RiggerLee

I don't get the cable thing eather. It's just to impress the ignorant, of which there are plenty in this sport. The loop cutting demo is cool though. I fermly beleave that any cutter should have this capability and pass this test. We've been flying a vigil on the last two launches. We're thinking about going from the pin puller we are useing to just the vigil cutter. Curently we have one linked to our computer just as a backup to the pinpuller which has turned out to be problmatic. In testing they were cutting two layers of thousand pound HMA with it to sever the loop. It cut cleanly with no hang ups of any kind with NO tension on it. Right now we are useing it to cut two layers of 500 lb vectran. That's what we used on the last flight. I've got vid on my computer of it cutting the loops but I don't know how to post it dirrectly to the thread. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Flopity things like that can be... challenging. Santaclause suits, tuxes, other costumes. They can all get you into trouble. A boc is just about the worst thing to jump them with. You're gona laugh but this is the truth. The best way to do any of that shit is a ripcord. Just make sure you're current on the canopy as well. I've seen guys pound in on canopies that they were not current with in the middle of a demo trying to be "responsable" with the deployment. Not saying you shouldnt do this or have fun but at the very least antisapate problems reaching the pud. Practice pull. start early. give your self plenty of time to find your way through all the shit. Worst case just hang out for the last thousand feet with your hand on it. And don't... reach through some thing. This thing may have elastic on the waist. How far will it streatch? The drag will be pulling on it. You might make a belt for it even if it's just cord laced through it with a needle. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Right now I'm getting by with 2000 lb spectra but in light of the new tool i might have to upgrade. And I guess I'll need a bigger tool box for my rigging kit. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I just got in my newest packing tool. It just came in the mail today. Now I can pack any thing! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00042KG3A/ref=pe_175190_21431760_M3C_ST1_dp_1 And no this isn't a joke or spam. the rig I'm packing this week has a canopy that wieghs 64 lb. The bag is tight in the container. It takes about 120 lb to pull the bag out of the container and a good deal more to get it to go in there. I think I got a hernia the last time I packed it. But no more now that I have my ultament packing tool! And to all thouse people that poo poo at my tork bar, please insert a big fat rasberry here. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Leaning forward and back in the harness doesn't do any thing for you. The risers come togather at a confluance. For the most part the canopie acts as if it were loaded at that point. As far as trim goes you can't shift the load relitively to the canopy. However the distance of the cg downwards from that point can afect the dynamics of the canopy. That length can afect how the canopy pitches. If you could signifagently lower the cg, weights on your ankles or pulling up your legs, you could probable do more to effect the flight of the canopy then leaning forwards or back. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I refranced this here once before but I couldnt find it. http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/foil2.html It's not a bad example and makes pritty pritty pictures that make it fairly understandable. The answer is that in stable flight the load is well to the front of the canopy. This is of course dependent on the angle of attack, camber, thickness, etc. But generally as a rule of thumb the aero dynamic center is around the .25 cord point. So when we model it we talk about a lift, drag, and moment around that point.n so the center of lift changes slightly with the angle of attack. But I'll do you one better. Look at it spanwise. A finite wing has a circulation atround the wing tip. It wants to flow from the high pressure on the bottom to the top. In fact lift it self is a circulation around the wing and you can kind of think of this as that vortex droping off the tip and trailing behind the wing. It turns 90 deg and goes backwards. Here's the thing, that circulation affects the angle of attack that the wing sees all across the span of the canopy. The air actually does not hit it at the angle you would expect. In fact that angle changes all along the wing. This generaly affects you in a negative context. It sort of tilts the lift vector backwards from being perpendicular to the flight path. In other wards it turns some of your lift into drag. I'm not nit picking. This is a lot of drag and for low AR canopies it's a big deal. Low aspect Ratio, AR, sucks. So the lift across the A lines for example even on a rectangular canopy were you would think that they are all suporting the same weight is not the same. It's not an even distrobution from side to side. It's not even a smooth elips, which would be ideal to minimise induiced drag. In short the answer is no. Even in stable gliding flight, other then center line symitry, you would be hard pressed to find two lines that have the same load on them. Nothing is eaven unless it's just a querk of the spread that some c happions to equal some d further out on the span. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

that's really interesting. Historicly we've played with some things like that with rounds. I wonder how it would do with out the paraglider attached. Ossolate more with out that damping? The inner lines give a sharper radious at the sides and might cause the air flow to break off at that point reduicing the ossilation but it's so damn short. Makes me wonder what the malfunction rate is like. Perticuarly hand deployed at low speed where there could be a cross wind component and with out any tension on the "apex" during opening. There's a good pic on there web site. Interesting choice of line and tape locations. I wonder if all the panels are just square and all the shape comes from the distortion or if the seam them togather with shape in the edges of the panel. Like to see one some day. The actually have some really inovative designs. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

