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I dont think you could plane it out. I was looking at the canopy on Monday and kept thinking that it was bigger in my mind than it actually was. The vid I watched and the pic posted on dz.com is very deceving size wise. It hangs there like a toy tempting 30 pund jumpers with gear built for them! Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

The Turbo ZX is a hybrid ZP top and f111 bottom skins and is a 9-cell Specter is a zp 7-cell tapered or slightly elliptical canopy. Best comparison to the Turbo is the PD Silhouette which is a 9-cell square with a zp and f-111 combination construction. The Silhouette is also a very nice canopy. Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Decreased!?!?! It seems to have damn near gone away! Scott C. Post: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Reply To -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No wonder the Cobalt post volume has decreased . . . . "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Brian makes a awesome canopy. I jumped a jedi for a short time a number of years ago and recently purchased a spanky new Signature Series Samurai and it is everything he promised it would be! VERY NICE! I would be interested in jumping the new ***** canopy when the tweeking is done but am very happy with the Samurai. He is dropping the prices but I think that is the sale price plus options. I cant imagine him selling them cheaper than that...... Its a very good deal at less than $1500 Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Hello, My wife has not jumped in a feww years and as a result her Cypress is going to be 10 years old next month. Basically 27.5 months left on the unit. It also needs a battery and an 8 year check. I can let the thing run out or I can toss it up for sale cheap. What is a fair price on a cypress in this condition? Curious becuse I would rather have it get some use over its last two years compared to sitting for a couple and being worth only the trade in value of $60 Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Rigger Rob, That is a funny sig

Bummer. Readig the note you posted it looks like the big reason was the camera flyer situation with that issue then opening the door to other issues. Hope you get another team together at any rate! Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

There was a discussion about TSO'ed and non-TSO'ed gear at the DZ the other weekend. Crappy weather makes for these conversations. The questions that came up were who could legaly pack a rig for jumping in the US if it was non-TSO'ed and then who can jump the Non-TSO'ed gear. This question was based on a jumper that is from a South Africa country and has Non-TSOed gear while traveling in the states. Additionally it went to if anybody could jump it and if a US rigger could legally pack it if they had the manuals. Thanks, Scott C. After looking at the post I want to make sure it was clear: I am talking about the reserve for packing issues regarding a rigger and the reserve and container as a whole for a US jumper i.e. borowing the gear, if it's non-tso'ed. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Here is another way to think about the size of a 21 sqft canopy that made me chuckle: Skyler, my Daughter is almost 3 years old and weighs 30 or so pounds. If you could Figure a small rig and small reserve and she would be loading the canopy at close to 2.0 Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

I saw the video yesterday and it looked great with the belly POV cam. Jeff is just smiling in the plane as Andy leaves. I did think it was funny that the camera shut off on opening, was it hard? There was a short cut right after you see the deployment and the next thing is a fully open canopy. Looked very twitchy! and fast!!

I believe that Kamloops is May 16-19 (F-M) I am not sure when the Boggie exactly starts but I talked to Kapowsin and they are sending the Twin Otter up. I think it is Victoria Day or some other National Canadian holiday on the Monday. My wife wanted to go and see a friend that lives about 5 minutes from the airport. She lured me to drive by planning the trip to coincide with the boogie . It was like dangling a cookie in front of a dog: "Sure, I'll Drive!"

Just one thing to point out about the altitudes you noted and the thinking that you, maybe with more experience, would have tried to correct it for longer. If you were in a fast decent spiral and ended up under a reserve at 1300'. How much more time would you feel you would have had to execute the chop and deploy given more experience? Sounds like no RSL and you took the time to get belly to earth again. Again I think its great you did the chop and congrats on the first one, you did right! BUT given the experience do you think you had much more time than you gave yourself already? Under a spinning 120 a full 360 is going to drop you quick, as should be noted by the height the reserve was open compared to a approx 3000' opening just prior to the spin. I have no idea on the load you have on the canopy but it sounds like you were going fast. this is just something to think about... Believe me I am not trying say you did anything wrong at all, you landed under a good canopy after a problem so you did the right thing. This is just an observation on your description of the event. Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Are you on a 12-step program now? If so I hope you get through it! Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

