RiggerLee

Windy, You might want to check something. Ths will be a bit of a pain but might be interesting. Take span wise measurements at diffrent cord points across a cell for both top skin and bottom and the air foil thickness measured in a line to the three ring. And check the shrinkage on the lines. So here's what I'm thinking. You've got a airfoil and a line trim. As you go to turn this into a canopy I'm guessing they basically rotate it around a line in space to create the panel shapes. Dependng on exactly how you do this, the angle of the line, you'll get diffrent pannel shapes. This effects the AOA at diffrent points along the span. It was one of his early canopies. I'm guessing he didn't quite have this figured out yet and has basically too much twist in the wing for lack of a better term. I think it should basicllylook like a section of a cone around the line of flight, maintaining a good AOA across the span rather then a section of a cylinder loseing AOA at the ends. Need to come up and visit you and do some crw. How bussy are you people, say durring the week? Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I never said that the exestance of a dimple was a bad thing. I think it's inevitable.It's a product of the pressure being equal to Q. You got too choices, eather the nose opening is huge, way bigger then nessasary, think PD f111, falcon, raven et with the big flat cut through the nose of the air foil. Or you have some type of lip. If you have a lip of almost any kind it can not be optomised for all conditions, there will be a dimple. With out tha you get all kinds of flow in, flow out going on. For example durring flare as the canopy pitches back ever notice how the nose on a saber pops out? It infates as you increas the angle of attack, traps air in the nose, and makes a smooth surface for the upper part of the air foil to dirrect air over the top of the wing. All good things. Note it was still a big flat nose cut just with this... air dam, slat, what ever you want to call it on there. I don't know if that was the original intent but basically it's a variable geomitry inlet. Now contrast this with some f the more "modern canopies where the idea is kind of taken to the exstream. With a more rounded nose with a more compleat airfoil trying to maximise this. As you flare the nose inflates into a much better airfoil. This is awsom. Very efficent. It's all about the quest for more speed. All fine and good. I think the problem can result from what happions the the nose of the airfoil aerodynamicly as the dimple changes. The rounder the nose is the deeper the pocket becomes and that's your "leading edge shape" that's what the wind sees. Now where is the new stagnaton point on this new air foil? and so it goes till it reaches an equallibream. There's a limit to all things. Sooner or later you reach a point were the aoa is low enough that the nose becomes a big dent, the intets on the lower half of the nose becomme less efficent and the leading edge in no longer in equallibream. And all that dent in the nose rolls back through the top skin of the airfoil breaking the lift on that part of the wing. That part of the wing drops back and down. Thats just talking about nose design. There's another part of this which is what angals of attack a canopy can reach. I've used front risering as an example here but that's actually not a very good way to look at this. I'll go back to tha conquest as an example. As you pulled the risers all the way down it actually became more stable. Remember you're pulling the A and B lines. That means you're basically maintaining the angle of attack of the nose of the canopy. At first there is a bit more change as the rest of the canopy exerts more pressure on the B lines tilting the cascade. But for the most part you're just brakin the thing in half and makeing it less efficent. If fact as the airfoil becomes less efficent and your path steepens I think the AOA on the nose actually incrased hece the second range of stability. Compare this to a canopy with a speed bar like a paraglider. I've flown both paraglideing canopies and skydiving canopies wit speed bars and where you could pull indevidually on the A lines. Great oppertunity to study leading edge collapes. It doesn't take much at all to roll the leading edge under bigger then shit. That's an actual change in the AOA not front risers. I think the lowest angels you'll see on a skydiving canopy are not from front risering. Note the high riser pressure you get from pulling on the front risers. No the lowest angals come from the dynamic pitching of the canopy. example: From full flight reach up and tweek the fronts, note the pressure. Now give the canopy a partial flare and then quickly reach up and pull the fronts so that you are releaseing the breaks letting the canopy surge as you pull the fronts. Try this with diffrent degrees of flare but do it up high, some canopies have nasty surprises waiting for you. As you flare the canopy dynamicaly your body swings infront of the wing changing it's AOA. If you let the canopy surge the AOA can go way down. The thing is you do this to one degree or another all the time with out even knowing it. any little tweek on the toggle ses the canopy back then as you release the imput the canopy surges