RiggerLee

I don't think we could be driven out of busyness by fuel prices. We could be regulated out of operation. Let's say they declare that skydiving operations had to operate under... Part 121 or 135? insted of part 91. Sorry I don't remember all my parts. Could happen, a couple of Paris style crashes with lots of press could do it. Or changes to operating fees if the new ATC is hostile to general aviation. Say a big fee for "Comercial" use of the ATC system. AOPA might sell us out on that to save recreation on the basis that "Commercial" airlines could afford it. That might push a regular commercial operation into part 121. Say the one time fee being too high for calling on every flight/load. They would assume that any one operating as many individual flights as we do would fall under 135 or at least 121. I mean if you think about it we operate so many flights we really are closer to small 135 operations. If they reclassified us out of part 91... Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Not disagreeing with any of the above. There is a president of the racer caps. That guy did some nice art work. I am curious what he used as it wore fairly well. For instance in signs and t-shirts they use epoxy, by that I mean two part, based inks for synthetics or plastics when they silk screen the art work. Huge pain in the ass. I'm curious what would adhere well to nylon. I've heard of people painting logos on the bottom skin of canopies but I never found out what they used. Of course the modern cool way is dye sublimation... Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

50 years... PC time frame. Appropriate name if he made 100 jumps on PC's in one day. Double man points if he had some cheepos in the mix. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I think your looking pretty good. Cool project. If nothing else you'll learn a lot. It's a little different from playing with a canopy. With a canopy most of the problems you might have the canopy is out and you can ditch it if you don't like it. This is a bit different. There are a wider list of problems you might run into and some of them have fewer fixes available to you. I'm not ragging on you but it's more serious in some ways then the people out building their own mains. You can get into trouble with little gremlins lurking in your design. TSO testing is there for a reason and the testing listed in it is really minimal. Most people actually do much more. Even then problems can hide for years before the surface or small changes that seem trivial on the surface turn out to cause problems. I'm really not sure how I feel about the feasibility of this project. You could build your self a dumby and do the functional test. a lot of them you could do live. But the high speed heavy structural test are tough. I suppose you could say that this other harness design passed so this one should be fine... It's hard for me to see you doing the level of testing that I think this project would need and even then there are still a lot of places for surprises to hide. I'll give you an example. Strong was building the Quasar 2. They had been building them for years. Then they realized that if you packed it up right the flaps could lock closed. What was happening was the edges of the binding tape on the reserve side flaps were parallel to each other. If it was packed up right and the edges were parallel when they slid over each other the edges could catch and lock closed. Years before this happened for the first time. So being Strong, they come up with there flap spring things... If was a design error. All they had to do was change the pattern set so the edges of the flaps were angled to each other. It's just an example of a gremlin that can kill you or some one else. Another example was a construction change made by Javelin to there reserve... top flap? I don't recall the exact detailes but it caused a bulge/lip on the edge of the flap and they started getting hesitations. They were talking about it a a PIA. Small thing. Trivial thing. They didn't think twice about it at the time. But it caused a problem. This doesn't even touch on every thing else that makes up a full TSO program. For example, where did you get your thread? That harness thread, where did you get it? Do you have specs on it? What lot number is it from? How are you tracking it. Say you hear about a problem. Do you have trace ability to determine if it applies to your rig? What about the hard ware. We just had that big recall. I think the rig looks awesome. I think it's a cool project. I have no doubt that you have learned a great deal. I would have to think very carefully about making this my skydiving container. Not trying to rain on your parade, just saying that it's a big project. Drawing up a design and building a nice rig is just the start. And even if your not going to sell it. Even if it's just yours. How many of those corners would you want to cut? When you get cutaway from a spinner a bit low and you pull that silver handle... do you really want that to be how you find out about a hesitation problem with your container? Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

