cobaltdan

hi alan, with our staged opening technology i can engineer a canopy to take however long to open as is desired. sport cobalts avarage 800'. the tandem was designed for double that. i mearly point this out as from the thread it sounds like some do not believe it possible. ------ "When I was a kid palying with BB guns, my mom would say, "Yes, it's all fun and games until somebody looses an eye." I wonder what she was trying to teach me. alan my mom used to say " if all your friends jumped off a bridge would you" and you know what happened to that one... sincerely, dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

the benifit of taking a wingsuit off a brigde is to gain confidence with exits for a wall jump. fliping head down or worse back sliding off a wall is not good. sincerely, dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

i have a strong fear of heights. i can bearly climb a ladder (sometimes not...its making my A in base a bitch) anyway when i started jumping i also had visual black outs. i always pulled but as an exercise my instructors told me to try and read the tag numbers on the bottom of the plane after exit. it took about 20-30 jumps before i could....each jump your window of perception will expand , you will see and remember more and more until seconds in the air expand to feel like minutes. stick with it !!! and dont worry about being afraid. it just keeps you safe and ensures a bigger adrenalin rush !!! sincerely, dan www.extremefly.com Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

>Anyone that swears that have have 1000+ openings every jump I don't even take >serious on their openings any more. check out: http://www.extremefly.com/aerodynamics/canopies/tandem.html and pay attention to the time code. (note the c350 was designed to open slower than our smaller cobalts as the hard deck is higher for tandems) sincerely, dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

too much fun. jason and troy and everyone involved did a terrific job of organizing the event....smooth.... took just short of a 5 second delay... i have this amazing visual in my head of a smiling rapeler on the way down. just hanging in mid air like a spider on a web. did a 360 to a swim about 30' shy of shore.... again too much fun !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it was great to see a bunch of dz.comers too . dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

i like merrils as they are elastic and i have a thing against laces (i could say it is for safety but its more lazyness). btw. a belt sander removes tread well... dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

new vipers way back when were in the $1200-1300 price range. when we ceased doing business with skydepot, gunther liquidated his remaining stock at prices around $800 which is below cost.... most of his remaining stock had hideous color schemes (his pick of colors not ours)... stuff like frog green with orance stripes, pinks and the like....yuck... off to west virginia for a 4 second freefall

note vipers were less expensive because: skydepot/winchester purchased them from us in bulk of about 150 at time, there were no custom colors. and we had no demo program, advertising or related overhead to cover. sincerely, dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

viper>alpha/space/impulse>cobalt the viper was a predecessor to the cobalt, manufactured by: atair aerodynamics www.extremefly.com not as fully refined as the cobalt, but definately a step up from a stilletto and a very sweet canopy. sincerely, dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

the sticker goes on all our canopy bags, although only the smaller sizes arrive untacked. (larger sizes are less likely to be as agressively risered and are usually perfect with our stock factory setting). atair slinks: i call them "frenchies" as pdf first made the design. there are probably more links of this design than any other being used as they were introduced in europe years before the tabed slink version. they are designed to loop through your lines and risers twice. they are intentionally a bit tight. precision copied the same design and made them longer to allow a triple wrap. but this is just to be a little different. a double wrap frenchie is already stronger than metal link. frenchies: tap is a metal ring about 1/2" diameter slinks: tab is a piece of tape folded 4 times with hot glue and bartacked. sincerely, dan atair aerodynamics www.extremefly.com Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

if you are handy in this way, my recommendation would be to spend the money you would have spent on the calibrated vsi and put it towards a data acquisition card for a pc and a high accuracy pressure sensor. the whole thing would be arround $500. in labview you can program a simple interface that would record and graph your altitude and vertical speed. i can not say for sure but my guess is that a .1% accuracy pressure sensor + a cheap 16bit daq would surpass the accuracy of a certified analog aircraft gauge. (we use a .1% sensor on our jump dataloggers and its accuracy without any kalman filtering is 33'). benefit to the pc/data acquisition set up is that you would have a printable record of the entire test and all variables. sincerely, dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

sorry if this is redundant (i do not usually follow the talk back forum).... who is going to bridgeday......? any plans to meet on friday? dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

scientific supply companies , i.e. fischer scientific , sell vacuum decicators. i recommend an inexpensive plasic version. basically they are a plastic chamber for storing items under a vacuum. add to this item an inexpensive diaphram vacuum pump, i.e. gast, a certified altimeter (pref. not your altimaster), and a small needle valve to bleed the chamber back to atmosphere (simulate free fall) and you are good to go ! (there is a bleed valve on the desicator, but not all are finely adjustable) you should be able to simply assemble a professional system for under $1500 sincerely, dan atair aerodynamics www.extremefly.com Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

