erdnarob

I suggest you try a full face helmet on a suspended harness. A friend of mine got a full face and has reviewed his cut way procedures in my basement about a month ago on a suspended harness. His rig was equipped with a standard size metal reserve handle. When suspended, the harness shifts and he could just barely see his reserve handle (chin on the chest). When the cut away handle was pulled, he fell on a mattress and still with the full face helmet had hard time to see the handle since the harness has shifted again on the side. Imagine what would be the eye contact on the reserve handle if this one has a small size!!!!???? Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

Why a parachute (ram air) collapses ? When the angle of attack comes to zero or becomes negative, because there is no lift anymore and the wing starts stalling. In other words the wing doesn't support its own weight and the payload anymore resulting in a rapid descent (case #1). It can happen also if the wing slows down too much or stops moving since it takes an airflow passing above and below the wing to generate a lift (Bernouilli's law) (case #2). The angle of attack is the angle between the wing chord and the relative air flow. The relative airflow is the the air flow parallel and opposite to the flight path of the wing. Causes: Case # 1) if a sudden downward draft of air (eg. landing down wind with respect to an obstacle) or sometimes when a gust hits the wing (parachute), the angle of attack becomes negative and a stall happens Case # 2) If suddenly you change the path of the wing (parachute) due to toggles downward move maintained for several seconds, you slows down the canopy with respect to the air or stops its forward motion and this is what happens, a stall. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

If I had a DZ, students will have a radio but since sometimes radios fail or may not be turned on, I would also have a big red arrow on the ground indicating the direction to face at landing. Such a big arrow will be used anyway by all jumpers. The care for students varies from one DZ to another. While you say that you have the impression that DZ's are babysitting the students, this is true at some DZs but soon or later they will have to let the grown students go. In the reality, after a while you know who is able to be cleared from ground control. There is a lot of difference in everybody's learning curve. As an instructor you have to be a good observer and...talk with the students. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

I have seen your video. Not bad at all. The rocking of the beginning fades out which means you learned to relax. It is normal that when being flat or de arching your position is less stable since the airflow is more turbulent and unstable. But again you will learn to do micro corrections to get stable. Congratulations. We can really see that you want to progress and that you take the right means to do so.

Baksteen and you are right in the way that a law suit can occur in the cases you both mention. But what seems your weak point is that both of you put in balance the inexperience of the beginner versus the experience of the ground instructor. The ground instructor should be well trained and have to show proficiency in ground controlling the students. In case of a law suit, you have to demonstrate that you have offered the best and safest services possible to the beginner. However a law suit can occur anyway but the difference is that you can have a strong position or a weak one as a defendant. There is a difference between being negligent and doing a mistake. The first one is being careless about safety while the second is "human". DZO's and DZ staff know the risk involved with skydiving business and that is why they have to be as professional as possible. There is also more chance to have a beginner making a goof under canopy than a qualified ground radio instructor to do so. The USPA and the CSPA are clear, you need to have a suitable way of communication between the ground and the student under canopy and that has to be done by qualified people. I guess they figure that out after years and years of skydiving experience. If as a qualified ground instructor you do your best, nobody will blame you. If we start being scared by the possibility of a law suit, there will be soon no more: instructors, coaches, riggers, DZO's and...skydiving. Note: that kind of issue is very interesting to discuss. There is no perfect system. But in my opinion, leaving a beginner under canopy without any support from the ground is not defensible. Thanks for your interest in this thread. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

