riggerrob

....... Even if hemp was made with female marijuana's fiber you wouldn't get high. Unless you grind it up and put them thru butane oil extracting process. ........................................................... Bored sailors ....... alone at sea for too many months ....... complete machine shop onboard ship ..... some chemistry or pharmaceutical skills ...... what could go wrong?

That hasn't always worked, so an additional hex wrench in the toolbox is welcome. ........................................................:.................. Are you suggesting a Vigil-sized hex wrench or a bulldozer-sized hex wrench? Personally, I follow Bob Marley's advice about "a ratchet in your waist"

During the Second World War the United States Navy encouraged Mid-Western farmers to plant thousands of acres of hemp to be woven into ropes and sand-bags for the war effort. You can still find feral hemp growing in Illinois ditches today! What if the United States Navy had given the wrong seeds to farmers? ...... and the wrong seeds contained significant amounts of THC? What if a US Navy ship had been out to sea long that sailors ran out of tobacco? What if bored sailors unravelled an anchor hauler in search of something to smoke? What if they completely "dropped anchor" at the next port? How would the upper decks react?

..................................................................... You would be amazed at what a thirsty giraffe can wrap its lips around! Hah! Hah! Never leave a thirsty/ hungry giraffe alone in your kitchen!

What if the Scandanavian countries had set aside their dynastic differences a few centuries ago? What if Norway, Sweden and Denmark had agreed to one king? What if they had agreed to one parliament? What if they had agreed to one language (few outsiders can hear the difference today)? What colour would the US flag be? Would US have seriously (commercially) challenged the Hanseatic League's domination of Baltic trade? Would US prevent Prussia from conquering Schleswig-Holstein in 1864? Would US include Iceland? Would US still include Greenland? Would US include the Labrador and Newfoundland coasts? Would US "send the Finnland and the Russians farther inland?"

***Rob I think you mentioned In the past that you were having some, sleeping issues after you were injured landing with the plane. Are you still having flashbacks, or sleeping problems.? If you don't remember, I understand ............................................................................ Deliberately forgetting is slowly allowing that accident to fade into the background. Most of my sleeping problems were related to bruised leg muscles, torn knee ligaments, herniated spinal discs, bruised ribs, bruised sternum, a dis-located shoulder, sprained neck muscles, broken nose, stitches in my forehead and a concussion waking me up every few hours. As the pain from those injuries subsided, my sleeping habits slowly improved, but sore shoulders still wake me up some nights.

Alternatively, strap on that Dolphin and invite your local Master Rigger to stare at your ass. A third option is to ask that Master Rigger to wrap a tape measure around you, then crunch some numbers using the Javelin sizing formula. Hint: Dolphin and Javelin were designed by the same guy: Mike Furry. Mike sold his share of the Javelin factory back around 1992, but he only recently sold the Dolphin rights.

Balanced stows Free-bags depend upon balanced locking stows to prevent line dump. When free bags are closed properly, the weight of line stows outboard of the locking stows should equal the weight of the lines between the two locking stows. That is the same reason why main d-bag locking stows are close together. Safety-Stows are the second reason that reserve free-bags are less likely to dump lines. Safety-Stows (aka free-bag locking stows) are made of rubber bungee cord sheathed (protected) in braided cotton or nylon. Since all good riggers are trained to replace Safety-Stows at the first sign of wear, your Safety-Stow should always be in like-new condition. Line stow pockets are the third factor that limits line-dump. Line stow pockets are sewn onto most free-bags, most BASE canopies (aka " tail pocket") and lots of Canopy Formation canopies. Since line-stow pockets have comparatively small openings, they always a "balanced" line stow method. IOW when you stow suspension lines in a pocket, the weight of the lines outboard always exceeds the weight of the lines directly pressing on the pocket opening, ergo there is little pressure to dump lines no matter how violently the d-bag is snatched off your back. Pocket closing method is the least important variable as long as the pocket stays closed throughout the opening sequence. All lines should slide out the standard opening smoothly. It should not matter whether your line stow pocket is closed with Velcro, tuck-tabs or magnets because they all do the same job. Velcro has fallen out of fashion (for main d-bags) because of wear-and-tear issue. First, hook Velcro has a bad habit of chewing suspension lines. Secondly, hook Velcro also chews through pile Velcro after a hundred or two hundred jumps and it is a nuisance to ask your rigger to replace worn out pile Velcro halfway through the season. Notice that I kept saying "most"????? There is one exception ... newer Racers do not use a Safety-Stows to close their free-bags. Newer Racers only use rubber bands to close their free-bags, but they use lots (think a dozen) of MIL SPEC rubber bands as locking stows, so all the line stows are still "balanced" in rubber bands. IOW Racer "Speed Bags" lack line stow pockets. In conclusion, you risk line dump if you loosely stow thin lines in frayed rubber bands. The smaller the bights outboard of the rubber bands, the greater the risk of line dump. The heavier the weight of lines dangling between the elastics, the greater the risk of line dump.

