RiggerLee

And that has been done. I don't think the chose the operating speed to correspond to the extraction force. Elevators are just cheaper to run then wind tunnels. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I'm going to rant a little bit. This whole thing just seems so typically Sherman. He's got a perfectly valid issue. He's got an idea. He has an opportunity. And he still manages to bone it to some degree. He always seem to miss on that last 10% that would make it really well done. Things I will say in his favor. It's a real issue. It's some thing that needs to be addressed. He found a really good place and opportunity to do some testing. And he went out and got a bunch of people together and did it. Where he failed. I don't like the way he set up the test. I don't think they were well executed. And I think some of the data was at best suspect. They had a bunch of fun but I think he missed an opportunity or at least did not make the best use of one. Issues. I don't think this is really good representative data for some of the pilot chutes. I don't think it good job of representing their behavior. Examples. I don't think the goal of what they were testing was well defined. And I do not think the method used produced the best data for what I think should be examined. Several of the Pilot chutes were not well inflated and were permitted to behave in a manor not relevant to a deployment. When a pilot chute is only half inflated an is side slipping half on it's side it is not in the same mode that it would be in pulling at bridal stretch. When a pilot chute has a small weight on less then a foot long bridle and is allowed to oscillate 30+ deg spilling air it's not giving a good representation of it's behavior. In theory you can extrapolate data to different air speeds and loads but it requires that it be behaving in the same mode. And that can mean a lot of things. As an example, there are different ways that vortexes can shed off of some thing depending on the Rn involved. The point is that you don't extrapolate data unless you have to. And when you do resort to that you try to be very careful in how you do it. This is typical of Sherman. His back ground in this is not that strong. He has gone out and tryed to study which is more then most. He sees an equation in a book and grasp a hold of it not understanding the limitations and assumptions which go into it. What should have been done. Rather then letting these pilot chutes flutter down like leaves and pretend that that represented their real performance and then project that rather questionable data to a higher load and airspeed. What should have been done. is to assemble the PC on an appropriate length bridle with a sand bad at the bottom. The sand bag should weigh as much as a typical canopy in a free bag. The pilot chute will have the opportunity to fully inflate. It will be locked down in orientation where it can not simple oscillate around it's CG. It can swing back and forth at bridle stretch but that is a very different behavior mode then a basically unloaded PC. This would give you a real idea of the terminal velocity of the PC and reserve canopy. All the "reserves" should weigh the same regardless of the weight of the PC. If it has a heavy metal cap on it, that it's problem. I would then do it again with a weight corresponding to a typical extraction force of the free bag on that container. This is a place where you could get a bit controversial. What number do you want to pick? But lets say you look at some data from repacks and pick a number for a container. Drop the PC at that weight. Now you have a direct measure of the terminal velocity necessary to extract the bag from that container. The jumper will fall and continue to tow the PC until it reaches that speed. Then based on the acceleration curve and the speed from the previous drop test you can start looking at the predicted time to line stretch. Basically the free bag will be decelerating to that speed and the jumper will be continuing to accelerate towards his terminal velocity. The only thing missing from this is the issue of a burble. I'm not dismissing this but it's worth noting that this is just throwing things off a catwalk. It does not involve the tens of thousands of dollars that the technical committy is spending on their PC in tow project. It's a compromise and their is nothing wrong with that as long as you recanise it. All it would have taken to have gotten some really good data out of this is some 15 ft bridles and a few buckets of sand. That's all I'm saying. But this is Sherman... and in my opinion he kind of dropped the ball on this. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I really like the aerodyne rings. Make sure her housings are long enough to accommodate the extra length. No load on the white loop. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

The fact that it's thicker is a bit of an issue. Don't use any type three tape in it or at least not around the ring. The thickness reduces the mechanical advantage of the middle ring. That increases the load on the tape and sewing of the small ring. This is not trivial I've seen risers break the tape of the small ring. Mini risers are bad enough to begin with in terms of tolerances and mechanical advantage. Is this really worth it? Neon fucking green? Black. Risers, harnesses, and preferably every thing else is supposed to be black. It's so simple. Black. It goes with every thing. Tell her it will make her look skinny. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

