ChangoLanzao

Very cool portraits!

Those are Way Cool shots.

There ... I fixed it for ya

It would be nice to get a clear answer from the FAA, but as other have indicated, just get a repack a couple of weeks in advance, or as Stratostar said, it's way easier to change a six to an eight and nobody would even notice it

I'm not sure I understand your point here. We both agree that it would absolutely be legal to jump that rig on the 24th. Are you saying that it is not legal on the 25th, but that you think a confused jury might think it is? Please explain that, and explain how the written law leads you to think this. No ... I am saying that regardless what you or I think is legal, there are people who might be convinced that it is not legal to jump the rig on the 25th. The error in your thinking is that you think it matters whether you or I think it is legal on the 25th. What really matters is whether THE FAA thinks it's legal. Why take the risk of having to present this argument to the FAA inspector who asks to see your data card as you are boarding the plane on the last day of the boggie? At that point it wouldn't matter if you are right and the FAA guy is wrong. You'll have a lot of pissed off skydivers in line behind you The law might be clear to you, but if you try to get on the plane on the 25th, I wouldn't be surprised if an FAA guy also thought it was pretty clear to HIM and he disagreed with you and caused the flight line to come to a halt.

First off, thank you for taking the time to reply. I appreciate that you are willing to put some thought into the question, and post it for all to see. For your reference, FAR 105.43 contains: (b) The reserve parachute must have been packed by a certificated parachute rigger— (1) Within 180 days before the date of its use, if its canopy, shroud, and harness are composed ... I don't see where the time of the repack is relevant. The requirement is that the repack is "within 180 days before the date of its use". It doesn't say "within 180 days before the time of its use". The requirement is bound to dates, not to times within a date. So, we're back to the question, "Is yesterday 1 day before the date of its use"? If yesterday is "1 day before the date of its use", then it is an easy thing to count back to the 180th day before the date of its use. The repack must have been done on or after that day. Using the concrete example from the OP, he wants to use the rig on 25 May 2009. If you count back 180 days from there, with 24 May 2009 being "day 1" of that counting, you get to 26 Nov 2008. If the rig was packed on or after 26 Nov 2008, it is legal to jump that rig on 25 May 2009. Do you agree? If not, which is the last legal day to jump the rig. I think that it would *definitely* be legal to jump it on the 24th. Whether or not it is legal to jump it on the 25th is going to depend on how good a lawyer is at confusing a jury. Some lawyers are pretty good and some juries are pretty stupid ;-)

Not meaining to pick only on you, Hackish, but once again, a non-answer to a simple question. He asked how long his repack is legal. He didn't quite reveal all his needs. Another part of the problem is working a CYPRES maintenance into the mix while avoiding unnecessary down time. Anyway, the question of when the repack expires is not a new one. If the people who are doing the checking don't know the right answer, then we all bear the brunt of it. So, please, somebody tell me if my answer was right or wrong. If you think the answer is wrong, please explain why. I think your answer is wrong because you need to specify the exact time of day it was packed in order to precisely determine the legality. "within 180 days" means "within 4320 hours" (by definition).

I agree. It seems to me that the only real issue with Racers is that many rigger simply hate packing them and even charge more for packing them when they do.

The cost of the physical board inside the unit is very small. The cost of the physical unit is also small. Probably to the tune of about $300 out the door. The expensive part is the R&D, the support, the advertising. With a staff of 5-6 people you probably need margins of $1m per year just to keep the doors open. That's like selling more than 1000 new units per year, every year. I frequently deal with the same misconception. Hey, if you reflash the computer in my car it doesn't cost you anything - why is it $500??? Well, true but not true. What about the 3000h of unpaid time to figure out how to do the performance reflash? R&D is a bitch. With every AAD you buy you're paying some of the labour for those engineers and programmers and testers who developed it. If, after 20 years they just replace all the innards of the AAD then how far is that from replacing the entire AAD? It's probably cheaper for them to replace than open the unit up to replace the electronics inside. In both cases they need to run a full battery of tests. Since the unit itself is not that expensive to build the labour costs quickly eclipse that. -Michael I totally appreciate what you're saying. The reality is that you also have to keep your existing customers. I don't see how Airtec is going to be able to do that unless they bring down the cost of ownership for their customers. My impression is that they are totally unconcerned about that and that they are banking on the fact that they have a reputation for being in business longer than the competition and capitalizing on the fear that their existing customers have of switching to something new.

