RiggerLee

I'd be curious to see what you were playing with. I'd toyed with something similar but I was never happy with the results. It should be a pretty simple problem. I could never decide if I had a bug some where or if I was missing something but my answers weren't coming out the way I expected and I think I had an error in there some where. Basically I was looking at the canopy as it passed through a wind shear. Like at the end of the day when it goes dead still but 150 feet up it's still blowing. I'd been arguing with a guy about recovery arc and was trying to do a quick model. I lost interest and never got around to getting it working. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

What did you put in for the address? He may be regestered in a diffrent location. I for example still get my mail from my mothers house. I have at times traveled a lot and keep our house in Euless as my permanent address. Legal as long as I can still receave mail there. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I saw an incedent like this not to long ago. At this point I think I've put to gather all the peaces of the puzzle and know what really happened. I wont bore you with all the details but it was resolved with out any one being shot. I beleave I know how the acusing party came to there conclusions. The short version of the story is I do not beleave the guy was guilty as charged. Although he had been a rigger for awhile he had not been very active before he wound up in this position. He had not really developed a "stile" of his own but he was getting good enough that he could do a fair job of copying the packjobs that were in there. That and a some what abreveated inspection, he didn't always hang them up and shake them all the way out, led to these people deciding that he was a scumbag pencil whipper. All of this was complicated by the fact that all of these people were constantly bumping heads. They just did not mesh with each other. The whole thing was escalating in to nothing short of a blood fewd. In the end it pretty much calmed down. What I'm trying to say here is that "Fold Ferensics" is not as exact of a science as you might think. First off your rigger need to be carefull about throwing out this kind of acusation. Second, you are not the person that he needs to be making this acusation to. He needs to be speeking directly to that rigger. It's really bad form to bad mouth other riggers to skydivers. There is already way to much gear fear out there. Bashing other riggers is not acceptable. And doing it in a case like this that is far from conclusive is down right wrong. He may suspect but I don't think he can know this for sure. If he thinks there is an issue he need to take it up with the other rigger. The FAA is not an acceptable place to take this. YOU DO NOT GO TO THE FAA. There are a lot of reasons for this. That is such an extream last resort that it's not even worth descussing. There are whole... not cans, not buckets, we're talking barols of worms. There are consiquences there that you can't even imagion. Nobody wants to go there. If you really think you've been ripped off, then fine, go confront him. But I would want to have more evedence in my hand. Your rigger means well but I think his case might be scetchy. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Well, this seems to be shaping up nicely with two possible candidates so far. TallGuy, VanillaSkygirl, If you are interested in joining our family of sponsored athletes I look forward to reviewing your applications and reading your essays. We have yet to locate any Little People with skydiving experience but over the years I have run into two. I met them both at Quincy. I do not know if either of those individuals is still jumping but it does give me hope of filling out our roster. As to the nature of this team, there are many things that have been done in the past. It has reached the point that competition for a medal in the open class has become almost exclusively a professional endeavor. It has been demonstrated that you can buy the gold medal if you are willing to throw enough time and money at it. I grew up at a smaller drop zone with a rather different attitude. It just seems to me that a lot of the joy has been lost from the sport. I do not have any interest in sponsoring another of the cookie cutter teams that have no interest in being any thing but another carbon copy of Airspeed. I'm not saying that they will be standing on the top of the podium when this is all over. I don't think they'll be last. Think how fast the little guys will be able to turn in place with such a small moment of inertia. It's like a built in style tuck. I wont lie. As a sponsor I'm looking for a group that will stand out from the crowd and draw attention to me and my business. I'm also looking for people that will reflect my own values. That perhaps having fun and enjoying your journey through life is more important then clawing your way over the bodies of others to the top of that platform. And what ever form this team eventually takes, yes I am poking a finger in the eye of all the "Professional Athletes" that are determined to make their house payments from my sport. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

