firemedic

Here are some tests we did on C-9's a few years ago. First one is 180 kt. and 450 lb. The second one is 300 Kt. and 370 lb. Spariky http://s397.photobucket.com/albums/pp55/mjosparky/Skydiving/?action=view¤t=180kt450lb.mp4 http://s397.photobucket.com/albums/pp55/mjosparky/Skydiving/?action=view¤t=300kt370lb.mp4 Those are some damn well built canopies. What canopies do military pilots use with ejection seats? Anybody?

QuoteIt seems like stainless steel slider grommets are superior to brass ones. But still, some manufacturers offer brass ones as an option (e.g. PD). Who would want them and for what reason? One time I heard that brass ones are lighter that stainless steel ones, and thus generate less momentum (and speed) traveling down the lines, contributing to softer openings. Is it true? Thanks, Bart I had my Cobalt relined with Vectran. It was originally lined with spectra. The master rigger that did the job told me I needed a slider with SS grommets because the vectran would wear through the brass because it was too soft for the friction that the vectran would produce. I'd never heard of this but since then I've looked at canopies with vectran or HMA and they all have had SS grommets in the slider.

IIRC from the other thread, the guy flying the pink canopy was a student. They often need help when they are learning to make judgment calls. Very True. I would only hope that the instructor monitoring this students progress has taken him aside and discussed the situation with him. Hopefully while having him watch the video that showed him coming close to dying. As far as the HP pilot is concerned. I am mystified. The vibe I'm picking up here is all about how the "Pink" canopy guy screwed up. Where is the just criticism for the failure of the other guy to abort his pond swoop.

If he didn't sincerely apologize right away, if I thought he didn't realize the need to change his ways, I'd take his reserve handle and throw it into the pond. Both of these guys showed a serious lack in judgment. I think the guy under the pink canopy was acting stupidly. The guy who went ahead with his HP landing was wreckless. On the video you can see the pink canopy flying toward the swoop pond. He should have aborted his HP landing. I think they both should be grounded for a little reflection time.

Please cite the specific regulation. I stand corrected. The reg does not specifically state the term lead. This is only an assumption on my part but the use of a seal and seal press might be making the inference that it is a soft metal such as lead. I've never heard of a paper seal that uses a press to secure it.

Why's that? I've only had one rigger use a seal similar to the type pictured in the OP - he assured me that it was legal (though I didn't validate myself, I didn't have any reason to doubt him either). Not my regular rigger, though, so he's only repacked me once - but during that six-month cycle I never had anyone question it when getting a gear check at a new DZ. The FAA reg says it must be lead. It would not be legal for an FAA rigger to use paper here. I'm not sure which countries use paper seals but I've only seen a couple. Jumpers from other countries bring their rigs to the US their riggers seals are recognized. The DZ that checked your rig is probably used to seeing paper seals from time to time so that's probably why they didn't think twice about it.

Oh good, 'cause I thought it might be "single white female lesbian"... I admit it. That was my first thought.

PD 160 1.43 2 rides and the landings were nice soft stand ups.

I think that is what insurance companies live for. I was reading the rejection letter today. They rejected it because I don't have the clicking you were experiencing, no painful limp, which I do actually have, sometimes. And pain on motion, which I actually do have, sometimes.

The last line just kind a struck me funny, sounds like when your talking to the guy at the auto parts store Physician won't recommend surgery without MRI. Insurance won't pay with the symptoms I have right now. The symptoms aren't severe enough.

[About a decade ago, Pitt Meadows quit buying tandem student harnesses with B-12 snaps, because we had too many students un-hooking them "because they were uncomfortable while waiting for the plane." That made sense. There's enough to be thinking about without the potential of a student releasing their leg straps.

Ugh, doesn't sound like much fun at all. I'm not clicking yet and since my insurance company denied approval for an MRI it looks like they are going to force me to either pay for it out of pocket or go with the PT, medication route until I do start clicking and they have no choice.

This isn't accurate. In light to variable winds, the landing direction is south to north. And all regular and/or experienced jumpers at Perris land this way. This isn't the issue. It's just a secondary rule, so that people won't be landing in both directions. Thanks, that helps me understand that this is being done specifically to help keep everyone flying the same way. What I was referring to was a large DZ I visited on a few occasions. The jumpers with the small canopies would always be first down and even with the winds approaching 10 mph would down wind it the majority of the time. The rule was being followed but it was creating some amount of aggravation among the jumpers with larger canopies who either followed suit or landed off in the desert. Not saying it was wrong, just inconsiderate.

Are you referring to the pain of the arthritis or the pain from surgery and rehab?

I don't quite get the first one down sets the pattern thing either. Why should a handful HP canopy pilots set up a downwind landing for everyone else. I think it is inconsiderate.

Thanks BV. That is what I was trying to say but did a piss poor job of it. I suppose this would bring us back to the "how" of segregating HP pilots from non HP pilots on mixed loads and figuring out how to prevent HP pilots from running into each other.