That's awesome. We should respect their cultural identity. To condemn them would be speciesest. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I've never been to a bull fight. I've only seen them in movies or in books from people like Hemingway. Always wanted to. Is there like, a chearing section for the bull? Is it like a football stadium here in Texas with a home and visitor side? Would I get dirty looks if I was standing up cheering for the bull? Hookem Horns! Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Hmmm. I haven't jumped it, seen it, or really know any thing about how you generated the design. And I really don't know what the hell I'm talking about so keep that in mind when you solicit advice over the internet. It's worth every penny you pay for it. Changes or flutter in the nose as you change angle of attack. The fact that it at the corners suggest to me that it relates to the, some people would call it twist of the canopy. You can really only optimize it for one aoa. Because it's curved AoA does not change constantly across the span when it pitches. And that assumes that it's not distorting. When you pull on the breaks and as the angle changes there will be distortion in the canopy relative to it's full flight which is distorted relative to it's sewn plane form. So my guesses, coming straight out of my ass, are that as you start to pull down on your breaks you start to squeeze the tail on ether side flat. This elongates the trailing edge of those cells, they had shrunk when the think part of the back of the cell inflated. This makes the out side ribs tow inwards at the front. Depending on how you generated your plane form, the angle of attack probable varies across the span to begin with. Best guess is that you have a higher AoA in the center then at the ends. When the canopy starts to pitch back to a higher angle of attack the center increases more then the ends. Think of a canopy with 180 deg of bow. Think half a cylinder. The center is at Alpha but the ends are at 0 angle of attack. In fact they are at an Alpha angle of side slip. And if there is a trim angle to the canopy the end cells could actually be at a negative angle of attack. That's a really extreme example but it's helpful in thinking about how it changes. So I'm not sure this is a trim issue. You might be able to address it that way but I don't think that is where the problem lies. Ultimately I think it might be in the plane form and how you generated your panels. It might help to think about the line that you rotated the airfoil around when you generated your panel shapes. Rather then it being horizontal maybe you should angle it along the glide angle for instance. Keep in mind I have no idea how you generated it to begin with. This would make the nose wider. More in line with the airflow so the changes when you pitch the canopy would be less of an issue. You can also build that inflation into the back of the panel so there is a bulge in the edge of the back half of the side of the panel. The trailing edge is narrower right before the tail. It lets the cell inflate with out shrinking the tail and changing the angles of the ribs. And when you pull on the breaks you don't get the trailing edge expanding as much. If you just sew it flat it acts like a spring. This locks it in more. It'a a paraglider thing. So I think what you are seeing is from the elongation of the trailing edge as you start to apply breaks. As you get deeper into the flare the AoA becomes so high that it doesn't matter. It's all sully inflated at that point. I think the problem is in the panel set. I'm not sure it's a big deal but it may make your end cells more vulnerable to rolling under in turbulence like when you are on approach preticually if you make small break inputs like on final. The trim change you are suggesting would basically make the nose a bit steeper. You don't really shift the location of the cascade point. It finds that balance on it's own. In doing so it distorts your line set at the cascade. You compensate for that in the trim. What your doing is trimming the A, B steeper reducing the angle of attack on the front half of the canopy. Don't see why this would help. If any thing I think you may find the out side cell to flutter more. Which would be an interesting test, but I think that if you were going to try to address this in the trim that the answer would be found in the other direction. Keep in mind that all of this is straight out of my ass. Go tinker with it. Come back and tell us what you find. Sorry if this is incoherent. It's hard to verbalize and I've been interrupted a couple of times. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

