RiggerLee

Last time I bought f-111 it was about $4.00 per yard. It's been a while since I ordered any ZP so I'm not sure what it's going for. As to seconds. I think you just listed all of the main issues that might affect you. There can also be a lot of variation in the coating. There are all kinds of imperfections that can occur in the weave of fabric. Seconds are basically goods that had too many to pass muster. Most of these things, other then esthetics, would not affect you at all. Or you could cut around them. Bowing is probable the real problem. That's the sort of thing that could make whole sections of a roll unusable. For something like this I would go with first quality goods, but even more the that I'd sit down with your rep and talk about how much bow or skew you can really tolerate. Be ready to inspect all goods that come in to the factory and make it clear to him that you will be returning all rolls that do not pass your QC program. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

It's in Q. Q=1/2*Ro*v^2 Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

In theory.... But I was referring to other TSO'd pilot chutes tested in the same speed regimes with equivalent deployment systems. Let's face it, every one, with the exception of Sherman, uses essentially the same safety stow deployment method. And there isn't that much difference in the speeds that the containers are TSO'd to. I think there is a good argument for compatibility. I think you could put a Mirage PC in a Vector 3. I think that with just a little work, minor change, snaps, Sandy could put a Stealth in a Wings. I do think that the fundamental problems in container design should them selves be addressed. But in the mean time I see no harm in upgrading our PC's. Because towing a PC into the ground is just not cool. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Remember these? I can't remember what they were called. The camera mounted from the inside. Very simple. Very clean. With some of the newer smaller tube like cameras mounted on top, out side the main impact areas, you might be able to do a very simple one peace design. http://www.thejumpshop.co.uk/acatalog/Large_Helmet_Bag.html Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

You're survey doesn't really have room so I'll elaborate further. Skydiving helmets suck fucking ass. The people building them are idiots. A helmet has to absorb the impact. It has to spread and dissipate the kinetic energy. Some of the might be able to do the first but they generally can not do the second. The shells are too heavy and they do not have enough room between the skull and the shell. Protecs are some of the better ones you'll see and they suck ass. They do not dissipate the energy. You get fucked up blunt force trauma injuries where the skull might be protected but the brain is damaged inside the skull. Bike helmets learned this lessen long ago. They use a thin crushable shell. Fractures like an egg shell. And a low density Styrofoam to absorb the energy. If you could do a mold that would be the right shape, non snag able, for a skydiving helmet and do a thin shell Styrofoam injected design you might be able to do it cheep enough to sell them by the truck load. People pay way too much thinking that it should last forever. It should be viewed as a replicable, disposable item. Any time it takes a good hit it should be ruined. And you should take that as the sign of a good helmet. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I've never heard of it happening. It might be tough. There generally isn't a paper trail or certificates. I think it would be hard to take it into court. And It would have to be some thing other then financially motivated. It would have to be a grudge from a family capable of financing the lawsuit them selves. Having said that, packers play a roll in many fatalities. It's just the odds on a drop zone where 75% of the mains are packed by packers. I'm really surprised that they've never been drawn into it in an effort to draw the drop zone into the suit. And I'm surprised the whole subcontractor thing has not been challenged. The truth is that that has been used to illegally pay staff for years. Work force would take one look at it and shut the whole place down and fine them out of existence. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

