FrogNog

It could be a difference in demand for new canopies vs. new harness-containers due to custom sizing and technology upgrades. Many main canopies from ten years ago are still acceptable from a safety-technology (and cool-technology) standpoint while rigs of that age are not because they aren't freefly friendly, they have ugly velcro, they have large 3-rings, or they don' t have hip and/or chest rings. A used main canopy of any age will fit anybody who wants one in that size but finding a used container that fits your body is a lot harder, especially if you want it to fit well. So the used market for canopies sees a lot less friction than the used market for harness-containers, which means the average person will lean more heavily toward new when buying a harness than when buying a main canopy. Another possibility is that substitute goods have kept downward pressure on the price of certain main canopies, and there is no such substitute for rigs. This theory suggests that many canopy owners trade up to cross-braced canopies (at around $2,000 apiece) and as they do they relax demand on the new and used market for regular canopies like Hornets and Sabre2s and Stilletoes; the used market supply of these canopies does not go down (it can actually increase if the owners discard them when they upgrade) and so a normal steady price climb due to inflation and diseconomies of scale (from the sport-industry's growth) is held off. Meanwhile people are buying the same new harness-containers as before because there is no new "high-performance cross-braced super-tiny harness-container" product, and inflation and diseconomies of scale manifest normally in the harness-container prices. An important and simple check for whether the price of something has gone up or down vs. history is to compare the now vs. then prices in dollars of the same year. (Consumer Price Index.) Using a CPI calculator (e.g. [URL http://minneapolisfed.org/Research/data/us/calc/index.cfm]Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis[/URL]) a $1,000 Vector II in 1993 would cost $1351 today without any increased real cost to the manufacturer such as redoing the TSO or a net addition of new parts and labor such as factory riser inserts, collapsing pilot chute, and standard stainless hardware and/or hip rings. A $1,500 canopy would cost $2,027 today without any increased real cost. Based on this it does look like canopy prices have received less of an increase (or even received a decrease) compared to harness-container prices, but it also puts a smaller dollar amount on the apparent harness-container price increase - in the neighborhood of $600 (or $444 in 1993 dollars). -=-=-=-=- Pull.

It took me 41. I repeated my 15 second delay about 8 times until I finally got the relax-and-thou-shalt-be-stable thing. The rest of my high number was practicing to make sure I could do the checkout dive. By the time I was ready for my checkout dive, I was spotting half-caravan loads of fellow solo students at 13k in 55 mph uppers, I'd had so much practice. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I've sat behind an Icon lots of times. Cute rig. (The gal wearing it didn't hurt, either. ) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

How about "reserve inflated 200 feet from the ground"? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

The containers and the harness are not the same thing. The containers are (typically) cordura bags sewn around the harness using medium weight thread. It is this stitching that could fail if the main risers are looped around one or more corners of the reserve container when the main canopy opens. I think you are right that a two-out situation is more likely than complete reserve canopy departure, since the container could be ripped off but the reserve risers are actually part of the main lift webbing and are unlikely to break. However, I would never want a canopy of mine to have to try and deploy through a four-piece, five-sided box of cordura with a pilot chute and ripcord trying to keep parts of it attached to my back. That would be the "entanglement" possibility you mentioned. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Maybe ask Alti-2 if they can sell you the parts that would be appropriate for an Altimaster 3, then see if they'll fit onto the Saphire? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I had someone say I thought too much last Summer when I said I thought there was something wrong with having the door partially open at 200 feet. I wasn't thinking enough to put my finger on it until the next jump: we close the door on takeoff because we're still wearing our seatbelts and we want to keep our pilot chutes inside the plane. Later I read some stuff Bill Booth and other inventive riggers came up with, and how they thought stuff through and came up with reasons for rigging things certain ways. I was stunned - way more detail, thinking, planning, what-ifs, and testing than I ever realized. So for some parts of this sport, I don't think anyone can think too much. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Without a map, I can't say much about this. Are there large open areas scattered all around? If so, landing away from the wooded area and away from the runway could have been a great plan. What was the "wooded area" like? Lots of super-big trees, or brush and small, flexible trees? Did he land in a bare scar or glen in the middle of the wooded area, then had to walk a long way out through thick terrain? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

