tdog

I once asked my insurance agent (for one of my non-skydiving businesses): Can I be sued for that??? He said - "Yes, you could be sued for wearing the wrong color tie. Would it stand up in court? Probably not. Would you pay a lawyer to convince the judge tie color is not a crime. Yes..." He then told me a story: "True story. My customer was a porta-potty provider. He delivered a blue plastic portapotty to the sidewalk in front of a home, not even on the property. The contractors who shit in the toilet also built a shitty foundation. The homeowner purchased the home and found the foundation needed to be rebuilt. The homeowner pulled the general contractor's records as part of the discovery process and sued EVERY contractor who provided goods and services. Insurance companies won't go to court for less than $10,000 or so... So the porta-potty company paid $10,000 to fix the foundation, so did the electrician, the roofer, the drywaller, the tile guy, the plumber, the landscaper, the engineer, etc... Get enough $10,000 settlements - and you got yourself a new $150,000 foundation!" End of true story. So I disagree with JPs assessment... Just because you are bottom of the list on assets doesn't mean you are not going to be looked at in a lawsuit. If they can get $5,000 from you it is $5K more than they had. They will claim you have assets, like your rigs to sell, even if you are a homeless DZ bum. I think more important than the LLC vs Sole Proprietor vs Corporation argument is the DZ waiver and how you conduct your business as an instructor. DZs with crappy waivers are not instructor friendly as the lax attitude by the DZO will expose the contractors/employees... Does your DZs waiver name contractors and instructors along with the DZO as the named parties??? All that being said, a properly run LLC can't hurt...

Yes our opinions are different. I still don't see reference to battery changes and future airworthiness guarantees by a rigger at the time of packing in the FARs you quote??? I agree, there is no reference to recording future lifetime expirations in the FARs. I believe one would do this, but not required to do this, to cover ones butt and to inform their customer of their responsibilities. But at least both opinions have been expressed.

MEL, I am not saying I am adopting the practice of the post I linked in my last post. I am just keeping it on file... If I adopt it on a case by case basis, or across the board, or not at all - it will be my decision. I posted it to share info, not to advocate... But - to your three line items: 1. "I never have found an FAR that allows me to do so." I have never found an FAR that doesn't allow me to do so. Specifically, I have yet to see in writing from the manufacture and/or the service center that they believe a unit with a future battery expiration (any date in the future) is not airworthy to be packed at that moment. I have in fact, the opposite in writing. Nor have I found a FAR that requires the rigger to certify that the rig will be airworthy for the entire pack cycle referencing the AAD or any other component. Part 65: It seems by the FAR that the responsibility to maintain the AAD lays squarely on the jumper and pilot... Since item "C" is a new bullet point, and the preamble does not mention "rigger", "C" doesn't have anything to do with riggers. 2. "The potential for the end user to continue to use the rig is very great." They could pencil pack it, they could jump it post 120/180 days, they could repack it themselves and buy a seal press with your seal code or jump it unsealed, or do just about anything. Try to tell a jury that the failed packjob was not yours when the last entry on the card was yours... Hence, I personally believe in the "know your customer well before packing" rule. 3. "If the rig is used past the "shortened date" and the guy goes in. There will have to be some sort of negligence... If the rigger documented the card "don't jump after", and gave the customer a statement in writing, and it was jumped, where was the rigger negligent? If you are gonna be sued for a frivolous case, you are gonna be sued no matter what you do. I will just bring a bunch of gray haired mechanics and riggers to my case, who the gray haired ladies in the jury box will respect, who will discuss all the time limited components of aircraft that are allowed to remain in use after an officially required inspection that will time out before the next inspection.... They will say this is standard practice in aviation. They will also say they cannot find a FAR or manufacture instructions that require skydivers or riggers to act differently. And they will all say that the rig was presumably airworthy at the time of inspection and pack, that a time limited component was well documented, and the user - not the rigger, was responsible for maintaining the AAD after the repack, per FAR part 65. Step it up a notch. Have the customer sign your own log book, after writing in their own handwriting, "I understand my AAD batteries will expire on X date and I will not jump the rig." Again - I am not saying what I am GONNA do for one or all of my customers, just arguing a point that people with different opinions believe.