There will be some shrinkage on the outer lines but I'll bet $20 that all the B and D line started out the same length. At least that's how I'd do it. From that and the line trim data you can get the cascade point for each main line. Use little stickers or tags to label them or use different color sharpie's to mark them and make a chart with those colors because there will be a little bit of difference to the line to the out side of the canopy. Like black for all the inner lines, and red and blue for the two outer A/B and the same for the C/D lines, red for the outer blue for the next one in. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I once heard a theory that the cordwise location of the bridle could affect the opening speed of the canopy. If their was any thing to this I think it related to a time when people were jumping non collapsible PC's. The thought was that it affected the forwards and backwards tilt of the canopy during opening and how the nose was exposed to the wind. I once heard they moved it on the Monarch. If there was any thing to it I think it went away with collapsibles. I think between the B and C is fine. It places it right above the slider in the practical center of the canopy for opening. I think you'll see most base canopies with it there. It loads and lifts the center lines from all four line groups. Go jump the shit out of your canopy. Get some real data on it. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be looking at your next iteration. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I'm not sure the after market argument works. The seat belt is TSO'd. If your plugging some thing into it, that's like the other half of the seat belt. I don't think you could do this with out going through the TSO process for that peace of the "seat belt". Idea has been kicked around for years. No one debates it's marrit but they have also never been able to make it work legally/liability. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

It's actually a really, really good idea and would significantly improve safety. However it hits a number of bumps in the road. Starting with standardization of the system. Retrofitting old rigs. TSO requirements for the system. Their is actually a TSO for seat belts. Liability for the harness manufacturer who is now part of the system in a plane crash. I mean the list goes on and on. If we went to hip ring harness with a releasable clip on a short seat belt it would be awesome, the idea has been around for years, but don't hold your breath on it happening. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Has Jim Cowan published his lecture on Unusual Emergency Procedures? He gave a very interesting talk at PIA. A good bit of it concerned two outs. He brings up some interesting points concerning how the canopies can deploy and how that can affect your emergency procedures. For example If a reserve deploys into a sniveling main. The slider is a wide square target spreading the four line groups up to 2 ft apart. When the reserve PC goes up into this it can hit the bottom of the slider and go one of four ways. Now it may go out the back resulting in the scenario that every one normally talks about and trains for. but it can also for instance go out through the side between the line groups of one riser. It then pulls the bag through and you get some thing that looks exactly the same. It can be a nice stable side by side and fly perfectly. In fact it would probable be even more stable then the first scenario. But think about what would happen if you cut away the main? This is not theoretical. He actually had this happen to him. Fortunately he decided to land it. It wasn't till he got on the ground that he realized what had actually happened. He goes on to talk about how these canopies can behave and ways of flying them if cutting away is not an option. The lecture covers a number of other things as well and is well worth watching. Any body got a link? Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Yah but it's things like the activation lanyard that bug me. In theory it's all right if you are just setting in a cockpit. But it's less convenient to remove the rig from the plane if you want to adjust it to your new student. Then you have to hook it back up again. And it's basically impractical if you're working as a crew in the back of a plane pushing out cargo. They do use harnesses with lanyards but having a tail sucks and is in my opinion dangerous. The cypress is a good example of what they have had to resort to in order to fill this need. And as you see their is a need, I've packed those cypresses in rigs. But an AAD that could since an exit does away with the need for that lanyard. Now a crew member can move around freely. And I'll bet you can beat the price by half. It just goes to show the need for a two pin. