statements, keep declining to actually deal in specifics. As Bill suggested, you're trying to win, very little interest in actually deal with the 'problem' only you believe exists.

BTW - the Cypres uses TWO variables - altitude and vertical velocity as measured by barometric pressure and time.

[mjosparky 4]

You need to get out more, find a GF or get a hobby.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[Ron 10]

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As many lives as it saves, for there will always be dumb people, including dumb skydivers. There is only an empirical answer to this question

So you can't/will not answer a simple question. You complain about a device, but refuse to look at the fact that the current device is pretty good, and any "new" device will bring new problems.

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That means that the vigil isn't perfect either. It means we have more work to do. Skydiving has "caused" accidents too...

Skydiving has created accidents....Lame, really lame attempt to misdirect. We are not talking about outlawing skydiving, we are talking about thow you think there is a problem and are complaining about how we don't see it.

But you refuse to look at the history of skydiving and how your "fix" could kill more people than it saves.

You use words like ergonomics and say how the VIGIL was better, but your example device has CAUSED accidents.

Working on fixing a problem that does not exist does not make much sense....So have fun with that.

I see no need to continue this.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[nathaniel 0]

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Yet you seem to be of the opinion that a single AAD could be ideal for student, wingsuit, freeflyer, cameraman, 4 way, bigway, swooper and solo jumpers. The design challenges are similar in both cases. Sure, you can make an SUV that's decent both off-road and for highway cruising. But there are going to be compromises.

That's the question that we should be asking then...what is the physical aspect of student, wingsuit, freefly, camera, 4 way, big way, swooper, and solo jumping, that makes it impossible or improbable for them to use the same AAD?

The answer, if there is one, could be used to drive the next generation of AADs.

The only answers I've seen are unsatisfactory, because they talk exclusively about current single variable / barometric models to the exclusion of other potential approaches. To me, the fact that a human is capable of deciding when to open a parachute in all those cases suggests that there is the possibility that a machine could do it better.

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[psf 1]

After reading all the posts, one issue that nat is not adressing is that no mater how many bells/whislte's you put on a device, it is still only man made. And that means its inherently going to fail at some point, and not to be trusted as failproof. Even with all the "improvements" you want, you still need to realize its possible to fail, and there for you don't rely on it. I never have, nor never will rely on my cypress to get the canopy out for me. If it ever hapens, then I fucked up, plan and simple.

ignorance is not bliss