$200 a day? What a shit hole. I've seen people adverage $700 a day on the weekends and top $1000 on a good long day. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Ummm... no. Your wrong, but I should actually be a bit more formal my self. Q, dynamic pressure, .5rv^2 is the kinetic energy stored in the free stream velocity. In theory it would be the diffrence between the static and dynamic ports on an ideal peto tube. Now it never works out quite that cleanly. There's always a certin amout of calibration. You can't really talk about the exact, still relitive, number with out examining the fluid dynamics of the situration. Way more then we want to go into here. But for all practical purpouses the leading edge of the airfoil, the stagnation point where the edge splits, expereances the full dynamic preasure, Q, plus free stream. The pressures on the top and bottom skin are complex questions determind by the fluid flow. Look at the little toy model. Presure on the bottom skin reduces quickly and even drops below freestream, ambeant, then it climbs again towards the tail till it is again over ambeant. The preasure on the top skin is much lower but even there the preasure towards the tail can climb above ambeant. But you'll notice that the canopy bulges out wards, excluding the lip on the nose, every where including the bottom skin. You are positivly preasurized. And if you were to put a preasure transduicer any where inside the canopy looking at absolute preasure you would find it very close to the total preasure, dynamic + static, that you see at the stagnation point at the leading edge of the airfoil. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

