Liemberg

My guess would be "not many" If you want an even number of line(groups) you tend to end up with an od number of cells...

There is a WORLD of INJUSTICE out there! The government should look into it! "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

C182P date of mfg 1974 That would be a 'wide body' isn't it? "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Wingload? (i.e. if a manufacturer looks beyond TSO C23D which says something like "so many pounds / that speed / prototype survived in one piece - therefore max weight & max deployment speed" It should be the same for all the canopies you mentioned. Now the young heroin is up in the air with an unscathered parachute above her head, but can she land it? The mfg wonders, the canopies are different, different strokes for different folks....) "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

I 'sort of' lie down and take a little nap...

But you could turn that around just as easely saying that once you end up with 'aerobatics on exit', you need some airspeed to sort things out... BTW: Sitting with my back towards the prop is my favorite in a C182. I do it on my knees (still good, "knock on wood") and my student/passenger can come sit on my lap, without having to kneel himself. I tried it sitting on my bum a couple of times but find it almost impossible to get out that way. "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

We do likewise, but nevertheless occasionally end up with students who land on top of obstacles, in water etcetera. I once had a student who was exactly where she was supposed to be at 300 feet. Suddenly she made a 180 degree turn and landed with the wind, spectacularly crashing. Dumb luck caused her not to hurt herself (other than a few bruises). I asked her what she had been thinking. "I saw the parachutes lying there (she was the third one to land) and was afraid I would land on top of one" "So?..." "You told us not to step on or walk over the parachutes..." And indeed, in the hangar I HAD told her not to step on or walk over the parachutes... Had another student that ended up over the (empty) visiting airplanes parking area. He made a sharp turn to avoid the 'forbidden' area and cracked a vertebrate on landing... So, in the heath of the moment selective hearing may surface and all our wise words and clever emphasis may go down the drain. Apparently sometimes we are teaching the 'mentally challenged' and unfortunately they don't have a sticker on their forehead... (Which is why - back on topic - you shouldn't give them a pilot chute to grab in the first place...) "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

A fatality more than 20 years ago at my first club comes to mind. There, the student grabed the pilot and held on, lines from the main got around the reserve container, FXC fired, reserve didn't deploy, end of story. Should not have happened. Could not have happened. Highly unlikely. Etched in my memory for the rest of my days... So yes, from first hand experience, I'll trade line twists on 50% of all student static line jumps for the avoidance of just one such an event any time. Since that time I have seen bruises in the arm pit, a fractured elbow and even a dislocated shoulder(!) all resulting from students exiting 'different from what had been teached' but at least they started with a huge canopy over their head. With a few line twists - granted - but on a 'student-tug-boat' that is something different than on our own highly loaded eliptical... And (unbelievable but true) once we even had a student panic to such an extent that he landed backward with a line twist on his main canopy... Don't know if he was Irish but he got away without so much as a scratch!!! In my more cynical moods I sometimes doubt that there is a relationship between what I teach and what the students actually do at 'le moment supreme'. Maybe this makes me a lesser teacher than I would like to be but I dont want to take full (moral) responsability for the 'funky' exits on a first jump course, even if they are as 'few and far between' as they are nowadays. Mentioning 'bad behaviour' can not be avoided there, if not for anything else than getting their attention ("You JUMP - that is something different from closing your eyes, letting go of the plane and hope for the best. If you can not cope with that, there is always tandem!") We even go so far as to show a video of a static line student who ends up with his feet in the lines on deployment. ("Now that I got your undevided attention - meet the drill sergeant..." ) Your concept of 'not mentioning bad behavior' may be a good starting point, but there is a bit more to it, I'm afraid. You DO teach about trees and water and dangerous obstacles during FJC, dont you? Well, there you go... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Why does this remind me of a cartoon I saw a couple of years ago, showing a fully equiped skydiver sitting down alongside a road, fraphat in front of him with a 'homeless' sign that read: "Will jump for money!"

Ummmm, yer orbitting near the airfield - what could possibly go wrong?...

And once you have tasted beer, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned towards the source of this god-like brew, for drunk you have been and that is what you want to remain... Omar Kayam? Nah, into wine... ref. to murrays: Indeed, I seem to remember to have a print-out from a post in the rec.skydiving newsgroup attached to the wall at the DZ during at least two seasons. It was a story about Lindbergh's parachute jump and it ended with that quote. I did a google-search on the rec. but only came up with the quote either being attributed to 'anonymous' or da Vinci. "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Now I have the feeling that words I never spoke are put into my mouth... For all I know it was Nils Holgerson who said it first... Projecting human emotions into animals? Are you sure you didn't get St Francis of Assisi mixed up wth Leonardo da Vinci here? "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

A dutch club has one ; you'll find emailadresses in the root of their URL. My guess is they understand and speak English. From what I gather (heresay, gossip, rumours) there are 'childs-diseases'... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Well, then somebody please show me that parchment, like in a notebook or so... Medieval skydiver: "If it's not on parchment, it didn't happen!"