forwards again with a corisponding change in the AOA. As an example small break imputs. Students and low time jumpers are notorious for this as they come in to land. It' exagerated by the size of their canopies and the length of their lines. They make a small corection, let off, the canopy surges slightly and is not ready to flare. All of this depends on line length, trim, and the camber of the airfoil. All of this factor in to how stable it is ie how much it is willing to move forwards and back above you. I think this is where the Nova ran into trouble. Going into or exiting a thermal, flying slowly, stearing with toggles, quick releases of toggle imputs, all of thease can effect your AOA and make the canopy want to sit back or surge. If you run out of lift on the canopy, if it trys to pull negative g's, your screwed. Those lines are not stiff. So basically there can be a lot of diffrent failure modes. Things can push the nose over the edge into collaps and the canopy can over pitch and simple run out of lift under the front of the nose ie slack rises bad. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Good topic. I've been kind of interested in this for a long time. I think nose design is a really interesting and some times neglected part of canopy design. I don't think it's as well understood as it should be and I think it can be linked to a number of our fatalities. The first guy I ever watched die, or more acceratly he died from the inguries, was a canopy collaps at Eloy. This was the early ninties. It was a Pin Tail from... chute shop? He made a ninty degree turn then front risered the canopy. It bucked, break lines short? And then the whole leading edge seemed to roll under. The canopy compressed like an acordeion, fell behind a bit, one side must have inflated first as it seemed to reopen almost 180 degres off. It almost did a split S into the ground. He impacted at about 40 deg from vertical and the body was just like a rag doll. Welcom to skydiving. Naturaly I found this very interesting. I was an aerospace major at the time. Just the day before some one was singing me the praises of the pin tail. He was telling me about how it had a large lip on the leading edge and two of the cells, 4 and 6, were compleatly closed to make them ridged to prevent this. I think it was a few months later when stanford started getting in some Conquest from PISA. Interesting canopies. Very big lip. The opening was almost on the bottom of the nose. It had vertical baffles that blocked even more air into the nose. It was suposed to open as soft as a feather. As it happioned stanfords opened like a bomb and some of the others would snivil into the ground. It also seemd to have problems when you front risered it. I put a number of jumps on these canopies. When you looked up at this rounded almost closed nose you could see a dimple in it. Very interesting. I was a young student at the time and we had been talking about pressure coeficents across an airfoil. Well it's highest at the nose at the leading edge where it's equal to the dynamic presure. It decreases as you move away from the leading edge and this change of preasure across the top and bottom surface is what gives you lift and your pitching moment. We'd just done a lab in the low speed wind tunnel, it was cool to watch the water in all the little tubes change as you changed the angle of attack. In any case I found that I could watch the same thing here. The dimple was the area along the leading edge where the inturnal pressure was the same or less then the free stream dynamic presure. I found that by applying breaks or front risering I could change the angle of attack and move the dimple on the nose of the canopy. You could actually see it. I thought this was just the coolest thing in the world at the time and I've enjoyed watching it ever sence. What was most interesting was what happioned when you front risered it. As the dimple moved up away from the openings onto the lip of the nose you could see it get bigger. There was a point were it would become unstable. It's like the dimple would get bigger till it caved in sucking the top skin into it changing the shape of the leading edge till more would cave in. You would then get a rippel through the top skin as it would collaps, the canopy would lose lift, angle changed and the nose would reinflate. You would feel it as a slackening in the risers, hear a slight whoumph and feel your self drop. It was just one narrow band on the front risers. You would have to hold them in just the right range. The cool thing was that you could see he whole proccess. Later I got one of the first Extreams from Nz Aerosports. Really nice canopy. Loved it. It also had a big lip and vertical baffles but displayed none of these simptoms. Then I ordered two of his new FX's This is stll from NZ. This is before Percision and Icerous. So we get them in and Bobby puts a jump on his and comes down white as a sheet. As he turned it would roll over into a dive and then the other side would roll under. It would spin the other way. Good thing he opened high. It had a new nose cut. Much more agressive, only small dimonds for vents. Much like the nose on the Veocity. Called Gyro. He was almost frantic. It was a new canopy but he had a fair number of them