?????This makes no sense. Planes have so many more out than we do. We only have one chance to land, they can power up and do it again. I understand if the airport doesn't want skydivers landing there, but if that is my only out then I will surely land there. It's better for someone to be mad at you than for you to be injured landing in an unsafe area. If a plane is taking off and is shortly past the "no turning back" point of speed and runway location, if an obstacle appears in front of them they can be screwed - too much energy to get on the ground and stop before hitting something but not enough energy to change direction to avoid the obstacle and keep flying. "Next to" the runway may or may not be in an airplane's way. We assume it wouldn't be in their way, unless next to the paved runway is the grass runway. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I worked for a company that suffered some trouble because someone paid with a cashier's checque. (I assume this is the same as a bank draft.) Turns out, it was a passable forgery and the item was paid C.O.D.. And there are horror stories about checques that take the bank weeks to realize are bad - back in the day (which may still be today) the paper had to worm its way to the supposed issuing bank, who could decide it was NSF or entirely bogus. And a good reason to avoid being caught up in money laundering is (in the United States) the IRS can be very keen to see someone owe triple the quantity laundered. Hope that ain't you. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

A lot of people say they don't pull low unnecessarily. That's good. I also believe them. I expected that but I also have at least one friend who does pull low unnecessarily. (Apparently a few poll-takers are in that category.

I would base it on the nastiness of the tangle and whether it was my gear. For a simple step-through on my own rig I would do my standard packing checks (I do these every time; I don't want to open a step-through I didn't realize I had). For a nasty tangle on my rig, any tangle on any rig where I could not guarantee the risers were not disconnected, or any tangle on someone else's rig I check more carefully. (I don't tend to do an every-line check; I tend to do sort of a "ten-line check" - inside and outside line from each riser plus brakes.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

A Cypres save incident elicited comments a jumper should TuG. (Or TuB.) Without getting into the seriousness of a Cypres save, or repeating the "I was told to TuG but now I'm a decent skydiver" threads, I wanted to see/show how many people do not pull low, and the reason they don't pull low is that they did at some point previously and they learned from it. I've pulled low (for me; YAMV) a few times and been talked to about it and basically it is these jumps, plus my thinking about it, that prevents me from sucking it down. I can honestly say if I had not been altitude mistaken twice and altitude stupid a time or two beyond that, I would not have a good do-not-pull-low drive. No Cypres fires for me but I mighta scared my Cypres on one of these occasions. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

He is one guy. Skydivers are a group. Statistics generated from a group are not directly applicable or comparable to an individual. I would expect that person (and every individual person we examine) to either be 100% alive or 100% dead at every sampling. (Let's leave persistent vegetative states out of this - they clear themselves up sooner or later.) But skydivers as a whole have neither a 100% nor a 0% survival rate. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