As I was once one of those Bambulance drivers we operated on the ethos, "Primum Non Nocere" First do no harm. If they were critically injured I would cut. If they were not and I could un-thread a leg strap out of the hardware I would. If it meant moving the patient in a way that would potentially worsen their injuries I would cut. As a skydiver, I loathed to damage someones equipment but did it. But generally I agree most medics are ignorant of how expensive and how important a rig is to someone. They tend to be cut happy but they are looking at it from a patient care viewpoint, but, that is a good thing. Edit: I know I got off the topic of this thread so in reference to B12s. My rig does not have B12s. I've jumped both Sigma and Strong Tandem systems. The Strong system had B12s and I was very happy with that feature. I wish the Sigma had them. Putting that on 8-14 times a day was a pain. I'm at a point where I'm looking at upsizing canopies and getting a new rig. I'll probably get B12s or some other releasable hardware for the legstraps. Personal choice.

I was recently diagnosed with Moderate to Marked arthritis in my right hip. For about a year I've been experiencing intermittent pain and now have a noticeable limp. I've read from several individuals that are skydiving with a hip replacement. That was one of the options the physician offered as a possibility. I don't want that option if I can avoid it. Who's gone through this process and how did you deal with it.

So, all of my training was, 2 hands cutaway, look at reserve handle, pull cutaway, 2 hands on reserve, pull reserve handle. Whenever I go over EP's on the ground and on the plane, thats exactly what I do and have been doing that since day one. When it was time to cutaway, I automatically went to one hand on each handle and initiated my EP's. I had both handles in my hands while the reserve was still in deployment but accidentally dropped my cutaway handle. It felt like both handles came out smooth as butter. If you had waited longer and built up a faster spin it may have made the cutaway a little more difficult. There was a saying back when I started in the sport. "He who hesitates shall inherit the earth" Nice job identifying the problem quickly and dealing with.

I would characterize the jumper that got collided with as a sensible canopy pilot if he was in fact flying a safe pattern and the one who hit him as unsafe and wreckless. I've see this attitude from many hot dog swoop gods on several DZs. Their behavior is "Idiotic" and dangerous to the "Idiots" who want to fly a safe pattern for their own safety and that of others.

I agree 100% The debate makes me think about all the conversation that's been had about exit order and exit separation. I think most people now agree that it would be a seriously bad idea for a 6 way RW group to exit 2 seconds after a 6 way freefly group.... And yet we keep mixing approach speeds and angles in the pattern. It's a dilemma, isn't it? We've accepted that mixing fall rates and wind drifts is bad in freefall, but we're at a loss to deal with the same physics under canopy. It really does suck. It's a level of fragmentation that approaches unmanageable... maybe. It might be more productive to require that DZs establish a standard set of pattern rules and that anyone who wants to fly anything other than a standard set of pattern rules make sure they're segregated. That's pretty easy to do at a small DZ like the one I jump at. Most of our HP pilots open high, hang in brakes, and land in a segregated space. The majority of these accidents happen at the large, vacation / team training / bigway camp types of DZs. With both kinds of DZs, the key to me seems to be that censorship and enforcement of the rules will help prevent collisions. As jumpers and canopy pilots, we can debate and disagree and vote with our wallets all we want, but until the folks running the DZs and bigway camps and boogies and vacation resorts get on board, nothing useful will happen because too many fun jumpers think nothing bad could ever happen to "them" I agree. There is an underlying resistance to change that we are facing. Until we can break through that barrier it will be very difficult to make the changes that will bring appreciable results.

I can't recall any we've lost due in whole or part to night jump training either. However, I would suspect it is not due to night jump training. I would suspect the reason we haven't had night jump fatalities is that out of the total jumps made annually, comparitively few of them would be night jumps. It would be interesting to get the actual number of night jumps made annually. Jumps by those to fulfill the 2 jump requirement and those who are making more than the required number. I think is would also be interesting to determine how many injuries have occurred during night jumps in comparison to daytime jumps.

Look... I'm not going to take a stand on whether or not requiring night jumps is good or useless, but I do wonder about what you just said. The 2 men who died at Perris were instructors. One of them had 17000 jumps and 20 years in the sport. I don't think that the other instructor's experience level has been mentioned. Do you think that at 17000 jumps, one of those men would actually have been better prepared if a D licsense required a couple of canopy control jumps instead of a night jump? Requiring canopy control jumps for licenses is a great idea in my opinion, but I am highly skeptical that it will prevent the type of tragedy that happened at Perris yesterday. It may help more inexperienced jumpers, but using these fatalities is invalid in my opinion I don't think making one or two jumps in any discipline will do a thing to significantly improve safety. That was my point with the night jump requirement. There are many opinions and much disagreement on this forum as to what we should do to prevent canopy collisions. We have lost too many people both experienced and inexperienced. One thing is certain. We will continue to bury our friends if all we do is debate, disagree, and do nothing else.

That's because there isn't one. All the reasons given boil down to "because it's always been that way" or actually relate to something else (like a PRO rating). We seem to be losing a lot of colleagues to canopy accidents and collisions. I can't recall the last time we lost someone for lack of night jump skills. Maybe replacing night jumps with advanced canopy skills as a requirement would save a few lives. I couldn't agree with you more, especially in light of yesterdays incident at Paris.

Not against night jumps. Just the requirement to make them. Not really what I would consider a valid enough reason to change the current system. I would like to hear valid reasons to require night jumps. So far there haven't been any stated in this thread. With the exception of those who want to do night demos.