Probably wiser to lay his scrotum on ice.

I had a similar experience with a 220 square foot National 7-cell. It stalled with the toggles between belt and hip level, so that did not stick in memory, but the weak flare did stick in memory. I was mighty glad when I stalled into the pea gravel bowl.

Sure! For example, a customer recently asked me to sew Cypres pockets into his 1985-vintage TSE Chaser. I agreed to do the sewing because the harness/ container is in like-new condition. My customer is only the second owner. The first owner only made a few dozen jumps on that Chaser before stuffing it in a closet where it "hibernated" for almost 30 years. OTOH I would refuse sew on the same rig if it had jumped hard for 30 years.

...................................................................................... For $1300, I hope the seller included a pair of newer canopies and a half-life Cypres. Hah! Hah!

Yes! I have been drinking Booth's Kool-Aid. But I have also seen 4 or more different types of stow bands on Vector and Sigma main bags. A few old farts still use MIL SPEC rubber bands. UPT recommends installing double-wide rubber bands on civilian tandems. Meanwhile UPT supply double-double (quadruple) width rubber bands to military tandem customers. Finally, I have seen a variety of Tube-Stows on a variety of tandem main d-bags. In conclusion, it is very difficult to predict what type of line stow bands will be installed because the dope-smoking packers change their habits far too often.

***It's Buffalo. All he'd need to know is how to bowl. The rest is gravy.[/quote .................................................................................... True! Even being the wrong colour can get you robbed or killed in some parts of modern-day Buffalo! The last time I took a wrong turn in Buffalo, it soon became apparent that I was the only white guy in that neighbourhood, so I pulled my motorcycle into a gas station to ask for directions. The African-American gas station owner sounded genuinely worried and gave me very careful directions to how to get to a specific bridge. Then an African-American plumber (skilled tradesman judging by his pick-up truck offered to lead me to the bridge, since he was already headed in that direction. When we reached the appropriate traffic light, the plumber stepped out of his truck to point me towards the correct bridge. Both he and the gas station owner looked extremely relieved that a white boy escaped from their neighbourhood intact.

Some riggers like to write the repackage date too early so that it is less than 180 days (e.g. inspection will expire the same day the Cypres is due to retire). The brighter riggers also write "Cypres retires October 2014" on the packing data card, invoice, etc.

Agreed! Some of the earlier Racers do not have enough space between the lower reserve pin and the bottom wall to accommodate both the Cypres battery box and the centre cell. So your rigger needs to learn how to pack the centre cell somewhere else. The second most popular place (to pack the centre cell) is between the two closing loops. Yes, they can be retro-fitted with Cypres pockets but your rigger must understand the finer points of packing your center cell between the two closing loops. Not easy to make it look pretty, but I have done it a few dozen times.

......................................................................................... Yes, most modern people lack skills that were needed to stay alive even 80 years ago. That is half the fun of writing " what if" alternative history/ science fiction. Half the authors expect to be welcomed as Gods, while conveniently forgetting that they lack of ever-day skills: hand-cranking automobiles, swinging propellers, focussing cameras, telephoning long distance, harnessing horses, rolling cigarettes, etc. could get them killed or written off as simpletons. The wrong accent might get them accused of spying. The wrong religious beliefs might get them burned at the stake. Without visible means of support they might get sold into slavery or "pressed" into military service. Forgetting to tug a forelock or bow as the king passes could get them beaten to a pulp.