You can train students to take charge of their landing pattern but a radio control can be a valuable back up device. What actually happens is that on 100 first jump students, you will get few of them (1 to 5) completely lost and disorientated. If there is no radio, they can go and land at unsafe places and hurt themselves. Since you don't know who will be in that kind of situation, having no radio is not a solution and if something bad happens, a law suit can be the result and this time YOU will be a very weak situation. Stay on the safe side for beginners. When a student has been very good at landing pattern, you can put him on "radio minimum" where the ground instructor intervenes only if necessary. Now I have seen the army argument where no radio is used. Army paratroopers don't need ground control radio since their parachute is round and generally not modified then not steerable). They are also mass dropped therefore it is better if they cannot steer their parachute in order to avoid collision (they all go in the same direction). The spot is calculated for all of them and they are dropped generally in a very large area. Sport parachutists have features the paratroopers don't have like : control toggles, forward speed due to square parachute (which means more traveling distance), a generally more restricted landing area and last but not the least...more possibility of a law suite. Some people are not very good to orient themselves in two dimensions, imagine in 3 dimensions. It is up to the ground instructor to clear any beginner from radio control when landing proficiency has been shown and that can be done after 2-3 jumps with some of them. Some thoughtful students even ask to stay on radio control for few more jumps when you want to let them go by themselves. As I have mentioned it, for me it's important to land at a chosen place ie. the landing area. Landing outside the airport can be very dangerous since anything can be waiting for you :houses, hydro lines, highways, trees, lakes, quarries, parking, scrap yards...name it. Use a radio for beginners, you will not regret it.

As a student the answer is yes* since you should jump a rig equipped with a reserve static line (RSL). This line (RSL) is attached to one riser of the main canopy at one end and at the other end is connected to the reserve cable in order to pull the reserve pin. The * is that no device actually deploys a canopy but pulls the pin to allow the reserve pilot chute to initiate de deployment of the reserve. Now there is inherent advantages and potential problems coming with the RSL. PROBLEM: If by any chance, the riser where the RSL is connected breaks or the 3 rings system of that riser let go, you are dragging the main canopy with the other unreleased riser while the reserve pin has been pulled and the reserve is deployed. That kind of situation makes possible an entanglement between the 2 canopies. ADVANTAGE: when you pull the cut away handle, the main canopy goes away and pull the RSL which pulls the reserve pin followed by the reserve deployment or one action with two results. There is however a special RSL, the SKYHOOK which has 3 actions when you cut away. You then have the advantage without the above potential problem. The Skyhook : 1) releases the other riser (the no RSL riser) by pulling its yellow cable 2) pulls the reserve pin 3) pulls directly the reserve bridle cord beating that way the reserve pilot chute and making possible to have a reserve deployed in only 75 feet. Reserve deployments initiated by the pilot chute take 150-300 feet. In the case a Skyhook is used, the cut main canopy is used as a huge pilot chute and since you cut it away, the main canopy already gone is faster than the reserve pilot chute (which has to inflate first before pulling the reserve canopy out). Note: the beauty of the Skyhook is that if you have a total malfunction, you pull your reserve handle (when licensed) and this time the reserve pin is pulled allowing the pilot chute to take charge of the deployment while the Skyhook releases the bridle from the RSL. Ask your rigger to show you a Skyhook. There is also a lot of people( with a license) who have no RSL therefore, when they cut away the main, they do have to pull the reserve handle. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

If you are that flexible you should be a girl or you are an exception. Arching is a method to fall faster because the airflow while in free fall got less resistance from your body (your body is curved upward). By decreasing your arch or even counter arch (de arch), you make your body more flat or concave with respect to the relative wind and therefore you increase the resistance of the air then the aerodynamic force applied upward on the surface of your body increases making you falling slower. Your capability to arch a lot is a very good feature since that will give you a larger margin of vertical speeds to adjust in free fall the rate of speed with other people. But you have to use that when necessary. About your uneven position with your legs now. In order to know where your legs are in free fall, a trick is to squeeze or clench your toes and fingers all together. That will tell you where your legs and arms are in a 3 D space and should allow you to correct it. Tell us when you will have solved your problem.

Are you back sliding when you are alone or just when jumping with somebody else ? I know it's difficult to figure out when alone. The suggestion to try a wind tunnel will make it obvious. When you are jumping with another jumper, if you look up too much (head up) you will have the tendency to slide backward especially if your knees are bent. To compensate, don't put your head up too much and extend your legs. By extending partially the legs enough, you will create more lift on your legs and your body will tilt to become horizontal. That should solve your problem. Explanations of the back sliding. When free falling, you get an upward vertical aerodynamic force from the air applied to the surface of your body. To backslide, your body has to be at angle (torso up) with respect to the horizontal plane. Then an horizontal component of the aerodynamic force will make you backslide rearward if your torso is higher than your legs. This is why more lift on your leg is necessary to have no angle at all or having your body horizontal Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

Thanks a lot. It is quite obvious though it's difficult to see if falling in the canopy in this case results from a barrel roll or back loop or a combination of the two. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

