hackish

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Everything posted by hackish

  1. hackish
    At the 1:00 mark you hear someone faintly yell "go go everyone out". Perhaps the pilot? Then a jumper yells "go go we're in a spin" Would be interesting if someone were on that load and could comment. I figure a decent rule of thumb is if you're already out let go otherwise see what the pilot says. -Michael
  2. hackish
    To be honest I'm a little disappointed to have holes in either of my parachutes. From a soon to be rigger's point of view I'm okay jumping it but for sure it's going to take a hit when I sell the rig. Just imagine how many people would crap themselves about jumping with a patched reserve. These things are meant to open, they're meant to work. 4 extra seams won't matter. I guess it's good incentive not to dream of downsizing for a long time yet. -Michael
  3. hackish
    I arrived with lots of paperwork including an answer from the airline saying it was acceptable luggage. There were no hassles and I knew if challenged I could assault them with 10lbs of paperwork on every possible complaint they might have. One other thing, I had the smallest possible rolling suitcase that I could squeeze the rig into. Probably the best idea as you don't want to raise eyebrows and have them challenge you because they're concerned it will alarm other passengers. -Michael
  4. hackish
    Why? BTW, the "hospital" at PD is very nicely appointed, I've been there to watch a canopy go through the entire cycle, and they are incredibly thorough, so if there is anything else about the reserve that you missed, it's extremely unlikely that they'll miss it. Did you visit the PD factory while you were at Deland? Why? I use my main every time I jump and it will end up with lots of wear. I believe a patch is an additional wear area. The reserve merely sits packed in it's container should I need it. A properly installed patch won't hinder a reserve from working. I know a lot of jumpers view the reserve as a piece of black magic but at the end of the day it's just another parachute trimmed and packed a little differently to open quicker and more reliably. I was in DeLand in the beginning of December and did tours of PD, UPT and JumpShack. -Michael
  5. hackish
    How about a swedish snap shacke on the RSL so if you feel that you are in an exceptional circumstance where you should not be using the RSL then you can quickly disconnect it. -Michael
  6. hackish
    The decision to chop it was made pretty fast, the EP's executed very firmly without hesitation. The reserve looked to me like it opened pretty darn fast. Compare it to a main opening in a video and I think you'll see it just "seems" slow. Also don't forget - pretty much a sub-terminal reserve opening. -Michael
  7. hackish
    I bet I can hijack a thread too.:) Rhetorical question- Why aren't main canopy pack jobs given the same care? It's only our lives. Why? Because we all want to make the next load. When I was in DeLand I jumped with an old school jumper from peru and found it quite interesting to watch him flat pack his main... My inexperienced and careful pro-packing was only marginally faster than his flat pack... So I removed the reserve today so it can be shipped off to PD for the repair. I'll see how good the manufacturer applied patches look... maybe post some photos of my repaired "flat tire". For the record i'd rather a patch on my reserve than on my main. -Michael
  8. hackish
    Need a reserve packing test and some paperwork. By the time it needs to be packed to jump the answer will be yes. The reason I posted the question here is that there are many many combined years of rigging expertise and I've only studied technical things plus done the rigging course and a number of supervised repacks. Interestingly though someone did point out that 2 holes necessitate a patch. While I would be willing to jump a rig that the manufacturer says does not need a patch this does not seem to be the case so it will go off to PD for the necessary patch. -Michael
  9. hackish
    I did about 35 jumps on a vector 2 before upgrading the a vector 3. I realise that the vector 3 is better and more recent but the vector 2's out there have been reliable for many years so I wouldn't consider it unsafe just because its design has been replaced with updated features.