I don't know if this is a "loophole"... But yes, the pilot could get in trouble - just as if the pilot had a rig that was out of date on the packjob itself. I asked SSK some questions via e-mail. They actually sent me this link to an old post to answer my questions... Kind of ironic that it predicts the future in this 2006 post... It answered a lot of questions - and as the manufacturer's opinion, I am keeping it on file. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2385171;#2385171

I know quite a bit. My customers are insurance companies, mortgage companies and banks. Oh, and Circuit City too, who just went bankrupt. Its fun to blame the taxman for everything. In fact, the taxman keeps accountants employed, so my argument failed there too. However it is no secret that government regulations (cost of doing business in usa) and union wages and legacy pensions and benefits have caused GM and Ford to struggle in the global economy.

I just spent the last few days (it is 11:30 PM and I just finished) going thru over 700 business credit card purchases I made in 2007 to prove I paid X city sales tax for a X city audit... And if I paid, god forbid, Y city sales tax on a costco purchase, and drove it to my office in X city, I had to calculate the difference between X and Y city and pay interest and penalties. It's called Use Tax. It makes sense if I am going to buy a $10,000 widget online and avoid tax. It is abusive to make companies audit 700 transactions, purchased at known national retailers such as Home Depot and Best Buy, averaging $32 each. The auditor could have just said, "tell me about this .com puchase here" and ignored the rest. Government slows down production via hundreds of taxes. My favorite was the justification I had to give on why I did not pay sales tax on the sales tax I paid. Oh, I owe a few dollars it appears, maybe $100 tops. And the city employee spent so far over 100 hours on my case!

I think Cypres 1 owners need to consider when their battery will be due next, as it is a common practice for a rigger to refuse to pack a rig where the battery will expire in the packjob... Hence, if you are 5 months away from a battery expiration, previously that rigger would have packed your rig - now the rigger will replace the battery too...

Actually - it is my understanding that the manufactures often sell at a higher unit cost to the military as they have to add components that meet certain specifications, and adding those components can be profitable, and often the administrative nightmare of dealing with the government is higher, thus requiring added admin costs. For my previous post - no this was not a military version of the AAD. Many manufactures ofter military discounts to military members for civilian use on the same civilian gear any of us buy - in the same way the movie theatres offer student and military discounts.

I was told, by a military friend, he was contacted by Vigil offering a military discount. Perhaps contact Vigil USA and see if you can too.

That's funny - last time I brought my dog to the DZ, he asked me why all the humans pissed on the bathroom floor... Just a matter of perspective I guess.

I am going to quote someone else in response to the original poster. Shropshire, sorry I am going to give you a bit of a hard time, but you are the perfect example. This whole thread has turned into "Tunnel time costs X, skydiving costs Y". That is not the point... I MUCH rather be in the sky. I have a tunnel 10 minutes from my office, but only fly a few times a year for myself with my money... However, the tunnel IS THE TOOL for learning freefall skills. After dozens of hours of tunnel time coached on formation belly work, now I am using it for freefly skills. Hands down, I tell all students to go there for their coaching, as do I. A coach jump at the DZ costs 2 slots, gear rental if needed, and a fee to the coach if they charge. That is between $55 and $100 depending on who pays what. You get 40 seconds of working time where the coach cannot stand on the net and correct what is wrong before moving on. In fact, I almost refuse to do coach jumps with students unless the skill cannot be worked on in the tunnel, such as exit counts, tracking, exits and major separation recovery - in addition to alti awareness and canopy control. Here is the deal, and why I quoted Shropshire... I never have flown with Shropshire, so I don't know if it is true or not - but they claim they can't fly for shit. The tunnel has the power to transform, and is transforming, skydivers to be better skydivers. When you can't fly for shit - your enjoyment of skydiving is hindered. When you can fly, because you spent some cash to learn, you get invited on big way invitationals, you are a trusted member of the base or 2nd plane captain on boogie big ways where you have to get in as 20 people will dock on you from both planes, produce and/or jump in television commercials for money, and in the epic sunset tracking dives, you are "in" and not "out". Even if you like whimsical freefly jumps, you will be able to fly around your friends in a sit and put gum on their shoes as a joke instead of touching them only once - on exit. Falling from the sky and saying "I saw you in freefall, dude" gets old after a while. You need the skills to challenge yourself and move on to make this sport rewarding. There is a modern trend with some, if not a lot, of skydivers - to freefly after 20 jumps and never go back to belly work. Those are the guys who never get in a sitfly dock, or if they do, it is sloppy and rough. My final words of thought: I was on a 50 way and a very, very, very well respected freeflier asked to be on it. Airspeed was organizing it, but this freeflier soon began to help. He started coaching people on cross referencing, fall rate, levels and grip management. I asked him after the jump, "That is weird, hearing a freeflier talk about crossreferencing." He said, "Our VRW team had to learn belly flying all over again and we spent hours getting coaching on belly formation skydiving, then took those skills and kept them, but turned our body to head down - and that is how we improved our skills. So, in the long run. It does not matter if the tunnel costs more or less per minute. It does not matter if it counts towards a jump or not in student progression. Dollar for Dollar - someone with good coaching in the tunnel will progress farther and quicker than someone without.