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Their are a lot of strong tandems out their. They are very popular here in Texas. The new strong is a one pin but the two pins will still be out there in service for many years. How much more would it cost to do a duel cutter. If the unit has the ass to fire two cutters, and I don't think that firing amperage is some thing you want to skimp on, Why not make an adapter? A plug in adapter that takes an ordinary unit from one to two cutters. I'm assuming that you are going to have field replaceable cutters. It's a couple of extra connections but tandems have room. No need for an extra run of cutters setting on the shelf gathering dust and running out of shelf life. All standard parts except a little peace that looked like a stereo splitter. I do think it's important to have a tandem unit or setting. At first I was wondering whether you should go there at all. Liability and the fact that on the whole tandem AAD's seem to be doing fairly well. They don't wind up in as many bad situations. Then I think about the duel fatality that your unit might have prevented and tandems ride the plane down more then ordinary jumpers. With the higher firing altitudes they are much more prone to in plane firings. With the longer opening times on the reserves your flexible firing altitude would be a good thing. Some people disconnect their RSL's on tandems. There are still fears of broken risers with that high of a load, I know of tandem risers that have broken. An AAD that could since a cutaway could be a good thing if that handle got lost. I've seen newbie tandem masters have trouble finding handles. It's being addressed as a training issue but it's still out their. Another thought. Nobodies really had much luck building an AAD for pilots, and aircrew. Lot of people pushing cargo out the back of planes in the military and else where. With what you are doing with your static line unit it's a shuein for that job. Pilots need AAD's more then any one else and their are a lot of pilot rigs out their, all two pins. I take that back The Lap rig guy builds a nice one pin container. He has a whole line of rigs and I don't know if they are one pins or not. Point is their are lots of pilot rigs in service. Many in required high liability situations. An aerobatic instructor must by law have parachutes for both him and his student. Student aerobatic pilot... good odds of problems, over speed, over controlled, over G'ed, old plane... Before you know it a wing comes off or hell the engine just quits. Their are a lot of places where an off field landing would not be good. There are a lot of planes that for all practical purposes can not land off field. Those war birds are not getting any younger. Hitting your head on the way out on the tail is a real problem and do you really think that a passenger in a T-6 can find the handle. Their are businesses all over flying people in their "High performance world war II T-6 fighter plane" Their are schools that let people try their hand at dog fighting in them. I'm wondering if you could get them a discount on their insurance with an AAD. For that matter I wonder if any one has ever talked to an actuary about cost of life insurance and AAD's? I mean their are stranger things If you live within a certain distance of a fire station you can get cheaper home owners insurance. My point is that their is a market their. Lot's of pilot rigs. The problem is that they don't care but if you could convince an actuary that they should have one. Cheaper insurance or a requirement for one say for student operations? I think their is a long enough track record that you could sell an actuary on that. The point is that their is a place for a two pin AAD. Between Pilot rigs and all the BA-22's in the military I think it's worth building a little "stereo spliter" Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I can't speak for any one else. I don't know if any one helped you, but I didn't sew one fucking seam on that canopy, draw one pattern, fingertrap one line, or set one grommet. To the best of my knowledge it was all you. You've created some thing which did not exist before. Some thing which few will ever attempt and fewer will secceade at. And the fucking thing works. And it works pretty well. I didn't see any thing scary or any sign of bad behavior in the videos. It's nothing special but it's exactly what it's designed to be, a conservative 9 cell f-111 canopy. But it took many years from the conception of the jaberwaky parafoil before they were able to build what you have created which seems to be on par with for instance a PD 9 cell. I think La Blonk would be impressed. Get any real data beyond the video? Decent rate? GPS track? Forward speed data? Opening shock? I wish we could have gotten you one of those little data recorders they had at PIA. I almost bought one just on impulse. If I'd realized that you were about to be in the country I would have gone ahead and done it and over nighted it to you. Speaking of doing every thing your self. Now that you have a sewing machine you need to find your self a slave. Time to think about prototype number 6. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

