skytribe

I'm not exactly sure but they were double brake lined on the reserve, with additional loop through the cat eyes on brake lines. The elastics were in good shape and this was a subterminal cutaway, no spinning or high speed drama. The toggles were held with velcro and this was in great shape at last inspection/repack. The container was not old / worn out. This was the instructors first cutaway and not used to large velcro toggles so releasing the brakes was a little different from normal rig. But either way the net result was the elastics were torn on one side and the partially torn on other.

Not always - I've seen them ripped out on a reserve that uses elastic toggle keepers and from the video and instructor comments it opened on-heading without any brake firing or turning. I will say that the most common cause of blown keepers is incorrectly set brakes though and have seen this often with low experience jumpers.

But the units still function allowing people to utilize them after service life. This is what makes this even an issue. If they stopped working after service life then this would be a non-issue unless someone wanted to really go to town and hack the software. The fact that the manufacturer says it's up to the user after service life is also a bit of a weird statement.

So I dug up a reply direct from Airtec last year. Again, this could be construed in a number of ways. Up to the user or regulations of the country. Well the regulations state " "(c) If installed, the automatic activation device must be maintained in accordance with manufacturer instructions for that automatic activation device." Well the "maintenance" is performed at 4,8 years. Is retirement or end of life considered maintenance and that the manufacturer has stated in communication that after 12 years it is up to the user OR .... leaves a bit of ambiguity in there. Why not simply state that the device should not be used after the service life - 12.5 or 15.5 years. That way it is very clear - in fact from a software point of view they could disable the device at end of service life - ie. unit would not turn on. They are able to determine when unit requires service. And for the record you bring me an old AAD past its service life - I'm not packing it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------- Holy thread diversion our dear skytribe!!!!!!! You are the first person to mention "warranty"during a debate on AADs! Warranty only relates to repairing manufacturing defects during the first few months after it left the factory. NO parachute component is warrantied to save your sorry ass! Even with the best manufactured, assembled and packed parachutes will not keep you alive if you make too many mistakes. All the early Cypres retire after 12.5 years. Only Cypres 2 - made this year - will be factory-maintained by Airtec and only before their 15.5 year retirement date. The intent was not to divert the thread but more to say what is written by airtec rather than what is implied. Why would a company service anything beyond its service life. Do they think people are getting stuff serviced for use as a paper weight. Take a look in the manual for reference to 12.5 years. Page 40 is the only reference.

So for cypres is it stated as service life or warranty period. If this is the case why do airtec/ask service AAD after 12.5 years ?

Ask Sunrise to know when the change was made and which rigs may be affected. The fact a change was made is probably telling you there is an improvement to the design, which may have been as a result of incidents/additional testing etc. Change is made for a reason. This is not a product recall/service bulletin item. The old design is still valid, as that's what the rig was TSO'd with. However, the newer design is an improvement. If upgrading to a reserveboost MARD, upgrading the pilot chute to the newer design seemed like a bit of a no brainer.

Except in the event of a canopy collision. And before you say that's a rare occurrence. So is a snag on camera helmet.

USPA administers that program so I'm sure they have a list.

Yeah, thats just a leather hat not even a frap hat.

Yep the loops that the link inside the bag connects to gets damaged first in my observations. Whether a hard or soft link is used always seems to be the first sign of wear.

Anyone have the contact details of some frap hat manufacturer ?

With maintaining the gear at a drop zone which uses single brake line setups I have yet to see a brake line break. We do track the usage on the gear and replace linesets on a schedule. Probably 36-45000 tandems in that time. Yes we do use Strong containers and so the risers are set up for a single ring and if you stick to the manufacturers rules you must use Strong Risers. If I did have a single brake line break I'm not landing rear risers with a perfectly good reserve on my back and a student on the front. If you're deciding to land with just one brake line on one side (on a double brake line) make sure it's the not just the pickup flare toggle.

http://www.strongparachutes.com/library/Documentation/Tandem/Newsletters/2010's/2014-Vol%2042-August.pdf

I was curious on the setup differences of brake line setups between the Icarus canopies and the Aerodyne A2. I currently use single brake line setups on Icarus 365. No brakes need to be set and it works well. I know there are a number of different double brake line setups as well that you can order. The A2 as far as I can tell and from info from Aerodyne has one configuration. A double brake line setup that requires both brakes to be set for deployment. I know you can common the 2 brake lines onto one toggle but that would still require extra time/steps to untwist brake lines and set both. Anyone tried any alternative brake line setups for A2.