out there and they had been doing fine. But this one batch was bad. There were several canopies that were just deadly fucking scary. We sent them back. I figured there most be some thing wrong with the trim. The odd thing was that they couldn't find any thing. But this one batch that had been built togather was bad and I mean way bad. In the end I think he decided that it was a cross flow issue. One side of the canopy has a greater pressure on the nose then the other and he thought the flow through the canopy was allowing the nose to deflate and collaps and roll under. The openings just were not big enough to allow enough flow into the nose to keep up. So he recut the nose. I mean he rebuilt the acual canopies. He opened the nose up a bit more and that's where you get the slightly larger nose openings on the icerous canopies today. A couple of years later at Quincy. I used to work in the rigging trailor for Wag. A guy came in with an early Crossfire and was showing it too me. He was bragging about how it had a smooth rounded nose and made a perfect airfoil with just these tiny vents almost on the bottom that made almost no drag... Things that make you go Huummm. I think that as the year they miss cut bunch of lower control lines so they were back and forth the whole boogie resewing them. Any way, I didn't rain on the guys perade at the time but I asked him to let us know how he liked his new canopy. After he was gone I made a perdiction to wag that those canopies would be a problem. Predicktig the future is not that tough if you just pay attention to the past. I should play the stock market. So they had some problems. A QC problem or slight design tweak on the trim etc. Eventualy it evolved into the crossfire two. So Velocites are sopposed to be safe, I mean their from PD right? They also have a very agressive ie closed nose. Why don't they have problems? Well in point of fact Mandy has a Velocity. Loves it. But it has bitten her. It collapsed bigger then shit. One whole side rolled under. She had just plained out and had killed almost all of her vertical as it hapioned. Dove to the side and bitch slapped her right into the ground bigger then shit. The vid is great but you got to hear the sound. We still give her shit about the squral she landed on and the high pitched squeaky noises it made. Did she fly through the wake of another canopy? Maybe. There is video. The posability exest. You can see other people land but I cant say that she crossed a wake. I've landed behind other people and never seen any thing like that. She was pulling out of her dive, G loaded. That was the one point where a canopy should be rock fucking solid. Help me out, wasn't there an acedent at a pond. Posable roter over the tree line? Not saying it's a bad canopy but it's not exactly busting the curve in my data eather. Can't remember the guys name, gray and navy mirage. Busted him self into little bitty peaces out a the corner of the field. We were not at all certin that all the kings horses and all the kings men would ever be able to put him back togather again. Poor bastard bought this old VX off Slithers. He was light under it but I'm not convenced that that was the whole problem. I don't think it played a role in any thing else I've described and in some cases I can tell you that higher wing loadings make the problems worse. Part of it was the fact that a light guy can unload a high performance canopy. Part was the fact that he passed over the corner of a plowed field in summer. But I think a lot of it was the way he flew the canopy. A more agressive pilot loads the hell out of a canopy. I'm not talking about weight but how we fly it. I don't think it's really a contious act or just the product of likeing to go fast but any one else would have been driveing the thing in and swooping the shit out of it. And consiquently flying it at a much higher angle of attack. In short he gave it an opertunity and an excuse to collaps an it did. There is some debate about the mode of collaps. I've seen the tape and it looked like a classic nose tuck to me. Other saw it after it was cleaned up on a computer and think it was something else but I suspect they were missinterpeting. I think the point here is that a Saber would not have tried to kill him. I'm not bitching about pericular caopies so much as useing them and incedets as examples. What I'm trying to talk about is nose design. I'm not even saying that I wouldn't jump any one of these canopies again. But I would try to fly them in the proper manner. In other words a maner that would not lead to them collapsing and me dieing. I don't even think that it's a bad thing that there are modes that will cause a canopy to collaps. I see knowing and understanding your canopy as part of being a pilot. And I accept that there simply are things that I shouldn't do with some canopies and conditions that I shouldn't try to fly them through. It's too much to ask of a canopy that you should be imune from the consequences of all your actions. If you want that, sit at home playing video games. What does bother me is that we don't aways seem to learn from our mistakes. Both manufacterers and jumpers and that the adverage understanding of this seems to be decreasing. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