As to approval of installation and whether the manufacturer of the container has to approve it in writing. I'm guessing you were not in the technical, or maybe it was the rigging, meeting of PIA before the symposium. Apparently there has been a question put forward by the FAA. I think it was, "How may a rigger know what AAD's are approved in what rigs?" So from what I gather, right now there seems to be no approval or approval process, but the FAA is thinking that maybe their should be? Get with Terry Urban or some of the guys active on the technical commity. So right now I don't think you need an approval to put a inactive AAD in a rig. I think putting an active AAD in a rig will be mostly about the question, "can it interfere with the normal opening process of the rig?" The way they seem to have approached it up to now is to say that since it does not interfere with normal operation then it does not affect the airworthiness or TSO of the container. This may now be in flux so get with the guys on the technical commity. Terry seems to be one of the most rational of them. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Actually I would say that historically 2) has been more of a problem then 1). And I think the existing flaws of the current designs are larger then you seem to think. There is a tendency to look at these devices through rose colored glasses. It makes us feel warm and fuzzy and safe. When the truth is that there are major flaws that can kill you or fail to save you. I say flaws but that's not really the right word. There are not really flaws in the existing systems. The truth is that they are limited. They are hard up against a technological wall and I really don't think their designs can go any farther. And the solutions they are coming up with for some of these limitations cause problems in them selves. You bring up the new swooping algorithms. That is a perfect example. If you are flying a fast canopy and are thinking about getting one of these swooping units you really, really need to take a hard look at what is going on there. You need to see the lecture, I wish some one had recorded it, on how the swooping vigil works. You need to understand what you are giving up when you put one of those things on your back. You talk like, oh that problem is solved. Before you say that you had better take a hard look at the solution. Don't get me wrong, it's the best solution that can be applied to that unit but it's at a high cost. People are hitting the ground following AAD fires. I don't want to get into debates on where the real problem is coming from. I don't think it's an AAD problem. But the AAD manufacturers are trying to fix it. But look at the fix. They are moving the altitudes up. That's the only solution available to them. But that moves the whole window up raising the danger of two outs. We're changing the BSR's to try to make room for it and reduce the danger or at least the liability of two outs. Pretty big trade off. None of them really have a solution for a wing suiter. Or low cutaways. Or canopies that open slower at terminal. And it's not like they aren't trying. There just isn't a solution that exist in the current technology. What this guy is talking about in this NEW AAD is a whole nother ball park. He's breaking new ground. You can't even see the old ground from here. "Status Quo"? This isn't an improvement on the status quo. This is a fresh sheet of paper that leaves all the old rules behind. This isn't out side the box, he threw the box away in the trash. Box? What box? This is an opportunity for some thing new that can surpass the operating limitations of the old units. To do that we first have to be honest about the failing of the old unit. It's time to talk about the problems with them and to do that we have to get over the propaganda that every thing is fine and that the units are perfect and infallible. I'm not sure how much of that is created by the companies and how much we have created our selves. It's certainly easier not to think about these problem but progress is based solely on hard objective reality, not wishful thinking. End of rant. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Is there a tunnel near you? It just occurred to me that the vast majority of your burble testing could be done in a tunnel. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

To be clear I was thinking about a GPS purely to give a vertical speed reference to try to look at the error correction as you try to evolve your algorithms. With out that I don't know what you could compare it to. I don't think that it's enough to just look at the graph and try to take the discontinuities out. You know who can tell you all about vertical GPS data is Phil. Give him a call. We use a GPS as the primary guidance including altitude. There is also an INS used mostly for orientation. It can integrate the acceleration but that's got a pretty big cumulative error in it. I don't know how the old ICBM's pulled that stunt off as well as they did. We do not have any type of pressure altimeter on board. Hell it would only be good for the first 40 sec of the flight. The units we use are unrestricted but it is has no military codes. I don't recall the exact limits of an ordinary GPS. I want to say that it was some thing like 1,000 mph and 100,000 ft? I don't think it matters if that speed is vertical or horizontal. I mean if you think about it they are used in airplanes all the time that fly faster then us. I think the only question is the vertical accuracy. Oddly enough the fancy unrestricted GPS had a shitty antenna. The one way more used actually had a much better antenna that had better signal lock on the satellites. And it was a small thing begging to sit under a top flap or on a helmet. Give Wamore a call. Those guys are cool. They'll help you. They also do their vertical stuff with GPS. It handles free fall for