https://heatst.com/world/bullfighter-killed-by-half-ton-beast-after-tripping-over-cape/ Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Trying to make my brain work. Could you be thinking about the... Feather canopies? Did Ashudo make them? I think they were in his... Wedge rigs? It's been a long time but I seem to recall that they were made from two different fabrics. Normal 1.1 nylon at the top around the crown and the lowest panel, the majority of the canopy, out of a lighter... 0.9 or some thing like that. I remember Stanford warning me that you could NOT do a standard 40# pull test on the lower half of the canopy. They packed up super small. It was like 3/4 of the canopy was made from modern low bulk nylon. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Are you thinking that it was the coating or some thing else? The outer layers, gores 1 and the last one being on the out side take all the damage. Any thing that is going to damage the packed canopy will have to pass through them. Same for certain areas of a square. It reminds me of a cat pee incident. Those outer layers tore like tissue. It was jumped. You could see the sections that tore or blew out or some areas stretched breaking fibers all over that area. If it wasn't for the smell you might have thought it was the coating on the bag but that was just the area most exposed. Also saw Wag tear an old square. It was OLD had that musty old nylon smell. Safety Flyer? or some early first gen canopy. Quincy. Pulled it out in front of the guy. Smelled that shit. Wag picks up the center cell, pops it, and tears it from nose to tail with his long monkey arms like tissue paper. "You tore my canopy!" Wag, "Your welcome." Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

There is one other motivation for placing a life span limit on parachutes. $$$$ Skydiving gear pretty much takes care of it self. People want the new and shiny. And there has been real evolution in the designs. Pilot rigs are a different story. First they don't care. They would fly them for ever or until they will no longer serve as a seat cushion. Second there has been very little actual evolution in design. The only real exceptions are the Buttler sliders and some people might argue the Aviator canopy. And they don't care. I don't know how they stay in business. It's like Cypres. It they didn't put a life span on their units the company would be gone. They built one for every skydiver and they were done. They put a life span on their unit and they get to start all over again. I'm not saying that this is totally a bad thing. There are a lot of old pilot rigs that just need to go away. They treat them like shit. They shouldn't expect them to last. It's a bit much to expect a unit like a cypres to last forever. At least it has over hauls. But you can't pretend that there isn't a monetary motivation in this. One other big, really big, motivation for placing a life span on your gear, liability. It killed general aviation. They build a plane and then they are liable for it forever. And they were lasting forever. People being sued over seventy year old planes. There was no releaf till the passed a law limiting there liability to X years. It saved GA. By putting a life limit you divorce your self from all of those old rigs. I'm not a fan. But there are reasons why they are doing it although some of the reasons are a little self serving. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

The only real question is, "Is it air worthy?" Having said that, help my memory, is it a Raven or a Super Raven? If it's an old one you might want to have a conversation with him about the quality of the canopy, Bikini sliders, and wing loading's on old ass reserves. It was a big step when they redesigned and went to the super Raven. The original was more on the Cruselite, Pegasus order of performance. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Slightly off topic question. At PIA I talked to the lawyer guy about writing a letter. Lawyers treat law suits like shot gun rather then sniper rifles. They make them as broad as possible and include as many people as possible. Forget shot guns. With out a waver a lawsuit like this would be a nukelier blast and there will be no where to hide. It goes with out saying that every rigger that has ever signed the card will be named in the suit. As a rigger, once the rig leaves our hands we have no control over it. It's been a long time since I dealt with student gear but it bothers me that they could, with out my consent, chose to expose me to this kind of liability. The USPA is granting wavers to this BSR so they are not exactly helping. The question I asked Lawyer guy is, could he write an open letter in which we could disallow our work to be used in this way. An open statement that we do not authorize our pack jobs to be jumped by under aged jumpers. Some thing every rigger in the country could sign and add our name to. Manufacturers can publish some thing like this in their manuals but what about us as riggers. We are being held accountable for this pack job for the next 180 days and in truth forever do to the nature of liability in this country. If a manufacturer can declare that they do not authorize there equipment for use with under age jumpers why can't I do the same with my work that I'm being held accountable for? I'd like to see on open letter stating this that I and any other rigger could add their name to. I'd like to see every rigger in the country sign it then let a DZ try to find some one to pack there rig for this 16 year old. We have to stand together. On a personal note. I think all of this is stupid. If they can drive a car of course they can jump out of a plane. It's the fucking laws in this country. We just can't afford it. I don't want to lose every thing so they can do another dozen tandems a year. Not worth it. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

