ZigZagMarquis

You can, but Cypres does a crappy job of doubling as an alarm clock...

Any pictures??

... I suppose you could add to the list of useful & naked advice you're getting... "Wear it, while naked, and having sex with you S.O."

Mods? What Mods??

Well... first you'll have to have a rigger take your new rig (harness / container & reserve free-bag) and reserve parachute and assemble, inspect and pack it... probably install an AAD too (likely). Then you'll also likely be having a rigger put your main canopy on the risers for you... properly route & tie off the toggles... attach the main D-bag, bridle and pilot-chute... and, lastly, help you hook-up the main risers / 3-rings to your rig if you don't know how to yourself. At that point, you can pack the main, if you know how to pack. If you do know how to pack, but its the rist time you've ever packed a barnd-new canopy... make sure you invite folks to watch and help. As applicable... GO BUY BEER... for your first new rig... and your first packing a brand-new canopy. A lot of times the first time a new rig / main is jumped, it is advised to just go do a clear-n-pull (i.e. sub-terminal deployment) to "set the lines"... I'm sure their may or may not be lots of arguments for and against this, so it may be more of a "tradition" then anything else... and it can't hurt. GO BUY more BEER for your first jump on your new rig! Enjoy!

I wish I had a copy of an ol' Lee Webb video (8mm ??) he had of a jumper that had the bad habbit of dumping in place after everyone left... on the jump / video in question... the jumper with the bad habbit of dumping in place "forgot" Lee was filming and on break-off just backed up a few feet and pitched. Their pilot chute went up one side of Lee, bridle across Lee's chest and the jumper and bag went up the other side of Lee. Lee managed to roll out of the trash, but suffered a pretty good "burn" across his chest / jumpsuit. Anyway, Bill answered it up-post best. Just trying to add that it may not be bad thing unto itself, its just a bad habbit that can lead to bad things... remember that chain of events that can lead to an incident.

In the winter, I usually wear leather batting gloves over a pair of glove liners. The only drag is getting a-hold of the toggles (i.e. getting your fingers / hand inside the toggles) after opening is a bit if a pain sometimes. A word of caution... I WOULD NOT recommend heavy "mitten style" ski-gloves for winter skydiving.

I put 6 jumps on a Katana 170 last weekend while the PD Tour was at Cal City. Loaded at about 1.2:1. Loved the openings LOTS! ... more so even then my Sabre2. Although I could see where the openings could be a bit "too snivelly"... (i.e. low pull)... Flying it was fun. Landings (straight in) were all stand-ups... sorry, I don't "hook it for safety"... Price wise... ...

PM Sparky, he might have an electronic copy.

Unless he takes the guy stalkin' his woman out into the parking lot and kicks the crap out of him. May be wrong... and illegal... but effective.

... ummmm... where's "here"?

MR1... sounds interesting. If you did it, where and when do you think it would be and what would it cover. Depending on the topics covered.

Not really Rob... those of us that have a "day job" could swing a week off of work... maybe two, but I doubt many employers would let us take a month off.

Bump

Correct! 1 1/4" - 1 3/8" OD usually. .... .and Stainless Steel on most canopies today. BS, MEL WOOO WHOOOOO!!! I got something right!!!!

Well... not to get philosophical... but "yes" and "no"... out of context of this instance, since I really don't know the specifics, so, generally speaking... if the guy's a decent enough sort, just a bit overly "enthusiastic", let us say, then playing a trick like that on him wouldn't be very nice nor right... on the other hand, if he's a jackass that just needs to go away, then what ever it takes, a kill is a kill, IMO. [jokeing]Reeeeaaallly... So, that means you're "available"? [/jokeing] ---- on topic ---- Anyway, sounds like all's well that ends well. Iteresting discussion and a good example of how best to handle such things.

Not without damage to the slider stop. Back in the day some garage canopies were made with a poker chip as a slider stop. These would often break allowing the grommet to slide over the stop. Today the stops are made of a stronger material and should not allow the slider grommets to slide over them. I think its a fender washer in there isn't it??... the slider stop on the canopy... next time I come across a canopy that's sooo blown up its not even going to be repaired, I'll have to do a necropsy and see.

