RiggerLee

There were actually two different two pin mirage designs. One with internal pins, that sucked. And one with external pins that was ok. There was also the Prestige. With two pins vertical. I think the reason that containers like the dual hawk and others of the same ilk had very good launches was because of the flap design. Two relatively thin wide flaps that barely meet over the PC. No tuck tabs into the opposite flaps. No big bulky heavy stiff flaps with ten layers of fabric, ballistic cloth, stiffeners, stripes, piping, etc. No supper tight main flaps that wrap over the top of the reserve trays trying to lock down the bottom flap. The whole top flap is not one big stiffener like a giant lever that must be pushed out of the way with very little mechanical advantage. No side flaps over it with tall stiffened edges that reach all the way top to bottom to lock there corners under the top or bottom flaps. A container that is actually bigger then the top of the pilot chute. A bigger relative hole for it to push through, better mechanical advantage pushing through the flaps. You know I can't imagine why older container designs might out perform our modern, high tech, supper tight, slick as shit, tiny containers. But hay, we've got free fly colors now. And shiny, don't forget the shiny! Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

As I recall there was no difference between the raven main and reserve. All the way down to the fact that they all had bridal attachments. Back in the time frame when they were jumped as mains most canopies had Dacron lines. Later the people that continued to jump them as mains were looking for a mellow canopy that they could do crw with or a student canopy and again I can't recall any having micro lines on them. But there were a whole shit load built with micro line and packed as reserves. It's not an unusual configuration. Now if you're expecting it to open with ether line type like a modern snivally main you're bound for disappointment. In stock configuration Dacron or mico line the canopy will meet the TSOc-23b requirments. That means it opens hard. Now having said that. Here are some things you might try. You say you've tried a larger slider. That's a good start but it's more complicated then that. How was it larger? Front to back? Side to side? What were the dimensions like relative to the center cell width and the stab between b an c? The slider can be the wrong shape or even just flat out too big. Was it a "flat" slider because you might have better luck with a domed/pleated slider. And Again was it pleated in one direction or two and by how much? Yes, it can be too much. Have you tried modifying a slider to a flag slider? It's a big open nose. Reducing the air flow into that large nose might be far more affective then trying to build a mongo big domes slider. Bottom line is that the slider has to be dominant over the canopy for the first half of the opening. By adding a flag you are reducing the power of the canopy rather then trying to over power it with a larger slider. Ok, here's one of the simplest ones. Have you played with the break lines? Changing the break setting is one of the easiest parameters to adjust on the opening of the canopy. There are a lot of things at play but as a general rule of thumb, canopies open softer at a shallow break setting. There is a bell curve where as the break setting gets deeper the opening gets faster and then when it's very deep it actually gets softer again. There are other issues with stability and surge that can also be driving issues. You would have to play with it but it's the easiest thing to play with. Keep in mind that this is not my canopy. George could give you far better advice so why are you asking all of us? I'm a base jumper. And further more I'm kind of an old school base jumper who used to modify skydiving canopies. So I'm not one of those stuck up little pricks that will tell you that all skydiving seven cells are shit. Super ravens are perfectly good canopies but they are what they are. If you want you're canopy to be some thing else, like consistent soft openings, Then buy a different canopy. The technology has advanced over the last twenty five years. And there are canopies with equivalent or even better characteristics today. You can get a very nice canopy that is not a rocket ship and will have better manners then a raven. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Let's see what we can name. evolution super evolution fire fly? What else only had a,b,c Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Look at the body relative to the canopy as he is stable under it before he releases the toggles to cut away. It gives you an idea of the angle at which you are actually viewing it from. You are not looking at this from the side you are looking almost straight up when he cuts away. I think the bridle length is being seen at an angle and is foreshortened. The video is very zoomed in. You are still a good ways away. You can not judge a difference in size of the body and pilot chute with that great a distance to the target. Yes the PC is farther away but the difference is only 1% of the total distance to the two bodies so there is no appreciable change in size of the diameter. What I'm basically saying is that I don't think you can really judge the length of bridle extension by ether. I can't tell why it towed. I don't know any of the details but it does look like it might be another Wings parabolic pilot chute. Damn, And I just got in a new wings container. I guess I should get back to stretching if I'm going to add hand deployment to my emergency procedures. I shouldn't say that shit in the dark like this but it is funny. My new rig is over in the corner waiting for a reserve. Maybe I should go with a 126 rather then a 143... Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