My short answer is if it isn't doing anything dangerous, jump it more and see if it keeps it up. At .95 lbs / sq ft this may just be how it wants to open. After a hundred jumps it may change its mind. And if you're rolling the nose, you could try rolling the nose less, stop rolling the nose and just push it in, or neither roll the nose nor push it in. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Was that a custom harness from the manufacturer to be able to take the removable rings? Or was it an aftermarket harness change? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Another post asks the "quickest" way to set up a tertiary canopy (i.e. intentional cutaway) rig. I'm looking for a method that is least likely to kill the jumper. Options I've heard about include: * Option A: wear another containerless harness under your regular gear and connect the 3rd canopy to this. Safety pro: full standard cutaway system. Safety cons: tertiary cutaway handle could be in a bad place, and the 3-ring system hardware could interfere with the regular rig's 3-ring system hardware. * Option B version 1: have a regular rig that uses large 3-rings, then connect the tertiary canopy and the regular main to the rig using mini risers. In this version of Option B, the manufacturer alters this rig at the time of creation to have an extra cutaway handle in a place other than the normal location, and an extra set of the regular housings. Safety pro: separate cutaway handles. (Some would also call this a "con" for training reasons.) Safety cons: one set of released 3-ring hardware could still interfere with the other 3-ring system. I am also worried that having two risers on the same rings could prevent a cutaway. * Option B, version 2: use a regular rig with large rings and both main canopies on mini risers, but for the tertiary canopy have the cutaway cables and handles (probably one for each riser) mounted on the risers themselves. Safety pro: after the tertiary is cut away, there is little or no remaining hardware to interfere with the other 3-ring system. Also, the tertiary cutaway activation is not similar to the regular cutaway handle. Safety con: in a genuine tertiary emergency cutaway, the non-standard cutaway cable handles / location could be a big problem. And there is still the possibility that two mini risers on each harness ring can prevent a cutaway. * Option C: get a harness specially built with an extra set of harness rings in a different place. (I believe lower down on the shoulders.) Safety pro: minimal risk of cutaway hardware from the tertiary canopy interfering with the other cutaway system. No risk of an impossible cutaway due to having two risers in each harness ring. Tertiary cutaway activation would typically be a handle in a different position from normal. Safety cons: very few; the extra harness ring after tertiary cutaway could cause confusion or interference in case of an emergency requiring the regular cutaway and/or reserve handle. Some of these ways also have practical cons, such as comfort (two harnesses) or getting a manufacturer to actually make you a harness/container with an extra set of harness rings. Anyway, I'm looking for comments on the safety of these various ways. Like some other jumpers, I'm keen to try out some different canopies that I have no intention of landing at this point (e.g. rounds) but I don't want to be jumping jury-rigged rigging to do it. (Someone I trust when it comes to harness rigging suggested both versions of Option B to me, and the first of those is probably what I will end up doing.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

How high can you set them? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I think the people who say the Caravan "doesn't climb well" are comparing it to some other turbines. A Twin Otter with -37s does climb a lot faster. I personally like the relaxed pace of the Caravan, compared to hanging on sideways in a Super Otter. I don't know if I believe the ability of this pimpination to "double or triple" the climb rate of the Caravan. One of our pilots says our Caravan climbs at something like 700 fpm ballpark average. OK, doubling that to 1,400 fpm is within the realm of believability, but tripling it to 2,100 fpm I find hard to believe. But I'm just a jumper, so I guess I would have to wait and see and jump. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Short-answer: use food-grade silicone spray lubricant. Second short answer: the danger of WD-40, like many petroleum derivatives, is that it eats some plastics, including Nylon. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Which part of the canopy is the foreskin? Perhaps I'm unsure because I'm a gentile. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Sometimes I get this. I call it "lack of faith in the gear" and I find jumping more (and making sure my gear is in good shape) helps. Also, after I open and perform any initial rear riser dodging and before my controllability check, I check my yellow cables and handles. The yellow cables going through the white loops are at about eye level so it's a quick check. Then I feel my handles in the harness to make sure they're in place. This gives me an additional sense that my canopy connection system is operating 100% connected, and as long as I don't personally do something stupid I should be good to the ground. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

My precision is 1 second; my accuracy is closer to 5 seconds because I don't use a Neptune or equivalent. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

If the Kodiak is $1.1 million new, isn't that significantly less expensive than a new Caravan? I seem to remember at about 10 years old a Caravan was $1 million, but I am not a professional in that field and I didn't spend a lot of time looking a lot of places. I love the Caravan, but I guess the single-sided exhaust is a double-edged sword: on the one hand it smells a lot nicer during hotloads, but on the other hand I am told it meant the stock engine has less horsepower than an engine of that size normally would and upgrading to the more powerful versions of that size engine is not an option. Maybe after I jump a PAC 750-XL a few times I'll have more of an opinion on two-sided exhausting centerline turbines. A question on the Kodiak: does anyone know if it has been certified to fly with the cargo door open? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

The density of lead is 11.4 grams per ml. The density of water is 1 gram per ml. The density of air is about .001293 gram per ml. (If anyone sees errors here, please point them out.) So lead is about 8816 times as heavy as air on a per-volume basis, and about 11.4 times as heavy as water on a per-volume basis. That means in both air and water, lead will reduce buoyancy a lot for every unit of volume of lead someone is carrying. Being dragged to the bottom of the air is OK for us skydivers but being dragged to the bottom of the water is a problem. -=-=-=-=- Pull.