rigging65

Jessica- To be honest, I'm not sure how things work in Texas with used gear, but our shop sells more used gear on the West Coast than just about any other shop out there. We have a large consignment list, and lots of people buy off it because new gear is just so damn expensive these days! We have been using a formula over the years that has proven to be VERY reliable when it comes to pricing out used gear for the current market. The way it goes is this: As soon as you take receipt of new gear, it immediately looses 25% of it's retail value. Every jump put on it from then on reduces the value by $1 per item used (or $100 a year, whichever is more). Of course there are exceptions for certain pieces of gear. F111 mains simply can't sell out here for more than about $400, regardless of condition. Cypres re-sell value can be influenced by new batteries or a fresh 4-year, but you'll never get the full value of the services you put into the unit back out at sales time (ie- brand new batteries at ~$90 don't raise the value of the unit $90, only about $50.) Any item no longer produced really can't sell for more than about $600 or even less. Sorry to rain on anyone's parade out there, but these are the facts we deal with every day. I wish they were different (as we make a percentage on the selling price of consignment gear), but they're simply not. There is so much used gear out there that values simply don't hold...this is the same reason you can buy new gear from a truck dealer for less than from a shop. Volume brings the price down. Now, like I said, different places in the country have different markets...but California's market is about as current as it gets. The couple of times we've tried to stray from this formula, we got smacked by it and ended up changing back to our original formula...it just works. Sorry! "...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..."

Check in with SkyDance SkyDiving (Davis, NoCal). I know they were putting something together for late spring. Their number is (530) 753-2651. "...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..."

Negative. All Jumpmasters were granfathered in as Instructors when the Jumpmaster rating was done away with. "...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..."

Yeah, but the canopy doesn't have to be flying backwards before it looses structure/lift. Simply slowing the canopy down enough (not all the way to zero, in this hypothesis) reduces incoming air pressure to the cells to the point that overpressure and material load (ie- the lines causing the now less inflated canopy to deform) pushes the air inside the cells out of the nose and the canopy collapses... Which of course means that you no longer have any lift going on. In fact, you would begin to lose effective lift even as the wing begins to deform, because you'd be destroying the airfoil shape. IMO, the resulting shape of the collapsing canopy causes it to glide slightly backwards. What I'm saying is that it's not the flying backwards that collapses the canopy, it's the collapsing that causes it to fly backwards, that's 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..."

A stall is when you reduce the airflow over the lifting portion of the wing to the point that sufficient lift cannot be produced to keep the wing aloft. This can happen at any air speed, because if you abruptly take the leading edge out of the airflow (by drastically changing the angle on the wing) you no longer have sufficient air flow to produce enough lift to keep the wing aloft. This is like as hauling in rear risers hard and fast. It takes the leading edge out of the airflow and you stall, regardless of speed. A slow speed stall (or what most people think of as a "stall") is when you slow the flight of the wing to the point that not enough air is flowing over the wing to maintain sufficient lift...it's the same failing, just a different way of getting there. "...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..."

Any good rigger should be able to add continuous lines to your canopy. It makes a HUGE difference when using third-legs. My Xaos has them and I love the smooth action you get with them in that configuration. "...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..."

Reserves aren't made of glass, they don't break if used. A few jumps on them just lets you know all the stitching is in place. If there have been any high-speed openings on it, I'd make sure to check all the line attachments well, but it's probably just fine. Have it checked out and GO SKYDIVE! "...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 wasn't terribly impressed with the Talon FS, it seemed to be just OK. IMO, they should have stuck with the Talon2 design. I didn't like the riser protection, and the rig seems very overbuilt and heavy. To be honest, I've only seen about three of them, so maybe the others out there are better. "...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 found that doing test jumps with my partner was very beneficial to (both of) our success during the course. Jumping with the same person lets you divide up some of the responsibility with some assurance that the other guy will do his/her job. You've got someone who knows you watching your back. Something else: I'm a big guy, so I intentionally teamed up with a small friend of mine when we went through. If the student went low, I was faster to him, which gave her a bit more time to get there. If the student floated, she nailed him in place giving me a second to get there. Basically, we made each other look good. Stack the deck in your favor...and go to the Pre-Course! It's a great way to get taught what's going to be on the test! "...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..."