It appears that the reserve pilot chute fired and extended to bridle stretch but there was a delay before the reserve bag was extracted. That's my best guess by what little I can see. Any thing beyond that is speculation. I will speculate that the reserve container was just to tight to allow the reserve bag to be extracted. There are other examples of this. Here's a POV... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaYQ6iP8zlg And here's another on the ground. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpF-LtrMfYo&feature=youtu.be There are several threads on it. One is here... http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=4554320;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25; Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

It's a perfectly reasonable concern. It was a high altitude hop and pop, like a crw dive. His cutaway altitude was still at a conservative height. There is no reason for it to be dangerous to cut away from 2,500 or slightly lower, he paused to let a canopy pass beneath him. He has every right to expect his equipment to perform from a fraction of this altitude. This appears to be a failure, or near failure of the reserve system. It's hard to say exactly what happened but it sure sounds like a stuck bag just like some of the other incidents/accidents we've seen lately. If you don't keep up with it be advised that there are several threads discussing bag extraction failure in the rigging section. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

See the thread on rigging tools for an argument on this. You will need pop corn. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

That's exactly what I was thinking. Thanks for building it. I had not thought to draw it for him. But I think you could get by with a two ring. I don't think he's going to need enough force to justify a three ring. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I'm not supper fimiller with kite technology. It sounds like all of these safety systems not only deal with an active release but involve a full collapse of the canopy. I don't know how big these canopies are or how long your cord is. I wonder if you could build a system that would automatically depower the canopy with out collapsing the canopy or disturbing it's flight. Think of it like this. If you could let out on the C, D lines and depower the back half of the canopy basically changing it's angle of attack in the event of a gust. The A, B lines actually stay at the same angle so the nose is not prone to collapsing just like on a skydiving canopy. What you're really doing is cutting the square footage down by half. Here's what I'm thinking of. Say you had a bungy. Heavy, like the big rubber ones. It's attached to rear lines. It fas a ring on it above the bungy. The front lines are attached to another ring. It is looped around the bungy free sliding. So that it rest against the top ring under load so the canopy is in trim. Every thin flies the same till you exceed a certain amount of force. There is a lanyard attached to the bottom ring and if the bungy stretches beyond a point it will start to real in the front lines automatically reducing the lift. It would be adjustable by a friction adapter like on a small cargo strap on this lanyard. Start with the canopy depower but still flying. When you're ready to really go, push the button letting out lanyard and the max power of the kite increases. If it's windy and you're scared pull in on the end of the lanyard and the max performance goes down but until you hit the max the canopy is in perfect trim. That's the easiest way I can describe it. In practice it would be a little more complicated. The line running to all of the front lines would come into a ring on each side of the bar. It would turn and come to the center. And go through another ring. The two lines would come to a center ring joining them so that the sides stay even. This is where the lanyard would attach. The bungy would go to the center of the main bar just like your normal attachment point. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I don't like it when people try to give me a gear check. It's not that I'm opposed to it in theory. It's just that half the time they freak out. Rigs are not all the same. I've done a lot of weird stuff. I tend to play musical canopies. I did a lot of crw. I tested a lot of things. There was no telling what I'd have in my rig from one jump to the next or how big it would be or what kind of deployment system it would have. My javelin has more then 2000 jumps on it and the tuck tabs on the riser covers are pristine. Why? because most of the time I never bothered closing them. All the crw stuff on the risers was just too bulky. I hated it when some newbe would freak out seeing it in the plane and desperately try to close my risers covers as if he thought I was going to die. I remember one time a guy spoted it and started to say some thing about them being open and then I turned around and he noticed that only the top and bottom flaps of my rig were closed I'd left the sides open to give the canopy more room, it was a little over sized, it was perfectly safe. He was like, "Never mind". Another good one. CRW canopy. We put it into a rig with a pull out so we had to swap out the PC. So he's getting on the plane and guess what's showing? The curved pin. It had slid up and was just kind of dangalling there on a little loop of the cord bridle. He was climbing on the plane up the ladder in the prop wash and it was just flopping in the wind right in the next jumpers face. Talk about a freak out. He was on the ladder but he had a hold of the rail. The jumper behind him had him in a bear hug trying to pull him off the plane screaming at the top of his lungs. He's trying to call back to him that it's ok. With every pull the otter is rocking and the ladder is banging against the side... I could go one with the stories but the point is that I accepted long age that I was just going to have to be responsible for my own shit. Now I just tell people to stay away from my rig. It will only scare them. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

