rigging65

That depends on what I'm jumping. My Xaos is a snivly little girl, so I'd be less inclined to use it in a low situation...especially if the plane is truly crippled and descending (which it will be if you lose the engine(s)). That's one of those times you might look at your alti while it's all going on and it could be 500-1000 feet lower by the time you exit. My Lightning on the other hand, is so much faster than my reserve that I'd definitely opt to go that way, if that's what I was jumping. Something else to consider: If you're jumping something that doesn't open all that nicely (ie. not on heading, tends to dive, etc.) it may not be the best canopy to bail out on...especially since you most likely wont get to do a nice poised exit, but you'll be diving out. If you're low and dive out head first, you might be pressured to whip that twitchy main out before you're really in the optimum position to help your openings. In such a case, it would simply make more sense to go to your reserve...especially low. my $.02.... "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

I think you make some valid points, but what about this one: In the event of an emergency, where everyone doesn't remain calm, the pilot gives the word to get out and someone nearer the door has problems getting their seat belt loose. Do you think the folks behind him are going to let a little thing like a body keep them from getting out the door when the pilot says "Get out!"...I think not. I've only been in one bail out situation, and it was under very controlled circumstances. We lost a de-icing boot off the prop and exiting was more of a precaution than anything else. We had a minute to think about it as we were warned to prepare for a bail out...and even then there was a TON of tension with the folks up near the pilot once he said "Go". If it had been a real emergency and he had said "Get out now!" I imagine it could have gotten quite ugly if there was much of a delay near the door. Not everyone is going to respond in a safe, orderly manner when it hits the fan, and any slow down is just going to magnify that...turning what could have been a clean bail out into a dangerous door rush. Is there less of a chance of a bail out than a near-mid air? Probably, but which is more preventable? Probably the near-mid air... 6 of one, Half Dozen of the other, you make the call... "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

I did the exact same thing transitioning from Ripcord to Throwout. I trained and trained on the ground, told myself the whole ride to altitude that I wouldn't hold onto the pilot chute....and at pull time I sat there wondering why my main wasn't opening...until I looked to my right and saw the pilot chute still attached to the handle I was still holding. It only happened once, but why let it happen at all? "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

Since most people don't actually pull their handles every time they practice touch, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to say you need to practice "more" because you have a pillow handle. What you're getting by doing a series of practices touches is a more firmly implanted muscle-memory of where your hands are going to go when the time comes. If you want to be truly thorough, you should actually pull the handles weekly. Of course, unless your a rigger with lots of time on your hands, this probably isn't going to happen. My point is, you need to get down the movements of your emergency procedures so you don't have to think about it...regardless of what type handles you use!

My Xaos probably looses about 750ft. on a smooth carving 180...loaded at about 2.1 "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

Doh! I guess I should be fully awake before operating a computer! "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

One word: BLOCKS "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

This is very true, but you're only going to use one method to teach, and there are probably a few more people out there jumping BOCs than ripcords. "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

You weren't taught about using them because it's more information than what you really need for the first jump course. As you continue, you'll get more information about riser control (if you don't, ask for it!). Landing on your rear risers is a touchy issue and shouldn't be tried unless you've received training on it. The stall point is much higher than on toggles...like maybe only 6-10 inches of stroke on the risers as opposed to several feet on toggles. "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

All of our student and rental rigs are BOC throwouts, and have been for a long time. Best to teach with the same style equipment they'll use in the real world. "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

Didn't we just get done with like the third thread on this topic in a month?!? "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

We actually just finished a pretty long thread on this topic. I think it was under "Stows" or something to that effect. "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

Something like that....silly BASE heads. "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

It may just be that you're getting more in tune to what the canopy is doing, so you're noticing more of what's going on. I guess that could make you feel like you're flying faster or slower, just depends on you. It could also be relative air density, humidity, whatever. "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

I would say, based on the information already put out in this thread, that this article is blurring together Line Dump and Bag Dump. If you're locking stows stay in place (or at least if the bag stays closed until you want it to open) there is very little reason to be concerned. If this wasn't true, how would you justify the reserve free-bag that has been used for years?!? Again, Line Dump and Bag Dump are separate things and, IMO, should be treated as such. To that end, Bag Dump is dangerous and needs to be cared for, lest you break your canopy or yourself! Line Dump, on the other hand, is less of an "issue" unless it's somehow causing tension knots in your lines. I would say the caveat to that is that the Old Skool method of freestowing (ie- just piling the lines in the bottom of the container) may be more prone to developing tension knots than stacking the lines in some sort of a pouch (like on a freebag). I've got nothing to really prove this, but it seams to make sense to me. "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

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In my opinion, there are two things that cause line twists 99% of the time: Body Position and not leaving enough slack after your last stow. Body Position is something that you just need to handle, what else can I say about it? As for the slack length: I never leave less than 3 feet of slack line in the bottom of my container. Since we've already been through the points about line stows not doing much except keeping the lines in order, there is no reason to insist on getting that last stow into place and leaving very little slack. I've repaired several reserve containers over the years as a result of not leaving enough slack line. As the bag is trying to come out of the main container, the lines go under tension and one side or the other snags the corner of the reserve container. If the stow is really tight or the lines get caught "under" the reserve pack job, you can tear the whole reserve container loose. There is only usually one row of single needle holding it in place, so it doesn't take much. Obviously this kind of snagging is going to cause uneven tensions in your lines...which is probably going to result in the bag spinning on end and giving you twists. Just a note, for the newer jumper out there: If you get line twists above the slider or with the slider involved in the twist, it usually (but not always) occurs because of body position. As the canopy opens up and the slider starts to come down, the wing wants to fly off in some other direction because of uneven riser tension. If the twists occur below the slider, it's often caused by the bag getting turned on one end and spinning as the lines are paying-out. Often this is a result of there not being enough slack in after the last stow. These certainly aren't hard and fast rules in regards to what causes line twists, but it's something I've noticed over the years! As for uneven stow tension, sure I guess that could cause the bag to twist. Some Mfgs. make D-bags with the line stows more towards the middle of the bag so it doesn't get that "rocking" effect as it's paying out the lines, which might give it more cause to spin around once or twice. "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