them with no problem. I'm not sure they're getting the high quality data you would need but they time there opening with it. And they can conture fly terrain. The best alternative I can think of would be to mount other static sincers else where on the jumper. FXC used to have one on the front with several filtered ports that they some how averaged and got a static pressure from. This is going to sound goofy and look even sillier but I would try mounting it on the helmet. The thing is your going to need clean air. I'm actually thinking about a rod sticking up off the helmet. Remember the Ball Probe that they used on some of the old airplanes. They used it on test vehicles. The X-15 had one. It was a ball on the end of a probe. It had a number of static ports all over it and they used it to get AOA and side slid data as well as dynamic pressure. What you would need would be simpler. It would be about the size of a golf ball. Hollow with holes evenly spaced on it. The idea being to get an average of all the pressures all over the ball. The key thing being that it's symmetrical which ever way it's orientated. I would think that you could calibrate it in to an... omni directional static sencer. I've got this image of a guy with a helmet on his head with this dorky looking unicorn horn sticking out from it. The point being to try to get a clean static signal. Putting it in a rig. I think you'll find that easier then you think. Let me help you out. None of the AAD's are approved. None of them. The manufactures wont touch the subject with a ten foot pole. It varies in the way they will state it but it generally come to some thing along the lines of, "They have absolutely know clue what that pocket is for. They don't know what those channels are for. And they make no statement at all about approving or disapproving any installation of what ever winds up in their." The Argus thing was an anomaly. People got freaked out at the idea of it pinching a loop and locking a container. This comes under the heading of interfering with the normal function of the container. That is a big no,no. Bad, bad, bad. That's where they draw the line. I would make it inert. No cutter. Or a dummy cutter like a fuse that would detect a firing event, be it commanded or uncommanded, or rout the loop out side the cutter. I don't think you'll have a problem. In fact I think they will be very supportive. Thik about it. This unit could have a much higher firing window. It would add another 180 feet to their opening time before impact. And reduce two outs. And not fire in swoops. and save wing suiters... Get the idea. And it doesn't matter how they die. The container manufacturer will always be named in the law suit. If I was them I'd be financing your testing just to reduce their own liability. I'd line test jumpers up for you. Radar. Hmmm, sexy. I just don't know how you'd make it work in the traditional since. I mean that thing was a directional dish. I'm not sure there is such a thing as an omni directional radar? If there is I'm not sure I want it around my balls. I mean the whole point is to have a real number on your speed as you roll back and forth from your belly to your back and tumble all around. Here's a thought. It's a bit of a pain but you might be able to make it work. What about a transponder? Honestly most "Radar" isn't really radar. It sends out a ping. And the plane sends a ping back. That's how they get most of their ranging data. It takes a lot more power to get a primary return. What if you had a transponder in the peas and jumped over it. Black box sends out a beep and gets a ping back. Range. Instant accurate altitude. Russel might be able to help you. I think he was an EE specializing in antennas. Or call up the Mustang guys that did the radar altimeter fuse. They would want real money though. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

It's not silly at all. They are doing it in cars for automobile crashes. And this shit does happen. There was an accident in here in Texas where a man died. He went in on the last jump of the day. it was actually a couple of days before they even knew that he was missing. It was hell trying to find the body. I had a friend die at Quincy one year. Big Jerry. Quincy was a mad house with people getting on pick up loads and then landing all over and going off to pack. And then find another load. He jumped with this group but wound up landing off out side the fence. He actually landed in a nice spot between two rows of hangers. We're guessing that he had to make a turn to get in to it and miss judged it. You could see the spot where he first hit and where he skidded to a stop. With out a doubt he was hurt but the sucky thing is he didn't die right away. No one knows how long it took but he was conscious and able to undo his chest srap and loosen his leg straps and take some things off. No one could hear him call for help. Eventually some one walking through the hangers found him but by then he was dead. I can't remember his name, but carrot top was another jumper we had trouble finding. He had a preme on his main sit flying and suffered a spinal injury. He just floated down under canopy off airport and crashed. He was down flat no one could see him. People were driving all over. There was a plane up but no one had a radio. He could see the jumper and was trying to give directions to the cars on the ground through manifest. Finely he just flew down over toms car so he could follow him and literately led him to to site. It took forever. Time is critical with spinal injuries. Swelling can be even more damaging then the original injury. Short version of the story is that he's paralyzed. Students land off all the time. I've seen students lost for hours. Just dissipear in to tall pine woods on the last load of the day. Then every one is out after dark trying to find the student. If one were injured it could have been really bad. An impact activated cell phone ELT built into a rig would not be a bad thing. That's how the ETL's in airplanes work. It's got a weight in a little lever switch. No shit, just that simple. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

