riggerrob

Yes. Even when you repeated fold the front of the canopy and completely hide the nose inlets (like the manual), Strong 425 reserves still open hard at tandem terminal. I have suffered two TT reserve openings. The second time, it took ten days and a massive massage therapist to straighten out my neck. In comparison, I cheerfully PRO-pack tandem reserves made by: Jump Shack, Next, Performance Designs, Pioneer and Precision, but will never PRO-pack a Strong 425 reserve. Mind you, I still roll the bejesus out of the nose to close off the intakes.

Strong has two goals with this letter. Their first goal is legal. They want to minimize their legal liability if anyone packs a Strong 425 reserve into a Wings tandem container. Strong's second goal is to discourage PRO-packing their 425 reserves. I had a thousand jumps on Strong's 425 and 520 mains before ZP fabric became fashionable. I have tried all the different packing methods and ... are .... torn more Strong tandem mains than I care to remember. Bottom line: PRO-packing Strong 425 reserves is guaranteed to produce hard openings, injure jumpers and might tear canopies. IOW: PRO-packing Strong 425 reserves is STUPID!

Agreed! Just stand firm on weight. I have known few regular skydivers over 230 pounds. They were all more than 6 feet tall, stocky and muscular. They spent a lot of time in the gym maintaining those muscles. Time in the gym also helps improve bone density, which is important for older skydivers. In comparison, I stand 6 feet tall and try to keep my weight below 200 pounds, because above 200 pounds, my lumbar spine complains. For most of my adult life I have weighed between 180 and 190 pounds. If your potential client cannot reduce his weight below 230 pounds, he should not be allowed to fly in your Cessna.

Agreed. I used to sew sliders from scratch, but by the time I sewed on draw string channels, set the number 8 brass grommets, etc. I could not compete with the cost of a factory-built slider.

Have you considered modifying the main closing loop anchor point? My container was originally built for a 190 main and had a short closing loop attached to the inner top flap. When I sewed in a Javelin style main loop anchor strap, I gained another 3 inches of slack in my closing loop. Now the same container safely holds a 150 or 135 sized main, while still maintains decent tension on the curved closing pin.

........................................................................................ Thanks for posting a link to that FAA document. It taught me a couple of things. The FAA did not mention one method of belting skydivers. That method involves passing a regular seat-belt between the jumper's belly and his harness. That way, the harness helps reduce the flail envelope.

Hint, google: 2008 August 3, King Air, Transport Safety Board, Pitt Meadows, British Columbia.

When jump-planes don't have enough seat-belts, I cheat by clipping tandem student side straps to cargo rings. When seat-belt fittings are too small to accept QE Snaps, I cheat by slipping in Maillon Rapide 6 connector links.

... shut up and buckle up.

Sad how young skydivers insist on repeating the mistakes made by their elders (POPS).

....................................................................................... So Performance Designs has finally come around to agreeing with the policy that the Canadian Sports Parachuting Association has held for the last 15 years. Circa 2000, Barry McAuley (dear departed chair of CSPA's Technical Committee) whispered to me that I did not have to pull-test PD reserves in Canada. He did not want to waste time teaching young riggers pull-testing because of the risk that they would damage airworthy reserves during the learning process. I have only sewn a patch on one PD reserve that was accidentally damaged by a new FAA Senior Rigger. I pull-tested the fabric in a half-dozen places and concluded that there was nothing else wrong with that PD reserve. That left us with two possible explanations: first, his technique may have been less than perfect. Secondly, he may have pull-tested on top of an earlier test, because the first rigger was too lazy to mark where he tested. Pull-testing always results in minor weave separation and a minor reduction in tensile strength. If you repeatedly pull-test the same piece of fabric, you will eventually pull a hole in it.

With lots of surplus arm muscle and concentration, you can keep the student's left ear in frame throughout the landing. But the most important factor is landing them softly.

... You would be hard pressed to find a reserve made of silk that isn't in a vintage plane just to keep things original. ... .......................................................................................... The only time anyone asked me to pack silk parachutes was more than 20 years ago. They were manufactured in 1945 and promptly went to a museum. They never flew again.

If seat-belts are too short to go around a wing-suiter's waist, they are TOO SHORT and should be replaced by seat-belts long enough to do the job.

The current 180 day repack cycle ensures that parachutes get at least one inspection per calendar year. Annual inspections are the bare minimum to catch corrosion, rats' nests, Service Bulletins, AAD inspections, etc. Parachutes wear out a radically different rates depending upon where they are jumped and how often. For example, if a free-fall videographer worked at a bust DZ in the American Southwest desert. He could easily make more than a thousand jumps per year and wear out one main canopy per year. His harness/ containers would only last three years before they were too faded, frayed and filthy for any rigger to allow into their loft. OTOH a weekend jumper in Wisconsin could make the same rig last 30 years. Regulators and manufacturers need to draw a line somewhere, so they draw the line at the worse wear rate scenario to cover their legal butts. If you hurt yourself while jumping worn-out equipment, it is your problem!