You're a freaking genius. That's a perfect way to do it. Or at least a buildable way. It's kind of like the strong MARD. You've got a ring in the back of the canopy, RW-3. You've got a two ring with a RW-4 on the end of a small riser. There is a spring hooked on to the end of the riser. A coil spring with a hook on each end. The spring is hooked to the ground. There is a yellow cable hooked to the ground on the back end of the spring. When the spring extends the yellow cable pulls out of the loop at the 50 lb point or where ever you want. And the two ring is released. Any local rigger can build it for you out of any old hard ware from an old set of risers. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I think I follow. The kite would be set up ready to fly. You back up to line stretch. inflate the canopy and then give it a good pop to free it? I would think a type of spring loaded clip would do it. For purposes of wear and smooth release I think I'd put a small ring on the canopy for it to clip to. I think the clip could be spring adjustable to control the force. I could draw some thing but I can't think of an off the shelf. How many of these are you looking for? Is there a continuing market? I know some guys that just started a machining shop. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I can envision such a device. I'm not set up for it but I don't think it would be that hard to build. It would be easier if you could tell us a little more about it's use. Do you want a release like a cutaway that will completely release it or are you looking for something like the clutch on a big fishing tackle with a break that will slip releasing line at a certain load? Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

For the record I'm not a fan of the clamp test. I do my best to doge using it when ever possible preferring my calibrated thumb. Where did this idea actually come from and how did they establish this standard, which I think is too harsh? I know it dates back to the acid mesh issue. I once heard that it was stolen verbatim from the balloon industry. But why would they think that it would be ok to apply that to a much lighter fabric? It's just a little before my time. Could somebody clarify the history particularly how the 40 lb standard was established? I do try to avoid this test. I'm going to set my pride aside to ask this question I can't find mention of it in their manual. What is the deal with the new optimum fabric? Are they advocating testing it in the same way? And are there any differences in the standards? If they are advocating a 30 pull for the PD reserve are the testing the optimum to the same? I should do a better keeping up my knowledge. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I think what you're describing would be... odd. I may be just confusing the hell out of you with shit which although theoretically interesting to me is of no practical interest to you. But I'll take a shot at it. What you're basically saying there is that the change in span of the half cell, or more specifically the increase in that span for the arc of the inflation, is directly proportional to the thickness of the rib. Which is not true. In fact the rib is not a perfect wedge although the tail is close to that. The real answer would be tougher. Let's say that the out wards tension in the skin is equal to the height of the rib. What this basically says is that the pressure on the out side of the rib at the end cell is equal to the pressure on the top skin at that point. See the problem already? But bear with me. So what I'm going to say is that the angle of the top skin where it meets the rib is no longer 90 deg but "theta". I'm going to say that the ribs are still at there same places in space but stretch the top skin half cell "s" to make an arc "a" that will meet the rib at angle theta. I'm going to say that theta is a product of the forces pushing out on the top skin and out on the rib so a ratio of the half span of the cell and half span of the rib thickness. Remember there is the bottom skin doing the same on the bottom half of the rib. I'll ignore the fairly significant fact that there is less pressure differential on the bottom side for now but this really should be included. I suppose you could look at it as a ratio of the top and bottom skin pressure