I went there last February to Paraglide... AWESOME. The Paraglide site owner (French) told me that he was a former professional skydiver, and still had a rig at home, but there were no Costa Rica DZs so it was well out of date. So I would say, leave your skydiving rig at home... And grab a paraglider.

So simular that they use photos of the Bedford tunnel in their "media" section? http://www.aerotruba.ru/en/media.htm

No longer on this list: http://www.uspa.org/tabid/147/Default.aspx I know nothing else.

I put 4 jumps on a 135 (loaded 1.7). I found the canopy to be a little more sporty with more range on the controls and a real nice flare. Openings very nice. Lots of range on the toggles before stall. Very zippy turns. Two of my landings were with a 180ish front riser. I got a pretty nice plane out too. I think you should demo one... I know if I was looking for a 7 cell I would get the Storm over the Spectre. Heck, I would have gotten the Storm over my Sabre 2 that I use for wingsuiting. Also, I don't think any other manufacture can compete in this arena, PD has a real unique product.

I went back and read your post. You did well.... I did not see it the first time. P.S. You have a lot to offer. I saw an AFF level 2 take the first step to save a tandem pair's life when he saw something wrong with a drogue, it does not take 10000 jumps to be valuable.

Did anyone answer your real question yet. 1) It is sad that you have to wait for packing lessons. I remember one AFF student I taught how to pack after his level 1. We had a busy weekend so I hired him as a packer for the rest of the weekend, and he also got done levels 2-7 and packed his own rig for his first solo... He had a lot of energy, but still.... You shouldn't have had to wait. Ok - leg turns. Best to learn in the tunnel, but if you can't then learn in the sky. Put both hands under your chin keeping your arms neutral so you can't use your arms to turn. Think about which way you want your bottom half of your body to turn. If you want to turn counter-clockwise, the back of your body needs to turn right... So drop your right knee while thinking about pointing that knee down-and-to-the-right. To do a clockwise turn - drop your left knee. Screw it... I am actually working on some training videos as we speak, so I will do a quick animation. See attached. The guy is pointing his right knee down and out, so the back half of his body will go right, thus a counter-clockwise turn. To do a proper center point turn, once you get the leg turns figured out, then turn with your arms too and the equal input on arms and legs will cause a center turn.

My perspective has changed once I became a rigger. Last time I kicked out of some nasty diving line twists, my brain thought: "I really don't want to pack the reserve today, hick harder dude!"

I had over 100 roll overs and 100 spin stops in the tunnel before practicing in the sky. Your "partner" will want to wear a jumpsuit with grippers, grabbing skin thru the jumpsuit hurts... NOT MY FAULT. He should have known - no rig + no grippers = gotta grab something. ;-)

Did you send the video to the local news channels? I know here, video with such great detail, gets shown on the evening news, with a reward, as part of the "crime stoppers".

Notify every rigger in your region. Do it often. Sooner or later the rig will need a packjob. Keep your eye out on the classifieds here, craigs list, ebay and other auction sites. Do a police report with the serial numbers. Pawn shops, at least here in Colorado, are required to share the database with the police. When I had an employee steel from me the police cross-referenced the serial numbers and the "people of colorado" sued my employee on my behalf and I was able to garnish his wages and get all my money back and then some.