It would be better to say dynamic pressure not ambient. More acceratly it probably relates closly to the minimun preasure at the nose opening. The nose is larg enough that you can't just look at some teoretical stagnation preasure at one point. It's tall enough that there is probable some flow in and out. Hmmm, what would it be? perhaps an adverage across the nose area? I'd have to think about it. But Q is close enough for goverment work. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Another interesting question. I think what you're actually asking about is internal pressurization, the pressure differental between the inside and the out side durring opening. It's my oppionion that most of the dammage you see is not from positive pressure building up on the inside but from the pressure/ force on the bottom skin durring opening. In other words I don't think it blows out wards but inwards. One possable exception might be some damage they saw when they tryed to put airlocks on some base canopies. That was about the only damage I think I've ever seen from over pressurazation in a canopy. Here are some of the things I've seen and my thoughts on it. Brake line attachments, perticuarly the center ones. I've seen them tear off and I've seen tears in the fabric around them. There is deffinently a lot of load on them but most of the tears I've seen appear to be the result of a slightly messy roll of the tail creating stress points in eather the top or the bottom skin. Or the bartack slightly off creating a point load. Once the fabric tears slightly releaving the point load the stress is released and it genterally does not tear further. I've taken tails apart and patched the pannels and rebuilt it. You're going to laugh at this but I've also just sewen the tail togather around it in a cresant to stableize it. Guy wanted to make the next load and I'm not fast enough to do the full repare on a ten min call. Funny thing was they guy didn't bring it back that evening. He seemed to think that it was fine and last I heard the canopy had another 500 jumps on it when I lost track of it. So althoue the break line are a stress point most of the problems I've seen have related to the construction of the seam. C and D lines. I have in fact seen some line attachment points tear lose here. I've even seen the seam tear out of the bottom of the canopy. I'm trying to recall the locations but I recall most of them as being off center, not neccesarily being the center C and D. I think this is the product of the bottom skin inflation of the canopy trapped by the curraling down of the tail cupping the canopy and trappin the air. As to which lines take the most stress that seems to depend on the break setting. With some canopies after opening there is actually a slight bow in the D lines on eather side implying that the C and break lines are takeing the majority of the load. Nose. I can set here and teorise all day about the highest load being at the high point of the bottom skin under the tail but the truth is that I have repared far more dammage from the nose of the canopy, A and B lines then any where else. Where does a canopy blow up on a hard opening? It breaks it's A and B lines. Where did all of the Ravins with type 3 fail, A and B. Where did the Flick fail? A and B. All the damage that we saw on our heave drops? A and B lines. I just replaced the first four feet of a rib that we tore out at the leading edge of the nose. It snaped a 1 inch type 3 tape. As to where all of this comes from? YOu got me. The opening of a canopy is caose incarnate. There are probable a lot of variables. The cut of the nose, lip, break setting, trim. Some of it seems to relate to how much the canopy surges forwards durring opening, trim, angle of slider, break setting. all of this seems to relate to how much air you catch in the nose and how much load it sees. As an example we had a break come unstowed on the last opening. that was the side that we had the rib damage on. Center ribs. I have seen ribs tear internally. You might say that internal preasure played a part in it but I think that the damage was from the bridal attachment point. I think it broke the tape and tore the rib. All the damage I've seen of this kind has been on the center three ribs. I don't think it was an "inflation" issue. Top skins. I have seen top skins tear, tandoms, cargo canopies, but it was in the front half of the canopy, or it appears to have started there. I still think this was load from air being caught in the nose during opening. I don't think it was an over inflation/presureazation issue. "Blow outs." The relatively few times that I can point to a peace of fabric that "blew out" with no obveous point of stress concentation that started the tear there have often been signs of line burn which damaged the fabric and then split of some other damage. Cat piss turn nylon into tissue. I went looking for a picture of a pressure diagram for a wing. I found this: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/foil2.html Put it on an air foil and play with the angle a bit. It will at least give you an idea of the distrobution during flight. It also gives you an idea of how serious leakage could be at diffrent areas. Look at the graph. Basicaly the highth of the lines is the presure relitive to the free stream preasure. The peak on top at the front is the stagnation pressure inside the airfoil. Any thing less then that is pressure inside the canopy trying to push out. In other words if you had a hole in the canopy there air would leak out of it. Note that the pressure on the top skin is much lower then on the bottom skin, hens why it flys. But that also implies that a hole in the top skin will lose a lot more air then one in the bottom skin. Also note that the pressure at the front of the top skin is much lower then the presure at the back of the top skin. In other words a hole farther forward in the top skin will lose much more air then one farther back on the tail. The bottom skin is the opisit. A hole towards the front is not as bad as one towards the tail in terms of air loss. What happions when you have a hole? Well, air leaks out of it. In a sence it changes the shape of the airfoil. Think of it as a bump that the out side air that is makeing your lift must flow over. It pushes the air flow away from the canopy. If can cause flow seperation of premature stalling, at least localy, of that section of the wing. You get more drag when that happions and that could affect your pitching and flare. Trying to keep this symple. I don't want to get too mathy here. but from a sence of the sevarity of a leak and also airodynamicly a hole towards the front of the top skin is far worse then in the tail. Stability. Canopies used to have big open conservitive noses. The stagnation point was almose garentead to be in the opening of the nose no matter what the angle of attack was. Now with lips on our canopies and openings that are almose on the bottom of the canopy you can't always say that the skin will be positivly pressureised. In fact when you look up at your nose and see that dimple in the lip that is on allmost every canopy today you know exactly where that point is. If you front riser or add breaks you'll see that dimple move or go away as the angle of attack changes. The canopies are a lot high in performance today but it also putes them closer to the edge. They like the airflow to be stagnent. They really don't like air flow into the nose. Whether it's cross flow, leakage through the seams, the fabric or a hole. It's all the same. It will make that dimple in the lip less stable. Ultomently it can roll backwards causing a leading edge collaps. Depending on a number of factores this can be any thing from a small hickup to a catistofic event, but the point is leaks are bad. Some canopies can tolerate them some cant. I don't bother patching holes in my crw rig till they're big enough to stick your head through. At that point I concider them to become a danger because some one might get there head caught in it. On the other hand I once had an icerous that would colaps just from turning the canopy, cross flow and posable seams. Have I confused the issue enough? Well I got to go. Cant wait to see how I get slamed on this one. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