We here at velocity Sportswear have been discussing the promotional opportunities we would like to explore over the next year. One possibility is to sponsor a team at nationals. If we were to go forward with this we would want it to consist of notable and unique individuals. A group that would command peoples attention where ever they were to go. We discussed themes for such a team that would maximize the impact of our promotional dollars. A midget four way team and a team consisting of strippers/Playboy bunnies are the two leading projects. The giant, we'd like to find some one approaching seven foot, would of course be the cameraman too stand in contrast to the team of little people. By the end of dinner as they sounded last call at the bar we finely reached a compromise on this coming years promotional campaign. We are seeking four Little People who are already licensed skydivers to compete as a four way RW team. We are looking for a person of stature, 6'6"+, who is an experienced camera man. And four exotic dancers/models/adult actresses/sex workers Who are experienced skydivers and interested in competing at nationals. All should be willing to compete in four way RW and as a combined eight way team. We are looking for other visionary sponsors interested in sharing this unique opportunity. This is a chance for you to make your name a household word. This team will with out a doubt be legendary in the skydiving community. Every one involved in this endeavor will forever be linked to the story of this team for all time. This is an unprecedented opportunity. The potential of this plan reaches far beyond nationals and the skydiving community. There is the possibility of news coverage, promotional videos, guest appearances on talk shows, movie cameos, a book deal, and even a reality show documenting the epic story of their training for national competition. This could be a spring board to a whole nother level in any of a number of careers. Serious inquraries should contact us at: Tom@velocitysportswear.com Send resume, face pics, and a 250 word essay on why you would be the best choice to represent us on this team. Lee Hardesty Velocity Sportswear Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

The person that she is running against is an evil dispicable park ranger. Please vote for her. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I know it's off subject but what was certified under cat A? I can't recall ever seeing any thing in that class. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Again it's hard to tell looking at pictures. Most of that doesn't look too bad. Those risers are ressin coated. I think a lot of that is just the slider slideng down and "pollishing" that ressin coated surface. The worst thing I see there are the "nicks" in that one rear riser. It looks more like a line burn. Maybe from a premi release. Maybe from being yanked lose with a slider stuck half way down over it. I can't finger fuck it from here but you might have to retire it. That one groove looks interesting. I'd keep an eye on how people are stowing your toggles, or better yet start doing that your self and take them out of the equation. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I don't want to change the subject of the conversation, but just to clarify his statement before people go bugging their local rigger. A master rigger can not just make an alteration to a harness. It has to be an "Aproved" alteration by the manufactor. That means that the manufaturer has to send him writen instructions on how to do it and must grant him permission in writeing. Ask a rigger to show you an example of a service bulleton some time. The other route is that he may submit drawings and spec's to the local FSDO, that's the FAA, and they may grant him permission to proform the alteration. They'll sign and date stamp it and there is a bit of paperwork that must be maintained but it can be done. We were lucky enough to have a guy around here named Bland and one of the good things about him is he would work with you on things like this. Alot of people will not. The reason I described that system is that you can build it so that no modifacation is needed to the harness. and running the minis side by side can be a simple solution. I think it's better then some of the risor on risor set ups I've seen. And haveing the cutaways on the risors moves them far away from the other handles. Very diffrent motion. I think that's better then haveing a single point that can be confused with one of the other handles. And just for the record I'm a lowly Senior Rigger. At the time I was working for Stanford building rigs for him and he was kind enough to sign off on the paper work for my rig so tecnicly the work was all done in his name. My back ground is a little odd. I'm kind of topheavy with sewing experence. I worked for Stanford for a while and I design and build a lot of base rigs and other scary shit, recovery systems etc. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

