FrogNog

Looks hard to launch from a 182, too. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

My last business trip (and, technically, my first) I got my seat at the gate and asked for exit row. I was sorta tired so I didn't think it through when they asked whether I was in fit shape to be an exit row guy and I said "oh, sure, I open airplane doors and jump out all the time." I qualified and got that row (yay, footroom) but the attendant was a bit concerned and finished with "well we shouldn't need you to do that on this flight." The seat was too cushy; it didn't feel right. Anyway, back on topic, I had flown (ridden) in 737s several times before I started jumping. But commercial airflight tended to scare me, so I did some recreational flying with a private-license friend in a 152. After that, commercial air flight seemed SO safe! All this time it never occurred to me that I would one day seriously jump out of flying airplanes. Several years later, I hadn't flown in anything for a long time and I got into a 182 with 2 other static-line babies, a jumpmaster, and a pilot and flew out over that "scented" farmland. The ride to 3.5k seemed to take forever in that terrifying sort of way.

I sure wish people would stop telling us what to do with our own rigs. Suggestions are nice, but what I do with my rig is my business so long as it does not affect the TSO Kinda makes you want to go buy some tape and put it all over yer rig, doesn't it? GRRRR! -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> BTW, my beautiful yellow and orange S3 finally arrived and we both cannot wait to get in the air! Picture us! -=-=-=-=- Pull.

My instructors have never told me to do that. Maybe it's because they saw I tended to do it naturally. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Yeah, but you didn't quite have to pay to rent 48 wet piloted Porter hours by yourself to get there, and your average jump was probably more fun and certainly more varied than the ones on this record. We mortals are better off jumping a few times per day and giving money more directly to charity. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> It's a common occurrence on a lightly loaded, slow opening canopy with a low aspect ratio, and long(er) lines, like the Spectre. Makes total sense. OK, I feel all better now. :) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Cypreses are treated like a gold standard because they have been around longer, and people have more exposure to them. Personally, my studenthood was always jumping with a Cypres AAD, not any other. All my jumps were uneventful from an AAD standpoint, but when it comes time for me to pick an AAD, I know what a Cypres looks like, how to turn it on, and I have jumped with this mystical creature attached somewhere to my back a few dozen times and it hasn't hosed me yet. I was instructed that the Cypres was the first of the "current generation" of AADs; that all AADs that came before it were inferior in significant ways, and that the Cypres was the first one that had such good reliability doing its job when it should and not doing its job when it shouldn't that the tide on AAD use began to turn based on basically this performance record alone. I know of few or no facts to back this assertion up; it's just what I was told / the impression I got based on what I was told. I think also a lot of mysticism comes with an AAD, because for better or for worse, sport jumpers are not in position to seriously test all aspects of their AADs operation. (To do so would be suicidal.) So we have some natural superstition about whether one AAD is better than another. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> Towards the end of the 24 hours the sliders were starting to stay up ... but they were working just fine being packed up soaking wet. Are you saying that the sliders were "sort of staying up" or "staying partway, but not that far up" or "staying up longer, but still coming down in a reasonable length of time"? Because if it isn't one of those, then it seems to me that sliders staying up is not "fine". Or maybe the deal is "toward the very end of the 24 hours, the sliders were starting to stay up, which is bad, but the rigs were working OK being packed up wet for the first few hours before that." Not that this really applies to me, since I probably won't be jumping any really wet gear soon. Not 20 times an hour, at any rate. ;) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I don't know the answer to this question, but because I might find out in the air one jump and not like the answer, I (will) have a hook knife. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Ah. I didn't know that the Student model cypres does not have its firing altitude entirely moved to 1000 feet. I'm also very glad to have heard this after I'm off student status. In fact, now I feel better that the expert cypreses I jump with now will provide me the same coverage I was expecting from the student models. So, I have to retract my suggestion of using a student cypres, because now I see it doesn't buy him anything. Maybe he should find a dropzone where the runway is on a lone 150 foot hill. :) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