There are lots of different classes out there...and any one of them worth it's salt can be tailored for ANY experience level. The canopy classes that we do are specifically aimed at jumpers with 50-200 jumps, so high wingloadings don't usually come into play...but we also have a class on HP canopies that provides a lot of aerodynamic theory and seems to help those in transition btwn canopies and loadings...and we also have a pure swoop class. This last class is the least attended. The first class is the most attended. "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

There seems to be a recurring problem with terminology when it comes to this argument. Let me lay out some terms, so we're all on the same sheet of paper here: Line dump- the phenomenon where your lines come unstowed all at once, essentially leaving them in a pile or mass while you fall away. Resulting in an unordered line pay-out. May or may not occur at the same time as Bag-dump (see below) Bag dump- the phenomenon where your locking stows (the ones that hold your bag closed) come out before the canopy reaches line stretch, thus letting the proverbial "cat" out of the bag before the rest of the system (ie - the lines) are at tension and ready for it to come out. Usually results in wicked openings, which may be very hard, as the canopy is inflating with very little reefing going on at all. Effectively the canopy is able to open and anchor itself with you still in freefall. Bad ju ju... Free stowing- Refers, in the generic sense, to not using stow bands to order your lines and hold them in place. Back in the day, it was just figure-8ing your lines into the bottom of the container. Now, it can be done in several ways. I think the key to this term is that there are no stow bands in place, only locking stows (maybe). There are designs out now that don't even use locking stows. Now that we're all reading the terms the same, let me say this: Line dump has nothing to do with slammer openings, Bag dump does. If line dump caused hard openings (which was a theory for a bunch of years) then how come reserve don't knock the living crap out of you on opening...especially considering they're packed without reefing the nose at all? Sure they open hard, but not like a Bag-Dump canopy does. Line dump and bag dump occur for various reasons. One is that the pilot chute is anchoring too heavily and ripping the bag off your back, thus stretching your stow bands and allowing the lines to slip out of place. Locking stows tend not to have this problem so much (providing they start off snug) because the grommets are there to take up space, and the line groups are thicker at the top end of the line group (due to cascaded lines). I've been jumping a totally stow-less design since the end of last year and it works great. A couple of tuck tabs keep the bag locked closed and the angles cut into the flap allow the lines to provide leverage to pop the flap open once the lines pay-out, but not before. Since the tabs are tucked in the opposite direction of the force applied by the pilot chute, they are actually anchored in place by the force the pilot chute applies to the bag. I'm jumping a Xaos loaded at about 2.1 (which is already one of the best opening canopies on the market, IMO), but I've noticed NO CHANGE in the openings since I changed away from using stow bands. What this proves, is that all of us that have been crying BS to line-dump causing hard openings are, in my mind, vindicated from the sneers of those that swore up and down that you had to have tight stows or double stows or flat stows are tube stows...none of it matters! Just keep the lines in order so they don't knot up, and keep the bag closed until your ready for it to open. If you continue this line of thought, this also proves that canopies open hard because of design or slider placement (or maybe one or two other small things), not because of the lines getting loose (disregarding bag-dump, which I think is a very rare occurrence). I know there are a couple of different designs out there for stowless bags, but let me say this: For most people, they are not the answer. They don't help your openings, they just prove that line stows aren't important when it comes to hard openings. The problem with the design, is that the bag itself is very susceptible to changes in pack volume. Stow-bands provide some flexibility in how much (or little) canopy you can keep contained in a bag. Tuck tabs don't stretch (although I'm working on that) so the bag really needs to be pretty much fitted for the individual canopy...and since humidity changes pack volume, even where you pack can make a stow-less bag fitting right an issue. Like I said, I love my design, I think SunPath's is ok, but IMO they're overcharging for a gimic item. They can get the $$ for it because it's got their name on it (so it must be cool/good right? ). The bag proves a point, but I don't think it's got much place in general sport skydiving. "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

If its for CReW, have you considered putting an extra link on your rear risers and trimming the nose down a bit? We've taken some LITTLE girls with us on CReW dives and they didn't need to wear much lead at all with an extra link. Ask the folks you jump with what they think about it. "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

....so what would you call it? It's not a tail pocket, it's not stowed... "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

You're absolutely right...except about how to spell "locking." "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

Interesting idea...I haven't heard that. I'd like to see some more info on it though before I stop flexing risers... It certainly can't hurt to flex them, regardless! "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

I did it for years and never had a problem...then I switched to the black SkyBandz (which work very well also), then I designed a stowless D-bag and have never looked back! "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."

Just to clear this up. There is no rig called the TRIDENT, there is a rig series called VIPER made by Trident H&C, Inc. The Viper line of rigs is a totally redesigned rig and holds the best parts from ALL rigs on the market. We took special care to research and develop ideas that work, and work well. I would hesitate to say that the Viper, in any of it's forms, is "like" anything else, but they do share commonalities that may seem obvious with other rigs. But looks can be deceiving... Ask yourself this: With all the good technology out there, why hasn't someone put it all together? The answer: It costs money to retool and redesign an existing product, lots of money. It doesn't when you build it from the ground up...which is where Trident H&C comes in. I think the link was already posted, but if anyone has any specific questions not answered by the website about the VIPER series (which we've chosen not to release nationally at this time), please feel free to PM me. "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..."