erdnarob

In this particular case we can see that Cypres maker requirements make the solution very weird. I hope that they would just perform the 8 year maintenance (including batteries change). What are they doing exactely at the 4 year maintenance and at the 8 year ???....does somebody know ? Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

I didn't do the calculation for your two solo jumpers but I made a sketch illustrating the trajectories of both jumpers showing A before B and then B before A. I would say that the one (A) doing belly should go first even if opening higher. When the head downer (B), will pass the altitude opening of A, the head downer (B) will have a sufficient horizontal separation from A provided he has respected a 5-7 seconds delay. The reason is that the drift is least for the head downer B since it takes less time for his freefall. But what is really amazing is that if both jumpers A and B, jump at the same time or almost, the head downer B will be ahead toward the Earth with respect to the jumper A due to faster speed of descent and since he (B) opens lower, there is no chance of conflict. What do you think of that ? Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

When I am refering to jumping season I mean the months between April and November like it is in Canada and Northern USA. The two fatalities in Florida involved two visitors from Northern Europe having probably stayed several months without jumping. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

In Canada, according the past 10-15 years statistics, we can see that there are more fatalities in April-May and in July months than during other jumping months of the year. Beginning of the season is always a problem. People think there are ready after 5 months of Winter. Many do not even bother to attend the Safety Day either. Not talking about a good review of emergency procedures. My thought is that we skydivers are a bit like aircraft pilots. If you fly in any club and haven't flown for more that two months (some clubs ask one month), well, you have to go with an instructor for a couple of touch and go until he is satisfied with your aircraft handling. I have seen skydivers do their first jump of the year with new gear, new canopy, new helmet, camera on it, and do group skydiving. That way, they have accumulated at least 5 difficulty factors and, at 5 they put themselves in danger. For the month of July, heat and humidity can lower drastically our vigilance and can decrease our ability to react fast and properly to an emergency situation. Lack of being proprerly hydrated and fatigue due to heat is also a problem. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

I have never heard about statistics on this touchy subject (ie. pilot chute in tow). I have discussed that subject many times with other skydivers. But here are my thoughts about it. Should a pilot chute in tow situation occurs to me, I wouldn't cut away since there is nothing to cut away from. OTOH, I would dip slightly a shoulder and pull my reserve. Dipping a shoulder would allow the air to flow better and catch the pilot chute avoiding that way a possible case of the pilot chute being caught in the burble. If the pilot chute is being launched as fast as possible and straight up, there is less chance for entanglement of the reserve with the main pilot chute. Now, for people who believe that a reserve extraction is more difficult while the main is still in its container, it shouldn't because the companies test jumpers are testing this situation. I have had two total with my Vector III-size 348 (I couldn't find my hackey) and decided to pull my reserve. I have been happily surprised to find out how fast the deployment was. I pulled and within few seconds when I took a look, the reserve was fully deployed. It was a PD 160 reserve. The main parachute was a Katana 170 which makes a pack quite thight. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

First at all I hope that you have the ends of both legs straps folded on themselves and stitched. Second, new hardware in stainless steel are quite splippery. You can rub beeswax on the leg straps to make them less slippery. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

Here we are : 1lbs/sqf = 4.88 kg/sqm exemple given : if the load factor is 1.3 lbs/sqf is equal to 6.344 kg/sqm lbs for pounds sqf for square foot kg for kilogramme sqm for square meter Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

My pleasure ! But I am just passing on the info. This info was provided at the seminar of John LeBlanc from Performance Designs at the Parachute Industry Association symposium held at Daytona Beach Florida this late March. Eh, by the way, a girl from our area in Canada, named Christine, is visiting now Australia. I told her that during each jump while in freefall, she will get closer from friends in Canada Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

Thanks both for the updated info. For interesting prices do not forget Lodi which is located at half an hour drive South of Sacramento, on highway 99. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

