hackish

Nice watermark. I think there is a photo of something behind it. Maybe try something a little less in your face?

Besides Rob who already answered another good person to query would be beatnik who probably has a copy of the manual for every canopy made before 1980 :) -Michael

I think you'll find that like everything in life there are different personalities and different ways to do something. So you can either sit there feeling like crap and say nothing or have a conversation with that individual and point out that you didn't feel their style was constructive or appreciated. The second choice is seldom the easier thing to do but has the best chance of a positive outcome. If the 2 above are not realistic how about going to your favourite jumpmaster and requesting that they do your future jumps, or having a conversation with them about the incident. I can also see that as a female in a male dominated sport something that has worked for 20 years with a grumpy old JM manhandling people around may have been less unacceptable but there are definite gender differences. Understand they are the problem, not you. -Michael

I think the only significant value to student mode is the slightly higher firing altitude which should give the student a little more preparation time for landing. This topic that Andre talks about was covered in the safety day each of the last 2 years. At a small dropzone it would be worthwhile to find out which person dispensed the advice and communicate with them to determine if that was really the advice given or if it was just confusion on the user's part. -Michael

\ The new wichard hardware that came on my vector 3 has exactly this feature. I will let you know after 1000 jumps if it wears the webbing out. I have a V3 and I got it because of the skyhook and because I feel it's one of the better researched and tested rigs out there. I also bought a Javelin because it was cheap and in reasonably good shape. -Michael

How much force is too much force? Tough to quantify that, but it could be calculated if you know the length of lever and diameter of your leverage device. Personally I find that cranking a tight one slowly will give you enough closing loop to pin it without having to crank too hard. When "this loop is going to snap" is going through your mind then you're probably cranking too hard. Altering the diameter and hole spacing on the washers may not achieve the desired effect. It would really depend on whether the aluminum is "tearing" or if the bridge is bending out before failure. If it is tearing then I think the material hardness is the only solution. In the newyear when I'm back to work I might have some fun with softer aluminum samples to see if I can encourage them to "tear". Vigil's stainless washer is going to be a lot more expensive to produce but should not suffer from this same problem given that SS is a _lot_ stronger than AL. I have not personally tested any of them. Maybe I will stop by and see if I can get some samples before I go home. -Michael

Realistically there are well over a 1/2 million cypres washers out there and only a few have failed in this way. I'm not saying it's right but they are still well produced and have proven to be reliable. As long as the rigger doesn't crank the @#$@# out of it they'll probably be OK. Having said that, any reliable way we could test washers to weed out the bad ones? Probably not but definitely a very good idea to closely inspect your washer before re-installing it. Also don't use an excessive amount of force as a replacement for effective packing skill. -Michael

Sadly I think it's only a matter of time before we find a chinese made vector 3 out there for $200. There seems to be a considerable amount of expertise overseas in taking apart a quality made north american product and reproducing it for pennies on the dollar. -Michael

I asked a friend who worked as a metalurgist for Boeing and he said that they go so far as to refrigerate annealed parts so they do not naturally harden. If you start with a piece of 6061 in O (annealed) condition it will naturally age as far as T51. Most of the 6061 I buy is already T6 but after I weld it it's stuck at best at T5. I wasn't able to figure out how long it takes to naturally age it but I vaguely recall it's a month or so. Depending on what the washers are made from it could also work harden. For example stamping them out and forming them before deburring would definitely impact hardness. -Michael

I did some testing on the cypres material and found that it broke at somewhere around 360-375 lbs. Although my testing was looking into some reports of bending reserve pins I broke many closing loops without destroying a single cypres washer. I still have the washers used and I could try a die penetrant test to look for cracking. I scratched "X" on them so they would never be put in service but I don't think it would really impact a cracking test. For what it's worth they're made of aluminum, not steel. There is a hardening process for aluminum and even the age of some alloys will have an impact on their hardness. I'm going off memory here but I seem to recall that you can naturally age something to about a T5 temper (6xxx series AL). I'm sure a few of the engineering types could produce a table of how long they have to age but a month or so can have a significant impact. One thing that would worry me is a washer that has partially yielded during packing and thus has sharp edges. They could in theory then cause the reserve loop to fail at some later time. -Michael