Sounds more like an incorrectly sized harness to me. Even with chest strap very loose, a properly fit harness shouldn't move around all that much. I'd get someone who is qualified to look at that for you. "...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..."

Yeah, I know what you meant. Still, I don't think that there are all that many cases of "canopy dump" out there. I'm sure there are some, but there are always "some" of everything. IMO, the reason to look at a stowless bag is pretty much just to be lazy. It's basically maintenance free, as long as you take care not to warp the tuck tabs...and I hate looking for a spare band during a jump day. Read my lips L-A-Z-Y "...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..."

That's only true if the line dump results in the bag opening and the canopy coming out before the lines reach stretch...which doesn't necessarily happen just because a couple of the stows come out all at once. The key is to keep the bag closed until the lines are at stretch, then let the cat (er...canopy) out of the bag. Since most people use some sort of a stow band to keep the lines in order and some sort of stow band to keep the bag closed (using lines to hold the bands in place) it's easy to think of the bag locking stows as being just another line stow...but they're very much not. The locking stows primary job is to maintain canopy containment, it just happens to double as a line stow. There are actually two separate systems working on your standard D-bag: A canopy containment system and a line stow system. These two systems happen to co-exist in the form of stow bands, but they needn't always. The reason why line dump can result in a hard opening is that Newton's Law states that as the bag is zipped out of the pack tray, the lines want to stay put. If the stow bands are loose and can stretch out of shape, the lines may slip out and stay in the tray, thus...possibly...allowing the bag to open (if the locking stows all slip). And then you have your hard opening. But, if you could keep from using lines to maintain bag closure, you might be able to eliminate (or greatly reduce) this phenomenon, since it's the mass of the lines that is really causing the problem. The key to a stowless or 'bandless' bag is to keep the bag-mouth closed, thus containing the canopy, then to maintain the lines in some sort of order (no harder than stacking them freestowed and covering them up with a flap to hold them in place). This can be accomplished with tuck tabs very easily and securely. And, voila, no more rubber bands to maintain. The upsides: 1) No bands to replace. 2) Faster to pack. 3) Some folks say this "centered-linefeeding" design reduces line twists...I don't buy it, but maybe. The downsides: 1) The bag is now more limited to the size of canopy it will accept. Not having stow bands means the tuck tabs need to have enough (but not too much) tension on the to keep them in place. Bands, on the other hand, allow for some flexibility in how much volume the bag can actually hold. 2) If you overstuff the bag, you'll warp your tucktabs (just like on riser covers) and they'll become less efficient...not a big deal on riser covers, but potentially a huge deal on a D-bag. 3) This type of bag will be more expensive. It does take longer to produce, but mostly it's gimic-marketing. I really like the design I've been working with and I think it's got some great qualities, but for the average consumer, I'm not convinced it's all the necessary. I'll keep jumping it on my own gear for the time being and see how it tests out, but I just don't see the cost-to-benefit reward to be all that. It's a gimic...a cool gimic...but a gimic. If you want to stay out of line twists, stay symmetrical when you deploy, that'll take care of almost all of them.

Loose stow bands have nothing to do with how fast a canopy opens. That's an old skydiver rumor. If you don't believe it, ask some of the folks testing stowless main-D bags out there right now (myself included). They work just fine, trust me. Stow bands are there to keep your lines in order and to keep them from getting tangled around themselves (or something else) during deployment...and there are other ways to do all this without bands. Canopies open hard because they are not properly reefed before they complete their deceleration cycle during opening. This reefing is generally accomplished by proper slider size and making sure the slider is oriented to catch maximum wind during deployment. Trim and design of the canopy also play into the game, but they really aren't something that the average jumper can change. Slider placement and orientation are. Rolling the nose basically helps give the slider a head start in doing it's job by slightly retarding the speed at which the nose spreads as the canopy gets into the air. It's all about the slider and proper airspeed on opening. "...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..."