If you added a good GPS antenna, some thing that could for instance be routed up along with the control head and be tacked down under the reserve cover flap could you get good enough data to cross check the pressure altimeter and test the altitude correction to it based on the accelerometer data? I mean your doing this correction which should smooth it out but you can't just test it in a void. My Javelin is old it'd got the bigger hinged reserve cover flap with room under it. I'll make it work if I can see the correlation data. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

No it wont. I don't jump a lot but I've got two rigs with out AAD's here. If you send me a couple of units I'll play with them. Set up some dummy test units with a USB port so we can down load the files after each jump and we'll start sending you some data. Spread a few around to interested parties and we'll start uploading real jump files to your server. It would be nice to get a couple thousand jumps worth of data to tweak the algorithms. Get the first few iterations of the software out of the way before you start sending out live units. Don't feel like you have to do this in a void. Some of us will help you. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

(Whiny Voice) I want apps. I want to down load data with graphs, with opening shock and g load data with the gyro, an optional GPS would be cool. I want it to down load and sink with my XL. I want it to store all the rigging enterris for the rig. I want it to be an electronic packing data card that stores the whole history of the container. I want it to be an electronic log book for my jumps. I want to be able to write enteries into it with my phone or tablet. Hell I might even start keeping a log book then. I WANT APPS! (insert tantrum)! Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

As to cost and what Faulkner said. Do you realize that if I started today the only rig I would be able to afford is a used Racer! Shit. Things are bad for a new student. Our sport is doomed. If you don't get this you don't know any thing about Faulkner. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

A couple of comments on price. Price is an issue. If I had to start over today I couldn't. That's one of the reasons our sport is not growing. And it's not. It's not growing. It's becoming more and more unacceptable which is part of why the make up of our jumpers has changed. It used to have a significant blue collar component. Not any more. I bought my first rig, basically new the woman found out she was pregnant again before it arrived, for $2,000. And the Upper middle class is not growing in this country, it's shrinking. Money is tight. If we want our sport to grow we need to make it more accessible not less. Speaking as some one who has built things. What it cost to make some thing, is a slightly different question from, what it cost to be worth making. One is only loosely connected to the other. There is a big difference between building some thing for a small market that is already by definition saturated and building some thing which you know there will be a long and continuing demand for. He already has his foot in the door of the only contract that matters and if that goes well will probable nab any others that come along. If they sold stock I would buy it. HAY YOU GUYS AREN'T GOING PUBLIC ARE YOU? IF YOU DO I WANT IN ON THE INITIAL OFFERING. GIVE ME A HEADS UP SO I CAN FREE UP SOME FUNDS. This is just a spin off and it's debatable whether it's worth it to do at all. A smart man might stay out of the sport market all together. I'm one of the people arguing that they should go forwards with it. Mainly because I do think that it's a better mouse trap. You see Cypress was worth doing. It was. The market was open. There were no AAD's in use to speak of. They faced an up hill battle but the up side was there. Astra made since but they failed to come up with a comparable unit. The others... I fail to grasp how they justified entering into the market. They basically tried to do it based on price point and operating cost. Vigil has done well but has had to fight for every foot of ground. The only real justification for doing this is the fact that it really is that much better. Better to the point that any one interested in owning an AAD should seriously consider buying one of these new rather then a used cypress. That's the battle ground. So much better that a student operation might seriously consider selling off their units to buy these. That's a huge investment but with multi mode units possible. The increased