I'm heading to FL next week. I was wondering if there is any rigger at or around Deland who wouldn't mind showing me a few tips and tricks to packing a Javelin. I don't remember when I packed it last and I'm sure it's in its close or past it's best before date. Anyone on here or anyone to recommend asking? thanks Michael

I built one and jumped it a few times. Unfortunately it would always lose the GPS lock in the cessna. It would then re-acquire once I was under canopy. I added a MEMS pressure sensor and gyro to it but lost interest and never updated the firmware to add those devices to the SPI bus. I also wrote a small app for the blackberry. Didn't finish it but it was able to give me an accurate altitude on the climb up. Maybe GPS has improved enough with cell site assistance to work. -Michael

I was going to suggest launching a 2l pop bottle full of water out the 2nd floor window with a bridle attached. Fairly easy to repeat and we all know from experience that gravity is fairly reliable. -Michael

I had a lot of trouble finding some good wire. There was lots of steel wire to be found - mechanics wire but I'm very much against that because of rust. I tried some piano wire but it too was too hard and it snapped like the SS MIG wire. I didn't want to try to anneal the SS wire because it's too hard to be consistant. Ultimately some brass wire did the trick. The handle has a relief milled in the top so you can tuck the ends in out of the way. I think it would be easy to hang it up by the wire should one be so inclined. I'll get this one in the mail. -Michael

Good point. Maybe it has nothing to do with the risers at all - only the body position. I don't think I'd be up for some real testing with my katana or diablo... With a frame/tree/crane and such you might be able to do some real scientific testing. Other than body position the physics do not seem to support pushing the risers together. -Michael

I'm not a TI so maybe it's something specific to that. However, why would pulling the risers together help to undo linetwist? The more they are pushed apart the more force you should be imparting on the suspended weight to undo the twist. I agree with an earlier comment that body position (catching the relative wind on 1 side) could definitely help with undoing twist. -Michael

I think anyone with any type of embedded systems design background will quickly tell you that the unit should not just blindly fire if it encounters a brownout. If that sort of thing isn't part of the design and testing criteria then I don't want one of those AADs. -Michael

Not aware of any stories but I assume the unit has or will be sent back for analysis? -Michael

Sometimes I get in the mood to make something fancy. Once the setup is done on the machine - grind the cutting tools correctly they're pretty easy to make. Only about 15-20 minutes each. I'll have a look around for different wires but I can just send your handle if you like. I haven't played guitar in 20 years but I wonder if the E string might be a little too small. I'm not sure what they make them out of but I agree with the fact you would have to oil them slightly to stop them from rusting. -Michael

Made something this evening... Mostly just the handle. I've found that the stainless welding wire is too hard so it's a bit too brittle. I'll have a look around the shop tomorrow to see if I can come up with something else. At worse I'll just anneal some of the mig wire for you. Hey, just thought about something. You know any guitar players? I seem to remember that guitar wire can be twisted without it snapping... -Michael

One of the local riggers asked me to make a few for him. I haven't had the time yet but I'm planning to use 0.035" stainless MIG welding wire. If it works out PM me your address and I can cut some off a spool and send it to you. -Michael

Probably the main deployment is going to be easier than reaching under for a reserve deployment. I agree that the reserve is going to be more docile for most up-jumpers so I just wanted to throw in the detail that reaching under to pull silver might not be all that easy. -Michael

Actually a larger 3 ring has a 200:1 reduction in force. So let's say they maxed the system out at 500lbs and the spin loaded it up at 4g's. Each riser is taking 1000 lbs. That's still only 5 lbs on the smallest ring and that's in a pretty extreme worst case scenario. Just for info the mini 3 rings give about a 30:1 reduction in force. (Hope I remembered the figures correctly). -Michael

If the balloon ascends too slowly then the altitrack might not think you're in an aircraft. Mine worked fine on the balloon jump I just did. -Michael

Everyone is human and mistakes can happen. I bought a premium top name suit and even visited the facility when I was in the USA. When it arrived there were a few shortcomings in the stitching - seams around the grippers not even stitched correctly (dropped stitches). I could have sent it back at my cost and had it repaired. I opted to fix it myself. It's a good suit, works well fits well. One could conclude from my experience that they make crap and their errors would have cost me money to fix (shipping from Canada). At the end of the day $40 in S&H wasn't worth 10 minutes and a few feet of thread. I like the suit and would buy another one. I don't know how much weight should be assigned to some problems from years ago. -Michael