If you look in the new Javelin manual I think you'll find that they state that it is illeagal to pack the rig with any thing other then the an original factory ripcord. Page 6? Just a little some thing they sneeked in. I don't recall any one else being so anal. Foes any one else actually state that? Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

On the one we had the 34 had a diffrent foot and feed dog. It was more of an L shaped foot and one sided ossolating outer foot, zipper style. I like my 31(converted to a 33) better. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Well it's actually on one side of the main lift web. I don't have numbers on it but I'd be interested to see how badly it would be compermised by the burble when you're on your back. If I wanted to make a point of it I'd mount it low on the lift web of an older rig with short latterals so it's mostly on the side. It would be easy to record data for both and I'd bet the diffrence would be strikeing enough to make a damning argument against cypres. Remember we're not talking about reallity we're talking about something that could be spun infront of a judge. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

It wouldn't be hard to make an argument like that. It's easy to show the effects of the burble on the sencer. Furthermore with other companies like FXC setting a presedent for locating the sencer out side the burble on the front of the jumper it wouldn't be hard to make Cypres look bad to a wofo judge. They try to apply a soft wear fix to the problem of haveing there sencer buried in the container and for the most part they do ok. I've lissened to all their speals. The problem is that I have a bit of an engeneering background and I can see through some of their bull shit that most skydivers fall for. I have on several ocations cought them just flat out lieing to me. I just blew it off at the time but if they tryed that shit in court with a good tecnical witness he'd tear them a new ass hole. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

What grounds do they have for nameing Square one in the suit? What sort of cost might square one be looking at even if they win? Is there any thing that they could do to reduice their liability in some thing like this? A release or waver signed allong with the sale? And as to scum bag skydivers... there are plenty of sell outs. I hate to speek ill of the dead but remember Mark Slader and how he totaly whored him self out against Sun Path. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I can't beleave that any one would be surprised by this. I mean we've been heading in this direction for years. Their a victem of their own success. I'm curious, how many law suits have they weathered so far? Surely this can't be the first. They've probbable been named in half the fatalities in the last twenty years but oddly I can't recall such a suit directly against them before. Any one do a better job of following such things? were would they stand on something like this? I mean they have warning lables all over every thing for what ever that's worth. I'm not a dealer and I've never purchesed one my self. Is there any thing signed and returned on the sell of a new cypres? Have any dealers thought about doing such a thing along with their gear sales? We talked about haveing a ticket printed up for rigs being dropped off in the loft but never got around to it. Could some thing like that include a "waver" for lack of a better word? Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