hey drenaline, yes, i have also read that pd slinks are usable on reserves. that is the only reason they would need a tso test. btw it doesn't necessarily mean they are any stronger or higher quality than any other manufacturer. soft links are very easy to make: spectra line w/ 2 bartacked finger traped ends. all styles on the market have been tested for their strength and i see no reason why they are not equal in quality. (there are basically 2 proven styles and everone produces one or the other). sincerely, dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

i will post some pictures after bridge day. sincerely, dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

no, the valves are our own design based on patents from one of our canopy designers. but thank you for pointing out that we probably should not use the term 'vtec' as that was coined by another company. i without thinking used it as short for a valved canopy design. sincerely, dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

same group....i think so... falcon probably became eagle in the translation. btw..you do not list your name in your registration... dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

robert works part time for atair (in the factory & in the field) and part time for birdman whose factory is just up the street from ours. he is also on the croation national team and a very active base jumper. i love visiting as robert has all of his european driving directions laid out by base jumps...i.e. drive straight till the 300m chiminey, then left to the 100m bridge, etc... sincerely, dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

hey jari, sorry, i missed you in nyc that night. i just wasn't up for a night out.... the impulse is simply the european name for the alpha. same exact canopy you jumped for the first 2 years i knew you.... i consider us friends and stane and i were quite dissapointed when you moved from atair to icarus. but i fully understood as you explained at the time the terms and that their sponsorship promoted your products in a way that we couldn't match. this is what i reffered to as rich. when that situation didn't work out due to the control issue. i was hoping to get you back on board, but again a offer was made that we just couldn't compete with by pd....business is business....still think you are a great guy, great company, great product, and still help promote you every chance we get. see you soon, dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

just a note: there are other types of soft links besides slinks. several manufacturers produce soft links with tape tabs: pd, pdf, pv, atair .... and several manufacturers produce soft links with a small metal ring for a tab: pdf, atair, precision, etc.... we generally refer to the metal tab soft links as "frenchies". (this is the style we provide as standard on our canopies). both styles are equally strong and neither will scratch your slider gromets (the metal ring is small and resides between the riser webbing. sincerely, dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

most people believe bigger slider = slower opening. this is not necessarily true. there are >many< variables that come into play. i.e. reducing the span of a slider in many instances will slow the opening, even though the slider is now smaller in area. i.e. cobalt canopy sizes 65 through 150 use the exact same slider dimensions ! confused yet? dont expect to find a formula for slider size to canopy size. there are simply too many design variables that effect reefing and opening. and as was pointed out a chart of canopy models to slider size is impractical as many manufacturers change slider sizes as quick fixes for brisk or hard opening canopies. best suggestion is when in doubt contact the manufacturer. they should be able to look up a file on the specific canopy via serial number and give you the information. sincerely, dan atair aerodynamics www.extremefly.com Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

(i posted a quick product annoucement a few days ago but it lacked information....new one to follow) introducing the atair troll vtec canopy: the Troll vtec has a vented bottom skin that improves low-altitude,no-slider opening performance.The vents reduce the time between bottom skin inflation and full pressurization.The vents are made of marquisette pilot chute mesh and span 2,3,5 and 6-cells just ahead of the "B" lines. The pressure inside of a canopy is higher than on the bottom surface.The air normally escapes through bottom skin vents and glide ratio decreases compared to normal canopy. Atair designed a sleeve type valve to prevent this. The valves allow air to enter the canopy but not escape.The glide ratio of the vtec Troll is the same as non vented Troll. Slider up jumps from 4 to 8 sec delay show inflation improvment. maximum tested delays were 14 sec delays.In this case it is very important to roll the nose of canopy and stop tracking before canopy deployment,otherwise openings are hard. sincerely, daniel preston atair aerodynamics www.extremefly.com Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

ditto chuck.... but note that i jump a javelin rs which basically has a square bag. some larger rigs have flatter rectangular bags and i have no experience with gromet to pin packing on them... sincerely, dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

proud to announce that we have finished testing on our bottom skin valved troll canopy. for more information ...... sincerely, daniel preston atair aerodynamics 718-923-1709 ph 718-923-1733 fx Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)

my partner stane (atair founder) just got back from arco where he and a bunch of friends got some incredible footage (i am told...cant wait to see it). the based in wing suits and tied pieces of meat to their wrists..the eagles would soar down in formation for lunch... they are going back next week, i think robert will go too. i'm jealous ...cant make it out till november... sincerely, dan Daniel Preston atairaerodynamics.com (sport) atairaerospace.com (military)