That's not completely true. There are limits to the performance of a single surface. There are advantages to a separate or mutable surfaces. Think faller flap. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I honestly don't think f-111 or zp makes that big of a difference in pilot chutes. A PC is really crude. In some thing larger where it can affect the boundary and the separation point like a round parachute it can have a noticeable affect on the oscillation and CD. Reserve PC's have been made from both. I think the size and design are more relevant. And you're question is not a completely noob question. I've been doing this for 20 years and I would really like to know why I am not allowed to put a larger higher drag PC in my reserve. That's a bit of a dig but there has been some discussion about this but nothing has happened. The truth is I'm not sure how easily some of these things could be corrected. A larger PC would really be more of a stop gap measure. Not a bad one but still a band aid. It might be fun to go back and time some of those videos. If you could take a guess at the speed where the bag finally extracted you could make a pretty good estimate of how much larger the PC would have to be to extract the bag in time to meet the TSO requirements. I don't have time at the moment. A better solution might be to just use an off the shelf TSO'd PC from another manufacturer, larger with a higher CD, but although that is permitted by the FAA it is forbidden by the rig manufacturers. And yes I'm stirring the pot here a little bit but I'm board and need some entertainment. So that's where we stand. When you have a malfunction and you need to cut away, from a perfectly reasonable height from which the FAA says that you're reserve should open, it will in fact tow into the ground and you will be laying there broken open like a ripe tomato. Now scream and run around in circles pulling your hair out for our amusement. And start stretching so that you will have the flexibility to reach over your shoulder and grab the bridle. Because that's your new emergency procedure. Deploy PC, deploy bag. Pull red. Pull silver. Reach back, grab bridle. Deploy reserve. Some body send him the link to the hand deploy. Mean while I will go and make popcorn. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Some of the old tri's were prone to hard openings. I'd look around for a slightly larger slider or a domed slider. You can get an after market for not too much money. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Well if you're interested in design it's a very relevant question. But I don't think it's well defined. Are we talking surface area? Vent area? Diameters? And I think there are a lot of other factors. Is there any shape to the fabric or mesh. For instance I've built PC's with both shaped panels and conical mesh. If you want to make this a real discussion I think that would be cool. But if you're just trying to make an end run around bad mouthing particular manufacturers then I think it's pretty weak. I'd much rather you just came flat out and said, "Hay! What's up with these towed PC's? Why aren't there any upgrades or replacement higher drag versions available yet? I mean manufacturers have responded much faster in the past with SB and upgraded pilot chutes for much smaller problems or perceived problems and there weren't even fatalities involved. Is that the problem? Now that some one's dead you are afraid to correct the problem for fear of admitting liability? I'm not saying that that's the case. But if you want to talk about it, man up and say it. Don't pussy foot around the topic with some discussion about design. I can go ether way on this. We haven't had a fun design question in a while. We also have not heard any thing about the PC in tow/delay issues for some time. The question isn't going away. And if the gear can not meet the TSO standards, as proved in the videos (plural), then the TSO should be void till the problem is corrected. I think there are real questions about the legality of some of this gear being jumped and the legality and liability of packing it as a rigger. When you sign that card you're saying that the rig can still meet the standards of the TSO. Pick a topic. Game on. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

You might find it a little bit spicy. They were also a little brisk on opening. The real question is what kind of shape is it in. For example you probable wont be able to get a line set for it. So unlike a more modern ZP canopy which is probable good for 2000 jumps and four line sets if you take care of it and keep it out of the sun. This would basically be a disposable canopy. You would probable only get the remaining jumps in the current line set. Could only be a couple hundred. That's ok if the price reflects it. Offer him $100 for it. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Enjoy the view. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Oh, and by the way. That's exactly where lines usually break. the line comes down, goes around the link forming a loop, finger traps back in, and terminates inside the body of the line. Oddly enough that point where the finger trap ends inside the line, where it goes from thick to thin, is the week point. That is the normal failure point, 4 or 5 inches above the link just like you see. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