Dedication is a big plus. Always be ready before the TI. That requires attention to detail: packing promptly, ensuring that batteries are recharged, keeping a spare memory chip in your jumpsuit, keeping an eye on manifest, etc. A large fall rate range helps keep subjects in frame. I often tell aspiring visitors to go chase their junior buddies around the sky. The worse their buddies flop, and the better they keep them in frame, the better their chances or working as a videographer. Special awareness is vital to staying alive. This means using your peripheral vision to confirm handles, the spot, altitude, etc. all while keeping the camera focused on the subject.

Yes, handle checks are taught as best-business-practices by all the tandem manufacturers. You are seeing three processes slowly unfold. The first process involves the manufacturers figuring out best-business-practices and telling working TIs to update their practices. One BBP has large DZs telling their TIs to demonstrate handles checks on all videos or look for work elsewhere. The second process has manufacturers slowing divesting themselves from the process of training and certifying TIs. In the long run, most of us would rather see TI certification handled by national sporting organizations (e.g. USPA). The third process is USPS reminding TIs of best business practices. USPA will publish new best-business-practices for a year or two. USPA will also invite all working TIs to refresher training. Three or four years later, USPA S&TAs will quietly take old-school TIs aside to remind them of best-business-practices. In the long run, stubborn, old-school TIs will have difficulty re-newing their USPA ratings without written proof of refresher training.

In the beginning, silk parachutes were hung up to dry and re packed every 30 days. This short repack cycle was meant to catch moths or mildew before it ate an entire canopy. After nylon became fashionable, we quit worrying about moths and shifted our inspections to catch wear-and-tear and USPA petitioned the government for 120 day inspection schedules. Since many northern latitude DZs only fly 6 months out of the year, many Northern European nations adopted a 180 day reserve inspection schedule. In practice, this meant that most skydivers only got their reserves inspected once a year, at the start of the skydiving season. For example, today is April first. I just finished re packing all the tandem rigs for the nearest DZ and three skydivers just dropped off their reserves for repack. A local warbird pilot just phoned to ask me to repack both of his PEPs. The spring rush is on.

Circa 1990, a tandem pair impacted - while still in freefall - because the TI was inexperienced and forgot about the drogue release handle on the lower, left corner of Vector 1.5. I say "Vector 1.5" because the first Vector Tandems were drogue-less. The " Vector 1.5" had a single drogue release, while the "Vector 1.6" had 2 drogue release handles. After that fatality, manufacturers started insisting on handles checks in free fall.

Sounds like the new lines re-trimmed it back it's original soft openings. Sabre 2 was specifically designed to open softer/slower than Sabre 1. OTOH, worn-out lines often elicit complaints about hard openings or openings that take forever.

For pictures of US Navy seat packs, look at Poynter's Manual, Volume 1, pages 178 and 179. During World War Two, most harnesses were made of brown cotton webbing. By the end of WW2, production shifted to sage green, nylon webbing. Early seat containers were grey, with Korean War vintage production sage green. In the front views, note the X-type (cross your heart) chest strap held together with a large hook. Both leg straps are also fastened with large hooks. Harnesses are shown in greater detail on page 319. The hooks are adjustable and show in detail on page 105. Parachute canopies were 24 or 28 foot diameter, flat circular. Early production were natural silk (almost white), while late production was white nylon. They were non-steerable and ossicilated during descent.

That Argentine journalist should have set a glass of the chemical on the table.

You can get a cool shot of the deployed drogue when you check the reserve handle ..................................................................................... Hand-cams are not limited to "mug shots." If hand-cam video only details nostril hairs, it is boring! If the TI/videographer has any imagination, he can catch 3 seconds of the plane receding I to the distance, the student's initial reaction to free fall, the student's legs in a proper "banana" position, a few seconds of the drogue, the student waking up in freefall, a panorama of the horizon, the full deployment sequence and some footage under canopy. The best footage results in loud and rowdy debates between students as to which one of them did the best "banana." Hah! Hah! Oh! While I was videoing the drogue, I was watching my left thumb hook the reserve ripcord handle.

Good point! When training new TIs, I insist on 4 separate handles checks: the first handles check before they board the airplane, the second handles check after hook-up, the third handles check shortly after drogue deployment and the last handles check after opening. As for the logic ... initially we did handles checks because of the risk of floating handles (dislodged during exit), but soon found that repeated handles checks helped build muscle memory. The more times (per jump) you do handles checks, the sooner you complete the ten thousand repetitions needed to burn handles checks into long-term memory.

................................................................................ Those two components are so incompatible ... they should not be allowed on the same airplane! Ugh!