"And it may well also be that an eager 18 yo is more likely to bring along a group of friends that also don't need parental permission to jump, so possibly overall better for the DZ's (and MFG's) bottom line in the long run." I'm doing my best not to make comments about groups of 16 year olds, drop zones, under age drinking, age of consent, and statutory rape laws. May be 18 years of age requirement is all for the best. It all comes back to tort law in this country. You can't do it. It's insane. There are what? Four tandem manufacturers in this country. That's it. One good law suit and then there will be three. Then Two. Then... And if you think any of then could survive a major law suit, think again. There have already been a couple of good ones and they hurt. If a judge tears up a waver the lawyer will walk all over them. You think of them as these god like figures... Booth... Ted Strong, legendary kinds of people. And PD, Strong, Relative Workshop or UPT or what ever they are calling them selves today are spoken of with awe. That's bull shit. These are small companies. They are nothing in the grand sceam of things. A good law suit would roll over them and squash them like a bug with out even noticing. Say UPT folded. All of those rigs become orphans. No more new risers. No more drogues. No more free bags. How long could you keep them in service. Of course the law suit would hit PD as well. So kiss new canopies good by. Not just your tandem canopies but maybe all your sport mains as well. Do you want to see that? How many jumps left on your line set before it's worn out? Ready to build your next one from scratch your self? No one can afford this. No one should fly unwavered jumpers which is what underage jumpers are. It's just too risky in the US. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

That's the point. One consideration in the choosing of those measurements is to avoid that situation. Interesting note. Remember the non skyhook rig that had this very type of problem. I'm trying to remember the details. I want to say that it was a vilant spinning mal. RSL. He cutaway. The free bag was thrown out of the tray in the tumble. It spun twisting the lines and bridle together. The PC caught air pulling it tight. So the lines and bridle were twisted at the top of the bag and then the bag just flopped down and the square corner of the bag locked the twist in. Game over. It's an example of the importance of staging in all aspects of the deployment. It was a case where there was just not enough bag retention to keep every thing in sequence. A mard might have forced the extraction of the bag before any of this had the opportunity to entangle. Really a compensation for a design issue in the container but they all interrelate. Just one example where a Mard could save you but there are also ways that it can kill you... All design is trade offs. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Dallas used to have a rental rig with a canopy that we named the Punisher. It was a Saber 1 150. Every one called it that. We eventually built a new slider for it and the name went away. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

It's not as insane as it sounds. And for the record it has been done. People have actually been doing this for a long time. Glide Path/Flight Concepts used to do this mod to demo canopies. Note that theses were generally things like Star Tracks. The demo canopies of that time period. Actually I think the Knights still use them. Point is they were large low performance canopies not hot rods. But yes it works and it looks fairly cool. Even with a large canopy your rather limited in size. The way Red used to set the canopy up they actually built a "pocket" on the bottom of the canopy. It was a flat, vertical envelope sewn to the bottom seam of the load bearing rib of the center cell. So it was sewn at the top edge to the seam. On these canopies you could easily sew it to the flares on the bottom skin. The long envelope opened on the bottom with peaces of velcro. The flag attached at the top, folded and then slipped into this long pocket running along the seam. An extra line ran down to the riser. Ring on the riser. Open. Pull the line down till the flag flies well and tie or clip the line to the ring. I don't recall where the top was attached I don't think it was the D line I think it was farther forwards at the B or C. It's bulky as hell. Were talking dedicated demo rigs. This is from memory, I never jumped one. I don't know why he didn't raise the flag from below. If you did that the bulk problem goes away but the ring at the top acts like a pulley. It dubles the load on that point from the flag. It may distort it too much. So he's not insane. It has been done. It does work well. With a full size flag he may find it draggy. Smaller flags are far less of a problem but it's not the same visual of a mega flag hanging bellow the canopy. I've even seen people fly two flags like this. An American on one side and a POW on the other. They were smaller, maybe 5 ft tall. If he really want to learn how to do this call Red at Flight concepts. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I was referring to the spell checker in the computer. It keeps picking the wrong words for me. I know what I want to say and I keep trying different spellings trying to get close enough for it to guess but some times it just can't figure out what I'm trying to say. and then there are times when it pops out an answer and I just click on it with out reading it close enough.. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Stupid spell checker. If it would just read my mind... Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