If I was to take a shot in the dark I guess that it was probable a Dolphin. That's the most commen rig that I can think of with the tag on the riser. But the type of rig isn't really relevent. Ecentually he has a good point. Cards get lost, they get swapped, cypreses get pulled, they get put in, bat changes may not be marked, etc. In theory all of this and more should be clearly anotated on the card... yah, right and monkies fly out of my butt. I do my best to try and make a habit of checking the data on the card against the gear as I go but I have been cought out like every one else. I don't like doing my paper work up front. I know that's one theory. I've even heard FAA guys say that you should enter the gear in your logbook the moment a rig walks in the door of the loft. I just don't buy that. There have been times when we've had several people working in the same loft. Some times there was no idea who would be packing it till they picked it up and did it. Some times rigs would be in the loft for weeks before they were packed. I don't like haveing shit all out of order on the wrong dates. I concider the pack job to be done and the clock to start when I put the pin in. I like the date in my log and the date on the card to match. I reserve the right to call no joy and reject the rig right up to the moment the pin is in and I sign the card. So my attitude is that I try to check the data as I inspect and I save my paper work to the very last. But again that's just me. It's not inconceaveable that he would check the SN of the reserve and not sweat the container till later. It's actually required that there be an external tag with that info and it's perfectly resonable that he should expect to be able to find it. Some dolphins just marginaly qualify as accesable. In the end it's just an lessen to him as a rigger. You may have learned this lessen young but for some of us we seem to need to be retought it from time to time. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Yes indeed there are a couple of rigs where the tag is very efectively hidden there on the riser. It my be very hard to find once it's packed up. Been there. done that. Any rigger rigger that denies that he's ever been there stareing at a rig that he's just spent two plus hours assembling despritly trying to find the number of the Cypres, reserve, or container... well eather he's extreamly inexpereanced or he's a fucking lier. Riggers are people. The mark of a good rigger is not that he doesn't make mistakes it's that he catches them just like this guy did. The fact that he has the humility to admit it and ask where it is is a very good sign. It's ok that he doesn't know there are many many rigs out there. You can't remember all of them. If some one thinks otherwise then it's a sign of lack of expereance. Hay, if it makes you feel better go find some body that will blow smoke up your ass and bull shit you when he has a question. Plenty of them out there. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Actually as said above hip rings make the job an order of magnitude more complicated unless there is also a chest ring. If it's a strait or chest ring harness then it's really a straight forwards affair. The biggest problem is that if you're not in the habbit of doing harness repares on a regular bases then it can take a while to get set up. Clean off the seven class, find the materials, get it adjusted right, test sew, etc. That shit can take longer then the actual repare. I'd charge more for that then for the actual operation. all of that is a nonissue for the manufactorer. On the other hand you've got shipping, reassimbaling the rig, repacking, how backed up are they could be a couple of weeks, etc. And they don't nessasaraly work that cheep. I can see the arguments of why this should be done by the manufactorer but I think any one with a Masters should have all the skills and knowlage to do this with no difficulty or resevation. Hell I think any resonably compatent senior rigger should be able to do it if he has a master there to sign off on it. It's not that hard. There are some people that just really are not sewers but if you're going to become a master I think you sould be past all that and compleatly comfertable with such a repair which is percicely what a master rigger is for. But that's a totaly seperat topic of training and edgucation. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

It basically means it's going too fast. The problem is that if the load is too great and the canopy in that configuration does not have enough drag to slow the load down bellow the critical speed then it may continue to squid till impact. There are several ways to fix it. Basically you need to increase the internal preasure or decrease the external preasure to allow the skirt to expand and open. The size of the apex hole, assumeing you have one, affects this. If you can make the hole smaller or use a lower perrosity fabric at least in the upper canopy. Eather will trap more air inside the canopy. If you do some thing to disrupt the air flow up the side of the canopy such as addind tuskingurts/pocket bands or any thing to breakup the airflow holding the mouth of the canopy closed. lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

What are you talking about? That's your packers problem. You don't actualy pack for your self do you? No REAL skydiver does that any more. Perhaps I've spent too much time around yupie drop zones. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I'd have to say that your riggers need more sewing practice. The minimum requirments to pass the sewing portion of the practical test are a joke but around here the rigging standerds are some what higher then that. Even the senior riggers would have no problem with such a repair. Should it be our asperation that no one excead the minimum level of compitency? As an example I'm just a lowly senior rigger and I've built containers and I've built canopies and I've repaired canopies were whole cells were missing. And my skills and knowlage are not signifagently above the adverage for the senior riggers in the area. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