coefficients. Setting that aside I just want to show you how the math might work. theta=pi/2-atan(t/2s) "r" the radius of the arc r=s/2sin(theta) a=2r*theta In truth the cell should be made from two peace's of fabric seamed together at the unloaded rib but here we are pushing all of this change to the out side edge of the cell. Then what about the trailing edge? in truth you should narrow it back down substantially to the original width. Maybe looking at the sagitta of the arc decreasing it down at the rate of a curve down to zero at the tail. Are you getting the idea that it's not a straight triangle that you're subtracting to balance the very real trapezoidal shape of the bottom skin panel? And this really isn't a fair assessment. I'm fudging hard on some of those assumptions. In truth I think you would have to look at the actual flow around the end cell, remember that there is a big ass tip vortex there, and look at the Cp along the cord top and bottom at that point. And even that is different for each cell do to the local AoA which varies from induced drag. You might also look at the way the different cells want to surge in front or lag behind as the each try to reach for there natural glide angle based on there trim to compensate for the local AOA created by the induced drag. That in it self wants to... bend the wing for or back just like the inflation wants to bend it back. Let me think... I think you'll find that it actually wants to bow the outer ends of the canopy forwards. I say that based on what I recall of the span wise lift of an untwisted rectangular wing which is far from an elliptical. So there you have something fighting the "inflation". Is that confusing enough? That's what you get for asking me questions and making me think about shit. Personally I'd disregard all of this. As you probable should do with most of what I say. Here is my recommendation which is worth exactly as much as I'm charging you for it. IGNORE AERO ELASTIC ISSUES IN THIS ITTERATION OF YOUR DESIGN. I would build it as a rotation around the free stream line as we discussed which will give you a trapezoidal bottom skin panel and fuller top. What I think you should do on this canopy is establish you're construction techniques. What I mean by that is freeze your seams design. Go and find a real double needle sewing machine. Get a folders for your seams. How ever you're going to do them. Learn to sew and build it right. If you set this up properly it will cut the construction time down to a fraction of what it took you to build the last canopy. You're on a good track. There is nothing wrong with you're designs. They are very conservative. They are flying fine. I would not expect major issues. I think it's time to get serious about the other half of the equation and work on being able to actually build them. And for gods sake when I start wondering off on a tangent like these distortion issues just ignore me and go sew some thing. It's all straight out of my ass any way. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I don't know where you get off making the statement that it holds it's trim better. Dacron does have some stretch and does not hold it's trim perfectly but spectra shrinks horribly. We're talking .5 inches of stretch vs. 5 inches of shrinkage. I don't see any of the lines we use today having enough stretch to absorb enough kinetic energy to make any real difference in the opening forces. I think a better argument might be that the Dacron lines create more friction in the grommets and are some what slower to push the slider down. Even a small change in this could make a difference, particularly in a run away opening where something has gone wrong. So even if it did not have a significant impact on an average opening it might save you from injury on a problem, runaway opening. If you're not seeing any difference it's telling me two things. First, your slider is significantly dominant over your canopy on opening. A good thing, all canopies should be that way, but some don't seem to achieve that. Second, that you did not have significant staging issues in your testing. Let me guess you were using your fucking speed bags. I wouldn't dismiss Dacron or it's benefits but it does come at a price of bulk, weight, drag, and wear. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

