DrewEckhardt

That would be illegal. You could break the rigger's seal, open the rig, put the AAD in, and close it back up. Note that reserves are MUCH harder to close than mains. In theory the pilot could get his license suspended if you were caught. You might find a rigger willing to violate the FARs to do it. After that his ticket could get yanked.

If it was made by Performance designs. Nope. Once you have gone through FORTY pack jobs or TWENTY FIVE deployments the canopy has to be shipped back to PD for inspection. That's 13 years if you stick to the 120 day legally mandated US repack cycle and never let it sit on the shelf (as over-sized used gear does). It's 40 years if you conform to PD's maximum approved repack and inspection interval.

Rigs and mains depreciate at about $1/jump each. A CYPRES looses about $10/month in value. At 20 jumps a month you're looking at a cost to you of $50 owning your own gear versus $400 renting from the DZ. It's a no-brainer.

Your favorite master rigger can shorten leg straps. For more severe mismatches the container maker can resize or replace the harness for a _LOT_ less than a new rig. I've heard $400 for a new harness mated to an old container; YMMV.

Nope because stock canopy sizes take this into account. The size relationships between 230 vs 260, 150 vs 170, and 107 vs 120 square feet vary by less than 1%. Since canopy responsiveness acomes from both wing loading and absolute size (lines and chord are shorter), with a larger wing you'll be likely to become disatisfied sooner than some one under a smaller wing at the same loading that has more inherent performance from its size. This has a lot to do with why small people are happy under 135 square foot parachutes, even with a wing loading of less than 1.0 pounds/square foot.

After you've played with it a lot (fast, slow, with a lot of harness input, with opposite front riser, etc) on high hop-and-pops double fronts, 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90. Ease into it. You can still get substantial speed (50+ MPH at 1.6-1.7 pounds/square foot under a Stiletto 120) out of a 90 degree turn.

I haven't hesitated to use F111 canopies that have been packed for a year but not been exposed to water, chemicals, etc. My Samurai 105 (with a couple hundred jumps) was packed from last May (when I had a horrible sneezing accident resulting in a herniated disk) through last weekend (when I pulled it out, hooked it up, checked line continuity, then packed and jumped it). It didn't unfold when I pulled it oout, but wasn't stuck together.

F111 fabric doesnt degrade performance. That comes from the canopy shape. The difference is entirely in how well the canopy wears due to use and repacks. According to George Galloway of Precision Aerodynamics there is no performance difference between that Raven -M and -MZ beyond the later being good for more repacks. PD's F111 cross-braced tri-cells supposedly worked great for the first 500 jumps (which I'm skeptical of). It's a lot better to buy a $200 line set every 500-600 jumps than a $2000 canopy.

Without being unconscious or having broken bones after a freefall collision. Probably not during a night nump. Probably without landing on concrete or in trees because they had a bad spot, opened at a normal altitude, malfunctioned, and then had insufficient altitude to get back to a nicer landing area. I picked my reserve size (143, about 175 pounds and change at the time with 600+ jumps and a Stiletto 120 main) based on such a worst case scenario. Since then I've seen worse things happen and wouldn't mind a bigger reserve in spite of being lighter.

Assuming you have at least 400 jumps, reserve canopy size of 143-150 sq ft is good for body weight 175 pounds + a typical 20 pound rig. With well over 1000 jumps, Sunrise Rigging, Jumpshack, Mirage, and maybe Infinity will build you a container that will be a good fit for both such a reserve and a fun main canopy in the 100 square foot range.

Price. I got a screaming deal (the container maker had a 40% off deal) on my last new rig at $3600 without the Cypres. I paid $1700 for my first used rig and $700 for the last one without a main (adding that could be done for under $1000 total). Delivery time. You don't want to wait six months for a rig. You don't want to wait in line for rental gear. At some DZs you don't want to pay for rental gear that long - if I was able to jump their rental gear as much as I did my first used rig, after three months of jumping at my home DZ I would have come out ahead financially if I threw it in the trash. What you need now. Many people would say that what's safe now won't be much fun in a few hundred jumps. What's fun and safe in a few hundred jumps is not safe now. At some point you'll find a size that will keep you happy for a thousand jumps or more. Until you get there, buying new may mean taking big losses on each rig you buy and sell or letting it sit on the shelf a long time until you find a buyer. Ease of packing. You need to know more tricks and be better at packing to get a new ZP main into your container, especially if you don't want to cuss at it.

Swooping would be fun to watch on TV, with the waiting for picking and climbs to altitude all edited out to make a nice hour-long package. It would make a great exhibition before other sporting events and during the halftime shows (Presumably Jason Peters does this at the NHRA drag races.) But even as a skydiver who hadn't jumped in nearly six months I didn't have the patience to watch more than an hour of the Colorado Go-Fast competition.