It's an interesting question. It's some thing we tend to turn a bit of a blind eye too. What really defines an aircraft speed? Cruse, VNE, how fast it will dive at the ground when you take the wings off over G'ing it. They seem to have a pretty strong oppionion on it in TSO C-23B. Recall the wording on the low speed plackerd. The reality is that a pilot isn't going to get out unless it's on fire, he has a control failure, or th wings come off. In the later two he probably wouldn't have control over airspeed. Then at the other end of the spectrum are planes that go way too fast for any canopy. Ok, so if you have a live "smart" seat you might argue that it will make the decisions to slow you down and stage the opening to allow the canopy to survive. I seem to recall that that seat had at least three AAD's on it. I could guess at their uses, altitude, airspeed, time, etc but it would just be speculation. I also heard that the rockets would shoot you out and if you were up side down turn you upwards and fly you away from the plane. It all sound grand but what happens when they make the seat cold. Now you've got a legitamently fast plane with no smart seat to make exscuses for you. What are the reqirements then? If the answer that your'e just going to take a delay and wont pull the handle till you slow down was good enough why have that low speed plackerd? Hell I'd dare any body to just try to climb out of that plane on the ground with the shit I saw strapped to them. What about replaceing the rigs? Do the Strong and Butler rigs intergrate with the seat to take advantage of all the drouges? Are they put in there "cold" How do they justify the certifacation at that speed? Do they opperate under their TSO or under the experamental approval of the airplane? When you put a Strong rig in there do you have to get a new manual approved? I guess what I'm asking is what is leagle even in a more normal airplane? Who is responceble? The Rigger that packed the rig? The Pilot that put the rig in the airplane? Or in this case the A+P that signs it off? Or even the FSDO that approvedthe manual? If a US rig was instaled in a cold or hot seat would it even be covered in the approval of the manual? Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Ok, some one is going to have to help me. This is absolutly driveing me insane. I never packed the rigs for Kerlin Wag always did that so I never saw the things but he always told me how weird they were. A couple of years later a pair of rigs showed up in the loft out of a couple of Migs. I've been trying to remember how they worked and I can't. Normaly my memory is pritty darn good but I'm brain locking on this. Part of the probblem is that even after stairing at them for a week I only half understood them then. It's driveing me insane. Here's what I remember from the system. There was a big metal seat frame that seemed to stay attached under your ass. I couldn't see how you could ever sepperate from it and I did not see and way to plf with it there. It was heavy. The canopy was in a sleave and I seam to recall that it was strange maybe a square round but I may have just heard that from wag. We never stripped off the sleave. We could barely figure out how the container worked. I seem to recall that there was one or maybe two droges on the thing. One of them was little more the webbing. It must have been for super sonic. I do recall that there were mutiple means of deployment. There was a rip cord but I remember that there was anotherway that it deployed. The top flap could open independent of the ripcord and the canopy could extract through the hole. By the drouge? I recall that there was a failpoint like a screamer in climping where it tore the zigzag lose in peel. I think that was on the pilot chute that was used in ripcord deployment. When you pulled the ripcord it was in shear. The drogue pealed it lose and left the pilot chute in the container. but I dont remember how the drogue disengaged when you pulled the ripcord. See what I mmean about it being weird. even stareing at it for a week I could only figure out parts of it. We were in the same boat. couldn't get directions. Finely gave up and told them to go away. Could you please refresh my mimory on how the damn thing worked. Sequence of deployment. How the diffrent systems disengauged from one another. I only half understood it then and now I can't recall. It's driveing me crazy. I cant sleep. And if you ever find the instructions I'd love a copy just so I can try to figure it out. It's alway been the white whale that got away. It's about the only thing I've ever run into that I couldn't figgure out. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

L-39 Russion jet? I haven't done them but Jeff Wagner used to pack those for Don Curlin who ran the World Freefall Convenion. If you can get a hold of Curlin from Quincy IL he can get you the instructions and even better he has a video of how to do it. If it's like the Migs that came into the shop here you will have to have the instructions and video. The shit is diffrent. They use compleatly diffrent philosophies then we do. You might want to check on how it's being certified. The way this is some times done is the ejection seat is cerified as part of the system of the aircraft when they aprove it for flight here in the US. A lot of these things were done under experamental exebition but I'm not sure how the paper work is being done now. My point is that depending on how the paper work is writen up the parachute may or may not be legal, and the seat may or may not be hot. There's a guy in Las Vages that works on the seats. Again I think you can find him through Curlin, I met him there at Quincy. Any way my point is that it may not be as simple as getting an ENGLISH copy of the instructions and repacking it every 180 days. And be carefull a lot of these owners may down play all of this. They just want you to sign off on their card. And you may find your self hanging if you repack a canopy in a seat with out of date rocket moters or a seat that is not suposed to be live or one that is dead and the guy goes in because the rig would not operate properly with the seat dead. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Go to basejumper.com but don't you dare ask the question there. Do a search. If you really want to hammer out jumps on the thing just go ahead and stick it in a bag and you can even put a solid slider on it. Even if your free packing it feel free to just pro pack it. There's a limet to how much you'll be able to learn about your on heading proformance from an airplane. If you really want to try to play with that just S fold it in a stack from the tail up in the tray, extract the center cell at the top of the pack job if you're jumping a single attachment point and tuck the two sides down. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