If they only have H&P altitude and you're nervous to do a solo, just go static line. I was S/L progression so for a long time my "comfort zone" was exiting the plane as close to 5k as possible. The words "45 second jump" struck terror into my heart. Now, I agree with you that having more altitude for an unknown rig is a nice thing. Two jumps ago I transitioned from ripcord to pull-out and I did a 10k solo and did half a dozen main handle touches. (Again, being from S/L, I never did handle touches before.) I was greatly comforted to find that this slightly changed handle position (BOC) was more natural to reach in freefall than my good old buttcheek ripcord. With details about the rest: I think it's normal to be nervous. Personally I never remember it's my own packjob until after I'm on the ground - I'm just concentrating on other stuff. But other students I was with said they were nervous. My first solo jump was super nervous. I couldn't stop thinking about it for a couple days beforehand. Then real life happened and I stepped up like I do every time I jump and reality wasn't as scary as my imagination. Plus you can be slightly weenie on a solo - step exit instead of dive, no pressure to do all these maneuvers right and in time or FAIL (just have to keep your altitude awareness and pull on time or you might fail ;). Your packjob will probably be fine. Slider up, lines in the middle, the rest is appearance more than anything. (Disclaimer: I have 41 jumps.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> What makes a Student cypres more dependable? > What makes it less flexible? I meant that using a Student cypres instead of an Expert cypres set to a higher altitude is more dependable in that the "alternate" altitude setting would be more dependable. That is, using a Student cypres at its default setting to get a 1,000 foot cypres fire would be more "dependable" than using an Expert cypres with a +250 setting to get a 1,000 foot cypres fire because the human factor of adjusting the fire height is removed. Just blink it three, sit back and watch it count, and all done. The "inflexibility" is also comparative; a Student cypres left at its default setting will of course always be set for the same altitude, and that will also always be 1,000 foot. The question originally posed asked for a 150 foot raise, not a 250 foot raise, so the Student cypres (left on its default setting) is not fitting the bill precisely. If the person in question decided all of a sudden that he wanted it raised by 50 feet or 400 feet, again the Student cypres (left on its default setting) would not match exactly - hence my labeling that solution "inflexible." Personally, I dislike the idea of custom-setting a piece of life-saving equipment every time I jump, especially if there is a decent possibility that I could be setting it "worse than normal" as easily as "better than normal." Just give me something that works the way I want it to without custom settings, and I'll practice turning it on and verifying it works normally every jump. And, yeah, the lower vertical speed bar to fire the Student cypres would probably totally prevent swoopage. There may be napkin canopies small enough that full forward flight might set it off. I think the best thing to do to make a cypres fire 150 feet higher is pull 150 feet higher yourself. You should trust your own pull ability far more than the cypres. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Wouldn't it be simpler and more dependable (if less flexible) to get the student model of cypres, and simply cease all wicked maneuvers by 1250 feet? (I guess this would rule out swooping.) Having just come off student status, I am of course biased toward the student cypres. :) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Luxury jump: your rigger packs your main for you, and from then on out you are tended to by at least a pair of attractive members of the opposite sex: * help you into your rig * tighten stuff down for you * check yer straps * carry you to the plane (need more than 2 for this, probably) * in-flight snack served by your two helpers * they should get the door for you, too. :) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Um, why did the other guy never pitch? Did he land his suit? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

Riding in the plane (182 mostly) was a big scarer for me at first, too. Now (41 jumps) it just makes me nervous, and then only for parts of the ride. I talked to some up-jumpers when I had like 10 jumps and they said you just get used to the plane after enough rides. One guy said 50 but I don't know if I'll be totally cool in the 182 at 50 rides. Maybe 100. :) For me the most important thing is to relax. Actually make your body relax while you're riding, and it will be a lot better. When my back was stiff and the harness was cutting into my shoulders and I would only take small breaths, life sucked. If I relax everything and gently breathe fully, it's way better. I'm gonna try that rubber band thing someone else wrote about. Oh, and whenever it gets bumpy, I find closing my eyes helps. In fact, unless I'm feeling really tough, I always close my eyes for half a minute after takeoff, when we most consistently encounter turbulence. I just imagine I'm driving my car / motorcycle. (The sensation is remarkably accurate, as my ex-wife would attest.) -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> IMHO scuba gloves don't work. I second that, more or less. I use bicycle gloves that are basically scuba gloves. The palms are synthetic chamois, which is good for dexterity, and handles water fine, but the gloves are not airproof so when my hands sweat up (my autonomous skydiving reaction) these gloves let the air evaporate the sweat out, chilling my hands. However, let me say that they're better than no gloves. Freefall from 10k and a canopy ride from 3.5k may leave my hands burning with a bit of warm-back-up pain on the ground, but it's still better than I would be without gloves, and I can reach, feel, and pull all my pully bits great. On one of my early jumps (I was S/L progression), I did my first jump with these gloves. It was a hanging exit. I got out there and hung and looked left, and promptly slipped off the strut because synthetic chamois doesn't hang onto polished metal all that well. That was a nice jump.