Once again I'll remind everyone that PIA is an industry trade association of competitors volunteering to try to address industry wide needs. With one part time employee. It is NOT an independent agency and is NOT a regulatory agency with any legal powers. The goal was to try to identify any systematic problems across the industry. In spite of this thread issues are not confined to one manufacturer. This was NOT to provide comparison between particular companies for jumpers. As I said the data was blinded even to most of the committee members. If it wasn't done this way there would have been NO testing. No manufacturer would have participated by supplying their equipment and they would not have approved PIA money for public comparison data that might have been used against them. A couple of manufacturers had data on PC drag force in real freefall but not many. This is the most data about PC drag forces and bag extraction forces across the most rigs in real conditions that exists and is public. Since it was mentioned in a meeting open to the public Sunrise did not respond to an invitation to participate, Parachute Labs refused to abide by the condition of not using the data for advertising and so did not participate, and another manufacturer was coming out with a new model as the testing took place and decided not to provide their old rig. A second round was anticipated with other U.S. and non-U.S. rigs but last I knew is not currently planned. (I wasn't at the last meeting and haven't read the minutes that just came out to members today.) All of the volunteers have their own businesses to run. This amount of testing took two years and a substantial portion of the PIA budget for those years. This is not an industry with 100's of millions of customers and trillions of dollars in sales like the world wide auto industry. And an associated industry, the insurance industry, with a vested interest in calling out unsafe products. Please say thank you to those of us that spend our own money and time or our companies money and personnel time to try to address industry needs. Right now without PIA there would be no universally accepted specifications for hardware and materials for parachutes. The 'Mil-specs' were abandoned by the U.S. government in 1997. PIA has filled the void. There may be nobody that knows much about parachutes writing the TSO testing standards if we left it to the FAA. SAE choose to end that responsibility in 1994 (or so) with TSO C23d and PIA picked up the slack. Someone come up with 10's of millions in funding for an independent testing organization and I'll go to work for them. I am about as independent and small in the industry as anybody can be. I've never worked for any parachute component or material manufacturer or commercial dealer. A sell a few pilot rigs as a convenience to my rigging customers. And I'm welcomed into PIA and able to participate in the TSO specs committee, the risk management committee, the rigging committee, (past chairman) and the technical committee that sponsored the testing. This may be frustrating and not satisfy many in the sport. If you don't like what PIA does write a check, submit an application and get involved. You'll get a vote equal to that of Airborne Systems or UPT. Okay, rant off. But I'm tired of people that don't have a clue saying that PIA should do this or that. You mistake my comment for saying what PIA should/shouldnt do. The statements of fact are that they carried out a study which was very limited in scope and actual testing which the results were only made available to those that took place in the study on the proviso that the results were not made publicly available for marketing purposes. So I reiterate that this is really not that useful to jumpers wanting to make informed decisions relating to purchases. The IIHS analogy was something that was done independently of the manufacturers and does involve a lot of money but has resulted in improvements in car safety and better design. The skydiving industry is a lot smaller with many characters stating there design is better because of A/B/C when others in the industry differ. Having some independent testing would be really useful to determine the validity of some of the claims. This was not a dig at those that performed the testing, or the general issues that were raised but more of an ideal way forward.

So taking a look at the data, it shows some potential problems and a very small amount of testing done and no way to identify the rigs in question. So this is of no use to the jumper wanting to determine how their potential choices of rig actually performs in these tests. Think how the IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety) testing has radically changed the safety of automobiles. They perform various tests and publish the results, naming the vehicles with poor results. Negative results effect sales and therefore the manufacturer pays attention to improving their performance in the testing.

Perhaps a call to Sife would be a good option to get their opinion. I'm sure they have packed a few PD reserves and can give you good advice.

I guess sometimes the manufacturers are transparent and will publish sizing details and make publically available - unfortunately this information is not easily available from sunrise. I've assembled a rig which was sized by Sunrise and questioned with the owner how tight the rig was. Sure, they were brand new canopies but it was "incredibly" tight and I told the user to contact manufacturer. Next time I saw the rig - the container looked the same (colors etc.) but the serial number was different - questioned the owner and he said they had rebuilt a bigger container. The RPC on the wings container is certainly not one of the best and the changes which have been shown are evidence of a quiet change by the manufacturer which I suspect is performance related. .

In my experience of questioning people who are single stowing the locking stows, its because they have bought into the myth of double stowing causing bag locks. I simply refer them to PD's videos/blogs and tell them this information is coming direct from the manufacturers and based upon tangible evidence and not anecdotal stories about a friend of a friend who knew someone that once saw a bag lock. Which do you see more frequently - hard openings or bag locks. ? Bag locks are such an infrequently seen malfunction more likely caused by something other than a correctly stowed double band.

Tend to agree that going back to original bag and double stowing elastic to see if that reduces the occurrence rate. Sliders are rarely the initial problem. Slowing down is also incredibly important. Giving yourself time to come out of track and get big and slow down. Also take a look at pilot chute size as well. PD have done some great articles and interviews on the subject but people often don't examine this advice first which will often eliminate some obvious causes.

Couldnt agree more - people these days get obsessed with downsizing quickly. Jumping a canopy that gets you down safely in all conditions and really learning how to fly it is a way to stay in the sport for the duration. Downsizing too quickly and hurting yourself is a recipe for an early exit from the sport. As for new container and old canopies. I would say buying decent used gear that work is a reasonable idea. I've seen some really nice new rigs get scuffed up dirty real quick as jumpers crash land while they are still learning. It is possible to buy and older container and have it re-harnessed for about 400 bucks which then will make it fit you well. Use the saved money for jumping/coaching etc.

Dream on on a reharness for that price. Possibly a mlw adjustment but look to spend a lot more on a reharness.

Did the person who told you to get a uspa license tell you why ? BPA license is just fine if you want to jump around the world. Now it may be a different answer if you want to get instructor ratings in specific countries when having a license issued in the country could make life easier.

Try Brian Germain ( http://www.bigairsportz.com/ ) I'm sure he'll have the details.