Apparently Apple cannot seem to figure out how to make a profit on $.90 to distribute a song when they only have to pay $.09 (10%) to the artist. I think a 10 times markup should pay for some software and internet access. An Itunes press release said it has sold 4 billion songs to 50 million users. 4 billion * $.99 = $4 billion bucks in sales (ok, I rounded up). If raw royalties cost $.09 then they have made 4,000,000,000 - ($.09 * 4,000,000,000) or 3.6 billion iBucks after paying the artists. If apple can't figure out how to pay the artists a tad more without cutting into their 3.6 billion iBuck profit after royalties - I will go back to downloading for free... After all, the reason I don't pirate is because I want the artists (especially the unique non-mainstream ones) to make a tad too. Oh, $3,600,000,000 bucks iProfit before network expenses / 50,000,000 iUsers = $72 per user. If they can't build a network to distribute music for that - then WHAT IN THE iHELL ARE THEY iDOING???? Yes, bandwidth costs some money, but it is not like they have a huge factory stamping CDs... Here is the news: http://www.9news.com/life/entertainment/article.aspx?storyid=100887&catid=343

If a container opens in the field, it would be very hard for the reserve bag to stay in the container and to insure to the rigger that it was not harmed the entire way to the rigging loft. The ONLY way I would seal up a container I packed the first time, where the PC popped in the field, is if I was there every moment and the bag stayed in the container the entire time, with the flaps closed.... One moment out of my site, then sorry - needs to be repacked. This is a pretty lame reason not to get a skyhook. Now, if you said the inflated reserve drug the tandem pair across the runway because the TM did not release the RSL before cutting away, then besides for slapping the instructor, I would say you have a valid argument for better skyhook training, not eliminating the technology.

Office? Is that one of those electronic typesetting machines? I always get confused where to put the paper. Besides for the fact the paper used on modern packing data cards is not traditional paper, it resists water and tears, thus would have to be printed at a printshop, and with how often my friends "wash" their rigs due to the swoop pond - it kind of matters... The real reason I (we) don't print my own - the FARs by the FAA in the USA are very clear as to what is REQUIRED to be on the packing data card. The question becomes, is additional data on the card binding, specifically - if you tell the skydiver the battery expires, does that note or date wash your hands from liability of packing a component that will "expire" in the window of the packjob? Or does it admit fault in writing that you knew the component would expire? Of course, in the description field I could write anything I want, including a "do not jump after" note. However I have two written opposing opinions from FAA DPREs as to if writing an "expiration date" is legally binding and if a rigger can pack something that will expire in the period. We all can look at the FARs, but anytime I have two FAA appointed individuals interpreting the rules differently, it is clear in a court case we would spend a lot of time on the subject... This is what the FAA Riggers Handbook dated 2005 says, and as an official FAA document, would carry tons of weight in a court case or administrative hearing, especially if I could use it to protect me. Unfortunately, it clearly states that if the AAD expires within the 120 packdate including the grace period, then it can't be packed, and a lot of riggers do not allow battery expiration's within the packjob... When 180 days comes about in the USA - unless this document is rewritten, Cypres batteries will be replaced more often, unless the customer is very diligent to pack their reserve on the same cycle as the batteries... And cypres units will be sent in earlier than normal for their 4 years, although that will not add cost to the lifespan of the rig. And - god forbid you have a cypres that is 11 years, 6 months and 1 day old... Since it will be 12 years old within the new 180 day packjob, this document clearly states many riggers will refuse to pack it.

I wish EVERY reserve card had that... I can't tell you how many times I feel real bad when a cypres battery or 4year is due in 110 days and I can't pack it because the last 10 days would be "out of limits". The inconvenient TRUTH (sorry Al for taking your thunder) about 180 day repacks is that..... It will be even more of a pain in the ass when a cypres 4 year or battery is closer to it's 4 year date and I can't pack it because now the battery is to expire on the 170th day when under a 120 day cycle it would have been a-ok.... Seems like we as riggers should be able to pack something up and tell the user you can jump it until the last day of the soonest to expire component....