Student gear being different then sport rigs

[huka551 0]

Why is student gear so different then sport rigs? I understand safety issues, but at my dz the only rental gear is student gear. I attempted to sit fly and was sternly warned against doing it in rental/student gear due to bridal protection and risk of premature deployment. So why don't they have regular sport rigs to rent?

Muff Brother 3723

[MarkM 0]

Because students are flying belly to earth, so it doesn't have to be freefly safe. I've seen a lot of older student rigs that you wouldn't want to freefly in, but are fine for normal skydiving.

You probably don't see really good sport rigs for renting, because people buy their own gear as soon as possible. Why spend $2000 on renting when you can buy a used setup for the same price and sell in in 100 jumps for a few hundred less.

[huka551 0]

Are most or all sport rigs free fly safe?

Muff Brother 3723

[MarkM 0]

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Are most or all sport rigs free fly safe?

Nope. Most or all new containers are as far as I know, but if rig is older or just worn out it can be dangerous to freefly in. You might want to ask specific questions about what makes a container freefly safe(and not) in the freefly forums or do a search on it.

[Orange1 0]

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So why don't they have regular sport rigs to rent?

You should ask them that! I thought most DZs had non-student gear for rental. On ours we move onto sport gear as soon as we're off progression (but the rental is a lot more than the student rigs )

Skydiving: wasting fossil fuels just for fun.

[skybytch 273]

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So why don't they have regular sport rigs to rent?

Probably because they decided to put their money into student and tandem gear, facilities and aircraft maintainance instead.

[riggerrob 643]

So why don't they have regular sport rigs to rent?

[DJL 235]

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Are most or all sport rigs free fly safe?

You need to know what freefly safe means before you freefly. Browse the forums and ask people at your DZ.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[flyangel2 2]

Jennifer, if your profile is correct, at 37 jumps you shouldn't be doing freeflying yet. Get the RW down first.

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. - Edward Abbey

[billvon 3,112]

>So why don't they have regular sport rigs to rent?

A lot of reasons.

One, they don't generally have adjustable harnesses. So it's likely that they will fit poorly, which is dangerous.

Two, canopy selection. "Regular sport rigs" covers everything from Triathalon 220's to Xaos-27 90's. And smaller canopies are dangerous for rental rigs, but large canopies are bad for 110-lb women wanting to learn to fly a canopy.

Three, cost. Sport rigs that don't get used often are expensive to buy and maintain. And since you'd need a lot to make sure you had one that fit and had an appropriate canopy, they would either have to be used a lot or the DZ would have to charge heavily for their use. Would you pay $100 a day for rig rental?

[kallend 2,147]

At SkydiveChicago, students jump what most here would consider "sport" rigs: Javelins with SabreII canopies. The gear shop rents out other sport rigs too.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.