The CONTAINOR on the chest strap. The mini risers can be hooked side by side on a large harness ring. There is never any load on the chest strap. It can be hard to articulate these things, but frankly if you can't keep up with this conversation please don't try any of this. The truth is that intentional cut aways have a rather high fatality rate. Even really sharp people have been known to f@#k this up. You need to be a little sharper then the adverage bear to play these games. And just keep in mind that better jumpers then you have died doing it. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Interesting pictures. Yes most of the damage, the smooth glazing, looks like a riser being burned by a fast moveing slider. And I've seen dings like that on sliders. Could be the slink or could be the toggle keeper ring. Depending on how they're set it can push the ring out to the side enough to be struck. Some of it looks like line damage. Do you pull the slider fully behind your neck before unstowing your breaks? Ever grab the toggle and yank it lose from underneath the slider cause you're in a hurry, like to avoid a collision? or have you ever had a toggle knocked loose on opening? I'd like to see how you stow your breaks? one of the burns looks like the line being pulled around the riser at high speed. Maybe catching the red fabric in it? Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Honestly you might just have to sit down at a sewing machine and build your self one. I've done a couple of things like that for my self. I even installed another set of rings on my harness, paper work through the FSDO. You can attach it with the chest strap and a couple of clips at the laterals. If you use a rig with large rings you can put two mini's side by side. You can build little cut away handles from two short cables running up the risors and velcro tape handles that reverse and velcro up the risors like a little toggle. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I don't recall Sunpath useing single 8 on the chest strap. I think that was part of their bragging rights about being a "wrap around" harness. My memory is that they used 7/8 MLW on there continues harness with the 7 going on to form the leg strap. later to avoid slipping they continued the 8 along to beef it up to prevent slipping. When they went to multi rings they went to an all 8 MLW all the way from reserve risor to leg. They may still have 7 on the lower lat but i don't recall. It's too early for my brain to work. In general most of the harnesses, like mirage, got lighter when they redsigned them with multi rings. The pulls are all straight. I think Vector is the only one that went to 7 as a loop all the way through both reserve risors. I think Wings was that way from the begining. It was all kind of designed at once as it came after the ring craze set in and didn't have to go through as many design evelutions. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