safety against a two out scenario is actually worth it. One incident like the one we had would pay to replace all of the units. Yes, it has the potential to be that much better. If this was on the market I would not have a cypress or a vigil in one single student or rental rig on the drop zone. I'm not bull shitting. If you haven't grasped what is happening here then you need to go back and reread the thread. It would increase the safety of the unit to the point that it would actually justify an operation changing to them. And to be clear. Yes, I know these guys. No, I'm not involved. I make no money from this in any way. And if they go public I will be buying their stock. This is my unbiased opinion based on what I know of the potential of the unit. By the way I know the guys from Vigil too and we're using their unit. But it's not that much better then the cypress. I honestly consider this unit to be better and I believe that they will gain market share based not on price point but on performance. Safety. This is mostly directed towards the other poster. Impacts have gone down. Not since AAD's became mandatory but since they became common. Those events may have coincided for you but what your failing to grasp is the actual mechanism that has reduced the number of impacts. And AAD's have played a part in it but not the way you seem to think. Or if they have then there is some thing wrong with your jumpers. If you're having cypress fires every fucking weekend then that's a whole other problem that I don't even know how to address. Here's the truth. Impacts have gone down but it's because people's habits have changed. People pull higher then when I started. If you pulled, not opened but pulled, above 2,000 ft you must have been some kind of student. "Did you get a nose bleed opening that high?" People pull higher. Fear of their AAD is part of that. The nature of modern canopies is an even bigger part of that. AAD's didn't change skydiving but they did change skydivers. More Safety. I could make a very solid argument that if you wanted to be safer, throw away your AAD and buy a larger size reserve. The newest AAD's are smaller and flatter then the first generation. But they still take up a certain amount of room in the reserve. You still lose some volume and it affects the way in which the canopy folds into the container. The way in which it takes up space has a disproportionately large affect, that extra half an inch matters. So if a question of safety I would say that your better off with one size larger reserve then with an AAD. If you really want to be safe let me size your rig. Get rid of all those stupid ass micro sized super tight containers and jump larger canopies. You really want to be safe? Implement a policy that the size and recommended weight be placarded on the out side of the container for both main and reserve. Not maximum but recommended. And then implement a policy of doing gear checks when people sign their wavers of weighing them to make sure they are not over. Do spot checks when they walk in from a jump. Keep a scale by the hanger door. This is why I think the optimum is the best thing to come along since sliced bread. End of rant. Size. This is directer towards the Free Fall guy. I know your working with a lot of off the shelf mill spec parts but size does matter. In a sport version you are fighting against some very tight fucking rigs. It needs to be small. Like really small. Cram it into the housing I don't care. You don't have a lot of room like you have in a military rig. Seriously dude, Small. I'm not joking about people needing bigger reserves. If it comes down to a choice between a larger canopy and your unit I'd have to advise against buying your shit. Small. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

This is in regards to your post on mandatory AAD's. I think that you are correct in it being about proper and adult risk management. Where the disagreement lies is in the conclusions that you have reached. I'm not disagreeing with your personal decision but not every one has come to the same conclusion. I would point out that their logic and their decision is no less valid then yours. And I'm not just being politically correct when I say that. The choice to jump with an AAd is not that cut and dry. Modern AAD, I'm speaking of the ones on the market today are very good well designed units that can be depended upon to do exactly what they are designed to do, which may include kill you. A common misunderstanding is that an AAD is designed to save your life. It is not. It is designed to fire a cutter when it meets certain parameters. This may save you, or it could kill you, or it could try to save you and through no fault of it's own through the failure of other parts of the system fail. And that is not some vague philosophical argument. We have seen all of the above. I watched a student smashed to peaces in a two out when the canopies went unstable and turned into a down plane right above the ground. And don't say that he could just cutaway because there have been cases where the reserve deployed through the risers and lines of the main. It's not that uncommon. I think Kirk is going to put out a copy of his malfunction mode lecture from PIA but I don't have the link here. That AAD fire took what would have been an embarrassing incident and turned it into a life changing event