They're giving you good advice. The why is that it's not exactly a trivial job. It's simple, cut it off and install a new swedge. But you need the tooling, dies, hydroponic press. Which brings up the TSO issue. The rip cord is part of the TSO. It's just like the reserve bag and the reserve PC and the RSL on some rigs. I think I could make a good argument that you can not do an alteration to the design such as change the length or change the type of swedge. In point of fact some manufactures have added a statement that you can not even substitute another manufacturers rip cord for the one in their rig. Remember when we could buy RWS ripcords cheaper then other brands? All those Javelins are unairworthy. I think it's on page 6 of their manual? Point is that even if you have the means you probable shouldn't be shortening another manufactures rip cord. So the easy answer is for them to just sell you a new one. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Really. Don't ever call it a chute again. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

You should be nervous. You should be very nervous. Packing your own CHUTE? That's fucked up. I know some people out there are into some really kinky things but some acts are just unnatural. Not to mention dangerous. Anal tears, infections, etc. I strongly advise against things like this and if some one is pressuring you into doing some thing you are not comfortable with then you should just walk away. They do not love you. On the other hand if you want to learn to pack your own CANOPY. We will be happy to help you with that. But these discussions of your chute do not belong here in this forum. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

So how is adding a molar bag to the G4 system an up grade? What purpose does it serve in this system other then to reduce available volume in the reserve tray and distort the stiffeners in the flaps above it? Totally pointless exercise in marketing to the detriment of function. It's got that fucking molar bag in there that is a fact not an opinion. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Alcohol. Strange things done with alcohol. It's like the old T-shirt says. My drinking club has a skydiving problem. So I was trying to think of all the strange ceremonies associated with the consumption of alcohol. Reserve bottles owed to riggers for reserve saves. The ceremony of Cardinal Puff. The honorable order of the Turtle. The SCR ceremony. Alcohol free based off hot rocks in a sauna. Interesting note, Last year for Christmas I saw a wofo version of this. A sort of crack pipe for alcohol for the yupies. The Whang Bottle. A large glass bottle that they would burn alcohol fumes in. Apparently It would make all kinds of wavy lights inside it in a dark packing area. When they snuffed it by holding their hand over the opening it would draw a suction and make this "whang" noise when you pulled your hand off. Apparently a lot of fun till it shattered covering them in glass, but they were easily amused. A truly masochistic ceremony traditional at Perion involving a shot, some salt, and a few other things. I don't remember if they pored the tequila in their eye or the salt. Or maybe it was both. I'm sure other people have other stories. Of course the most interesting things are what they do afterwords but That's a separate topic. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

It's more then an opinion, it's a fact. The G3 is by far the superior rig of the two. By the time they built the G3 it was a mature well designed system. I think one of the best designed rigs on the market. Not just from function but also in terms of manufacturing. I say that as some one who builds things for a living. Every change or addition they made when they went to the G4 was a step backwards. I've always had this theory that it was a rig designed by committee. I don't have any proof but I believe that some marketing guy took a servey of random riggers and skydivers asking them what features they would like to see in a rig. They picked ten random features to add to the G3 and then dictated that these design changes be added to the container as a purely marketing gimmick. This is the only way that I can account for the random pointless changes made to the perfectly functional design of the G3 much of it to it's detriment. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com