riggerrob

May I suggest applying a measuring tape to your favorite Caravan

The usual caveats about asking your local rigger to inspect that ATOM and ensure that all the Service Bulletins have been done. It helps if you local rigger has already packed a bunch of ATOMs and is familiar with their (few) quirks. Second best would be a rigger who has packed a bouquet of Icons because the two containers were designed by the same team of engineers.

................................................................................ Sarcasm alert! Current fashion has skydivers wearing a four or more altimeters: a visual altimeter plus a pair of audible altimeters, plus an altimeter inside your reserve container. Where you wear your visual altimeter depends upon which clique ... er ... competition discipline ... you belong to. Free-fall fashion includes visual altimeters worn on wrists, while to coolest of pro-canopy-piloting-pond-swoopers wear their altimeters on their harnesses. PCPPS share lengthy and loud debates about what altitudes to set their audible altimeters to cue the various legs of their screaming awesome landing approaches. Meanwhile, fashionable free-fallers wear two or more audible altimeters inside their helmets. Safety fiends insist on everyone wearing a recording altimeter - data logging device - automatic activation device inside your reserve. P.S. I almost forgot ... if you are wearing fewer than two GoPro 4 Elite pro-sumer cameras ... the jump does not count! Hah! Hah!

Helmets are less expensive than facial reconstructive surgery.

................................................................................. Hah! Hah! Gutted 550 cord was fashionable for closing loops before electronic AADs. Now we have better material for closing loops: Cypres cord.

Why? Half the people on here haven't. ............................................................................. Half the people here are lazy. Completing your profile reduces the risk of being treated like a troll.

Nit-picking ... chest rings are HARNESS components. Harnesses are distinct from containers.

More education needed for me - How do chest rings affect harness turns? Thanks. ................................................................................. Ask hard-core, competitive pro-pond swooping canopy pilots. Research photos of them in competition.

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... I'd like to buy something that will keep its resale value fairly well though. ... ................................................................................... Why do young jumpers worry so much about resale value???? Parachutes are like cars. Both have a "bath-tub" shaped value curve. Most rigs lose 30% value the first time you jump it. Then the value is stable for about a decade, then value drops. That 40% discount will equal and "hit" you take trying to resell that gear anytime soon.

Double post! What type of exit are they doing: poised, sitting, kneeling, pivoting, etc.? Do they start form sitting? Do they start from kneeling facing forward? Do they start from kneeling facing aft?

............................................................................ Hee! Hee! Back in the late 1990s, I earned Airtec's approval to sew in Cypres pockets. Since then, I have retrofitted hundreds of containers for electronic AADs. Whenever anyone asked me to sew in pockets for (electronic) AADs, I just reached into my bin full of Cypres pockets and sewed them in according to the Cypres manual. It was only very late in the assembly process that I realized that they just bought an Argus or Astra or Vigil. By that late in the process, I was too lazy to remove the Cypres pocket ... sew in a Vigil pocket ... etc.

Eric Fradet is "in the loop" about Mr. Baumchen's M.A.R.D. Eric designed a similar M.A.R.D. for the Advance harness/container made in France.

That reminds me of an IAD first jump course instructor who was attracted to the beautiful brunette in his course. As soon as it was safe, he handed her off to the freefall instructors. The day she graduated freefall, he asked her out to dinner. They have been married for almost a decade and have two charming children. That is the way relationships should be handled on DZs.

Have you heard that song "Its Business Time" by those New Zealand comedians?

Try reading the manual for the ZERO (Performance Designs website) or EIFF CHALLENGER CLASSIC (New England Parachute Co. or Eiff Aerodynamics. Both manuals have well-illustrated explanations of classic accuracy techniques. They both look like they were written by Jim Hayhurst, a long-time member of USPA's accuracy team.

Spain? Why do you have to go to Spain? Has the Danish climate changed rapidly? Last time I checked, Denmark, Holland and Northern Germany had good skydiving weather during the summer.

Any canopy can be used to refine accuracy skills. Heck! I earned my exhibition jump rating with an Ariel 150 and a Stiletto 135! May I suggest continuing to refine your accuracy skills with your 300 square foot BASE canopy? Once you are consistently standing up less than 5 metres from the disc, then invest in a Para-Foil, Classic or Eiff canopy. That canopy will pack roughly the same size as your BASE canopy .. er ... twice the size of your Stiletto.

I have seen that wear pattern with brass grommets and Dacron lines when jumped in the California desert. We are also starting to see that wear pattern with yellow Vectran lines and stainless steel grommets. My impression is that Vectran is the most abrasive of modern, zero-stretch suspension lines.

............................................................................... Hee Hee! I just toss them a battered old slider with brass grommets. My bag is full of faded, frayed and filthy old parachutes. Some of those parachutes are almost as filthy as my imagination.

.................................................................................... Careful what you wish for. Hardcore accuracy competition canopies are usually loaded half (0.7 pounds per square foot) as heavy as Stillettos (1.5). Since they are loaded lighter, accuracy canopies have less forward speed, ergo they tend to back-up in winds more than 20 mph. A possible compromise might involve a 7-cell loaded at 1:1. Popular 7-cells include Triathlon, Spectre, etc,

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................................................................................... Several people had the same problem with Vector Tandem drogue bridles. After 2 similar incidents, the Relative Workshop INSISTED that drogues be pulled before re-closing Vector 2 tandems. A DZO once told me that I would be FIRED if I tried to reclose a Vector 2 without pulling the drogue out of the pouch and double-checking bridle routing.

Count yourself lucky. I watched a similar incident in Perris Valley, California. A swooper hit a guy standing in the landing area. The victim's knee got twisted all to $#@! The swooper was grounded until the knee healed. USPA grounded him for a year.

W used to see the same wear pattern on brass slider grommets after 300 or 400 jumps. Now we see the is wear pattern on stainless steel grommets after 900 jumps with sand-paper coloured lines. Do you expect sliders to last forever?