They do have diffrent dynamic caricteristics. I only have a couple of jumps on them, at relitively light wing loadings, but I didn't find it to constitute a problem on the larger canopies. Most of the real issues I've seen have been on the smaller sizes which just didn't seem to scale as well or behave as well as the larger originals, smaller micro ravens and small m series. Although I would concider it to be well known sence it hasn't been mentiond here I feel obbliged to point out that do to the inconcistancy in how canopies are measured, that if you go by the pubblished numbers that you are actually jumping at a higher wing loading then it would apear. So when you say that a raven does not land as well as a PD at the same wing loading I'm forced to point out that the wing loading is actually higher. Conversly when you say that a PD performs so well at high wing loadings I have to point out that it is because PD lies about the size of there canopies and that the wingloading is actually lower. And just for the record I do prefer how PD canopies fly but not enough to make me affraid to jump a Raven. We jumped them for years. I've seen lots of jumps on them. You cant say they don't work. As to wing loading... There are a lot of people out there that don't really need to be loading there reserves at 1.5 regardless of how you measure them. And I really don't think you need to be loading even an optimum at 2.0 So what's the point in the whole argument? Ravens have been around forever with countless changes and upgrades over the years. As it's been pointed out there are diffrent generations but I'm a little surprised no one in this whole bitch fest has bothered to point out some of the more glareing problems they have had over the years. As an example the whole line attachment debockel. The various form of repair and the contraversy over there efectivness. And yes, I am one of those riggers that declines to pack m-series with type 3 tape on the attachment points. I just don't think it's adiquit concidering the canopies propensity for aberant hard openings. There was also some issues with broken lines on some super ravens. As I recall it was atributed to higher wingloading and higher altitudes. Could some one help me out on the details? As I recall it led to a recamendation of jumping lower wing at dropzones that had higher landing areas. I never really saw the logic behind this my self. Now haveing said all of this. These things have been around for freaking ever. With a history that long any manufactorer will have had some issues. Just for fun should we start a thread on the lemons PD has put out? So althoue they have had some glitches I don't see how you can condem Ravens in general. And I don't see any reason why some one should go out a pay some excesive price for a brand new optimem when there is a perfectly good Raven sitting there in a bag Cheap. I wouldn't. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

That's a little harsh. I've got some jumps on a prusuit, I want to say that it was a 245? I'd love to have that canopy. I don't think that this is the best canopy for him but there is no need to dish it. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Come on it's not that weird. I always wanted to play with some thing like this. And for the record there are a lot of single surface airfoils. You see them in some ultra lights. Look at the quick silver sprint. They are a bit draggy, not the most eficant things in the world but they've flown for years. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

It was really a CRW canopy. There were some compermises in its flight caricteristics to make it a good crw canopy. You're not going to be wild about it's landings and its openings may be a bit... brisk. Don't get me wrong, they are a canopy. Every one jumped them back then. They were the shit for crw. But of all the older canopies it's not at the top of the list. Price? Cheap. If they give it to you it's some thing you can jump for now till you find some thing else. But a CRW prusute 230 and $4.95 will get you a happy meal at Mcdonalds. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

How does the performance compare to more conventional paragliders? I wonder if you could get a fully soft version to open. I'd love to cut down on the weight and bulk of the canopies we are useing. The 1200 is a 62 lb brick. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I've said it before but it bares repeating. I've actually had very good luck with speed bag variations under even the most extream conditions. I'm becomeing a proponent of this concept. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I actually was going to post some thing relevent but this guy so sounds like a lawyer. Please add me to the list of people posting off topic comments in this thread. Please also insert apropreit derogatory comments and personal attacks here, ( __________ ). Thank you, Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

In climbing we call them screamers. Yates built the first ones. We're already useing them in a couple of places, like on the nose cone to dampen the force when it blows off and hits bridle streatch so that it wont snap back into the fusalage. It's one of the solutions we're looking at for the bag extraction although it might take a rather long one to control the force all the way to line streatch. You could be looking at a 60 ft long screamer if you tore at 500 lb and you were lifting a 64 lb bag to a 40 ft line streatch. It'd doable and it's our current fall back plan if we start seeing problems. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