First of all,the type of problem you have is very common among beginners. Therefore, with some advices and more jumps you will improve your landing a lot. According John LeBlanc from PD there are four phases at landing, here they are : 1) final approach : on short final and going straight forward, you should stay calm and not moving at all at least for 10 seconds with toggles up. 2) initiation : it is when you should start pulling down the toggles to about the shoulders hight. You do it progressively starting at about 20-25 feet, that slows down your speed. 3) plane out : you keep on lowering the toggles at the point your flight becomes completely horizontal. It is called, the flare. It should be initiated at about 5-8 feet from the ground, progressively. 4) finish : at the end of phase 3) when surfing at one foot or so above the ground, your speed decreases a lot and after you judge you are about to made the contact with the ground, you pull your toggles at the waist. You should keep the control on your toggles even after the touch down and steer your parachute accordingly. Note 1 : there are 4 common mistakes at landing to be avoided : a) balance : people try to correct with toggles, move their body, instead of staying quiet with toggles up. b) protect : it is a reflex to brace yourself when you see the ground coming to you, you have to overcome this. c) reach : Another reflex people have. They try to prevent the fall and contact with the ground by reaching with their arm or leg. Avoid that. d) jump down : people try to land before the touch down. They anticipate the contact physically instead of waiting it to happen. To be avoided. Note 2 : when you do your final approach, do what the pilot you are has to do, just like airplane pilot, look where you are going, ie. look at about 45 degrees ahead of you where you are going to land. Looking straight down is wrong and gives you a wrong view of what happens, don't do that, you will hurt yourself that way. Note 3 : When going to phase 2, 3 and 4 , you have to make a mental effort to keep your toggles symetrical. People always have an arm stronger than the other and have the tendency, when being beginners, to pull one toggle more than the other with the result of a turn and blaming the wind for landing when turning. If necessary, repeat mentally or loudly ...symetry...symetry again and again when landing. That will reinforce you doing it and struggle to have the toggles at the same level. Note 4 : Have somebody taking a video of your landing from sideway. Easy to do since all smart phones now have a video mode. You will see exactely what you are doing, including when and how you pull your toggles and that way, you will be able to correct yourself in a more efficient way. Don't forget to tell us how you are doing with those suggestions. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

The awareness of elapsing time is very subjective and depends on what we are doing and on the degree of relaxation. If we are tense, concentrated, busy...like doing some task in freefall, alone or in group, time runs fast. OTOH when we are relaxed, waiting, in freefall alone with very few things to do...time seems to run slower. A particular case which deserves our highest attention is in the case of a malfunction, total or partial. We are then on high concentration mood and time runs very fast and altitude decrease as well. That's why we give the parachute system TWO chances, NOT THREE in trying ourselves to solve the problem. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

Check at Lake Tahoe parachute center or further, Mesquite parachute centre Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

I was talking yesterday to a friend of mine just back from Dubai. He told me that if you want to jump at the hot places like on the Palm development or on the beach in front of it in town, you need to have a minimum of 500 jumps otherwise you will have to jump elsewhere in the desert. Also, he told me that they are quite strict with the directives to follow especially for landing. First two goofs, you get a warning, third goof you get a yellow card like in soccer, 4th one, you are asked to leave. Apparently, the Kingdom of Dubai wants to keep a reputation concerning the safety and have people watching every move in the air and at landing to enforce the regulations. A lot of things can happen at landing, change of wind, avoiding another parachute...etc but you still have to stick with the direction of the arrow on the ground for landing, whatever the circumstances. My friend who has a lot of experience got two warnings for not respecting the amount of degrees allowed for the final turn and for having changed his landing direction to avoid another canopy. Better knowing that before going. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

I can send you few documents I use to teach a packing course. Some of them are sketches. Just give me an email address where I can send them. I am a rigger since 1977. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

You are lucky since recently after watching a TV program where they explained how to remove different types of stain, they mentioned that Aspirine was the best way to remove blood from a fabric. Aspirine contains acetylsalicylic acid and one of its purpose is to keep the blood more diluted and avoiding health problem like a heart stroke. I never tried it myself but I will wait for you to tell us if it works. I guess you can dilute some Aspirine caps in luke warm water and rub the stain with it. I said Aspirine. Not Advil or Tylenol. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

You have a very good thread since landing in the best possible conditions is important. After all, people get hurt generally when they land. I found out that the best not too expensive way to indicate the wind is using a wind blade. Manufacturers of equipment will send them free of charges to a DZ. If you then attach to the wind blade tail a couple of long fluo fabric bands (25 feet long), that will give you the wind direction even when winds are calm. I have used a Vigil wind blade for years with those fabric bands (you can buy them in any fabric store for few dollars) and it works perfect. What I did is using a hot knife and cut the pieces of fabric to get 2 inches wide bands and simply attaching them with a double overhand knot. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

