RiggerLee

Oh, cool the cover actually loaded. Win. Lee

First, no I'm not dead. Life has been kind of crazy here over the last few years. The phrase is overcome by events. But while I've been setting around on my ass I was board, like really board. So board that... wait for it... I wrote a book. Setting here patently waiting for the laughter to die down... Still waiting... Try not to hurt your self... A paper bag will help with that... Can you control your self now? Good. So it's a very typical run of the mill scifi novel. I can confidently say that it is as poor as any first novel ever written. So the question on the floor is how do you con, sorry I meant persuade, people into giving you money for a book? You know I'm not a salesman. I hate fucking salesmen. I don't have that gene. Has anyone ever written and tried to sell a book? How do you do it? Where it's at right now: Hired an artist, cover is done. Hired an editor, feel sorry for this poor bastard, he had no idea what he was walking into. Editing is done. Managed to format it. I think it looks pretty good on the inside. Published it on Amazon through Kindle direct publishing. It's up right now in paperback, hardback, and e-book. Rather then go with Kindle Select/Kindle unlimited I started serializing it on RoyalRoad and on Wattpad. I thought I might get some traction there and it has been getting some views but they have not translated into sales. Tried to sign up with Amazon Sponsored Product Advertising. Got booted because there is a gun firing on the cover. Signed up with GoodReads. Tryed to do a giveaway through them but my ad was rejected for being insensitive. It's a note you can send to those not selected in the drawing. It was funny as shit but they didn't like it. So no giveaway on GoodReads. Might have dodged a bullet there. If my response to the losers that were not accepted in the drawing offended them then I shudder to think what they would have made of the book. Rather then a hundred glowing reviews I could have gotten a hundred pieces of hate mail. Not sure what to try next. As you can tell this is not my lane. Oh, I guess I should post the book here. I so suck at this. Trapped in Time This story is being serialized here as a promotion. This book is available on Amazon in print. It is also available on Amazon in e-book. Feel free to continue reading on those platform I copied that from RR. Wow that looks funky. And the cover looks funky. It's way bigger then that. What's up with that? Can you see it? Lee

That is good. Personally my life hit a bit of a pothole a few years ago but I'm to put a bit of it back together. Looking to check in how the world has progressed with out me. Lee

Is any one still on here? Lee

I'm trying to understand your question and your thought process. If you look at the stress in parachute fabric it's a product of the radius of curvature of the fabric and the pressure differential. If you neglect the curvature along the gore and just focus on across the gore then it comes down to the "fullness" of the gore at that point in that condition of the canopy. Round canopies have a stable steady state "shape" that they want to be when inflated. They tend to fail during dynamic over inflation/breathing of the canopy. The actual failure occurs when the canopy, as it breaths, runs out of "fullness" This causes the local radius of the fabric to become too large and the fabric can not support the load under that condition and splits. Or it fails at the seam. I've been super board lately and I've been spending a lot of time talking to Grok AI. For fun I started a conversation with it about how to build parachutes where I was trying to walk it through this though process. It's kind of long winded but it walks it through some of these questions. Grok did pretty good. It's not a bad student. If you can access this take a look. https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_5bf950e5-3c02-4fd3-92fe-f5a0ca787bc6 Lee

I'm not dead. The last five years almost killed me, but I survived. I don't want to go into it but I became the care taker for my mother for the last few years until she finally decided to stop breathing. But the important thing is I am still alive. Which is more then I can say for dropzone. It seems to not be where I left it. What happened to this place? On a more relevant issue, I don't know how many people will appreciate the joke I don't know how many people here will still remember my post, but I wrote a book. Yes the most illiterate person on the internet is now a published author. Que the laughter from the gallery. I know you wont believe me so check it out for your self. https://www.amazon.com/Trapped-Time-only-hope-future-ebook/dp/B0FHJHG4Q2/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0 And yes the world has finally come to an end. Just look at the flooding here in Texas. Today I saw a dog and a cat walking down the street with each other. I'm expecting fire from the sky at any minute. But all jokes aside, Check out the book you might even consider buying one like relic. Phisical proof of a divine marical. The artist guy did a great job on the cover although it came out a little darker then intended, but he wasn't cheep. And the editor, the poor editor. That man deserves a meddle. He needs to be paid off too. So buy a book because they deserve it even if I don't. In the mean time, what have I missed here? Lee

