Maximize Cypress battery life

[kallend 2,137]

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Not only that, but mocking and discouraing those who do choose to be safer does not seem wise.

So are you saying that I am less safe to jump with Andy????

Maybe he's saying you're less safe to stand beneath when you jump.

...

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

[skreamer 1]

So, riggers are expected to enforce the two year battery change rule, but what about the 500 jump rule? Obviously it is in the skydiver's best interests to get the batteries changed after 500 jumps, so I presume it is up to them. Unless of course SSK asks riggers to check the skydiver's logbook at every repack - then again if you are averaging over 250 jumps a year perhaps you don't bother logging your jumps?

Bit of an obtuse question, but say SSK wanted the 500 jump battery change rule enforced as the 2 year rule is currently enforced - how do you think they would do it? Have future cypreses record every time a descent was made and have some clicky combo the rigger could use at every repack cycle to check the number of jumps since the last battery change?

Anybody who has gone to the expense of having a cypres fitted would want to make sure it was properly maintained, so I'd hope nobody would knowingly do more than 500 jumps on one set of batteries. It would be kinda nice though if the unit itself could tell you the number of jumps since the last battery change.

Apologies for the long, rambling, slightly trivial post.

Will

[diverdriver 7]

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Andy, you may know "Radio Dave", one of our team members. He jumped without a CYPRES, citing no need. Last summer on a 10-way practice jump he hit his head hard on the door frame on exit (not totally unknown in 10-way), and despite his hard helmet the first thing he recalls was coming-to at 5,000ft or thereabouts. This was doing something he'd done dozens of times before, with people he'd jumped with dozens of times before.

He got a CYPRES installed before the next practice.

I was on that dive. I remember landing and looking around counting team members. We were like "Where's Radio Dave?". We look up and he is way up there still coming down. He lands and just falls over and lays on the ground. We go running over and he is seriously messed up from having his bell rung. He lived because he deployed as soon as he came to in freefall. Otherwise we would have had another fatality at SDC and you all would have been chastising us about how dangerous we are.

There are things out there that are going to be out of our control. People have been exiting solo and been knocked unconcious. They had no functioning AAD and they went in. Jumpers who choose to have a funtioning AAD (I prefer Cypres as do 10s of thousands of other customers) should not be chastised or made to feel "unsafe" for choosing that piece of safety equipment for their personal skydiving career.

Comparing this situation to a pilot wanting an autopilot to fly VFR Bill is a bit of apples and oranges. Deploying a parachute has to be done on every skydive in order to survive. The cypres is a backup to that mandatory action. An auto pilot is a backup for flying in straight and level flight (not necessary for landing). When I got my instrument rating I was told by a wise instructor to "set your margins wide until you have more experience". He wanted me to not attempt IFR approaches in actual inclement weather to minimum visibility and ceiling values for that approach. That I should call a No-Go if I didn't have a wider margin until I had done more "actual" approaches. In skydiving we can't remove the limit of the ground. It is the ultimate limit. Once we takeoff in a plane we will land. If we jump the landing has to be performed by us. In order to land we need to make sure we have a deployed canopy. The Cypres is a backup tool. If a jumper chooses to have that tool then they should not be belitled. Discuss it with the jumper to find out if they understand the limitations of what the system can do. But that doesn't make them an unsafe jumper.

I've made my share of jumps without any AAD. I was doing headdown in 4-ways. I also exited solo for a head down FF. I had a bag lock when I dumped at 2,000 AGL. I got an open reserve at 1,000 AGL. I don't think that my emergency procedures are that bad and it still took me 1,000 feet in freefall to get the reserve open. I recognize that I human limitations of physical strenght and of the brain. Anyone who believes his or her brain can think through a stressful situation better than everyone else probably hasn't been through a real stressful situation. (I've had my share of aircraft emergencies too so I've had more than one experience to draw from.) Choosing to have a Cypres as a back up is nothing to be ashamed of. A newly rated multi-engine pilot who chooses to have a working auto-feather system onboard doesn't make him a weak multi-engine pilot. Their procedures were good enough to demonstrate on the check ride. So why should they feel worried about their procedures? They shouldn't. And probably don't. But they recognize that having an auto-feather on board is an added level of safety. In the pilot world you don't hear AOPA making fun of pilots wanting auto-feather systems on their multi-engine aircraft. They encourage people to have the level of backups that make them comfortable. Nothing more. Nothing less.

And it is NOT logic ringing through. It's an opinion. We all have them. I've voiced mine.

Chris Schindler
www.diverdriver.com
ATP/D-19012
FB #4125

[skycat 0]

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So, riggers are expected to enforce the two year battery change rule, but what about the 500 jump rule? Obviously it is in the skydiver's best interests to get the batteries changed after 500 jumps, so I presume it is up to them. Unless of course SSK asks riggers to check the skydiver's logbook at every repack - then again if you are averaging over 250 jumps a year perhaps you don't bother logging your jumps?

Bit of an obtuse question, but say SSK wanted the 500 jump battery change rule enforced as the 2 year rule is currently enforced - how do you think they would do it? Have future cypreses record every time a descent was made and have some clicky combo the rigger could use at every repack cycle to check the number of jumps since the last battery change?

Anybody who has gone to the expense of having a cypres fitted would want to make sure it was properly maintained, so I'd hope nobody would knowingly do more than 500 jumps on one set of batteries. It would be kinda nice though if the unit itself could tell you the number of jumps since the last battery change.

Apologies for the long, rambling, slightly trivial post.

Will

The normal values that the cypress is suppose to stop at is between 6900 and 5700. If you are jumping a cypress to save your life and won't jump without one, you would hope that the person would keep track of how many jumps they do and what their voltage is at. Also if the voltage becomes to low the unit will error with a 8999 or 8998 and not continue.

I know it's shocking but it looks like we as jumpers are responsible for paying attention to this. Then again how many times do we hear of stories where the rigger asks the jumper if his/her batteries are due, they swear up and down they are, and once the rigger opens the rig they are out of date.

Although I do think the # of jumps on the unit might end up being off if someone like riddler or myself who live in Colorado and go threw several up and down elevation changes on the way home from the DZ forget to turn to the unit off. I know I have done it before with both my cypress and my pro-track. I heard my pro-track at one point give the beeps it gives at 1000ft. So having your cypress give jump numbers might not be that accurate, and also the voltage indicator on your cypress has certain inaccuracy (section 1.4 of the manual) so it still will be up to the jumper to make judgement calls on when the cypress needs new batteries.

Fly it like you stole it!