The altimeter went down in elevation. Eloy is approx 1500-1550' MSL and Seattle is basically SeaLevel. If you are at one of the DZ's around seattle it would be higher or closer to zero on the dial since none of the DZ's here are actually at SeaLevel. The altimeter was probably affected by the lower "end" location compared to its start shipping point. It also could be additionally affected by a barametric pressure difference. Basically turn it the shortest didtance to the "0" Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Elden is going to keep his rigger happy if he goes at this pace! 2 cuts in 3 weekends... Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Did the Night Jumps you were working so hard on coordinating happen with out you? Did you sacrifice all of the beer you had lined up for the night jumps? On a serious note, I am glad you did your procedures just right and are OK! Congrats on at least one first for the day, though maybe not the one you were planning on. I guess the bright side is that you were not on your First night jump with your first spinning mal resulting in your First cutaway, after it being the First time you organized the night jumps for a group of people, though it would have been exciting it would have added up to a lot of beer. The only other way it may have been better in reference to "firsts" is if you were the First cutaway of 2003 for Kapowsin. I think Elden is the proud recipent of that from two weeks ago, sorry. Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

I have had Cordura on all of my previous rigs up until I purchased a Parapack rig. I agree with all of the previous comments that cordura is more durable but the Parapack in my current rig looks very good after about 200+ jumps on it last year (purchased in April '02). I try to keep my gear in good shape and get between 250 and 300 jumps a year. If you treat it well Parapack looks great but if you want to "abuse" your gear cordura will probably serve you better! Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

I have a fully articulated (hip and chest rings) Flexon by Rigging Innovations. It is basically the rig that the Voodoo developed from. They stopped making them in about '98 I think. Very comfortable rig! Probably one of the First freefly "Friendly" rigs on the market! Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

There was an article in Skydiving, I think it was skydiving and not parachutist, a month or so ago. They talkeda bout the set up of the new aerodyne and a little behind the thinking and the company set up. Good article but I think stated that nothing was going to be ofically released until PIA. Somebody probably remembers the wtire up better than me! Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Listed at 181 sq ft. But it is dependent on how they are measured. PIA measuurements are slightly different then some of the manufacturer stated sizes. That said the Raven reserve is about 180 sq ft, give or take a little bit. Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

I jumped a Batwing for about 7 years. Put close to 1000 jumps on it. They are not the most common canopies to be seen. I live in the pacific NW and I think there are only a couple of other Batwings up here. When I was in Georgia a number of years back I was surprised to see a bunch of them. They seemed as if ther were more popular in the South East, north of Florida. I took a lot of grief for jumping one but I had no problems with it and never cut it away iin all the jumps I put on it. It did not like being out of trim but what canopy does. I could fly it well and had better performance under it than many of the people giving me grief. Also a number of the people giving the grief had never jumped one and were just adding to what they have heard from somebody else. The canopy is in the same performance category as the Stiletto. There are some differences and I am sure that somebody will come up next and say how wrong I am. All I can say after jumping both canopies a bunch is that I liked the Batwing better and bought one. First of all I liked the openings much better and it did not seem as prone to the Spinetto moniker, my experience. The initiating of turns was slower with starting a toggle turn compared to the stiletto but once the turn was going they were similar in speed. Also on a Front Riser turn it seemed to be smoother compared to a Stiletto. In a landing turn it would dive a bit more than the Stiletto. I also found the bottom end flare was better under the Batwing and I was able to shut it down in a wider variety of wind conditions. I did find that the Batwing did not like to be really overloaded. It seemed to be happiest around a 1.7 load regarding performance. It was good at a 2.0 load but dropping down to the next sized canopy down from the 2.0 load it just seemed overloaded and was missing some landing performance. The Batwing was a good canopy. It is similar to a Stiletto but there are a distinct differences, some noted above. I would not recommend the canopy, or a stiletto for that matter, to an inexperienced canopy pilot. Both canopies will bite quickly so if you looking to get one make sure you have some experience under your belt. Also if you looking at a used one, find out about the number of jumps on the line set, it will fly poorly if you have a old out of trim set on the canopy. Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Is it only in the magazine? I could not find it on-line! Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Posts: 16001 (31.2 per day) that is sick.... But I would venture to guess someone out there posts a higher average per day! Step Up to the Plate and ADMIT!! Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

Now that is the letter to see what the reply will be. Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"

The canopy still seems to not be a 36 cell canopy in the terms of a design with equal # of cells noted on top and bottom. Who Cares! What I mean is that the terminology used to describe it is not important if the canopy performs better than what currently is out. If the performance is better, people will buy it! The design seems to be an "Internally Supported 9-cell canopy". Aerodynamically if you have a more efficient wing you are going to get more lift. That is what the "internal supports" are designed to do, my guess. Get better efficiency with a smother top skin by postponing the smooth airflow separation until slower speeds and/or further back on the airfoil. This should translate to more lift at slower speeds which will add to swooping distance and ability to shut down the canopy. I will be interested to see more feedback from people that have test jumpeed the canopy. It seems that there have been 3 or so now that have contributed their thoughts. Scott C. "He who Hesitates Shall Inherit the Earth!"