Came across this article. I don't know which dams it refers to or where they are located. Is the section in twin falls dam controlled? It seems placid and consistent enough in water level that I always assumed it was. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/court-filings-reveal-secret-agreement-between-biden-admin-eco-groups-seeking-tear-down-key-power-source Lee

The video I saw was on a guns channel on YouTube. It appears to be a big thing with higher end air soft events. I'm not talking kids in the back yard I'm talking grown was men that fly across the world to play glorified paintball at international events with a thousand attendees. They apparently go through 10 of thousands of these grenades in one event. Apparently this is a big thing. Did not know that. So you are a very small part of the market. As always we are riding on some one else's coattails. It sure is nice to have smoke so the audience can see the demo teams. But if this market collapses, we are not enough to keep it afloat, you might have to say good by to affordable smoke. Depending on how this goes you won't be able to buy it any more. The FAA might not allow you to use what you have on demos any more. Every one in possession of it right now is by deffinition breaking the law. I don't think any one is going to come hunt you down but if you got into trouble for something else in theory they could add it as a charge. Let's say there was a fire at your house and they found "explosives" in your garage. Now your looking at federal charges. I checked paragear. They were still selling... Something? Didn't look like what I think of as a smoke grenade. Maybe a "pyrotechnic"? Say your budy gets a demo and needs to buy a couple of grenades off you. Selling transfering transporting storing conspiracy... It sounds silly but every thing with the ATF is silly. Say your friend shows up at the airport to jump into his local school and is talking to the FAA and he asks something like... What have you got there.. I had not seen this mentioned but people should be aware of it. Lee

Had trouble posting. At first I thought it wouldn't let me use the word grenade turns out it wouldn't accept a simple YouTube link. WTF? I was going to post a link to a discussion about this rule change. But I guess you'll have to go search for it your self. Lee

Had trouble posting. At first I thought it wouldn't let me use the word grenade turns out it wouldn't accept a simple YouTube link. WTF? I was going to post a link to a discussion about this rule change. But I guess you'll have to go search for it your self. Lee

I heard something about this. Finally got around to watching a couple of the videos on it. I've never used smoke grenad. Never liked doing demos. I'm curious where this will fall. If the products you are using fell under these exemptions then you will now need an explosive license to reorder. Furthermore if you are currently in possession of them then you now fall under the storage requirements. Apparently there is at least one company claiming that their products fall under the category of "pyrotechnics". Note how I phrased that. I'm curious what your using who makes it and whether it fell under the exemptions? Lee

It's a base canopy. Vertigo-basic research-apex canopy. To be clear vertigo was Marta's company. They got buddy buddy with Basic Research and formed Apex. Marta was contracting with different people to build canopies for her. At different times PD, Jump Shack, Precision. At that time I think Precision was doing it for them. At the time. If I could look at the construction I could tell who made it. Once they merged with Basic, I think basic built everything in house. Lee