A couple of things stand out in you're description. At the start of the first second you are decending at 20 fps. At the end of the first second you have accelerated 32.2 fps. So over the course of the first second you fall 16+20 ft aprox. So yes you do fall 36 ft in the first second but at the end of that second you are moveing 52.2 fps not 36 fps. Now you seem to be interested in this point because you have a 16 foot bridle. And if the pilot chute which was moveing at 20 fps alond with you when it was fired continued to move at 20 fps as you accelerated away at 32 fpss you would in dead reach bridle streatch at the end of that first second. But that assumes that the pc will not be accelerated by gravity and that there will be no extraction force for the bridle as it is extracted from the container. In truth it's a lot more complicated. What is the Cd for the PC as it is there before it hits true bridle streatch? It's probable falling on it's side fluttering (lets not turn this into a debate about booths sidewase jumping pilotchute). the bottom line is that it's a relivively low drag with a heavy spring in it. So when you reach bridle streatch is really more a question of the terminal velocity of the pc in this state relitive to you. How much force does it take to pull the bridle out? Don't laugh I think that's actually important. I think when the pc actually turns right side up and inflates is quite important in this. We see it as a factor in base in really low speed deployments. So I don't think part of the bridle being retained under the flaps is a bad thing. I think it can turn the pc bottom down sooner and leads to earlier inflation which makes up for any "towing" of the PC. The lighter and dragier the pc, the more the relitive velocities when it hits bridle streatch. Again some thing we see in base getting that first pin pulled. So light weight, fully inflated, high drag pc=fast to bridle streatch. The snatch force would seem to be a product of the kinetic energy stored over that distance which should be a product of the drag the pc is makeing over that distance. This doesn't have to be trivial. We actually broke a 5000 lb drogue release from that snatch force when a 100 ft bridle extended. Long story but it was at like mach 2.8. This is basicly nitpicking over math and I apologise for it. Has any one ever done a study of malfunction rates/damage relitive to acceleration to line streatch? Not simple in terms of air speed or weight but in terms of actual snatch force as you hit line streatch? Looking at pilot chute drag vs bag weight. It's a slightly diffrent question. It's about that first spike rather then the bell curve that follows it. In a sence that's what that mill study was about and how excessive or inadiquit extraction force affected the deployment of rounds. And there was a sweet spot. I was wondering if you or others had seen any thing simular in your drop testing. My cureosity in this relates to the probblems we're faceing. We've got quite a bit of line length on this 1200 sqft canopy. We're building up a good bit of kinetic energy on the way to line streatch and in the event of a heavy deployment or as we move to heavier air frames this will only get worse. I've been thinking about useing a long screamer or secondary pilot chute to eleaveate some of this spike rather then dragging the thing out by a drogue produicing 1000 lb or more of force. The down side being the trap door allowing the fusalage to fall onto it's side and crack like a whip on opening. And we have seen that. In fact we tore the aluminum on the side of the recovery section open like a beer can with our risers on just such a deployment. Mards. I really do have mixed feeling on them but i do like them for tandom rigs. Here's why. Most malls are cutaways and very low air speeds. The bag is heavy. This would imply that you need a big ass pc. I'll use strong as an example. Fairly big high drag pc and even then I don't think it's big enough. too much time to line streatch, too much time to flail or have any thing else to go wrong. But there's also the potental for a opening pushing 200 mph or more. any pilot chute that would be adiquit for the first senario would be way, way too big for the second. At the oposit end of the spectrom is a Vector useing that same low drag pilot chute that he has on his sport rigs. WTF? Every cross traind tandom master I've ever spoken to has said the same thing. From a lowspeed cutaway on a vector there is enough time to have not one heart attack but two before the reserve hits line streatch. That's a dirrect quote. I've seen tandom masters with a thousands of jumps and a dozen cutaways on strong rigs scream like a little girl on there first vector cutaway with that v2 pilotchute. Now haveing said that it's probably exactly what you want at 200 mph. It's perfect. Mards, they seem to be the ideal solution to this. I'm not wild about the skyhook because I've seen it come loose so I think it's a flawed design but that failure mode at least doesn't leave you any worse off then an ordinary RSL. The various systems are still evolving and we're still figuring out all the new ways that they can kill us but for tandoms at least I think it's worth the complexity. I say that in spite of the way that sky hook killed the fuck out of those two. I'm calling that part of the learning curve and a fixable problem. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