These people now own major companies and try to put on an air of respectability. What a fucking joke. Every one of these people got started as an unwashed, unshaved, skydiver, drinking beer on the drop zone in cutoffs and a t-shirt. It makes me laugh every time I see them put on a fucking tuxedo at the PIA dinners and try to look upstanding in front of all the government muckitymucks. The discussions, disagreements, arguments, conflicts, and out right brawls between these... iconic figures in our sport are nothing short of legendary. We should start a thread of stories about some of the great figures in our sport. Some body help me out. My memory is failing me. Who was it that had the 2*4 and was chasing the other in circles around the drop zone till he hid in his old van. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I'll take the opposite side of the argument. It is true that Red is anti clamp. So be it. It's his product. But that is far from a universal feeling. I should point out the difference between doing pull test with clamps which is some what damaging to fabric, and is still advocated by some manufacturers, and the relatively benign uses of good rubber tipped clamps in the packing process. I like my clamps. It's like having an extra hand. Can I pack with out them, yes. Is it as easy, no. I suppose if I finally figure out how to grow an extra arm, maybe two, I'll give up clamps for good. Maybe not even then. I like to get up and take a piss some times. But until then I think I'll continue to take advantage of what is essentially an extra hand, at least when it's permitted. And you should see the mondo supper large clamps on steroids that I use with the 1200 sq ft canopies. They're like the standard orange clamps but twice as large. TOOLS. Tool use separates us from the animals. I feel abandoning that concept is tantamount to a betrayal of all that we have achieved in the last one million years. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

What I don't get is how they got away with a 120/180 day repack cycle on it. This was actually really scary. It just drives home the point that parachutes should be made from nylon. There was a reason why nonsynthetic components had such a short repack cycle. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

A design can only be optimized for one condition. Full flight along it's glide seems to me to be as good a choice as any. We keep using the word twist. I'm not sure that's the right term. The line set and trim is consistent across the canopy. It's more about keeping the whole span of the wing head on into the free stream wind. You might think of it as avoiding a side slip of the end cells into the relative wind. That's an awkward way of saying it. Basically I'm advocating building the plane form so that you have a consistent angle of incidence of the wing with the local section of the wing facing head on into the local free stream flow. Don't confuse that with the local AOA at each section which you might be able to determine with a little analysis. And when I talk about examining the wing at other angles of attack it would involve looking at the local angle of incidence when the canopy pitches. That change will not be constant along the span. When I say you might be able to treat it as a twisted wing in that case I'm saying that you might be able to use a constant spanwise twist in a wing model to approximate the change in AOI along the wing. This is not exactly correct but I'm saying that because it's a relatively solvable design that an open source peace of code could deal with. If I could find my old flight dynamics book I'd look up the one we did in class. At this point I'd start drawing patterns and cutting fabric. As a next step you might start looking at the aero elastic issues. For example the distortion in the wing from the inflation of the half cells. In theory if the pressure all around it were consistent the distortion in the top and bottom panels would be a function of the width and the height of the cell. Taller the cell the less arc in the skins. As you move towards the back of the canopy the rib becomes thinner, the ratio changes and the angle of the arc of the top and bottom skins increases. You could start to include this in your patterns. Note that this will trend opposite to the changes you are making right now. On the other hand ignoring this may create a certain amount of tension across the tail of the canopy and actually help to flatten the back of the cell. You might also have to look very closely at the flow around the end cell to really get an idea of the span wise pressure and tension in the canopy to give you a good idea of the distortion. That would actually be a very difficult problem to look at in detail. And I'm not sure it would give you a better canopy. Again with the just build it theory of design. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

All of these canopies are inherently soft openers. But I've seen ribs broken and necks broken by specters. That's not a criticism of the specter. It's an example of how a very docile canopy can bight you. If you are serious about protecting your self from hard openings focus on your staging. It's line dump or off sequence deployments that will get you. I'm not a racer fan but you might look into a speed bag for your rig. Big tight stows. Even small things can make a difference. I used to think that they were cheesy but I've heard some very convincing arguments in favor of magnetic riser covers in reference to avoiding hard openings. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I love the tan lines. They would make any swim suit model proud. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

