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How much is an Hour ?

Thats exactly what I mean. I just thought it was evident to anybody discussing this issue. Thanks for clarifying, Ron.

No thats exactly what t means. The risk of using an Argus is definitely not worth the risk of potentially bringing an entire plane down. There have been 3 confirmed incidents with one death. In your opinion, how many incidents are needed to confirm the danger of an Argus ?

I think you see this a little wrong. One of the major development concerns of airtec when they began developing the cypres was the cutter. A lot of R+D went into this, as the task is not as easy as it might seem. To this day every cypres cutter is manufactured under laboratory conditions. As the Argus issue proves more than anything else, it takes more than copying an idea to make a reliable life saving device.

If you can do 10 sec. you can do 15 without any issues. Just make sure you maintain altitude awareness.

You can probably consistently do that. I sometimes notice the chest strap being pretty tight. I would definitely put my canopy in an unstable position if I held on to the toggles long enough plus it puts me in a position where I couldn't immediately initiate a turn. Maybe the difference lies in me tightening my chest strap more for freeflying ?

Do you loosen your chest strap with the toggles in your hand, or do you let go of the toggles ? If I loosen my chest strap with toggles in my hand, my canopy does some pretty funky shit, and I have sabre2 loaded at 1.45. I don't want to imagine what a more aggressive, more highly loaded canopy would do.

I just wanted to add my 2ct. to the whole ZP top skin and F111 bottom skin issue. AFAIK the reason canopys are built this way are the following: A ZP Top skin will not let as much air through as a semi-porous F111 top skin. Since a canopy creates lift by the air flowing faster over the top skin than over the bottom skin (Bernoulli effect), a F111 top skin would let more air seep out through the fabric, distorting the airflow, reducing lift. This effect is much smaller on the bottom skin because the canopy is pressurized and the bottom skin only creates 1/3rd of the lift. The advantages of having a F111 bottom skin and internal ribs are probably cost, pack volume and ease of packing.

Do you mean the old or the new FreeZr ? The old one is Huge ! And I Mean motorcycle helmet huge. I would not recommend it for anything. The new one is great, I know a few people that use them for freeflying/RW and tunnel work. They are expensive though.

You apparently have some time to surf the web: Read: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3894693;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed; and http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3033162;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed; As an Instructor I will say, nobody will let you jump camera and its stupid idea. Put your Go Pro away until you have the required experience.

Troll ?

The guy that did it was using a stilleto, not the most modern canopy, but a fairly modern canopy none the less. He could land on a dime almost every time with it. Especially for beer. Thats exactly what my post intended to state.

Quote1. How many pro swoopers do you see land that way? 2. How many aircraft land that way? 1. Maybe not everyone wants to swoop. This is a proven accuracy technique, its used by the old farts at our DZ, former German champions. 2. An aircraft can slip to decrease speed before landing. Impossible with a flexible wing without ailerons and rudder.

and Thanks so far everyone for the great replies. I was thinking of a similar training approach. It also coincides with Andy9o8's opinion, which I cannot refute with any credible argument. Now if we think this further, the jumper will ultimately use his audible altimeter in the "correct" fashion(Seperrate, pull, 2000ft;-)). How complacent, waiting for the beep or the break off of ones accomplices, does one get ? I know that I've been alerted at least on one or two occasions by my own audible, or the break off of my friends, hearing my own audible a fraction of second later. Since we all have audibles on freefly jumps, I seem to think, we have the same amount of audibles as we have jumpers, how likely are they all to fail ? I think this may contribute to a certain amount of complacency at a more advanced stage in ones career. Now is it safer for everybody to set their audibles to "oh shit" altitude ? Definitely not. As far as I can put this together with some personal experience and your input, it would be the to train with the altimeter set to "oh shit" mode(Doing solos, coach jumps, and maybe briefed beginner jumps). Using it the correct fashion once one has progressed to a certain point, say perhaps 100 jumps or proving to maintain altitude awareness in general. PiLFy's(gerne ;-)) experience proves that an audible would help students. Its also serves as a backup for failing primary gear.

Good day everyone, I'm in my first year of being a SL instructor. After my students get their license I still try to do rudimentary coaching until they have about 100 jumps. Since this is a very small Cessna DZ I'm one of the only people they can go to for advice regarding pretty much anything involving skydiving so I want to ask your opinion. So far I tell my students/freshly licensed skydivers, they should start using an audible altimeter when they reach 100 jumps or more because I feel it is important to develop Altitude awareness and a feeling for free fall time. Even at a 100 jumps, I sometimes think this is to early especially when starting new disciplines like freefly. This only increases the dependency on technology that can ultimately fail. On the other hand, they do make skydiving a whole lot safer, and modern audibles are very reliable. So what do you think ?