There's nothing fundomentally wrong with an inclosed pilot chute. Where you run into a problem is when people lose sight of functionality in favor of estetics. A lot of the problems I see come from an obsesion with the apearance of the rig. Honestly we don't actually need 70% of those stiffeners. Look at how heavy and complex some of the construction on the flaps has become. And why do we really need fucking stripes? Do we really need such a wide angle of overlap on the flaps? And do the rigs really need to be that small? How exactly do they figgure that it's allright to put the same size pilot chute into a rig that's half the size? Let me help you here, the hole it has to punch through is half as big. WTF? And let's not even get started on compatibility. So I don't buy the whole inclosed pilot chute=bad thing. I see a lot of other problems. Mostly with the skydiving public. Looking cool takes president over survival. That's the simple truth. And I hate to say it, I'm really not a racer fan, but if they were happy with a functionaly designed container you'd be selling a hell of a lot more racers. You and a couple of outhers would be doing a lot more bussines but no, people have to have the stripes to look cool. Other wise it just wouldn't be FREEFLY. End of rant. More interesting question. How much drag do you think we need? How much is appropreit? based on bag weight? How high of a drag coeficent/surface area do we actually want? I know you're focased on bag extraction but there's also the other end of the spectrum, the extension to line streatch at high speed. And although most skydiving deployments are low speed cutaways there is more and more the potential for high speed, superterminal, deployments perticularly in head down orentations. I seem to recal an old study done of time to line streatch vs malfunction rates but I think that was focased on rounds. What are your thoughts on acaptible accelerations for bags on deployment, ratios between snatch force and bag weight? I've been thinking a bit about this because I'm dealling with the oppisit problem. We're useing a drogue suspending about a thousand pounds and the way we have it set up right now it's creating 1000 pounds of snatch force on the 65 lb bag. So far we're getting by but we've had to go to tape hesitator loops for the locking stows. 80 lb break cord for each of the line stows, so 160 lb to release each stow rather then rubber bands. And a bag where every 160 lb stow is a locking stow ala speed bag but with a cover flap simular to a strong ALS bag. That's for a nominal deployment but on early burn out we could be looking at 3000 lb of snatch force. So in any case it's been on my mind. I'm not a big fan of it for sport jumpers but this is a good argument for mard systems. I think they should be maditory on tandoms again do to the extream speed range that they could see and the weight of the bag. But I just think it's overly complicated for a sport rig. Any thought on where a compermise might lie? Ratios of drag to bag weight? Any real equiv studies done? Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I was amazed at all the work being done with data recording that was being presented at PIA. There's actually a lot of hard data being gathered out there. They don't normally share it but most people aren't really interested. Try Peek. He was kind of at the for front of all of this. He has a good bit of data and he's writen papers and shit. He was really into this for a while and I'd bet he'd be happy to talk to you. Nice guy. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

This thread has had me thinking. It's not perticualy unique there only about twenty others like it but it epidimises some thing I've seen over the years. Perticuarly among younger riggers, I've been guilty of it my self at times. The heart of the question is this. What is an accepable standard for equipment condition and repares in out industry? I have my own thoughts but I'd really like to hear what others think. If possable I'd like you to try to articulate it. I've seen attitudes over the years that ran the whole spectrum from one extreame to the other. Running all the way from insestance that compleatly free of damage and vertually ment condition at one end too the attitude that it hasn't broken yet at the other. Rather then give or use examples I'd like you to try to state your standards of what you feel is acceptable. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Actually I come from a sport background not a millitry one. A lot of the tecnology I'm working with right now on these projects is new to me. I've had the chance in this project to work around some people that come from the millitary cargo side and it's interesting... It's all parachutes but they tend to approach problems in diffrent ways. They use slightly diffrent tecnologies and diffrent solutions. Some times with very good reason do to the enviroment that they are working in and some times it just conventions that they are comfertable with. It's like slightly diffrent lines of evelution, neanderthals, and homoerectis or what ever the other branch was. Are they the same? Yes. In the same sence the italion and mexican are both foods. I like both, hell some times I like sushi. You just work on sport rigs... right now. Who knows what you'll be doing tomarrow. What I'm trying to say is keep an open mind. Stay open to learning. When ever you get the chance to hang out in another loft do it. Never pass up the chance to watch how other people work or do things. Especally if you get the chance to hang out around people from one of these other disaplins. You may find that you can incorparate the things you see and learn into your own work. I love to learn new ways of doing things. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I've spliced lines in the field like that. I'll give you an example. I was at a land race/fly in on a dry lake bed. This poor guy sucked a couple of lines into his prop on his powered parachute/trike. Guy was bummed. He's grounded on his first day in the middle of no where 500 miles away from his dealer. I walk over and look at it and go rumage around in the back of my car. I found some old line, it was one of the PD canopies so it used standard microline. With a peace out of an old line set and a fid made from some safety wire from his tool box. I was able to "splice" the two lines. A few hand stitches to hold it from slipping and I was done. 100% as strong as it was before and trim to withen 1/8 of an inch. The only alturnitive was for him to cancle his whole vacation road trip for the year and ship his canopy back to PD and try again next season. I have a well equiped shop here. I can fix just about any thing. But I'm not always here. If I'm out in the middle of the desert in newmexico launching a missle I may not have the luxury of a dozen sewing machines at my disposal. When your launch window has to be scedguled with the FAA, DOD, White sands, and fucking Norrad you make it happion. And you do it with what you have on hand. The term is field expeadent repare. And that does not imply that it is any less serviceable, weaker, or less airworthey then something done in my shop. It's a skill in and of it's self. And when there's over a million dollars on the line I say that qualifies as an emergency. And when there's a problem and every one turns and looks at you, you figure it the fuck out and you do it with what's on hand. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com