A couple come to mind. There was a military seat pack that came in, c-9. I don't recall how long it had been packed. I think it had been left in the corner of a hanger where water accumulated in a puddle. Oddly enough I don't recall the hardware being that bad and the canopy wasn't even that bad as far as it's actual condition goes ie it pull tested fine. But when we tried to open it we had... problems. The whole canopy was stiff stuck together from what ever minerals were carried in the water over the... years. We had to peel apart and un bend the folds of the canopy. Then the lines would not come out of the hesitator loops. I mean I had both feet planted on the frame trying to pull the line stows out of the nylon loops. Then we had to try to peel apart all the gores of the canopy. But in the end the thing seemed to be... Ok. We couldn't find any grounds for grounding it. Another example of what appeared to be a perfectly good PEP on the out side. It was one of the PEP there at Quincy on year. Pit guy. Really nice softy. Some wear, he actually used it but it appeared far better cared for then most of the rigs that I saw come in back home. So we open it up and there is no diaper on the FFE reserve. Don't get me wrong. There had been a diaper on the canopy when it was last packed it just wasn't there any more. The diaper had been made out of some form of pollycotten blend. Ever notice that? It probable made it much easier to stamp and stencil the information on it. Don't ask me how they get away with this. Well it bit them on the ass. It had gotten wet. Mold a whole forest of it. The lines had absorbed and held the water. There was nothing left of the fabric of the diaper. There was still the binding tape around the edge there was still the loops with the rubber bands on them but every thing else was gone. I never liked the ejection seats for the XV-15 prototype of the V-22 Osprey . I always thought it was a fucked up design. I have no idea who the nonrigging engineering genius was who came up with this. It's not just that it was a pain to pack and a pain to open but the risers had this built in asymmetry that was just begging for an inversion and the big ass cutter that tethered you to this crashing aircraft of death was a big steal weight that was left on the top of your pilot chute. I just did not like them. I always figured that I could have taken a shit and produced something more airworthy then that log. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

This should almost be a separate thread. As you can see there are differences in opinion. When you see us arguing like this just go and get your self some popcorn. As to how many riggers have been trained in courses, I'd say that varied by area of the country. Back when it was just Dewolf doing this once or twice a year I'd say that you were wrong. Now with these courses seeming to be popping up all over it might have changed. Around here... I can only think of one rigger who actually went off to a course. And oddly enough he just happened to be there and took it on a whim. And he fucking passed. It was incredible, but he's bright guy. There have been a few that moved here over the years who went through courses but traditionally we've always raised our own. And we have some pretty strong blood lines descended from some very good old school riggers who planted there seeds here in Texas. As to the quality of the courses. No one is questioning their competency. No one is questioning their integrity. There is no question as to whether their students meet the qualifications for or the requirements of the test. What I do question is the level of ambition of the concept of such a course. It's not about the rules. As I see it the rules lay out the bare, the very minimum, requirements. They do their best to set a standard but as I see it there is an assumption of a wider base of knowledge that really can not qualified in a list of requirements. And it's that range and depth of experience that I do not think can be imparted in such a short course. I guess it's a question of how riggerly you expect your Senior riggers to be. Master and Senior riggers. He's right to correct me as to the requirements. There are actually a number of ways that you can fulfill them and places where you can get the experience. I wasn't referring to the legal qualifications for the certificate. I was trying to describe the true difference between the two and the difference between the rule and the reality of what we do. There is a wide variation in competency do to the variation in back ground. I've seen "Master" riggers that I felt were far less knowledgeable then some "Senior" riggers I know. I've seen master riggers that can't sew to save their lives and would have no business doing major repairs. This is an example of how "by the rule" some one can qualify with out really being qualified. There are people that would say that master rigger work should be done by a master rigger. I've always argued against this. If that were the case how would the said master rigger ever learn how to do this kind of work? The FAR's are very specific regarding a master riggers authority to supervise all work that he is qualified for under his rating. It's kind of over looked but I see that as his primary job. And you'll get a good laugh out of this. It's been a long standing joke, but I'm a Senior rigger. I'm a SENIOR rigger. And to be absolutely honest I'm not sure I qualify to be a Master rigger. Yes I hold two ratings. We had seat packs come in all the time back at the adventure loft. I did work at the packing table but I was always more valuable at the sewing machine. I would have to dig out old log books and try to count things up. But even if I could find my old log books I'm not sure I have 100 seat packs in them. And frankly it was never a priority. As long as you have at least one Master rigger around to sign off paper work why do you need to up grade? So after 20 odd years of working actively in the industry I do not consider my self qualified to be a master rigger. That should give some idea of my standards for the industry. And as far as you taking this course. You should go for it. You should do every thing you can before you get there but you should go for it. This course is for you. It's the reason why it should exist. I believe that it is an imperfect solution but every one here will do what ever they can to help you both before and after the course. And you will need help but we will support you. The bottom line is you need a rigger there where you are. If there isn't one to learn from then you'll have to learn your self. And with luck you can found your own lineage of riggers that will grow and flourish in that part of the country. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