On my first trip to the potato state, I packed without tools because the guy on the VHS tape I learned from didn't use them. Afterwards I switched to using six big clamps and one small one. Now I like eight big clamps and three small ones. Using the tools makes for a slightly neater pack job, slightly faster pack job, slightly less work, and a LOT less hassle packing outside when it gets a little windy. I use a big clamp to hold the lines together (it won't fit in the tail pocket) during the pack job and on my pilot chute while I'm stuffing it in the spandex pouch. There's no way it would fit in the tail pocket and would probably come off like a tail gate if it did. There's no way not to notice a 6" orange clamp stuck to the pilot chute.

Bagging tricks help like making the traditionally first S-fold last once the canopy is bagged. Otherwise you just need to keep the canopy under control so it doesn't blow up before you bag it. [QUOTE] I couldn’t get it closed. The closing loop length was fine it was just the whole damn thing was so stiff! So I got a pair of pliers to get extra grip on the pull up. I managed to get the container closed. It took me 20 minutes to get the bag in the container and close it! [/QUOTE] Mechanical leverage is your friend. Going through one flap at a time, holding the closing loop in place with your knee while you fidget with the next flap, etc. all help a lot. A little finese will be a cheaper solution; that's how productive paid packers do it.....

Assuming his profile is accurate the guy weighs 285 pounds out the door. While a bit high for optimal performance under a cross-braced canopy, 2.4 pounds/square foot is too much for a conventional bi-cell design.

I say "whining for money." SNIFF. CRY. Our FBI budget is so SNIFF SMALL that our poor agents can't even have E-MAIL address. SNIFF. We need a few million to fix this travesty.

Guys making $61,300 - $94,200 get hit hardest with the highest real marginal tax rate of 40.3% : 25% income + 12.4% FICA + 2.9% Medicare. I was really pissed when I was consulting earlier in my career and the governments only let me keep 49 cents of every dollar even though I couldn't afford a house in town! People making under $7000 a year have a higher real marginal tax rate than those making $188,450. 10% income + 6.2% FUTA + 12.4% FICA + 2.9% Medicare = 31.5%. People who earn $188,450 as salary only pay 28% in income taxes + 2.9% for medicare = 30.9% on their last $94,250. Obviously the totals go way up as you make more, even though people who contribute far less have an equal say in how much is collected and how it is spent...

Yes.

They are easy to litterbox train and make good pets. They should be fixed when kept as pets - you don't want more bunnies, male bunnies humping everything in sight, or the females getting uterine cancer. They can be very tasty and tender when cooked correctly for dinner. A bit tough when not cooked well. Hard to get in the US because the USDA doesn't inspect meat rabbits and many groceries won't sell meat that hasn't been USDA inspected. The other (than chicken) other (than pork) other (than long pig) white meat.

if that was the case, then why are there still line over's on mains with sliders Because people are unwilling to spend 45 minutes to an hour packing their mains.

In the last week we watched _The Bourne Supremacy_, _The Conversation_, _The Manchurian Candidate_, first two episodes from season 5 of _X-Files_, and the last episode of the first _Alfred Hitchcock Presents_ disc.

Less than 50 (big 7-cell with a mesh slider and fast jump run opening as soon as you clear the plane) to more than 1000 feet (snivelly modern canopy working as designed). Your vertical speed, the canopy, and your airspeed all have substantial effects.

I've read the trim chart. The difference between in-board A and outboard shrinkage is 4". Is it better to have a shallower brake setting (by up to 4") or one that may be somewhat deep? Really deep from a lot of shrinkage (didn't measure the old line against the trim sheet) seemed to cause more squirlyness on openings.

And if you look more you can probably find a longer road coarse. I went to one (Second Creek near DIA in Denver, 1.7 miles), got some coaching in my car from a car club instructor, and a ride in a 996 GT3 Porsche Cup car (370 HP, 2500 pounds) with a running commentary over helmet intercoms explaining how to drive. It was enlightening. Probably $60; you provide the vehicle and helmet.

Because when I told my rigger that my steering lines and shrunk and were fuzzier than I liked (on the toggle side, which seems a natural side effect of velcro toggles) he replaced the brake toggle lines. He moved and the next rigger did the same thing. After the last bout of shrinkage, I figured that the 7' of lower steering line being pulled against the slider grommets and cooked as it came down on every opening HAD to be shrinking even more than the 1.5' of brake toggle line and had rigger #3 replace the whole enchillada. A trim sheet was not involved. I don't know any one as meticulous as rigger one . Rigger two was a full-time professional who'd been in the bussiness long enough to turn grey. Rigger three was also more than competant. My take-away from that is that skydivers need to take responsibility for their own gear maintenance. Having finally thought about the problem after (mumble) years, it seems like the correct thing to do might be to take the current length of the rearmost outboard line (C on the Stiletto), knock off the original delta between that and the lower steering line, and perhaps some fraction of the upper steering line shrinkage to arrive at something plausible. The brake toggle line should probably start at its original length. Stretched before being cut. What do you think?