FrogNog

Is there a reason you don't want to replace it with original equipment equivalent? The original line that's in there isn't expensive.

Fine by me. I get there 3 hours early only to find my plane is canceled and I have to wait an additional 3 hours for the next one, anyway. I might as well get all the non-confiscatory, non-detention attention in line I can. Plus, I stopped feeling special when they made everyone take off their shoes. I used to travel in hiking boots with steel sole stiffeners so I already took them off and put them on the x-ray conveyor to have a shot at not beeping in the walk-through. Hmm. The FBI should copy-edit their notices before sending them out: - prices cannot be inexpensive, they can be low / small. Goods can be inexpensive. I bet with the clue level of the TSA screeners, wearing a wrist-mount Alti-3 onto the plane would upset them after they hear about this. (skydiver: "But it doesn't tell time, and it isn't inexpensive!") -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Some canned replies to that are: 1. that's why we need tort reform. (Yeah. Reverse the trend of a million lawyers by voting.) 2. if you don't like it, move to another country. However, I commiserate. Sometime not too long ago, U.S. citizens figured an additional inalienable right not formally recognized by the U.S. Constitution, but extant nonetheless, is the right to sue anyone for anything bad happening pursuant to the respondent's involvement. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

When I was a student I was taught something slightly different: a landable canopy. It all boils down to what you think you can safely land. (Or, put another way, what you want to land.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

What is the expected span? I wasn't told they needed replacing at any # of jumps, I figured just check for wear. -A I heard they should be replaced at the same number of jumps risers should be replaced. I was told that was approximately 500 jumps. The reason behind this replacement, I was told, was that even if they aren't showing significant wear, as they get old they can have a highly increased risk of "sudden unexpected abject failure". -=-=-=-=- Pull.

There are also some items that are based either primarily on # of jumps (e.g. replace risers), or a combination of # jumps + time (like Cypres batteries). I would certainly inspect risers on a calendar basis for visible wear, and "inspect" the Cypres battery (i.e. calculate its age and number of jumps) every time I get a repack, but knowing for sure whether I don't need to replace those items would require me to know the number of jumps on each item, therefore I would need to have made myself some logbook information on these components. edited to add: plus soft links, if I had them. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Narrow leg pads are just barely wider than the webbing. "Wide" leg straps/pads have extra material to make them significantly wider than the webbing. I would guess that most student rigs have narrow (a.k.a. "non-wide") leg straps/pads. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Part of the preflight for a DC3: * if you don't have to step over an oil puddle, engine oil level is probably too low. * if you have to step over an oil puddle, engine oil level if probably OK. * if puddle is too large to step over, something else may be wrong. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Only history, now. [URL http://images.google.com/images?q=frankenotter&hl=en]Frankenotter at Google Images[/URL]. (For people like me who are too noob to have seen Frankenotter.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I've seen this guy do at least a couple with someone I think has cerebral palsy. (Not sure how many total he has done with this one woman who keeps coming back.) [URL http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/photos/popup.asp?SubID=578&Weekly=1&page=4>itle=Week%20in%20Review&css=%2Fphotos%2Fgtitle%2Ecss&pubdate=12/24/2004]Vlad at Skydive Snohomish, Snohomish WA[/URL] (This picture is not that jumper, but it is that TM.) I believe her legs are strapped together, and she has a lifter strap that connects her leg binding to somewhere else on the harness. I believe in freefall her legs are extended, and under canopy the TM uses the strap to lift her legs and secure them. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Ah, cut the guy some slack. It's not his fault he's stupid. Besides, I can respect someone getting the heebies when they see an airplane with lots of seat belts but no seats. I just look at it as an "aquired taste" to appreciate that ... ... beautiful sight. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Does mildew do anything bad to ZP and untreated nylon other than discolor it and make it stink? If not, I suppose "serious" would depend on your point of view. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I don't own a PD Sabre; I jumped a PD Sabre 190 and I loved the smooth front riser flying and the great flare power. Otherwise it felt like it flew like a Triathlon with a flatter glide. The forums did not lie about its openings and for that reason alone, I will never own a PD Sabre. I am personally concerned that even if I tamed it by slider, packing, and black magic, a crippling (literally) opening with my name on it (figuratively) could be in there one day. *cough*searchforums*cough* YMMV. Also, Phree's query about whether this is really a real canopy, and if so whether you mean it is a PD Sabre 170 or 190 or what, adds to this question. My advice is to jump it and see. If you pack it yourself, the seller isn't putting magic open-slow dust in there when you aren't looking. YMMV. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I am going to have to veto this idea. This drill is a formula for linetwist. I do not know how this got into the SIM, but it is insane without detailed instruction on how to perform the maneuver. ... I am not saying that we should not teach aggressive turn reversal. Nothing could be further from the truth. What I am saying is that we cannot give a loaded gun to a child without first teaching them how to use it. I think this is in the SIM because it was a "good idea" that didn't get a full-bodied safe teaching implementation worked out for it. Some students (e.g. me) are taught that this is a recipe for line twists because of the slack-line issue (as you detailed in your post), and are told what to do about it. I was a scaredy-student so I worked my way gently up to the "maximum-performance" (as if I could have measured that ) mark. Should I assume telling students something on the ground and hoping they are chicken enough to do it gently a step at a time is not an ideal instruction method? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