Old or new square canopies have washers sewn into a reinforcing tape located at the bottom of stabilizers (there should be 4 of them) in order to prevent the sliders grommets to get higher than the attachment point of the lines and therefore avoiding slider grommets to be locked in the canopy fabric and create a malfunction. When your canopy starts to get ready to inflate, the relative wind on the slider push it upward and then the grommets push on the washers (those are called grommet stoppers). The washers stop the slider grommets. At that very time, the canopy get some air inside, the slider becomes less and less efficient (speed is slower) and slowly get down to allow the canopy to inflate completely. The role of the slider is to staging the inflation and makes it more progressive and comfortable. I am talking here about canopies used in free fall. BASE canopies have no slider, or have a mesh slider or are packed with slider down since the free fall is generally short and they need a fast inflation. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

Comfort Inn on International Speedway Blvd (just near PD) at DeLand, 20 minutes away from Daytona Beach Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

F111 pilot chute material provides a softer launch force than the same size pilot chute made of ZP. But F111 material has its porosity increasing with use. I prefer a ZP pilot chute because it has a good efficiency while being smaller, is more durable and keeps its ZP. I use a ZP 28" pilot chute for a Katana 170 put in a Vector 2-348. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

Thanks Jerry for the Magbag update. Will you be at the PIA symposium at Daytona Beach this year ? I am going. I hope to see there stowless bags on display, yours included. A better weather and temperature than Reno garanteed. A good break for you. And could you send me a picture of your modified Magbag ? Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

Why don't you check with Jerry Baumchem stowless bag, called the MAGBAG (AeroSports USA). Jerry asked me in 2011 to test it and the results were published in Blue Skies Magazine in the February 2012 issue. See pictures included in this post. Here is the postal + email addresses. Jerry Baumchem AeroSports USA 7475 SW 160th Avenue Beaverton, OR 97007 USA email : aerosports1980@gmail.com Jerry Baumchem main deployment bag (the MagBag) is like a reserve D-bag unless it has strong pairs of magnets (2) to close the bag instead of Velcro. Also, instead of a safety stow found on reserves, it has two rubber bands to close the D-bag flap. I am using now two tandem tube stows which were only changed after 60-70 jumps. Not too bad. Jerry will make a bag for you at the required dimensions. I still have the one he made for me at my specifications and I have used it the whole 2012 season with a total of about 100 jumps without any problem. My main canopy, a Katana 170, has been packed by myself and by professional packers. I had to brief them just a bit. The packers found out that they don't have to deal with time costly rubber band replacement anymore. The MagBag allows the lines to be extracted from the center of the bag and avoiding the D-Bag rocking found at the deployment of D-Bags using rubber bands on the side. According several videos, lines extraction for the MagBag is cleaner with the lines almost straight. Have a look to what looks like a standard D-Bag line extraction and you will see the obvious difference. I always said that if it's good for a reserve, it's good for a main. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

One important feature of the skyhook, when having a spinning malfunction or when the jumper's body is not being vertical, both followed by a cut away, is that the reserve deployment is done with bridle, risers and jumper's body in line. That provides a better chance for an uneventful deployment since both sides of the reserve canopy will inflate at the same time. OTOH, when a reserve is deployed by its pilot chute, this pilot chute goes up vertically whatever is the position of the jumper. If the jumper's body is sideway or not in line with risers, the lowest riser lines will make the corresponding part of the canopy inflate first creating possible inflation problems Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

I have had two total malfuctions and deployed my reserve without any problem. Since in this case my reserve pilot chute was in charge of the deployment, my skyhook released from the RLS as designed. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

Absolutely no comparison. The Vector people are the inventors of the throw away pilot chute, the 3 ring release for cut away which is the standard of the world, and more recently, the Skyhook. I am with them since 1977 or 35 years. Vector has a superior design and is always innovating for the best. So far so good.

Try Kenya. There is a club near Nairobi. A guy named Harro Trempeneau, a canadian jumper is the person to contact. Maybe thru the Canadian embassy up there. But being in Mozambique, the nearest for you is South Africa. I have jumped with people from up there, they are cool. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.