There's more to the canopy then the line set. The problem may lie in the fabric it self. The fill fibers that run across the roll of fabric may be scewed at a diagonal across the roll. Or bowed across it. Every one tries to be carefull with the fabric they use but all rolls are crooked to some degree. There are tricks to flipping the panels and other shit but the bottom line is that some times you get one that has a turn. There really isn't any way to spot it on the ground. You have to jump it. If you want to test it start by eliminating all the variables. Starting with you and even your rig. Hard ware can slip and some times lift webs can even get measured un even, Don't start I've seen it. Send it up with some one of high experence, perferable a rigger, have him look at his three rings under canopy to make sure they are level. He'll need to check for a turn in several diffrent flight modes. He should know what to do or find some one that has done more test jumping. If he finds a problem, I'm guessing that he will, call up aerodine and have him there to articulate what he found. Send the canopy back to them with a writen report and I'm sure they will be willing to work with you to fix this. They'll test jump it but I'm thinking call you back asking if you want to change colors. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Booth is with out doubt a bright guy but as usual I don't fully agree with him. It's all about kinetic energy. You have to do work to absorb it. Work is force over distance. Bunjies work becouse they streatch a long way. The force is absorbed over a long distance. Daccron does streatch but not that much. Even the hardest slammer is already ocuring over a distance measured in tens of feet. The streatch we're talking about is on the order of an inch. Even the body it self absorbs more energy then that. Now where he's right is in the friction at the slider. It's hard to push a grommet down those fat lines at a fast rate. Keeping the canopy compressed has a far greater effect on mittigating the maximum forces of an oppening. Personaly I think he had it right in the beggining with the large RW1 rings. That's why I was always so stoked about the Icon risors with the long center ring. Smartest thing I've seen in a long time. I wish they were the standard. And he's right we're making too much out of this post. Bottom line guy, If you can close your container with out grunting then it's too lose. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Just for the record you are right to be worried. We recently had an incedent where one of our jumpers had transitioned from head down to a sit. He then had a preme. His normaly soft oppening canopy cracked the shit out of him and he now has a spinal injury. We are still waiting to see if he will ever wiggle his toes. The simple truth is that the freeflyers have been exceading the speeds and some times the weights of what our gear has been designed for for a long time. I'm just surprised that there have not been more incedents, there have been some, before now. The reallity is that everything on the system from the harness and reserve all the way down to the main bag and PC were designed to opperate at normal speeds and altitudes. I remember haveing this conversation years ago with some one at Quincy where I predicted that we would start to see gear failures or in the case of Dinnis a failure of his body. Freeflying has become so prevolent it may be time to look at a full redesign of our gear and I mean more then just cool freefly colors and embrodery. It's time for people to learn to judge the marits of a container by more then just how shiny the hardware is. Some thoughts: Longer bridals should be standard alowing smaller PC and lower high speed snatch forces. It's time to reevaluate how we are stowing our lines on the main bag. We may need to look at a more secure anti line dump bag for more possitive stageing. Lose the rubber bands and put heavy bungy stows on the locking loops. Two flaps that cover the lines and suport them from line dump. The freefly puds have marret but some of the designs need a little more work. A lot of the reserves out there were never built for this. We're finally getting a new generation of canopies hopefully they will be up to the chalange. I wouldn't be opposed to reducing the opening speed requierments. It's just too hard to build a canopy that oppens supper fast at low speed and doesn't blow up at high speed. That's what they did with tandoms. We're oppening higher then we did in the past. Low cut aways aren't as big a deal as they once were. You may have to pick your battles. I've only seen a few harnesses dammaged but there have been injuries to jumpers. It might not hurt to pay more attention to the ergonomics, for lack of better word, and fit of the designs. Broken femors are not cool. I don't know if any thing could have saved Dinneses spine but we should keep in mind the protental for high g oppenings. I'm sorry, I'm on a rant. Oh, and for god sake can't people jump decent size gear! I'll go away now. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Cut and dryed would be "The maximum service life of our products is twenty years from DOM. All components must be removed from service at that time." I wouldn't agree but I would at least respect them for that. Or saying, "The airworthiness of our gear is based upon condition and may continue in service indefanently at the descretion of the rigger." That lays it on our door step to some degree but it's always been there and I don't have a problem with that as long as they stand behind us. I have the probblem when they try to play the you can but we don't think you shood so nothing is our fault and it's all on you. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Let me clarify that for you. It's one one little slip of paper. Like 6 inches by 6 inches. Not a whole fucking log book like you see over in some of the Europen countries. Look around you may have just missed it. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Why?... check out the bottom of page 14. http://nationalparachute.com/NPII%20Owners%20Manual%20Dec%202006%20-%20FLAT%20Pack.pdf It not exactly a black and white statement and if you call them they will reasure you that it doesn't really mean what it says and every thing is fine and there's no reason to trouble your custamer with it and you should just repack the rig. But what are you going to say in court when the scum bag lawyer is waveing that manual. And what do you really think the National rep will be saying then. Fuck them. Let them lie in the hole they dig and tell your customers to buy Softies. I hate legal bull shit games. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

I actually know two people that have owned these in the past. I have yet to hear one good thing about them. Are you really that hard up cuss I hear the round version actually landed better. This is hear say but come on don't you have any thing better in your closset? Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

If they need any thing it's a flag slider. KAPOW, in a big caption flashing before your eyes like in the old Batman. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

No problem. It was the cutie patch that really did the trick. And I don't think the colors came out that bad. I just hope the die is not bleeding in any embarising places. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

It will shrink two sizes. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

As they said this isn't new and there was a service bulliton to address it. with a hard opening that zigzag may have torn all at once. The idea of two out is scary and could be a real problem but I don't think you would see a catistrofic failure from this. In your first post you seemed affraid that you might lose one entire side of the main. I don't see that happening. You'd have to take it apart to see but the diaganal loops in a V around the lower lateral band behind your back and even if you managed to tear all the stiching to the main tray you'd still have an intact harness and would not fall out. There's a fair bit of redundency built into these rigs and the actual structural harness stiching is pretty tough. I'm not saying it can't fail just that it's rare. So sleep a little easier and save your worrying for other things. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com

Tell him I will buy him a brand new pilot rig of any design, of any color, with any options in exchange for his little treasure. Lee Lee lee@velocitysportswear.com www.velocitysportswear.com