FrogNog

What do you mean by this? Do you mean one of the riser covers? And if so, where - on top of the shoulder on the RSL side? Does anyone have an idea how the RSL got "caught" by the risers? The RSL is going to be connected to one riser on one end (if it isn't a Racer), so it's normal for that end of the RSL to get moved around a bit when the main risers come off the jumper's back and stick up into the sky. RSLs are supposed to be long enough, I think, that this movement won't try to pull/pull on the reserve ripcord. So what happened to this guy that changed that? Did his body swing so far forward under the canopy during the hard opening that the RSL connection point on the riser was at the maximum possible distance from his nape (where the RSL goes around the bend to get to the reserve ripcord) and the RSL length became insufficient? And if it's something like that, was that RSL the correct one for that rig? I think I'm going to ground-test my rig tomorrow to see if the RSL will pull the reserve in the event I rotate 180 degrees backwards (i.e. feet forward, head back) in my 3-rings. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

If you S-fold the RSL under the top of the reserve pin cover, it can get a kink in it. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I watched the first half of the vid like 3 times because I was all "I can't see the pond. Where is it? What, is this a 'before and after' video?" Then I let it run. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

For me it's anything fruit-flavored and NOT FROSTED. Why, oh, why do they frost them? And why do people put them in the vending machines? A flat shortbread pocket full of sugar with coloring and flavoring does NOT need an extra coating of sugar glaze. Ew. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Are riggers required by the FAA to pack reserves in accordance with the reserve canopy and harness manufacturer's recommendations? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Why would they? Should a writer also experience a train wreck in order to report about that? Most writers do the best they can, of course they make minor errors. Deal with it. I figured ground school wouldn't be as much of a deal as a skydive. I'd sort of expect someone who wrote about a train wreck in any gripping detail to know something about trains, too. But, yeah, they make "minor" errors. Like my driver's ed teacher all those years ago who started in on traction by way of gravity with the explanation that on the Earth's surface, we are affected by gravity, while in the space shuttle, they are not. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

What do I check out first? Package. What do I stare at to pass time waiting to go up? Whatd'ya got? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

That's a very lemonade way of putting it - I'll definitely remember that the next time I landed less-than-gracefully.

In SCUBA diving, fear floats. I guess in skydiving, tense sinks.

Riggers should charge whatever they want. Their quality of work should be good no matter what they charged or what they packed. Riggers should reserve the right to refuse to pack anything. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Yeah, I go with the similar "we all landed unhurt" metric. (I sometimes also feel sad and empty after skydiving days that don't go perfect.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Shouldn't they make the writer actually at least go through ground school before writing something like that? And, c'mon guys, give us some props for carrying two "parachutes" on our backs, in case the first one don't work! -=-=-=-=- Pull.

You mean you could get both the kittens and the kids at the same time.... with just one shot... kewl! If you're thinking that way, you would probably want two barrels with something heavier in the second. * for the record, I am against shooting children, and would never do it (unless they were enemy combatants, and then I'd still feel very bad). I just wanted to make this clear. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Napa is like tough, strong-flavored cabbage. Bok choy (adult) is like green styrofoam. I forget what young bok choy is like. I think I managed to chew and swallow that stuff, so it couldn't have been that bad. It wasn't squeaking my teeth like the adult bok choy. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

In these parts, kittens never end up at the pound because they're too cute. But in front of the supermarket you can get a good shotgun blast in on their cardboard box. Watch out for the kids trying to give the kittens away, though. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

My favorite place is sitting on your sister. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I'm afraid I'll need something like 12" longer risers. Then my arms will be a bit too short. Brian Germain says most canopies are designed with 21" - 22" risers in mind, and longer risers have some suboptimal effects, I believe. (Not sky-is-falling stuff, and he said canopies are so complex that it's not as simple as "adjust x, get y" all the time.) First step, measure my risers. As soon as this nasty June rain goes away I'll get on that. I hope I can find a happy medium (or get the Hornet working swell altogether for front risering), put up with the bucking, or run into some extra money for a different canopy. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

What was hard-core about us? Surely not the way I sit around with my rig on so I can run out to the plane if there's a hole. You should have seen some of us in December and January. Wearing three layers all over and facemasks and stuff. That was great! -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Well, it's not impossible, but it is highly unlikely that her phone would work well enough to call and talk to the phone company in that situation. A ground-collar-dog-urine connection might conduct 90 volts well enough to operate the ringer, but would it be low enough resistance to operate the phone for voice transmission? Same pair of wires. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

It's a never exceed chart that reads 1.0 + .1 / 100 jumps up to a 2.0 maximum for 1000+. Foot notes include manufacturer's maximums may be lower, -.1 per 2000 feet of density altitude, and -.2 for canopies under 150 square feet. Practically, wouldn't that be "up to a 2.0 maximum for 1200+"? Unless the 2.0 lb / sf jumper was at least 300 OTD... -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I'm not ready to throw in the towel on being unable to find a happy medium quite yet. I have fairly long arms and I love my Hornet so far.

See, this is why I said I was going to talk to my rigger about it.

it doesn't matter what we might be working on now, satefy/training issues should come out of any post regardless of it's inital content, if it's warranted (like it makes another jumper wonder about whether or not someone is doing something - like pulling in a track - that could injure them, or worse, if that sort of thing comes out of the initial post). I guess I didn't see anything in his post that made me think he was trying to pull in a track. His post said he tracked for a while, then went to pull, and had trouble finding his handle. I agree that it didn't say he tracked for a while, then stopped tracking for a few, then went to pull, and reminding someone they might want to do this is not a bad thing, in itself. But the post was a request about info on where the handle went / why it wasn't there, and your reply had three words to do with that then went into something related, but far less worrisome in my opinion. (I'd rather pull in a track than not find my main handle any day. Missing handles probably account for more fatalities than pulling in tracks, too.) But, my rebuttal has nothing to do with the original post, either, so I've sunk to a level. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I wear it "belly-fly tight" in the plane for comfort, belly-flying, and fire drills. For freeflying (well, free-flailing) I tighten it up before exit. After opening, I loosen my chest strap until it has slack. I feel my canopy flies fine for the first 15 seconds until this point. Plenty of other people posted like this. I don't think we do these things to make our dives suck, we do them to make the dive better. Assuming people who re-tighten their chest straps at altitude don't know what they're doing is sort of silly. I don't need to feel how tight my chest strap is to know when if I have it adjusted correctly - it's the same length every jump so if the stopper is in the middle, it's loose; at the LMLW side it's medium; folded back to the middle again and it's tight. I assume most people who own their own gear and pay attention to chest strap tightness on various jumps and components of jumps would be in the same boat. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I second that. My Infinity risers (from February of this year) are awesome. Took me a bit to get used to packing them because they're a bit springy, but I'm a pro now, and I can hardly wait for my Hornet 190 to spin up all the way down the the risers. -=-=-=-=- Pull.