.................................................................. Those photos look familiar! My "wedding tackle" looked like that six years ago. I had scheduled a vasectomy and circumcision barely a month after a plane crash.... no, I did schedule the plane crash. Since I was already grounded by a dis-located shoulder, etc. I decided to continue with the (already scheduled) groin surgery. It was amazing how much my "junk" swoll up and how long they took to heal! The healing process probably took longer because I was more than 50 years old and trying to heal every major muscle group at the same time. The only saving grace was that I was already taking massive amounts of Tylenol 3 and not sleeping well, so I barely noticed the extra pain in my groin.

***He might be hired. She would be laughed right out. ............................................................................................ The parachute industry was traditionally employed far more women than men as: cutters, sewing machine operators, inspectors, assemblers and packers. Women have always out-numbered men in the fabric, garment, upholstery and most of the other "rag trades." Men have always been a minority in parachute factories.

Even a water balloon fired from one of those giant slingshots sting like heck. And since the story said the plane was flying very low, all that water probably hit him as one big solid blob. Normally a fire fighter plane would drop higher so that the water has time to spread out and turn into more of a mist to settle upon the flames. ........................................................................................... Drop height depends upon a dozen variables: wind, turbulence, terrain, water, type of retardant, etc. The current fashion is to drop retardant just outside the fire line to prevent the fire from spreading into unburnt trees. Meanwhile ground crews and bulldozers are scrapping fire lines down to mineral soil do limit the spread of the fire. Canadair/Bombardier, United States Forest Service, US Bureau of Land Management, Alaska Smokejumpers, etc. have all published great videos about water-bombers. All those videos show ground crews crouching and hiding as water-bombers fly over head.

I don't know where that statistic comes from but it is about the same as what a dz I jump at experiences. .................................................................................... Bill Booth talked about it in an earlier thread .... Something about Skyhook is designed to release deliberately when you are waaaaay over-speed. Remember that snatch force (of pilot-chute lifting d-bag out of container) increases with the SQUARE of the velocity. Worst case scenario: you are jumping a tandem with a 500 pound bundle (typical mission for a military TI) when your stogie fails the inflate. It barely drags out your main d-bag, but does not have enough drag to pull out the main suspension lines, so you quickly accelerate to tandem terminal (200 miles per hour). Do you really want the fastest possible reserve deployment?

Let's steer this hypothetical thread back on track by trying to figure out what modern concepts could be built with 1940-vintage materials. Would through loops work with silk or nylon suspension line?

Stop being such a sexist pig! During World War 2 all the Allies hired thousands of woman as "bomb girls," "Rosie the riveter" and parachute packers. It was part of a bigger effort to free up more men to fight overseas by hiring women to replace men on farms, factories, secretarial pools, etc. Traditionally production line sewing has always been done by women.

... The hardest part in packing some of them was figuring out how to get good tension on them in my apartment. .... ............................................................................ Agreed The problem is that long tables disappeared from DZs about a decade after round reserves disappeared. I told my old boss "if you dismantle the long table, that will be the last time I ever pack a round." I did not pack any rounds for about 6 months. Then an old (flying school customer) sent in a half-dozen PEPs. It was amazing how fast my boss built me a new long table! Hah! Hah!

..... and the old lineover mals are pretty much eliminated because of the slider. .... ................................................... The traditional way to eliminate line-over malfunctions (aka partial inversions) is to sew anti-inversion netting below the skirt. I only have 70 jumps on rounds but suffered 2 inversion malfunctions. The first was on a Canadian Army free fall rig. The canopy completely inverted along the centre-line so that the drive windows were at the front. The pilot-chute and sleeve hung INSIDE the canopy! Steering was reversed, but I still managed a soft landing beside the bowl. My second inversion was on a German Army T-10, S/L. The canopy only suffered a partial inversion and straightened itself out before I looked up. This time I landed softly in a snow drift. Neither canopy had anti-inversion netting. Both canopies suffered so many dozen small burn holes that they went straight to the trash can!