by the perfect and correct function of an AAD. The Swoopers killed when their reserves fired on landing were killed by a perfect and flawlessly functioning AAD. It was doing exactly what it was designed to do. Which is not to save your life. When an AAD fires and the reserve is too low to open it can be for a number of reasons. Often the AAD is functioning perfectly but do to the limitations in it's design it could not be set to fire higher or it would become an even grater danger to its user. This is not a malfunction of the AAD. In short these devices as they are currently designed are as good as they will ever or can ever be. The choice to have one on your back is not as simple as you are making it out to be. It is a risk management decision. And there are people that have come to an informed and valid decision that does not agree with yours. What's happening here is the design of a totally new generation of AAD that will allow a whole new set of firing algorithms. It has the potential to tighten these parameters so that it will not fire in circumstances where you do not want it to. In other words more likely to save your life and less likely to kill you. Examples. A current AAD fires at 1,100 ft. To be clear they could not set it to fire any higher then 1,100 feet for fear of a two out. But that means that it will not fire till 850 feet which is proving to be too low. That's becoming fuzzier because now that they have successfully lobbied for a change in the FAR's. They are now allowing that activation altitude to be raised manually. This raises the low end but it also pushes the high end up farther into the range of the AAD killing a jumper who wold have been perfectly fine but is now facing a double entanglement with his reserve. This new AAD could potentially tighten that error between the low and high firing altitudes from 250 feet to 70 feet. That alone is huge. It means the scary low end can come up with out further endangering the jumper. By looking for signs of opening event it could further widen that safety margin avoiding two outs. And that's just one example of how this unit could be a marked improvement over every other AAD on the market. Every thing in this design is weighting the scales in that decision making process as to whether or not to jump an AAD towards desirability. That's why I'm excited for these guys. It's a better mouse trap. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I'm almost tempted to start this as a new thread on "What would you like in your AAD?" But I'll keep it here. Some thoughts on data. I like the fact that the vigil stores infomation on it's last jump. It's really good data and it's accessible. In the event of an accident it can be some of the best empirical data available. Although they can generally pull some data out of the cypress it's not nearly as accessible. But I would like to see more. Storage and memory has become cheep, small, and nearly indestructible. I don't know why we don't have electronic records built in to our rigs. I guess we're still old school. Hell, I'm old school but think how cool it would be to just plug in to a USB port and have it's complete history at your fingertips. I'm surprised it isn't being done with those little self powered antenna things but I'm not sure how much information they can hold or if it could be updated. An AAD would be so easy. I can't believe that it isn't being done. And it could hold a whole jump history. Not necessarily the full high speed data from each jump but thingas like number of jumps, dates, altitudes, opening altitudes, how many jumps from last battery change, activation's, etc. In terms of storage on a micro SD card it's nothing. Just the feed back on battery life would be invaluable. It might tell you a lot about the general health of the unit. I'm not sure how well it could self diagnose problems but for instance constant "drift" and re-calibration might tell you some thing about the condition of the pressure transducer. I don't know much about this so I'm just tossing out ideas but it could store error files. If for any reason it crashed or had to reset it self it could create a error log that could then be viewed and up loaded to the company for further analysis. Not just some vague error code that you have to look up but some thing that they could send to you for instant analysis. Remember the huge panic at the record attempt and how they had to jump through hoops to find and fix the problems. I just see it as an opportunity to drastically tighten up the design cycle. Not seeing it after four years but being able to get files downloaded by internet to see what happening with units all over the world. Hell I'd make it recommended if not mandatory at all repacks. Write an app where they could plug it into a phone with a micro USB cable and it down loads and looks for the latest firm ware update. It's become common in every other peace of technology. Why are we not doing it with AAD's? In any case I'm going to go back to watching my movie. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Cool give that guy from CPS a call about that data recorder. I sent you a message about it on your skype. I'd love to see some real numbers on the performance of the canopy. Has he put it through a full set of stability checks? Any thing interesting? Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com