I have more than 200 jumps on my Katana 170 but I weight way more than your friend. Having jumped a Sabre 2 170 was my best preparation to go later on a Katana 170 according John LeBlanc. Your friend should make several jumps on a smaller size Sabre 2 first then possibly change for a Katana of the same size. The Katana has soft opening, fast toggles response and is very enjoyable to fly and land with a powerful flare but you have to respect it especially near the ground. This is the best parachute I ever had. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

A recent conversation I had with skydivers was about the possibility of falling in your canopy after a drastic series of manoeuvers. Some thought it was possible after doing a deep stall and letting go the toggles suddenly while some other thought it was impossible due to the centrifugal forces keeping the lines taut. Maybe the first question should be "is it possible to get your own canopy below you while flying it ?" Anybody having seen (or heard about) this unusual experience or comments about it ? Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

Back from Skydive Expo 2010 DeLand FL. 39 booths, 86 seminars, 6 parachute Manufacturers, 7 harness/container Manufacturers, 3 AAD Manufacturers, 4 altimeter Manufacturers, several makers of jumpsuits, camera lenses, helmets, hardware...etc, what a fair and a real success for a first. At UPT Vector booth, the first and the 50 000th rig of Bill Booth on display with more than 35 years between the two of them. Helmets from COOKIE, made of carbon fiber. Some model includes a lining containing ballistic gel cells, an amazing substance which is like a thick jello when you put slowly your finger through it but when hit with a hammer behaves like hard rubber. A superior protection and an incredible lightness. Basik Air Concept presenting its rig, the "SEVEN" . The main feature of that rig is that the free bag is also the reserve container and it is looking pretty (see the picture in attachment). Jérôme Bunker said that rig allows for a fast reserve deployment since there is almost no flap to be pushed by the pilot chute. I was told that the pilot chute of this rig is a champion by jumping way more than 5 feet high vertically at full bridle extension. A sure way to go through the burble and prevent a pilot chute hesitation. I have attended 12 seminars: John LeBlanc, always very interesting speaking about the factors of a good parachute landing. During an another seminar, John was explaining the 2 paths of canopy progression offered by his company, Performance Designs. A slow descent canopy progression path : Navigator, Silhouette, Spectre, Pulse and Stiletto and a fast descent canopy progression path : Navigator, Sabre 2, Katana and Velocity. Randy Ottinger's seminar on Aviation safety, Jim Crouch from USPA presenting "How to avoid canopy collisions"... all seminars very informative. The fact that this fair was organized on an airport/DZ was a good way to attract young jumpers and more generally was inviting skydivers from everywhere. I have got a real feeling of a good learning experience and the chance to speak to the several main characters of the skydiving equipment scene. Any comments from those who were there ? Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

It is not a question of how many AAD's he has seen. It is a question of risk evaluation with modern technology and software. (That is why they are called System analysis Engineers). Components used by AAD manufacturers are used in different other devices. Only the software is designed especially for the AAD. And this software is certainly not as much as complicated than the software for MSN Office 2008 for instance. AAD software is dealing with about 7 parameters (mainly: zero calibration, pressure, rate of change of pressure, electrical continuity in the cutter, state of batteries, 260 ft equivalent of pressure differential between chest and back when on your belly and time...(+ the firing conditions in memory and when to arm the device) while MNS Office sofware works with thousands of parameters. The one year guaranty on Vigil is to protect the company from abuse. Vigil will likely repair or change faulty components at no cost provided the device has been used normally. If you read the Cypres user's manual disclaimer, they mean about the same thing while not accepting any responsibility in case of malfunction. On the Cypres 1 manual, there is a 12 months guarantee too. I still have to check in the Cypres 2 manual. Also, a lot of people behave like an AAD would be the ultimate tool to stay alive. This is a wrong attitude, one should jump without thinking about it after it has been switched on with the proper mode. IT IS A BACK UP DEVICE. Don't make the AAD's psychological crutches. If by any chance you have to make few jumps without having an AAD for whatever reason, I guarantee you that your main will not "see" the difference.