I've justified the sewing machines by promising to reupholster the sofa for her. That seems to have worked, but now I'm on a timeline

OK ... so, assuming that everyone is being honest and nobody is trying to rip anybody off ... this indicates that the materials used in the Argus are superior and have a much longer device life. The engineers of the Argus must have a better handle on the "bathtub curve" in order to be confident that their product will not be automatically obsolete after exactly 144 months (plus or minus 3) from the date they are put into service. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is just how deep is Airtec's "bathub curve". Why do you suppose that Airtec can't simply UPGRADE the internals of their units (with components that have a, shall we say, shallower "bathtub curve") for the people who have already shelled out the $1500 for their units instead of making us throw out the units we have and purchase completely new units that are not as long-lived as their competition's.

That IS scary. So this can happen any time ... it just gets more likely as time passes?

You're right.

OK ... BUT the units do a complete self-check every time they are turned on. If any of that stuff you mentioned goes wrong. F - A - I - L So .... where's the beef?

Yeah, they want to sell you a brand new unit for $1500 bucks! Nope. That doesn't answer my question. That's not a good reason. I would really like to know if there is one.

This one's legally FREE I Want To Fly - Atomic Cat

I don't mind the occassional cloud showing up just below me in freefall, but after my experience falling through "rain" described above, I won't go up with a tandem if it looks like we'd be looking for holes and dodging wet clouds.

I read somewhere that different lubricants are used on different brands of tape and that when these lubricants get deposited on the little roller thingies in the camera, the mixture from the different tapes used becomes gooey and causes lots more of those little squares jumping all over the screen

So, you have looked at a used DV tape through an electron microscope, eh?

I never re-use tapes. Tapes are cheap compared to how much I get paid for the video. But, I'm sure that the quality is not as good on a reused tape as on a virgin tape. Whether you'll notice it or not probably depends on many factors

I don't use anything on my camera (XTi). The only time I've had a problem with moisture, I fell 1800 ft. right through a wet, juicy, fluffy, cumulus cloud. Afterward, I noticed a drop of water on the center of the lens, INSIDE! I figure that the rapid external pressure increase caused the camera to suck the moisture in. I set the camera and the lens in a warm dry environment for a day and the water drop disappeared. I don't know if neoprene would have helped in such a situation because the front of the lens would be just about the only area through which moisture could get sucked in, perhaps making the problem worse inside the lens. Anyway, I'm not going to test it. Best to avoid going through a cloud with the cameras. Amazingly, I also wore my PC120 on that particular jump, with absolutely no protection on it either and the moisture didn't seem to bother it one bit. I'm amazed at what I've put the PC120 through over the years and it just keeps on working.

It's the same reaction you get from many people if you tell them that you ride a motorcycle. I think the reasons this happens are pretty analogous.

Talk about timing... there is a new RSL thread. Yeah. I noticed The way those RSL threads go, it might not be so bad to start fresh occassionally.

It's best to be polite, especially with newbies. Nobody likes to be told that they are asking a stupid question. There's no such thing as a stupid question, right? ;-) So why imply to someone that they are being stupid for asking a good question? That's how "do a search" comes off to people who tend to get easily annoyed (even some skydivers!). It's better to just be polite, answer the question briefly - if possible - and include a reference to the old thread or the FAQ.

How about magnetism? Can someone explain that to me? Here ya go!