My first reaction is to ask why you would want to do this? It's a small industry with a limited market. I would not pick this as a high ROI opportunity. Most people that persue this are all ready involved and do it out of passion. That is why they tend to fail. They are skydivers not business men. Getting your rigging certificate is not the answer. I'm not saying that it's a bad idea just as general background and in theory could help you legally with the FAA. It's a weird gray area where all you have to do is say you are a manufacturer and you are. But in theory you need to be a rigger to do any kind of repair. But manufacturer trumps rigger... The logic gets convoluted and weird. Can you build it but then not fix it? In the end it doesn't matter. Half of your employees will be riggers. A rigging course has very little to do with what you will need to learn. Here is the real truth. There are lots of different types of riggers. And this isn't a senior vs master thing. Master means they can sign more paperwork. In theory they are more experienced and can do alterations, etc. In reality it just means they can sign things. But manufacturer tops master. A master can perform alterations approved by the manufacturer or can apply for an approval through the FAA. This gets into whether it's a TSO'd component. Non TSO'd, people just go to town on them although in theory some of these rules still apply. There are some very good master rigger manufacturers on here that will be happy to delve deep into that rabbit hole. Here is the honest truth as to what you need. You need a business degree. Or a degree in accounting. Running a business is a business in it self. Taxes payroll book keeping accounts receivable accounts payable suppliers PO's tracking records marketing finance. These are the actual skills that you need. You are going to hire someone to run production. That's a completely separate issue and the small of the two issues. Who do you need to hire. Remember I said there are different types of riggers. There are riggers that pack, there are riggers that sew, there are riggers that build, and there are riggers that design. There are ones that work in the sport industry. They pilot rigs are almost their own separate industry with limited crossover. Military is it's own thing. These groups have been cross pollinating but they are still very different from each other. Most riggers are glorified packers, and that's fine. A lot of them really are not comfortable doing even basic repairs or sewing. This is what all the classes turn out. You don't really learn to see and prepare things till you work in at least a medium size loft under the supervision of a master rigger. Some people get really into that and just live at a sewing machine. Note that they are probably not master riggers. You just need a master rigger around to theoretically be "supervising" and maybe sign something now and again. There are people that get into building things from scratch. Batches of risers jumpsuits sliders toggles pilot chutes etc. This is a different skill set. You mostly develop it from working for a manufacturer or in a larger loft. You don't learn all the secrets and esoteric knowledge from any course. There is a smaller group that delves deeper into the why rather then just the how. Designers are mad scientist with a sewing machine. You'll know them by the kackle in their laugh. All of these people have way over inflated egos for what they are. We are all a pain in the ass. There is another related category. Let's be polite and call them workers. The more common name that we often use is slaves. These are non skydiver non rigger 9-5 workers that set at machines doing repetitive tasks all day long. They are actually very valuable. If you get good ones treasure them. They come in diffrent varieties. I think Koreans are the best but any one (xxx) will do. LOL's (little old ladies) are very good if you can get them. The problem is that they are by definition old and tend to die. They are almost extinct. Wet backs are I think the last option but they can serve with enough supervision. Sewing machines. It has gotten progressively harder over the years to source good used machines. And you will need some one to work on them. I don't know what your going to do but you will be surprised at how many machines you will wind up with. Her as a thought. Don't start a company. Buy one. None of these companies are big. You might be surprised at how low an honest evaluation of their value would be. Some of these guys are getting old. Sandy Reed as an example. Or the dolphin rig. Or some one in a financial bind because they don't know how to run a business. You could pick up not just a turn key operation but maybe a TSO. That's fucking gold. All the old shit is grand fathered in and it's only getting harder to meet the new standards. Again my real advise is to go open a McDonald's or some shit like that. Any thing but a loft. If your not already married to this industry why would you dive into this water? Lee

Descending rapidly from altitude is not an aclimitazation problem. The only issues you might have are if you had some kind of sinus problem. That can be really uncomfortable. You might have to take some Sudafed. The real question is can you launch it? You are going to have to run pretty fast to get it flying. Is there a suitable slope? Can you out fly the contours? What is the weather going to be? You might be walking down any way. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for this. Most accidents happen on decent. There is a lot to be said for a quick way down. Lee

And by the way. I beleive it's based on their own 7 cell firelite. Good seven cell often used as a reserve. It was 172 sqft. If you expand that to a nine cell you get 221 sqft which I believe is what the Raider is. Lee