Both methods work well. I prefer to start with the D lines and go up to the A lines because when the D lines are done (more exactly the fabric between the D and the C lines) while gathering the C lines, I keep the D lines in my hands; then while I gather the B lines I still have in hands the D and the C lines and so on...(one side at a time). That way, the lines are maintained in the center of the pack and therefore are less likely to spread out. A malfunction cannot be the result of any of these two methods provided you keep the lines as much as possible in the centre of the pack. Going from D to A is just a more simple way while using the method I describe. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

First of all the Vigil 2 will cost you 70.00$ per year while the Cypres 2 will cost 175.00$. In other words the Cypres costs 250% per year what the the Vigil will cost you per year. Proof: 1) Cypres 2 : (1499.00 + 2 x 300.00)$ /12yr = 175.00$/yr 2) Vigil 2 : 1399.00$ /20yr = 70.00$/yr Nothing can justify such a difference. Mandatory maintenance advantage has been grossly exaggerated. With a self testing modern device, there is no need for that. The Vigil 2 does not require mandatory maintenance. However, you can decide anytime or when you are not jumping to send it back for a check up. I have checked with a system analysis engineer of the National research council of Canada who told me that provided the software is OK, there is virtually no chance for a self testing device (ie. AAD's) to fail when the self testing tells you everything is OK. Testing of the Vigil 2 is BATteries OK, CUTter OK, CTRL (control) OK in clear language on the display. If one item fails the Vigil 2 switches off. The Vigil 2 shows you the mode you choose (PRO, STUDENT, TANDEM) and this mode stays on the display as long as the device is switched on. Have a Vigil 2 in your hands and compare with other competitors AAD's and the difference is quite obvious. The Vigil 2 has a sturdy construction, is ergonomic, cooked paint covered and has Kevlar reinforced cable. I have Vigil AAD since 2005 and it has worked exactly as designed. Note: It is preferable to switch off the device when your skydiving day is over especially if you have to drive uphill and downhill back home. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

Self discipline, knowledge about your rig and how to use it, about the techniques to use in free fall. Practice your emergencies procedures and reserve activation...be curious about all facets of the sport. Assist a least one time your rigger packing your reserve. Attend the Safety day at your DZ. Keep current by reading stuff on equipment manufacturer's web sites. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

Take care of your parachutes and they will take care of you, they are good boys and forgiving but don't abuse them. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

First of all I tried it and saw the difference right away. It happened at the 2009 Summerfest at Skydive Chicago last year. That could be explained by the fact that the lower skin being the low porosity new Optimum fabric, the Pulse is slower (more drag) or less slippery in the air and therefore that feature decreases the efficiency of the flare. I only made one jump on it but I didn't find it was a canopy for heavier jumpers. I have jumped the Sabre 2 and now a Katana and I can say the Katana has about the same flare than the Sabre 2. On the other hand the Pulse has a very shallow pitch angle which makes it slower in normal mode. However I like very much the lightness feeling of the Pulse with low toggles pressure. I would recommend it for people who have less force in the upper body (shoulders, arms...) and who are relatively light. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

I recommend you the Sabre 2-170. I am heavier than you and have jumped it for almost 400 jumps. Put few hundred jumps on such a canopy before going to a fully elliptical like the Crossfire. Now I made a demo jump on a Pulse 170, it's a very nice canopy with soft toggles pressure but it's a hybrid (zero P on the top skin only) therefore you will not get the powerful flare a Sabre 2 can give you especially when weighting 205 lbs. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

Thanks for making it easier for the reader to use the link. What is your trick ? Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

Hello Publiux. I hope you will find a patient and competent friend, instructor or rigger to supervise you for packing. In the meantime have a check on this sheet I have prepared for the students taking my packing course. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

I suggest you to read about night jump on this link: http://www.cspa.ca/cwc/english/nightjump.htm Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

Sorry for being late. I have used the front risers on my Sabre 2 only few times. But you shouldn't pull the front risers by more than 3". OTOH a friend of mine with a Sabre 2-120 is doing beautiful carving turns at landing (see picture in attachment) WARNING : this picture is to show how versatile is a Sabre 2. This canopy can be flown very conservatively or flown and getting a lot of performance depending on the wing loading and the level of experience of the pilot. Ask experts before attempting this kind of turn. Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

This is the deal only provided you buy a new Cypres Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.