There's a rigging student here in TX that needs to take her Practical Test. We can't find a DPRE. They're thin on the ground here. We've checked the list and the closest is in Missouri. Has any one taken their practical through the FSDO? Any advice on how to twist their arm to encurage them to provide a test? There is a full service loft with 40 ft table and all the nesasary acutraments but we need an inspector. What are the grounds for requesting/demanding that they provide a test? Can they exspect her to travel half way across the country to get tested? This would be diffacult for her as she has young children, work, etc. and this has held up her getting her ticket for several months. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

It's not like this hasn't come up before. Remember the thing with the Reflex as an example? Perhaps some of you will also recall that there is a story/legend/colorfull anidote that is sometimes told around the bondfire concerning the owners of two major gear manufactering companies that by chance happened to jump at the same major dropzone in Florida. How one of them got ahold of a rig recently built by the other and poped the reserve pilot chute in the middle of the packing floor of said DZ and was swinging the whole rig around over his head by the reserve bridle screaming at the top of his lungs that the reserve on this rig was too tight and would never come out and that any one that jumped said rig would shurely die. And how the other owner upon seeing this grabbed up a section of two by four and preceaded to chace him around and around said DZ till he dived into the van that he owned at the time and locked him self in. And how the first party ran round and round the van of the second party smashing all the lights and windows screaming that he was going to kill him as the second party tryed to start said van and get out of the parking lot of this DZ. The punch line of the story is that oddly enough the two were actualy naibers, that they had bought homes right next to each other. Must have been an interesting home life around the naiberhood back then. This is of course just a ledgend passed down over the years which if it ever happened has surely grown with the telling and the comsumtion of alcohol but like all good faibales it had a moral to the story and was always used to illastratethe importance of compatabillity in the selection of components. Does any one by chance know how their lawns are looking these days? It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood, A beautiful day for a neighbor, Would you be mine? Could you be mine? It's a neighborly day in this beautywood, A neighborly day for a beauty, Would you be mine? Could you be mine? I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you, I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you. So let's make the most of this beautiful day, Since we're together, we might as well say, Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won't you be my neighbor? Won't you please, Won't you please, Please won't you be my neighbor? Spoken: Hi television neighbor, I'm glad we're together again.... Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

This Letter seems to be from Jump Shack. Although it refrences some thing from them I don't see where this is from the uspa. As it is from the manufactorer it seems to me that it would be binding as an adendom to the manuel even if it is not a numbered service bulliton. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I'm not sure I understand some of these comments. And I'm not sure I understand the actual status of this letter, It doesn't seem to be a "Service Bulliton". It could also be clearer and more formal in addressing questions of appicability, imedeacy, repeatability, documentation, ect. However I'm glad to see it or some thing like it. I can't speek for other parts of the country but I can tell you that there are some tight fucking rigs around here. We've had and still have a few deallers around here that seem to think that sizeing charts and compatability tables are at best a vague guide line to only be ecnoliged by other lesser beings. I'm good. I can pack some of these rigs that they've put out there but there are others that even I have turned away. I would love to see the FAA enforce a compatability autherazation requirment just like I would like to see the weight limets actually obayed and enforced. Sooner or later this shit will kill some body. it's just a matter of time. I think there should be a table of approved instalations and that this letter should be a guideline for the instlation of canopies not on that list. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

There have been print patterns avaloble in ZP for years. Remember the bat wings and monarcs from precision? But I think you have to die it before the silocone is applied. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

If you want it done right you'll have to sew it on. There are also issues with color. Basically you can do dark on light but not vice versa. The lighter the canopy and the darker the design the better it will show. If it's an aplikay then it can add a good deal of bulk. Every body will do it. Red at Flight Concepts does a lot of thease things. Nobody doesit cheap. I've seen it cost more then the canopy it self. I have seen people stencel designs on the bottom of F-111 canopies. Never seen it on ZP. With the right paint it can be done. It doesn't last the same way. It will wear off and as it does it's a bit of a mess and will never look as good as a logo. But when he was flying over head with his 520 tandom you could read his phone number. Up close it looked like shit though. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com