Sounds like you've worked out most of the common culprits for the turn issue. Sometimes seaming a canopy just right (or wrong) can cause a turn in it. I had a stiletto that did that once, oh well. If it's not effecting the un-breaked flight (and you don't feel anything funky when you flare) I'd say screw it, just keep jumping...some of these things have a way of working themselves out, others don't. "...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..."

Measurement are measurements. If they're not right, the Harness won't be perfect. Does this really matter? Probably not, but it might. An inch difference isn't a big deal for most people in Harness sizing. But, if you're getting a new rig, don't you want it to be perfect? "...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'd say wait and see what the new helmet from ParaTec looks like. I saw it at PIA and I think it's going to be a really good choice. It has a molded lens and a proper vent system. We're supposed to be getting a few in soon (when they get them out to us, at least). I'm not wild about either the Z1 or the Oxygn. Just my opinion (having owned both of them). I jump a Factory Diver (without a lens) and sunglasses (or goggles) it works well for 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..."

If the ones RWS has won't fit your rig, contact Action Air Parachutes, they'll build you up a custom set. "...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 didn't think I'd have to defend myself on this one, but... Bill has always been great about sharing ideas and providing lots of great information for the entire industry...always has. However, in this case, the Sky Hook has been publicly released at the PIA Symposium and thoroughly discussed at the RWS booth there... And we have given up a lot information, just look at the website. It gives away several of the broad strokes right off the bat. In addition to that, RWS already has a national market, and a national advertising campaign. Not to mention, they've already got a product line that's producing them money, which allows them to continue their advertising and national sales program. I would never attempt to compare our company to the National Level manufacturers. When we release the Viper, it will be on a small regional level...just like Kelly Farrington did with the Infinity originally, which was a hugely successful program and is growing well today because of that decision. Damn smart move Kelly. I'm not willing to release information for a very simple reason: We're a small company with some progressive ideas and a limited budget. Manufacturers are always watching the industry for new ideas, then reproducing/tweaking/modifying the ideas for their own use. Since they've got more money, they can do it faster than we can...which could result in our ideas showing up on their rigs before we can even redlease our product. I hope this clears things up for any of you with questions. A small, saturated market is no place for a small Mfg. to give away secrets before their product is released. "...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..."

In the shop, we use Murphy's Oil Soap. It's a jelly like soap that we scrub in with water and a medium bristle nail brush. You certainly don't want to get it anywhere near the reserve tray, or any "thick" portion of the rig where the water might seep in. For what it's worth, you should really just unpack the reserve, take out the Cypres and do it right. How bummed would you be if you tried to fudge it and ended up ruining part of your gear? "...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..."

Most skydivers I know are lucky if they're mentally prepared to tie their shoes in the morning "...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..."

Adding/replacing you're existing leg straps are easy if the rig is articulated and any Master Rigger with a 7-class machine should be able to handle it. As long as the leg straps are replaced to factory spec. the change is legal. If the rig isn't articulated, it's a bit more difficult to do (and more $$). If all you need is more length to get your legs through the loops, there are other ways to accomplish that that doesn't involve replacing the leg straps 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..."

Just out of curiosity, why? B-12s are bulkier, more expensive and need to be installed by a Master Rigger. Not to mention they drop your resale value on the rig. If you're having trouble getting into your Thread-throughs, you could have more webbing added to your leg straps to make them larger loops. "...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..."

Definitely true. I think we charge like $55 or so for an embroidered handle. "...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..."

That's how we got to be friends, eh vicar? "...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 makes me sick that others don't... "...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..."