  10. hackish
    The holes were burned in it by a closing loop that was cut from the back as an experiment for a skydiving mag article that came out a number of years ago. All the gear is in really good shape save this little problem. -Michael
  11. hackish
    I am not concerned about the reserve functioning patched or unpatched. The largest hole is exactly 1 ripstop square which if you look at the rules for patching does not "require" a patch. I understand how you feel about it but being into the technical end of things I do not feel the same way. Probably the largest influence on how the reserve does its job is going to be how well it is packed and don't worry I'll pack that sucker up carefully! Maybe this weekend if i go and pack it again I'll snap some photos. -Michael
  12. hackish
    Pullnig is also important, please don't forget to do that either. When I was in DeLand I took the Scott Miller canopy control course. I got video of all the jumps and my instructor got me into the two stage flare. For me it wasn't quite as abrupt as others had described, more like a continuous motion that slows down in the middle and adapts to what the canopy is doing. I'm no instructor but I can tell you the canopy course and video debriefs did a lot of good for me. In my case and for my canopy it could be flared as a 2 stage or just in one shot but the 2 stage thing seemed to leave more room for error. -Michael
  13. hackish
    I've found out that my reserve has 2 tiny holes in it. They are below the minimum size for requiring a patch and are in the top skin away from a rib or any other high stress area. I'm just wondering what the general opinion is on having these two holes patched. One is about 1/8" square and the other is about 1/16" and they are about 3" apart. -Michael
  14. hackish
    I had something like this happen when the brakes fired on opening. The knot entangled a lot more lines than yours but it was also a student canopy. Check the canopy for any burns which might indicate something else like a partial lineover may have happened during opening. -Michael
  15. hackish
    I rode the Pac many times at Deland. Absolutely loved it. I didn't find it too uncomfortable or slow at all. Of course I started jumping out of cessna 182's so it's all a matter of perspective. -Michael
  16. hackish
    Medical grade or USP oxygen does not contain a significant amount of moisture. Since aviation (ABO) grade or "E" grade oxygen accounts for a very very small percentage of overall use no supplier has a separate supply line for this - their USP supplies are guaranteed to meet the requirements. In the USA there is a federal law that requires all human consumed oxygen to meet the USP requirements. At minimum it has to be grade "A" which is still 99% pure with the remainder being CO2 and CO. Even welding gas is the same stuff as ABO and you definitely don't want moisture in that! The only practical difference between welding supplied oxygen and USP is that the USP requires the tank to be evacuated before filling. The Air Liquefaction process used to purify the oxygen before it's bottled by definition removes the moisture. Here is a decent article on it for those interested in ABO. http://www.warmkessel.com/jr/flying/td/jd/13.jsp -Michael
  17. hackish
    At a point I was getting frustrated at people telling me that my linetwists were being caused by body position. I spent an entire 13,500 jump doing practise pulls and found that they were indeed changing my heading. So I fixed that and found it greatly reduced the linetwists. Finally leaving a little more extra line (about 20") from the last stow made another difference. While I don't have experience enough to give advice I can say that sometimes linetwist is caused by more than one thing. -Michael
  18. hackish
    I was lucky to be on the santa claus load a couple of weeks ago in DeLand. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera. I'm wondering if anyone got photos in the plane or of him under canopy or landing. Would be something nice for the little nieces and nephews. -Michael
  19. hackish
    On gear that I'm not used to jumping I'll give all the webbing a good look over as well as checking all the hardware. This did lead me to discover badly dammaged webbing on a leg strap (student gear) as a result the gear was grounded. While I do think all the main points have already been covered I do think it's a good idea to periodically inspect a random part of your gear - weather it's inspecting the main lift web, your kill line or just going over the hardware it's a good idea because it not only familiarises you with the equipment but can catch items that are beginning to wear. -Michael
  20. hackish
    Wow, sounds more common to me than I thought. I just felt it was odd the way the manufacturer chose to glue the window in. If it were a passenger plane then I'm sure the passengers would have freaked. -Michael
  21. hackish
    1-20 student rigs about 280sq foot 20-40 Sabre 210 WL 1 40-present Sabre2 170 WL 1.2 I'm starting to get comfortable with the 170 now but I suspect I'll be flying it for a long time so I can get every last bit of performance out of it. -Michael
  22. hackish
    I think here the issue wasn't one of the window being touched - it just decided to fail. It strikes me as one of those parts that shouldn't fail on an aircraft - especially a relatively new one. -Michael
  23. hackish
    I did 15 min while in Florida. It made a HUGE difference in my belly flying skills. It's actually funny to watch the first and last minute to see the difference. With 3 hours in the tunnel I'm guessing you could learn a whole lot! -Michael
  24. hackish
    Once upon a time in a land far far away the co-pilot's window decided it wanted to try skydiving. This was on a pac. The aft part of the window sort of popped out and seemed to come unglued to the point that only the leading edge was fastened. Fortunately a jumper sitting in that seat held it in most of the way up and once the main door was open I really didn't care... Anyway, I'm just curious to know if anyone has ever seen something like this before? The jump plane looked very new and it's not like it was an old beaten up POS. Being a skydiver an open window or door doesn't frighten me but for a normal airline passenger I could see them being traumatized by such an event. Any insight? -Michael
  25. hackish
    I started with a 280 for my FJC. At about 20 jumps I got to fly a sabre 210. Jumped that about 20 jumps then went down to a 170. This is a very agressive downsize and I'm not sure I'd let anyone but your instructor give you such a recommendation. Part of the trick is how naturally you adapt to each canopy. I've been fortunate enough to have the time and interest to study the technical ends and go through canopy coaching. Now after about 15 jumps on the 170 I'm starting to feel comfortable with it. I believe I'll be staying at this size for a long time. One other thing that really helped me was doing multiple hop & pops at full altitude. For everyone it's a matter of being comfortable, challenging yourself but most importantly safely enjoying yourself. -Michael