You may be completely right about his being wrong, and perhaps about his background vis-a-vis his apparent claim to background, as well. But recall that even professionals in their fields make mistakes and can't remember details - sometimes critical details that explain why something works. And in those situations, it's good for someone to pipe up and suggest corrections. If I recall with a chuckle, there still isn't aviation engineering agreement on whether airplanes fly because they generate lift on top of the wings or because they just shove enough air down. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I know, that's not something that just "unties". I was mentioning both the "really bad" brake misrouting and the "not so bad" misrouting (like passing the toggle between the upper brake line and the riser and then stowing it regularly) at once. I was just responding to a question of "has anyone else done something like this" and my answer was "I've done some almost-as-bad things I chose to fix in the air, and I did this on the ground but got it fixed before I jumped." My problem in both cases was twofold: 1. There's sure a lot of lines! 2. The screwups aren't always visually obvious. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Based on previous posts on similar issues, I think some of the answers you could expect are: * loading a canopy like that to 1.3 lbs / sf won't make the canopy fly more dangerously than loading it higher. * jumping a 150 sf eliptical canopy at 1.3 lbs / sf at 280 jumps' experience has many risk factors other than the wing loading. * at 280 jumps' experience and a desired wing loading of ~1.3 lbs / sf, an XF2 or Stilleto may not be necessary to provide the fun and performance you desire in flight. A semi-eliptical (i.e. tapered rectangular) canopy could fly just as well. Or, if it does not actually have as large a performance envelope, it almost does and it will not try as hard to hook you in when you make a minor mistake, and it won't try as hard to spin up on opening. I don't personally have enough experience to say any of these things myself. This is just a subjective, opinion digest of what I seem to recall reading on these forums before. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Plenty of people have untied knots in their brake systems at 2,000 feet. I've had a couple myself. Some people have doubtless tried and given up and done something else. And some have tried and ended up in the incidents folder. Last time I moved a canopy to different risers, I tried wrapping my brake lines around everything else. The DZO-rigger unscrewed it for me on the ground because he was watching. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

That makes for a good rigging sanity check: weigh the rig before and after. If the rig got 5 pounds heavier because of your pack job, maybe something isn't right. ;) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I find the cadmium plating on my 3-rings is rubbing dark, shiny stains onto my webbing. I'm guessing this is cadmium oxide. It looks bad enough on the yellow half of my webbing that if I got any light colored webbing again, I'd go stainless. Maybe the right answer is to go with all purple webbing next time. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I would like to point out that landing under an inflated & flying canopy, no matter how heavily loaded, will cause less damage than landing with nothing out. (Except landing in a fast turn. And except for fatal head injuries as someone else pointed out, which kill just as dead as any other fatality.) So in that respect, a heavily loaded reserve is way better than nothing. I won't comment on my reserve loading because I'm not a HP canopy pilot. (Neither my canopy nor its pilot is high performance. ) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Yeah, I hear that. It took me 3 hours of doing nothing but thinking about it (and driving) to get to about the 60% acceptance/admission/learning point with both pieces of my left fibula. Another 30% in the cast, and another 10% in physical therapy. I think survival instincts immediately after a hairy situation put us on the defensive. Look at the bright side, two minutes (or even three hours) isn't all that long in the big schema of things to come to admission. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Mm, yeah, my favorite: lifesaving equipment made by the lowest bidder. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

The only things bringing the slider down past the links has ever done for me are: 1. increased the amount of unproductive work I have to do to my equipment between deployment and landing 2. gotten in the way (I don't have any sort of keeper on my primary rig, so anytime I look down and turn the slider gets right behind my skull) 3. helped unstow my brakes for me. (Not something I need help with. ) So now I collapse it and leave it up. YMMV, of course. I did what works for me. [220 lbs OtD estimated; Hornet 190 Sabre2 150] -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Thanks for the info guys..I'm curious, why do you go a little bit bigger? What does that do from a flight or fitting standpoint? He doesn't have to eat nothing but salads when he goes out. Seriously. -=-=-=-=- Pull.