There isn't really a skill progression or order in which they must be learned. Most of these things run parallel to each other. Rigging is multifaceted. There are many types of riggers. And to be honest very few ever master all the aspects of the field. There are riggers that pack. There are riggers that sew. There are riggers that design and build. There are people that work with PEP's. There are riggers that work on ejection seats. Some riggers work with heavy drop systems. And a few even work at drop zones on skydiving equipment. The thing is there is really only one riggers ticket. If you get a back rating you are supposed to be competent and capable of dealing with and servicing any back style parachute that walks through the door. Whether it's a skydiving container with a square or a pilot rig with a round. It might be a Mirage or it might be a BA-22. There are no limited certificates. There are four ratings that they try to break it down into. Some people say that it should be broken down differently but for now it's what we have. And if you have a rating you are expected to be fully versed and competent with in it. There are two classes. The god like Master rigger and the lowly Senior rigger. And this is a matter of experience. A master Rigger has been around working on that equipment long enough to be entrusted to determine the air worthiness of major repairs and approved alterations. That's all. That's the big difference. It does not in any way affect the work that they can do. A Senior rigger can do major repairs and approved alterations all day long, they must simply be signed off by a master rigger to be returned to service. In fact that's the only way for a senior rigger to become a master rigger is for them to spend two years doing all of these things under the watchful eye of a master rigger. Only after 200 plus pack jobs in two ratings and years of performing major repairs and alterations can they be trusted to have the experience necessary to have the judgment to then sign off these things as a master rigger. This is the way I understand it. As to training. Actually there are a lot of people, "doing it right" what ever that may mean. There are busy lofts from one side of the country to the other. There are manufactures and large drop zones. There are aerobatic clubs and glider clubs and flying museums. All of which can have very active lofts. Many of these people are willing to take on students or at least slaves. And many people are trained in this way with a deep and thorough grounding in a wide variety of skills. As to how long it takes... it takes as long as it takes and if done right the testing is at most a formality. The requirements are minimal and are almost a given by the time you get around to taking your test. The performance standards... I suppose you could say that TSOc-23what ever, is the standard but in truth there is the assumption of a fairly large knowledge base that is standard to the industry. Pointers and the new parachute manual are you best guides to this. It's a cop out to say that but it would take me a year to elaborate on the answer. I think that what you are doing is really cool, stepping up like this. It has been and can be done. It's hard. People have walked into these classes cold but it's Very rough. Forget sleep. You really need to find some way to make some progress before you get there. A few pack jobs. Some sewing. Reading. Any thing you can do. And when you're done you will feel even less knowledgeable then now But at least you'll have an idea of what you don't know. Make as many contacts as you can while you are there. All of your instructors will be more then happy to help you in the future. They are just a phone call away. It's going to suck if you really are left in a void after the class. It will be like getting your student license. You'll find that you still have a lot to learn or figure out by your self. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com