riggerrob

BPA just wants a professional engineer to sign on top of your work. That gives BPA an extra layer of legal protection if there is an accident. BPA's attitude is the exact opposite of the Federation Francais du Parachutisme. When I brought my first kit-built parachute to Strassbourg, they replied "Cool! How high do you want to jump from?" Then FFP said that French citizens were only allowed to jump French -certified parachutes. Funny how many French skydivers were jumping chutes made under American TSOs. Hah! Hah! As for hiring a professional engineer .... only a few manufacturers employ university-trained engineers. Gerry Baumchen is a civil engineer John Sherman is an automotive engineer Manley Butler is an aeronautical engineer. AFAIK Mr. Butler only earned a Bachelor of Engineering Degree, but his design and manufacturing skills are up at the PHD. level. The two founders of Performance Designs: Bill Coe and John Leblanc met while they were studying at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Rigging Innovations has employed a few degreed engineers (e.g. Storm Dunker) over the years. Strong Enterprises has employed a few degreed engineers, but I think their skills were more software-related for developing GPS-steered cargo chutes.

Sounds like BPA is trying to raise the price so high that you will be forced to quit. Sad to hear that BPA's lawyers have stooped so low .... even lower than American lawyers.

Ask Pat Moorehead or Jim Wallace both based at Perris Valley, California.

Pat Moorehead published a book about demo jumping a few years back.

Bump! How do modern first widgets handle asthma attacks, allergy attacks, panic attacks and other breathing disorders?

Another factor (mitigating about saying the word "cutaway" on the radio) is selective deafness. When students get scared, they go deaf. This fear-induced deafness most often occurs just as the instructor says "flare!" When asked why they didn't flare, students reply that the radio died. Meanwhile the other three students (just landed and radios turned off by the instructor) clearly heard the last student's radio say "flare." If ground school (mistakenly) mentions anything about "cutaway" commands over the radio, timid students will wait for radio instructions. Timid students will wait until their malfunctioning main canopy screws them into the planet.

Did you ask CSPA about Rigger A courses this winter?

The OP can buy a "PD" reserve for cheap from Poland. Perhaps the stitching attaching the label is not up to Performance Designs' standards. Perhaps the label is for a different size of reserve. Perhaps none of the boxes are checked off, but .... hey .... you can buy cheap "PD" reserves from Poland.

Strong Dual Hawk Examiner Never jumped a Strong TN Racer TI Vector I TI (pre-drogue) Vector 2 TI Sigma TI I have jumped several tandem mains made by Icarus. A long time ago, I also jumped tandem gear made by Weckbecker (sp?) and Parachutes de France. Never earned a "national" TI rating and think the concept silly until all the manufacturers standardize handles. With luck the last Eclipse and Strong Dual Hawk will retire before 2018. All the Racers, etc should have been converted to Vector-pattern handles a decade ago (2006).

Hee! Hee! I don't mind people bumping old threads. Some of us old farts prefer all related posts to be on the same thread. However, I am openly suspicious of any "elixir." The Egoscue (sp?) thread made more sense as it actually relates to some of the exercises I regularly do to keep my spine in correct alignment.

I understand that it was the French Foreign Legion, but what was the second language being yelled by those young soldiers?

Bullies only care about short-term power. Bullies start in elementary school. Bullies use the quickest tactics to gain power over weaker members of society. Bullies soon learn that fear works 100 times faster than love. When victims don't listen to their verbal taunts, bullies resort to physical pain. Bullies only have to beat up victims once or twice before victims learn to associate the sound of the bully's voice with physical pain. Elementary school teachers allow bullies to ply their trade because bullies force weaker students to conform. In the long run, bullies decrease the productivity of their workplace, because the only way bullies know how to increase their personal power is by putting down weaker workers. When you put down too many weaker workers, productivity suffers. Slower workers eventually abandon hope of ever earning raises and quit doing any more than the minimum required to collect a paycheck. When productivity suffers, the whole company suffers and eventually managers recognize the damage bullies are doing and limit the bully's power or force the bullies to quit.

Not much point to earning a chest rating these days. Chests were slowing retiring when I earned my first rigger rating back in 1984. Last time someone asked me to assemble a chest reserve, it took me most of a year to accumulate all the parts. For example, I have only packed 50 chest reserves, but more than 300 seat packs and more than 4,000 back type parachutes.

For starters, go to the National Parachute website, the ParaPhernalia website, the Strong Enterprises website, etc, and look at their packing manuals. This will be your first education in 'experience' with them. After you understand how they pack, then start looking. Allen Silver sometimes has old, outdated pilot rigs that you might be able to borrow for practice. Jerry Baumchen The second step is finding a grumpy, old, grey-bearded rigger to teach you how to pack rounds. Hah! Hah!

Now that you have tickled our curiosity .... what maintenance schedule did you find in the Sigma manual? For the last couple of years I have done most of the maintenance for a Sigma DZ. We repacked the reserves every 180 days and did the occasional resew as needed. Oddly, the DZO was not willing to pay for 180 day inspections on Sigma student harnesses, but several student harnesses suffered popped stitches in strap ends, so I eventually inspected most of their student harnesses over the course of the jumping season. The former chief instructor may not have been a rigger, but he did work with another rigger on re-lining mains, replacing drogue kill-lines, replacing frayed risers (more than 600 jumps) etc. he knows more about maintains Icarus mains (in Sigmas) than I do! Hee! Hee! At the end of 2015, I offered to inspect all of their Sigmas over the winter, but was purely declined. It will be amusing to watch how many silly little things break over the summer. Break out the pop-corn!