If that deters them, they have the wrong attitude to begin with ;-)

AFAIK: the Argus cutter has a circular blade as opposed to a wedge shaped one. The Problem of the loop slipping to the side and not being cut completely is also an issue with wedge shaped cutters, thats why Airtecs cutter has the little plastic tube, to center the loop. The cutter has to have a little room to the sides, this creates a gap in which the loop could get stuck n. The gap is necessary, otherwise the cutter would get blocked when fired. I don't know whether the Argus developers wanted to solve this by problem by designing a cutter with circular blade. Maybe someone else knows more about this....

Yeah the cutter can lock the reserve loop instead of cutting it. It happened in Poland a short while ago because of a mis designed cutter. I don't think its a question of directly copying the code. It's more that the general concept was copied. Using a cutter to activate the reserve for example, this is originally Airtecs idea. I don't think that the code necessary to calculate air pressure and compensate for lee effects is that complicated. I just don't like it if a concept is copied, but not copied well. See the Argus cutter for example. Same goes for the multiple revisions of the Vigil. More R+D would have put out a better product from the beginning. Factory inspection would find potential flaws not found in the R+D process. Airtec knew, that they can't possibly find every flaw in the R+D process simply because of usage and aging issues which cannot be predicted or tested in during R+D. Thats why they also first had a non field replaceable cutter, so they got their hands on every unit that fired, they needed to gain experience.

It's basically a restriction of a CPU. To verify 100% that a CPU is functioning correctly you have to run every possible state that the CPU can be in, then mathematically verify the state being correct. This is impossible to do with a limited amount of time and resources. Airtec uses motorola CPU's, Motorola gives a lifetime on these Chips a less than the life expectancy of a Cypres. I think its around 8 years, I can't remember exactly though. Airtec however runs these CPU's with very little voltage decreasing the thermal wear and can so in good conscience, give a lifetime of 12 years. How did they get their good conscience ? The tested the shit out of the Cypres every four years. Out of every single one. Not just few Test Cypres - Every single Cypres out there. This lifetime Guarantee is still a compromise between optimal reliability and customer satisfaction. 12 Years is not an arbitrary number. It's a combination of experience and the lifetime guarantee of the chips manufacturer. Now you may ask if a Cypres has a lifetime of 12 years, how do could Airtec know if the units are reliable. This is where the 4 year maintenance comes in. How do competitors know if their units are still operating as they should after 4 years. A selftest is good, but as explained before, not 100% accurate. As explained before: Airtec is basically trying to find the best compromise between customer satisfaction and the best possible reliability. Any manufacturer giving an unlimited life expectancy on a life saving product without regular inspection is at least a little negligent.

You do realize that electronics get old and their functionality cannot be guaranteed over a certain period of time. Airtec takes the safe approach and limits the lifetime of the Cypres. To guarantee the safe functionality of a Cypres after 12 years they would have to essentially give you new unit. Even the most sophisticated self test can not eliminate the possibility an error in the CPU. Aging electronics increase the risk of computational errors, increasing the chance of failure in whatever way.

I recently bought a Rainbow Dragster Suit. I have 400 Freefly Jumps and some tunnel time. So i', not the most experienced guy out there. The suit with parapack ass and knees costs 420 EUR. Before that I used polycotton Freefly pants and sweatshirt. It's a huge difference. I was really amazed. If you want to freefly and are gonna spend money on a suit I would definitly recommend a high tech suit, I can only speak for the Dragster though. It gives you a great range on your belly as well, I use it to film Tandems also.

I grew up speaking native English but moved to Germany when I was 12. I went to an English school for the first 6 years of my life, a German one for the rest. Sometimes I really wonder how bad the spelling of a lot of Americans is. Is this an indicator for the quality of the American school system ? just wondering.....

Yeah I've made this experience. I also realised that most free flyers go through a phase where they think they are really good now. This is normally when they can sit stably, take the first docks and are just able to fly a stable head down. They think they're really good. Maybe it's in this phase that people start giving advice and talking hot shit. Sooner or later they will however realise, that they still suck and have a shit load to learn. This when the comprehension sinks in that you will never stop learning in this sport. I think this also comes with age and maturity. Anybody else have similar experiences ?

You're giving stupid advice ! Pulling higher than 1000m is dangerous especially if you're jumping in larger groups, with other larger groups behind you in the plane ! Just food for thought !

But don't forget, front risers will only result in a longer ground distance in a head wind. With a tail wind you would reduce the covered distance...