Interesting tale. Not that I'm totally innocent... ... but the "walking hormone" on a DZ is usually some male instructor or "skygod-ish" up jumper that will hit on any female that sets foot on the DZ... teenager to grandma... never heard told of a student that rolled in so hot on his female instructor... but there you have it. Anyway, I take it you don't have an S.O. or good male friend that you could have feined it with to kinda give this guy the brush off? I mean if he saw you holding hands, sitting close, embrasing another guy or what-not, you'd think he'd figure you were taken or something?

Hey, you're a big boy so I don't want to piss you off and if in a bar fight, want you on my side and all... but maybe you want to consider a "Bow-Flex".

Well, good on you for dealing with the emergency and then further making the wise choice to make a safe landing. Bummer it stressed you out that it made you think you almost lost your main, but glad it worked out well in the end. Personally, I've always tried to make it a point to chase other folks cutaways down if I can... in hopes someone will chase my stuff the next time I have a cutaway if I loose track of it... Anyway, don't forget to buy your rigger a bottle of the beverage of his or her choice... and since it was your FIRST cutaway & reserve ride that's also a CASE OF BEER!!!

Just currious... how did it all turn out? The way I took it... the bloke was there on holiday (vacation)... so, if I got that right... at some point... he'd be leaving... thus, did you just wait for it to blow over? ... anyway, just currious to see how it really turned out... or is it still an on-going "as the prop turns" scenario?

Interesting thing about the switch from brass to stainless gromets on main sliders from years ago... why? ... because the brass gromets were getting "beat-up" when coming down the lines and hitting the frech links, thus, getting cut or rough or otherwise dinged up resulting in sharp edges and increased line wear and/or broken (cut) lines on subsequent jumps. Okay, brass gromets replaced by stainless ones... okay, now its the french links that were getting beat-up by the stainless slider gromets when the slider came down the lines. I've seen this scenaro more then once, where the jumper doesn't pay attention to upkeep of his of the bumpers on the risers/links... result is the same... the french links dinged up and thus "sharp" and lines wind up getting worn and eventully breaking. Solution to this... SLINKS! Anyway... the point... was the problem really solved? Yes and No. In some ways the problem was just "moved" by each solution and it comes down to proper gear maintenance. ... but I digress.

I believe so. They have stamped into the metal: "Rutgerson" and "Sweden". There is also some kind of plastic washer sandwiched inbetween the two halves. Not sure about Triatalon, but SS gromets on PD canopys are pretty much "standard" and have been for awhile, I think. I too have noticed that plastic washer sandwiched inbetween the two halves of SS gromets on sliders and don't recall anything like that when main slider gromets were mostly brass. I figured it had something to do with the swage (sp?) needed to set a SS gromet vs. a brass one of that size?

John... the only thing I've ever seen that's somewhat similar was years ago... back in the day... some guy that I can no longer rememeber his name, had his PD190 or PD210 (i.e. F111) canopy blow up on a rouge (hard) opening. He cut it away and landed his reserve with no further issues. The thing was, when we recoverd the cut-away (main) and hung it up in the back of the hangar to inspect it and listen to the recounts of, "no shit there I was, thought I was going to die..." from the guy, in addition to the big hole in the top & bottom skin... what was found was that one of the slider gromets was torn out and gone! This was back in the day too before stainless steel gromets were "standard" and you mostly saw brass gromets on main sliders... like your's... none of the lines that had passed through that gromet had broken... so... there must have been enough force for the lines to tear out the gromet and cut the brass was the only conclusion I can recall. Dunno how... but the only WAG I can come-up with in the incident I recall and your's is the slider / gromet hung-up somehow, long enough to damage it, but somehow cleared and allowed the canopy to open and not turn into an SBOS...

Bill... et all, Wasn't there a thread floating around that tried to summarize all of the Vigil anomalies that have happened recently? I'll admit, as a skydiver and rigger, I'm not "impressed" with the Vigil and would hesitate to put one on my Rig or recommend it to a friend... however... I'm trying to figure out if that's a correct impression or not and am thinking there's maybe a lot of duplicate info about Vigil anomalies (i.e. multiple threads/posts) about what's really the same thing that may be giving a false impression that there's more problems going on then what there is??