Please edit out the phrase about "bitch-slapping" your poorly-informed corespondent. Otherwise an excellent update for "our friend." Thanks for providing historical perspective on how tampons were once fashionable for marines fighting in Afghanistan. Based on your anecdote, I still think it is a good habit to carry a few spare tampons and sanitary napkins in any first aid kit, because they are dual-use bandages. Tampons being most valuable for puncture wounds (e.g. gunshot) while sanitary napkins are good for applying pressure to shallow wounds. I especially enjoyed your brief explanation of the "field trials" of new medical procedures.

Desert airports (like Mojave and California City) often store old airliners. For example the old Cal City DZ hangar is now occupied by a company that buys up old Gulfstream executive jets and "parts them out." According to Aviation and Space Weekly Magazine airliners as young as 8 years old are being dismantled to provide spare parts to keep their litter-mates airworthy. "Lifed" components like engines are usually the first to be sold off. Then expensive avionics, hydraulic valves, etc. eventually they are left with a gutted airframe that can only be sold for its scrap metal value. That is when you want to place your bid. You may have to drive to the desert airport and cut parts off the hulk yourself. Parting-out old airliners is a multi-million dollar business with lots of bartering and trading and negotiations. The key to low prices is getting an inside connection that will set aside cracked and rusted components destined to be melted down. Your buddies will have to repaint them before a they can sell them to the furniture-buying public.

Bullying is about repetition .... repeatedly teasing some one about a minor mistake, minor defect, etc. Bullies learned about repetition in elementary school and have been perfecting their cruel techniques for decades. Bullies know exactly where the legal threshold is. They also know that they do not need to exceed that threshold to drive their victim insane. Bullies know that they just have to approach that threshold dozens or hundreds of times to drive their victim insane. Teasing once or twice often helps the victim correct the error of their ways, but repeating the same negative message hundreds of times just reinforces failure. The cruelest of bullies tease victims about things the victim cannot change, like school bullies teasing the kid in La Loche about his big ears. Then everyone acted surprised when the victim shot and killed several bullies. Why was anyone surprised about the mass-shooting? Sadly, that victim has traded one set of (schoolyard) bullies for a worse set of bullies. Prison bullies have been sentenced to prison because they are too cruel to be allowed to walk among the general public. The saddest thing is that poor victim is going to be teased more in prison and get ass-raped by prison bullies for the rest of his sentence.

Now that we have moved on to constructive solutions .... Yesterday I offered to tickle a workplace bully. One of my co-workers prides herself on being a tough broad. She swears like a trucker. She hunts and plays hockey on her days off. She is my age and my weight .... but .... er .... not as tall as me. When she gets excited, she talks in such a terse and brusk manner that I sometimes have to ask her to repeat a couple of times before I understand what she wants me to do. She also has her own "unique" style of driving fork-lifts. I try to keep my toes clear. Other co-workers have told me about times she was downright nasty to new employees. .... like a grumpy old Sargent-Major. Thursday morning she got all in a tizzy about something that was not her responsibility. I figured out an easy way to do the delivery and did it quickly. No fuss! She works slightly different shifts than me, so was not at Friday morning roll-call. So at Friday morning roll-call I sat in front of the manager and explained the Thursday morning silliness. I suggested that maybe she lighten up and I concluded with: "I want to tickle her!" His face got real serious and he replied: "Oh no! You don't want to do that!" A second co-worker offered to retrieve my glasses from one corner of the warehouse. A third co-worker offered to retrieve my teeth from the opposite corner of the warehouse. A fourth co-worker offered to loan me a full set of hockey goalie armour. A fifth co-worker asked me if I wanted to tickle her with my beard. Ewwwwww! Everyone else laughed. Then they tried to talk me out of tickling her. If she gets upset - when she hears the gossip - our next conversation will be in front of a union shop steward.

Great Brian!

That first youtube video was just above another video of a study that NACA (predecessor to NASA) did on DC-3 stalls back in 1938. Interesting how tuft tests showed the DC-3 wing stalling first at the tip, then the aileron stalls and much later the wing root stalls. Since World War 2 most airplanes have designed to stall in the opposite order: wing root first and aileron last, so that you retain some roll control part-way into the stall. I wonder if the factory changed DC-3 stall characteristics during WW2? Did any of the post-war STCs change stall characteristics? Has anyone published a pilot report about DC-3 handling near the stall?

Like Gowlerk said: fewer clothes mean fewer fashion problems.

Great idea Hackish, To save shipping, you might hand those line samples, drogues, etc. to a B.C. rep. who is attending the CSPA Symposium at the end of February.

............................................................................. Agreed! And if you leave your steering lines twisted too long, they take a permanent "set" too short. This is because the slider grommets get all "hot and bothered" and they transfer that heat to the steering lines, permanently shrinking your steering lines. If you un-twist steering lines every weekend, they shrink slower.

"Statute of limitations"? Hah! That sounds like "lawyer speak!" Wise people learn from the mistakes of others ... even if those mistakes occurred 40 years ago. As for the gear being down .. definitely in this video of a DC-3, but not any of the times I jumped DC-3 or C-47. Not even the Canadian Air Force lowered the gear when I jumped a CAF C-47 back in 1981. OTOH it was standard practice for Lodestars to lower the gear before jump run. Lowered gear helped shift the center of gravity farther forward. Forward C of G was important on Lodestars because the door was too far aft of the C of G. That was also back during the late-1970s when 10-way speed stars were the hottest competition event and they were just starting learning how to launch chunks. Lodestars retired in disgrace after too many stall-spin accidents. My old buddy Tom Classen (sp?) had a scary story about the Lodestar that spun in near Arlington, Washington back during the early 1980s! Scary!