So if you look at last pic. Look at the right rear riser. I think what you are seeing there is a broken line trailing behind the riser. There is the black of the riser. Above that is a lighter section. I believe what you are seeing is the slider bumper around the link and the lines. The short section of line trailing appears to be coming out of the top of the bumper just as you'd expect. If you look up at the canopy it looks like there is some thing trailing catching the light. Look at the canopy. you'll see a wrinkle where the cell is unsupported on the most inner C/D line between the center and the 5th cell. It looks to me like the canopy has a broken inner C/D line. It's hard to tell what's going on on the other side. It looks like there is some kind of continuity problem below the slider but the canopy has managed to push it down to within 8 inches of the riser. I don't know what's trailing on that side. It could be the excess break line from the toggle, the slack stowed from the toggle or another broken line but it looks like it's originating from the toggle. The canopy was actually flying fairly well. I think that if he had not decided to take a nap and flown the canopy it would have landed him just fine even as it was. In fact it did very well by him flying back and landing right on the field on a nice straight in approach. I can't imagine hoping for a better out come then that. His injuries were just what you would expect from a no flare landing. And this was a big rental/student rig. And people go out and buy some tiny little reserve and expect a Cypres to save them... I'm half way across the country. I don't have the vid. I can't go through it one frame at a time. I haven't seen the gear and to the best of my knowledge neither has any one here. Every thing I say is straight out of my ass. There are some interesting questions but I'm not holding my breath on ever hearing the story and certainly not on here. Maybe if you buy someone enough beer next year at PIA. But you asked what I see. Answer, not much, the captures are not great. But I don't see any thing contradicting the rumors that are floating around on here. But it's fun to speculate. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I had to go and find the thread in the incidents. I do NOT read that section on a regular basis. That's not because I'm not interested but because I can't stand wading through all of the fluff. Normally I just stick to the riggers forum because it is a little better moderated. There is very little in this thread that would have any place in the "Incident" section, at least in my opinion. Discussions of legal issues and all of this other chatter have no place there only the facts of the case or at least that is my position. But if the world worked that way the thread in the incidents would be one page long not ten and people might actually be able to read it and understand what had happened. The real question is whether they should chop up and move 90% of that thread to here. I'm not saying that any of this should not be discussed. It's such a small industry that any law suit regardless of who it's against has the potential to impact us all but that's not some thing that belongs in the incident forum. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Just to be perfectly clear. It is not an acceptable repair. I can't imagine any one thinking that it would be on a square canopy. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Opening at 13,000 is normal on CRW dives. 18,000 is a little high but I've jumped from that high with out oxygen. I've even done CRW from that high. So there really is no reason that a premature opening at 13,000 feet should lead to hypoxia or unconsciousness. The canopy seemed to be flying reasonable well. It looks like it should have been controllable. I don't see why he would have had to cut it away I think it could have been flown to the ground. I'm still trying to get my head around the idea that some one would tie lines back to gather. I wonder what the trim actually was? If the "repair" was below the cascade it might have less effect as it appears to have been more or less stable. Could this have been a rig that was in the process of being repaired which was mistakenly returned to service before the lines had been replaced? Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Is there a link to the second half of the report? Every thing coming out of the reporter seems to be gibberish. All I see is a dildo that can hardly fly and a preme that didn't look particularly violent. He was still talking at his camera. And then what? He just decides to not fly his canopy? Lines tied in knots? Do they mean the toggles on the steering lines? And since when do the FAA bother to show up for non fatal incidents? Never seen that. And, when he got HIS gear back? Was that his rig or a rental/student rig? Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

It's probable a spinnaker cloth. Para gliders and some of the old para flight canopies used fabric like that. It's very stable dimensionally but the tear strength isn't as good and it's a little touchier in terms of how you sew it. It has more of a tendency to perforate. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Actually I was making a tongue in cheek reference to the tightening of test standards and requirement for measurement of forces in the last couple of TSO's. Not that any of these are a bad thing but it does raise the hurdle for any one looking at doing a new TSO. No one ever seems to get my humor. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Preventing the entry of new or foreign manufacturers? I thought that was what the new requirement's in the TSO were for. It's hard enough to hold a US TSO in a foreign country. You basically have to be some place where you can be monitored. But if you could set it up you could beat out all the competition just on price. By say half if you weren't greedy. Age limits aren't an issue in comparison. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Nope. We've all seen shit like that. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Hell there are a couple of R3's. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

That is a cool pi. I didn't realize blast handles on reserves were still around on such late model rigs. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

This has already been done long ago. This is the dial of death that he was referring to. It's actually a perfectly workable system that was/is? used for years. I don't think there is any TSO per say on any parachute hardware. Yes a lot of the old military hardware had a mill spec on it but that was a military requirement. I think it's a good thing but three rings don't have a mill spec or at least they didn't when they came out. I'm not sure what the story was once they started putting them on military rigs. But three rings, hip rings, newer stainless steel buckles, never saw a mill spec number on any of them. A catalog number from the foundries that make them. All of whom are good reputable companies. I think that you would find more documentation on a aircraft seat belt. They ARE TSO'd. The auto industry is under the DOT I would assume there is similar paper work for them. I don't see any thing barring you from TSOing a rig with seat belt or any other hard ware on it. As long as it can pass the TSO test and you can provide the necessary materials tracking information from your supplier then I think you're good to go. The question of whether it's a good idea is a another question. It's even worse then snagging a quick ejector snap. Found a pic. Dial of death... http://heritageflightgeardisplays.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/2521cfvbzvg25212k257e25242528kgrhquokkme0eds0fclbnuubt5h-q257e257e_12.jpg Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com