> Twists actually make the line stronger by giving a dynamic compress to the fibers under load and thus absorbing some of the kinetic energy applied to the line by allowing some yarns to take the load before others ... I can see where this would make sense, but I believe if the "earlier-loaded" yarns reach the end of their stretchability and begin to tear before all the other yarns begin to load, the result is called "stacking" and the rope can tear completely if the load remains higher than the sum of remaining loaded, not-yet-torn yarns can sustain. The "dynamic compression" dealie is why I thought lines and webbing were made of weaves - allowing the line/webbing to stretch more than some/all the individual fibers could as the weave lengthens and narrows under tension. I do have to admit, IANAE, though. I'd still want my woven line/webbing to be as untwisted as possible so it could function up to its original design parameters. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> No 2 clearly routes the RSL under the Cutaway housing ... While I agree with most/all the other posts I have seen so far here saying that #1 looks / is better, I have to disagree that No 2 routes the RSL under the cutaway housing. When the riser is under any normal load, it will be standing straight up off the main lift webbing. At that point the cutaway cable and housing are also sticking mostly up away from the main lift, and the RSL is too. To me this makes the routing a question not of "over/under the cutaway housing" but "around the inside or around the outside". This may be nothing but a semantic difference stemming from geometry, or it could be something that changes peoples' minds. I looked at both these routing methods on a rig I was jumping for the first time Saturday to conclude my student status (woo-hoo!, beer!, etc.) and I decided that it didn't matter whether the RSL went inside or outside the cutaway cable, because the RSL wouldn't be loaded until a cutaway had been performed, at which point the cutaway housing stops being a factor because it's a smooth, semi-rigid line that is anchored at only one end. I thus found myself concerned only with whether the RSL could interfere with operation (or non-operation

> ... who knows what the wind chill was. Well, it should be easy to compute. Just find someone's wind chill calculator and use a wind speed of 120 MPH / 192 KPH. Basic JScript F calc: http://leav-www.army.mil/weather/Windchil.htm F Chart (only goes to 60mph) including frostbite times http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/windchill/index.shtml English/Metric script calc: http://www.ookingdom.com/metric/windchill.html -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> How hard would it be to modify the corners on the rig ... I think only Master Riggers can modify a rig. So if you're asking how hard it would be for _you_ to do it, then the answer is "pretty hard, if you figure in the effort to become a master rigger." I think your best info will come from the rig's manufacturer. -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> It's great fun to fall below the deflector and enter the prop blast. And by "prop blast" do you of course mean "jet blast"? -=-=-=-=- Pull.

I had sort of thought the "max # of repacks" was intended to be a time limit, not a jump limit. And I thought the reasoning behind the ~10 year time limit was similar to the 5 year time limit on DOT-rated motorcycle helmets: after X years, even though the safety device in question will probably be perfectly serviceable, newer improved safety devices will have been created and your safety can be improved to some degree by upgrading. Thus, this is a forced upgrade deal. Maybe the reserve manufacturers could clarify this by saying "This reserve may not be repacked by a rigger and should be returned to the factory after it has been packed 40 times or after 12 years since the date of manufacture has elapsed." -=-=-=-=- Pull.

> Go silver and save the possibility of losing your cutaway handle Aren't cutaway handles relatively inexpensive and only mildly inconveniencing to get replaced, most of the time? I've heard people concerned about cutting away and losing their main, because it cost them $1,000, and the consensus seems to be "a thousand dollars is worth less than your life." I would expect a similar comparison between handles and life. True, in this case (hard/impossible pull on main pc) pulling the cutaway handle represents a significant chance of losing it whereas not pulling the cutaway handle represents a much smaller chance of unexpected post-reserve main deployment, but I don't care to do that sort of "probability x cost" analysis when one side's stakes go so high, and even if I did, I'd still think $100 for reserve handle (and 2 to 4 weeks without my own rig) on 50% of my reserve rides would be wholely acceptable - I don't intend to have so many reserve rides every year that it would break me. Personally, I consider certain parts of the rig I'm wearing to be "consumable". Cutaway handle is one of those - it needs to function properly once. If it is fit and present for re-use, that's nice but not part of its core design/operation parameters. -=-=-=-=- Pull.