That remains to be seen. He was a painter, sculpturer, mechanic, philosopher, militairy architect and mathematician. The pursuit of flying machines was just one of his many endeavours. "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

1. The quote seems to come from someone with firsthand experience in flying. 2. da Vinci is not known to present HIS assumptions as facts. (Did I put al them green moderators asleep? I would have thought we'd be moved to history and trivia by now...

To me that sounds like a 'poetic' way of saying that life without liberty is not worth living, not a claim of first hand experience with being dead. The "da Vinci quote" OTOH seems to claim just that: first hand experience - it says what WILL happen in the future with anyone that shares the experience.*) Someone who is famous for looking into things in a scientific-technical way and then report back to us on his findings wouldn't say that. Someone with a firm believe in authority and institutions however could easily be seen attributing this to the wrong person...

Henry van Dyke? Again, most search engines come up with da Vinci. My problem with that is that he never actually flew so it would be rather assumptious of him to say something about it & da Vinci is not known to say much about anything he didn't experience firsthand... (What da Vinci did say, according to some, that is...) Charles Lindbergh may have quoted van Dyke in all likelihood, but I'm certain that it wasn't da Vinci who quoted van Dyke or Lindbergh...

Could it be true that the following sentence: And once you have tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you long to return is wrongly attributed to Leonardo da Vinci by so many people on the internet that it comes out of every search engine as a quote from Leonardo da Vinci? hint: In all likelyhood, da Vinci didn't fly himself so why would he feel he could comment on it? Charles Lindbergh OTOH... "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

You can avoid the pivoting bit by boarding the plane backwards.

You get different angles but that in itself doesn't make worthless video. Besides you have to remember that you can film a BIG portion of the jump (the canopy-ride) that a separate cameraflyer can't, because he's already 1000ft below you. i have attached 2 stills from video's and especially the one named 'bulletcam2' shows this very well... (Would even be better if I really knew what I was doing when reducing pixel size for uploads... ) I must say that this aspect was of great concern to me and although I played with the idea, I rejected the glove-with-the-camcorder since I want unrestricted use of BOTH hands during a tandemjump. (Should I say period? PERIOD!)

Either luck of the Irish or the impact wasn't terminal

Since that is the only thing these AAD's actually DO, I find this whole issue a bit nitpicking. The next question is of course where you would cut the loop so that it results in the beginning of an uninterupted opening sequence of the reserve. For some rigs it would be on top, for some near the bottom and for some in between. And indeed, when you come up with TWO tiny loops and TWO curved pins (ATOM legend with french RSL) this could become an issue, especially if the manual itself isn't clear. *) To me it seems that some of you want Vigil to re-invent the wheel. When they come up with "round seems a promissing concept" you tell them: If it cuts a reserve steel wire it will cut any loop in use today. FYI the reserves in most sport rigs with 'of the shelve' closing grommets would function just as well with the same loop material you find in your main container except that you cannot use an AAD with a cutter, since you cant get the loop through the cutter. Other than that, if you pull it will open, so without an AAD-with-a-cutter it is functional... What also strikes me as funny are the complaints about users finding it to complicated to replace their batteries and lots of terrible things that could go wrong there. Are we talking about the same users that could not jump if there wasn't a packer on the DZ since they don't know how to cock their Pilot Chute? The same users that turn the rings on their mini-risers at every pincheck "looking for deformation"? Yes serious safety issue indeed! Finally: The television monitor in our hangar must be over 18 years old and has been at the DZ since 1994. Still works like a charm (but the last five years you have to adjust the colours every time you turn it on...) We do not heat or cool the hangar so for a televisionset these are rather severe conditions. I don't find it to far fetched that no maintainance is required on Vigil other than a self test requiring it. *) The manual says in French AND in English that each pin goes through each loop but at the same time the pictures in the manual AND the drawing inside the closing flap show one pin per loop... The manual is perfectly clear however where they would want an AAD's loopcutter situated. "Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but memory." - Leonardo da Vinci A thousand words...

Just remember that first and foremost it is a mind-game. Happy thoughts: "I'm in control. I remain stable and on heading. How wonderfull to be here - it is certainly a thrill...etcetera"

??? I thought it always worked. O well, so far so good...